The behind-the-scenes journey of an indie maker
Hey, I’m Derrick Reimer, a full-stack developer. I fell in love with the 37signals ethos back in 2009 and I’ve been bootstrapping ever since. I’ve started and sold two companies, but the truth is it’s still really hard!
My mission on the internet is to help other makers succeed at doing what they love.
Newsletter
Join 2,000+ people following along as I build my next company.
Books
I stand on the shoulders of giants!
These are some of the books that have been influential to me.
Podcast
I co-host a weekly podcast called The Art of Product.
Each week, my friend Ben Orenstein and I go deep on what's happening in our respective businesses. Our goal is to paint an accurate picture of what it's like starting a software business.
Products I’ve Built
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SavvyCal Started in 2020
Delightful scheduling software.
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StaticKit Started in 2019
StaticKit is a toolkit of dynamic components for static sites.
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Drip Started in 2012 and acquired by Leadpages in 2016
Drip began with the mission to fix email capture and follow-up sequences. It grew to become a lightweight marketing automation tool and later on a leading automation platform used by thousands of companies.
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Codetree Started in 2014 and sold in 2016
Codetree was a solution borne out of pain I experienced managing development tasks with GitHub issues across multiple repositories.
Essays
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Starting And Selling StaticKit
The story behind how the product got started and why I sold it to Formspree
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10 Questions for Teasing Out Market Opportunities
Inspiration for your next idea brainstorm.
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Don’t Insult Me With Your Pricing
Thoughts on utilizing manipulative pricing tactics.
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Just Keep Shipping
Reflections on learning to thrive in the in-between.
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Finding My Next Bootstrapped Business Idea
My process for narrowing down what to build next.
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I'm Walking Away From the Product I Spent a Year Building
The story behind Level and why it failed.
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Validating My Business Idea
The tactics I used to validate the idea behind Level.
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The War on Developer Productivity
The manifesto that kicked off Level.
Technical Articles
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Using Tailwind with Phoenix
A quick tutorial on getting up and running with CSS utilities.
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Elixir, Elm, GraphQL, Oh My!
How I went about choosing the technology for Level.
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Solving Our Slow Query Problem
How my team and I solved a tricky scaling problem at Drip.
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Choosing Your Technology Stack
How to approach selecting a tech stack when starting something new.
Get in touch
Follow me on Twitter or email me at derrick [at] derrickreimer.com.
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