Every month, on or near the 15th, I publish a list of blogs, podcasts, books, products or anything else I consider to be a must-have or must-do. It’s not the 15th and I’ve missed a few months, but the list is back with some modifications. Hope you enjoy. Reading WTF – What’s the Future and […]
Should You Build Your Own Tech?
There’s an aphorism going around these days that every company is a technology company. In the most pure sense, it’s likely true. Every company uses technology heavily in their day to day operations, and many companies put tools together to create a competitive advantage. This is different from being a company that should build its […]
Fireproof Software Blog Update
Hi there. I wanted to write a quick note to let you know about a small change to this blog. Over the past two years, I’ve written a new article about building software products within a business context twice a week for most weeks, addressing many of these posts directly to founders without a technical […]
Privacy and Security
What data are you storing that could be used against you or your customers? As I’ve been working on my new product, I’ve realized that I’m not taking these issues seriously enough, and I’m doing something about it. I’ve decided to encrypt all data at rest (which means all data sitting in my database), and […]
Responsible
I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately with myself (yes, I know) and others about being responsible. Often times the word responsible is used to assign blame: “Who was responsible for that bug?” “So and so is responsible for the data leak that led to your data being shared” and so on However, being […]
“Does Your Product Do X?”
I’ve been building a product for the last four or five months, working on it as I have time. When I started the product, I had a very firm idea of what it needed to be and who the customer would be. I’ve spent a lot of time in this particular market and listening to […]
The Scott Barstow Show, Episode #031 – Ursula Mead, CEO and co-founder of InHerSight
My guest for this episode is Ursula Mead, CEO and co-founder of InHerSight. In Her Sight is an engagement platform for women to rate the companies they work for on issues specifically important to women. In Her Sight also provides tools for job seekers to match the issues most important to them with companies who […]
Appreneur Summit with Yours Truly
There’s a pretty cool conference coming up this week and it’s all online. I was asked to talk about much of what I write about on this blog, but there are 14-15 other really great speakers talking about building apps, monetization and marketing, and a host of other relevant topics. You can watch all of […]
What a Visit to the Doctor Taught Me About Listening
I went to the doctor this week to get a piece of something (we’re still not sure what) taken out of my foot. Earlier this year I stepped on something at the beach and have intermittently been trying to get it out on my own. I finally caved and went to see the doctor to […]
Documenting Your Product – Part 6 – System Components
This is the sixth and final post in a series about documenting technology product builds. If you missed the intro, Part 1 – Use Cases, Part 2 – Requirements, Part 3 – Sequence Diagrams, Part 4 – Data Models, or Part 5 – Sharing and Collaboration go check them out. At the end of this series, I’ll be providing a bunch of […]