Rob Henderson: An Internet Academic
North Star Podcast
Rob Henderson is one of my favorite up-and-coming writers. I like him because he's one of those people who doesn't fit into a category. He's a Ph.D. candidate in psychology, but I met him in a book club about technological stagnation. He's spent years in the academy, first at Yale and now at Cambridge, but most of his influence comes from his online writing. Most of all, he's interested in human nature. In particular, psychology, status, and social class.
info_outline
Chrisman Frank and Ana Lorena Fabrega: How Childhood Education Will Change
North Star Podcast
This week, I have two guests. Both are affiliated with Synthesis, a new kind of online school where kids learn through games and simulations. One is Chrisman Frank, the CEO of Synthesis. The other is Ana Lorena Fabrega, who is their Chief Evangelist.
info_outline
Ash Fontana: Building Artificial Intelligence
North Star Podcast
Ash Fontana is an entrepreneur, investor, and author. As an entrepreneur, he was only of the early employees at an online investing platform called AngelList. From there, he became the Managing Director at Zetta, the first investment fund focused on artificial intelligence. Now, he's the author of the AI-First Company.
info_outline
Li Jin: Creating the Creator Economy
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Li Jin, the founder and managing partner at an early-stage venture capital firm called Atelier.
info_outline
Zena Hitz: Liberal Arts Thinking
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Zena Hitz, a tutor at St John’s and the author of an excellent book called Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Her book explores the meaning and the value of learning for its own sake, through images and stories of bookworms, philosophers, scientists, and other learners, both fictional and historical.
info_outline
Tiago Forte and Will Mannon: Building Cohort-Based Courses
North Star Podcast
I have two guests today: Tiago Forte and Will Mannon.
info_outline
Gagan Biyani: Building Silicon Valley Startups
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Gagan Biyani, the current CEO of an education startup that helps teachers run Cohort-Based Courses on the Internet and has students from around the world. Gagan also founded a multi-billion dollar online education platform called Udemy. Afterward, he founded Sprig, a food delivery platform that grew to a nine-digit valuation but eventually failed. So today, he has the distinct pleasure of being both the founder of a unicorn and the founder of a massive failure.
info_outline
Trevor Bauer: Playing Professional Baseball
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Trevor Bauer, who is arguably the very best pitcher in Major League Baseball. I wanted to interview Trevor not only because he's an excellent pitcher, but because he takes a radical approach to the game. He's a physicist and a scientist. A scholar and an entrepreneur. And you don't find that combination very often.
info_outline
Nik Sharma: Building DTC Companies
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Nik Sharma, the founder of Sharma Brands and an advisor to companies like Judy and Cha Cha Matcha. Nik is one of my very best friends, and my go-to person for all things commerce. Since we first met, we've spent hours exploring the future of marketing and commerce together, and recorded this podcast to give you a window into what our conversations are like.
info_outline
Kevin Kelly: Seeing the Future
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Kevin Kelly, who co-founded Wired Magazine in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor for the first seven years. As one of the most important futurists of our generation, he's published a number of books including The Inevitable, What Technology Wants, and New Rules for the New Economy which is my favorite one. Coolest of all, he's also a founding member of the board of the Long Now Foundation, a non-profit devoted to encouraging long-term thinking.
info_outlineDavid Brittain is the CEO of Concepts, my favorite iPad app. It's marketed as a "flexible sketching" app and geared towards people in the early stages of the thinking process. I use it to visualize my ideas, many of which I share on Twitter and in long-form essays. People use the app for mind-maps, mood boards, sketch plans, designs, and illustrations. I particularly enjoy the screenshots of architects using the app to design buildings.
On this episode, David and I talked about the business, marketing, and engineering aspects of designing an app. David talked about Concepts' position in the design world, and how it compares to ProCreate and Figma. He spoke about how changes to the App Store have influenced Concept's download numbers and finally, he talked about why trust is particularly important in remote work as compared to in-person collaboration. I'm a fan-boy of the Internet because of how it enables apps like this to thrive. Concepts has been profitable for years. Whenever I pick up the app, I feel like I have a professional-grade design app for the cost of a latte every month. Please enjoy my conversation with David Britton.
____________________________
Show Notes
2:20 - How the landscape of designing apps has and hasn't changed drastically over the years
4:19 - What and who David thinks about in his design process
7:32 - How remote work management is different from in-person
11:52 - The key to a well-functioning and efficient remote engineering team
13:26 - How David spends his days at work as a CEO
16:36 - What vector design is and their pros and cons in comparison to raster design
21:20 - David's view of the market, the design world, and his competition
24:34 - How Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton has inspired David and what he could learn from Lewis about marketing
27:37 - Why paid marketing is not something that David and his team have spent much time nor effort on
32:08 - What David sees as the biggest pain-points from a user perspective of his app and the solutions they've tried
35:46 - What makes a good beta tester or user to get feedback from, and David finds them
37:47 - Why David doesn't consider himself the right person for his position and why that has been an advantage for his company
40:05 - The death of the computer mouse and why sketching and drawing isn't going anywhere
44:48 - How the Concepts team approached the development of their app on different platforms
46:43 - The future of apps and why certain apps have taken off while others lag behind
53:13 - How a feature moves from an idea into development and into the hands of the end-user
56:54 - Why architects flocked to using Concepts when it came out and what makes it still popular today