Yo! Podcast

Dru Riley is the founder and editor of the successful Trends.vc newsletter. Boasting over 50,000 subscribers and 1,000 Pro members, Dru dedicates all his time to deliver highly informative reports to his growing community of business owners and marketers. We rap about the software he uses, growth vs retention, mental health, social media vs community, and what it takes to run a premium newsletter publication.

Danny Postma is a Dutch developer, maker and Landing Page specialist currently residing in Bali, Indonesia. In 2020 he paired his Landing Page expertise with a new passion for programming, to launch Headlime, an AI-powered headline generator for marketers. Fast forward a rollercoaster 7-months of working in public, with several product iterations, Danny sold Headlime for a USD 7-figures. Now financially independent, Danny spends his time building where his AI curiosity leads and has landed up working on StockAI.com and ProfilePicture.AI. We rap about AI trends, the shady lifetime deal black market, if dot com domains are worth the investment and the most common mistakes people are making with their Landing Pages. 

Luke Beard is UK-born product designer and photographer currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2013 he founded Exposure - a publishing platform to help individuals and brands create and share their stories visually. We have such a good time chatting about side-projects, growing sustainable businesses, what he looks for when taking photos, why we're attracted to heavier music and where we draw the line between personality and professionalism on social media.

Matt D. Smith (@mds) is an exceptional UI designer with a prolific catalog of design-related side projects. His most recent offering is Shift Nudge, an online learning experience to master designing beautiful and accessible interfaces. We go  deep into course creation, the top 3 mistakes new UI designers are making, how he got his 3-letter Twitter handle and where we draw the line between copying a design and drawing inspiration.

Meagan and Andrew Couldwell are a designer/developer couple currently based in Los Angeles, California.Meagan, originally from Florida, is a seasoned designer having worked with the likes of Twitter, Campaign Monitor and other leading startups.Andrew, originally from Yorkshire, has also spent years in the game, leading the design of Adobe Portfolio and tasked to build the design systems for WeWork.Together they published the book 'Laying The Foundations', a comprehensive guide to understanding and implementing Design Systems.We have such a fun chat discussing book publishing, working with newborn twins, design inspiration from Disney, crafting color schemes, what makes a good boss, and even squeeze in a couples quiz right at the end:) 

Oliur is a designer, photographer, YouTuber and entrepreneur based in the UK. Having amassed over 100,000 followers on several different platforms, Oliur has become well known for his slick, minimal style. This clean aesthetic is also evident in his growing catalog of beautifully crafted digital and tangible products. We have a chilled convo about humble beginnings, creating freedom through products, his upcoming course, minimalism, and why it's important to re-invest in yourself. 

Derek Sivers is an author, musician and entrepreneur famously known for founding CD Baby. What started as a hobby, turned intro an independant music juggernaut helping over 150,000 musicians sell $100m worth of music. However after selling CD Baby for a healthy sum back in 2008, Derek decided to not let money dictate his path and started a trust where 5% of the trusts value would be paid out to him annually, with the rest ultimately going to charity. He went on to write the hit book 'Anything You Want' in 2011, a personal favorite of mine that helped motivate me take the leap to work on my side projects full time. Derek and I have an absolutely blast reminiscing about our most memorable years in music also covering creativity, essentialism, Hendrix vs Bowie, his disregard for analytics, how to stand out online in 2020 and his secret to replying to 6000 emails in 10 days. 

Jeff Sheldon is the owner, designer and driving force behind the brand, Ugmonk. From humble beginnings entering t-shirt design contests to raising over $400k on kickstarter for the Gather desk organizer, Ugmonk is no overnight success. Jeff has consistently been shipping meticulously crafted products for over a decade and in-turn amassed a huge loyal following. We chat about his blend of business and personal branding, minimalism, effective social media channels, how he avoids burnout, Philly Cheesesteaks and the magic number for free shipping in the US.

Adam Wathan is 1 part metalhead, 2 parts online education juggernaut. Over the past few years, Adam has distilled his obsessive development research into several online courses and books, achieving millions of Dollars in sales. We rap about SaaS vs once-off payments, Pantera vs Slayer, why he uses Gumroad, the advantage of multi-tier pricing and of course his rapidly growing CSS Framework, Tailwind CSS. 

Gilbert Pellegrom is a Scottish software engineer with an impressive resume working with the likes of WooCommerce, ThemeZilla, Dunked and now Delicious Brains. He is also a side-project heavyweight and the man behind the popular NivoSlider jQuery plugin used by thousands including Dell, AOL and eBay. Gilbert and I chat about nightmare NDA situations, the state of online privacy, Biffy Clyro and if all side-projects should be monetized.