That Talking Thing

By: Stranger Studios
  • Summary

  • Jason and Kim Coleman dig into business topics and family topics as married co-founders running a WordPress plugin development company and raising two kids.
    © 2022 Stranger Studios
    Show More Show Less
activate_samplebutton_t1
Episodes
  • Are seasons worth it? What was going on in the car that night? [Family] That Talking Thing | S2, E16
    Apr 7 2022

    Family-focused topics from Jason and Kim. We'll talk about living in a climate with four distinct seasons. Is it really worth it? Some people just live where it's mostly beautifully warm all the time. We'll also talk about what exactly was going on in the car ride to dinner last night.

    Follow Jason on Twitter, Follow Kim on Twitter, Follow Stranger Studios on Twitter

    Transcript: Season 2, Episode 16

    Welcome back to that talking thing. I'm Kim I'm Jason. This is episode 16, season two. We have a couple of life topics and, um, I have kind of a sensitive question coming up in the second half of this episode, but we'll start with maybe an easier one, uh, where man, it's springtime here. And we had a couple of nice days today was a little chillier, but every time we have like nice spring days, I think there's places on earth where the weather is always like this.

    Like why do we wear it sometimes cold and sometimes oppressively hot. So, uh, what do you think about that? Like, you know, about choosing to live here for school? Hold on. I thought this topic was about seasons and our podcasts because about actual seasons. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Well, we live in a temperate climate.

    We live in the Northeast in Pennsylvania, in the United States. So we do have four seasons. We have we're currently entering spring. I know. Is it starting this weekend is the 21st or something like that? I think it's starting this weekend. Okay. Yeah. And then we'll have summer, then we'll have fall, then we'll have winter.

    Um, I like living where there's seasons. Yeah. I think that they're just the right amount of time that you are getting kind of sick of that weather and ready for it to get to a new temperature. Yeah. I used to think so. I think so. I don't know if I think so. I used to think so. And I don't know if I think so anymore.

    Cause like in the winter time it gets cozy, you know, or like I really appreciate the fall because the summer is so hot. Um, and do we need that kind of change to really appreciate it or people who live in like San Diego, just like, dude, it's always nice to know. Are you talking about like, I ride my bike whenever I want, but we get to have a variety of activities.

    We get to have like a winter sport and it's summer sports and you know how much we love sports. Yeah. And think would do it, had to take that much advantage on it. I don't know. But yeah, we got a lot of, uh, good growing seasons here in Pennsylvania. So we get. Yeah, we have a lot of farming and backyard farms, but also gardens and different kinds of farms.

    Yeah. In a tropical climate where it's the same all the time. It's always the same kind of produce that's in season versus here. We're in spring, we're having like broccoli, cauliflower, beets, spinach, all these kind of cool weather crops will translate into summer when we'll have fresh tomatoes, fresh cucumbers, all local.

    If you're trying to minimize your impact on the world with the food and travel, and this is kind of a privileged conversation of, we can choose to live somewhere else. We work from home, not everyone does, but I think some part of our audience is. Couples who are working together potentially remotely and do have this option.

    Um, and we, we choose to live here because our family is around here. Like I like being near our friends and our family who happened to live around here. Yeah. Um, but sometimes it's tempting to, you know, There's no way to really test this is their go live somewhere for a year or something. Yeah. Oh, it has to be a whole year.

    Cause the whole point is like you would get tired of, you have to break through and never end your summer. This is maybe where, if the folks who are watching on YouTube and stuff,

    Show More Show Less
    18 mins
  • Guessing & Testing a Feature's Popularity, A Bias Towards Action [Business] That Talking Thing | S2, E15
    Apr 5 2022

    Business-focused topics from Jason and Kim. We'll talk about how to know whether a new feature is going to be popular. What are some ways to see whether many people really need this or just a few noisy users. We also discuss realizing our team has a bias towards action and some ways to help us interview and hire the people that naturally have this bias.

    Follow Jason on Twitter, Follow Kim on Twitter, Follow Stranger Studios on Twitter

    Transcript: Season 2, Episode 15

    Welcome back to that talking thing. I'm Kim I'm Jason. This is episode 15, season two, and we were talking about our favorite thing, not our children, our business as stop X. And there's a good one coming up a phrase that I've been like reading recently. That's really motivated me in changing the way I think about business.

    But first let's also talk about how do you know if a feature will be popular. Yeah. So I'm going to talk about a feature that's been brought up repeatedly historically for our product. People have mentioned it and then we'll decide maybe we'll make a plan for how would you evaluate whether the popularity of this?

    So, one thing is. WordPress user accounts. We're a membership plugin for WordPress. So it tacks onto WordPress allows you to create members in your WordPress site that login can access private things. Um, you can do a paid membership or you can do a free membership. So for this feature, um, all WordPress user accounts require an email address.

    People have long said, what if I don't have users with email address? Is there a certain, uh, age that they're not email users? Along with that. What do you do if somebody has an account with an email address and just wants to update their billing, doesn't want to have to authenticate. Doesn't want to have to log in.

    So I guess the feature is kind of twofold, a user accounts without an email address or some kind of magic links that would come to you by email, and you could use to authenticate yourself without a password to manage your account. Whether it's to update a payment method on file access and invoice, you see like magic links, a lot of places, whether it's secure codes or, or secret code sent to you, all kinds of things.

    So how would you even evaluate if we should do that? It's been. In our internal channels for awhile and it's tough. And I know why we have them because I think the notion is that this is easier. It's less, you don't even have an email, but not in this case. It's like the internet expects you to have an email address and kind of accounting for those cases where you don't have one, or you already have an account on the site is complicated.

    And that's why we keep kicking the can down the road. But it, um, we need like, There's other stuff they'll say, I want to be able to check out without an email address, but there's probably like something else. We could get more specific about what they really need. Um, But it is, uh, yeah. So both of those things w cause people are asking for them, is it still a good idea to do this also came up again because we're talking with a crypto protocol, which part of the unlock protocol and part of, uh, you know, crypto in general is kind of privacy.

    And, uh, you know, you could sign in with a Ethereum wallet and we don't know your email address, and that's kind of one of the problems that has to be handled. And they're kind of diving in head on. Um, like how about WordPress user count without an email? Um, and just try to fake it. Um, Hm. So how would we evaluate if it's, I don't, I don't even, it's funny.

    Like, I, I believe people would use this and like I would, on my own side, I realized, yeah, that one where like, w uh, on the alumni association site, we imported a bunch of users and then the

    Show More Show Less
    17 mins
  • Do we work TOO much? Kids and Wasting Salad at Lunch [Family] That Talking Thing | S2, E14
    Mar 31 2022

    Family-focused topics from Jason and Kim. We'll talk about our children and how they think we work too much. Also covered is wasting food, specifically salad which we aren't sure that they really like but think is healthy. Why is wasting food such a trigger for Kim as an adult?

    Follow Jason on Twitter, Follow Kim on Twitter, Follow Stranger Studios on Twitter

    Transcript: Season 2, Episode 14

    Welcome back to that talking thing. I'm Kim and Jason. This is episode 14, season two, and we are talking about our life. Yeah. Later on in the episode, we're going to have a funny story about our daughter. Uh, but first we'll start off with a question. Uh, do we work too much? And this was motivated by the fact that we had a list of ideas for this podcast.

    And we had about eight business ideas and you're like, we have no life ideas. And I was like, maybe that's our first idea is why are we thinking about work so much? And we don't have life questions. I want to talk about that, but I want to also say, and not in a cryptic way, but our kids are getting older and we are going through some interesting things with both of them.

    But I think that they're personal and I, as I don't post photos of our kids on Facebook, I don't judge you. If you do. We stopped doing that for their own privacy. Yeah. We advise them how to be safe online with their privacy. And I think if we exposed things that they were exploring in their lives and questions and things, we may have tiptoed a little bit around some things in the past, but the older they get, the more I want to protect.

    Yeah, as preteens and teens, because I don't not have things about our life that I want to talk to you about. I just don't wanna talk to you about them. So I hope every parent can respect that. So I'll talk all about us. So books, do we work too much?

    I don't know how so. Yeah, I guess you could, like, what does that mean? Like total time-wise is it spread out? Are we always thinking about work? All right. We look, I like our work, so it's kind of, you know, I tried to put myself in the mindset of like a person on our team who isn't tied to this business's performance success outcomes as directly as we are.

    And has as much influence on it as we do. And, and I think they still think about their job off hours, but I don't think that they have unhealthy work habits logging on to early in the day, logging on too late at night, logging on, on weekends. Yeah. Is there a related question? Do you work way more than me?

    And that's 10. No, no. I used to think that you've been keeping a better schedule through this year. Yeah.

    We work in separate places that helps. So you can like, you know, when I'm not working, you know, now the whole time I'm in the office, you think I'm here. I used to think that, um, when I worked at Accenture, I think you knew I was a good worker. Like you'd meet my coworkers and the really Jason's a good worker.

    And I would like get promoted and get paid. Well, Get stuff done. And then when we started working together, I guess it was rough. Cause it was the first time just working from home in general. But I think you realize like, oh, like Jason would like stop in the middle of the day and take breaks and get back.

    And maybe he's working like four hours out of a seven hour day. Um, and like the gaps in between were more noticeable. Uh, I've been noticing for myself that I, I work to scout. I don't work at intentionally enough. And that was a comment you made about blocking eventually getting back to a place where you could say Friday was a work on the business time.

    Right? I need time to write procedures and documentation and things like that. Instead of, I think we could both try some time boxing experime

    Show More Show Less
    17 mins

What listeners say about That Talking Thing

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.