Detailed Notes
Customer feedback for developers is one of the hardest skills to master—especially when you’re building something you care about. In this episode of Building Better Developers, we explore how to listen to users without losing focus, momentum, or vision.
The conversation covers how developers transition from building features to making decisions, why talking to the wrong audience leads to scope creep, and how faster shipping improves judgment over time. We also dig into why niching down matters in crowded markets and how self-direction becomes a critical skill when you no longer have a manager setting priorities.
If you’re a developer, tech lead, or engineer thinking about building your own product—or already deep in it—this episode offers practical insight into using customer feedback as a tool, not a trap.
5 Takeaways • Why “this is great, but…” is the most valuable feedback you’ll hear • How to filter customer feedback without ignoring users • The role of speed in building better judgment • Why niching down clarifies product direction • How developers can self-direct without external structure
About Tyler Dane
Tyler Dane has dedicated his career to helping people better manage—and truly appreciate—their time.
After working as a full-time Software Engineer, Tyler recently stepped away from traditional employment to focus entirely on building Compass Calendar, a productivity app designed to help everyday users visualize and plan their day more intentionally. The tool is built from firsthand experience, not theory—shaped by years of experimenting with productivity systems, tools, and workflows.
In a bold reset, Tyler sold most of his belongings and relocated to San Francisco to focus on growing the product, collaborating with partners, and pushing Compass forward.
Outside of coding, Tyler creates YouTube videos and writes about time management and productivity. After consuming countless productivity books, tools, and frameworks, he realized a common trap: doing more without actually accomplishing what matters. That insight led him to break productivity down into its most practical, nuanced components—cutting through hustle culture noise to focus on systems that actually work.
Tyler is unapologetically honest and independent. With no investors, no sponsors, and nothing to sell beyond the value of his work, his focus is simple: help people get more done—and appreciate the limited time they have to do it.
Follow Tyler on • https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-dane/ • https://www.youtube.com/@tylerdane-com • https://x.com/_TylerDane_ • https://www.compasscalendar.com
Follow-us on • [email protected] • https://develpreneur.com/ • https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur • https://facebook.com/Develpreneur • https://x.com/develpreneur • https://www.linkedin.com/company/develpreneur/
Transcript Text
Oh, let's see. All right. So, I guess while I'm getting some stuff here, Tyler, we'll give you a little idea of what little rundown of what we've got. What are you doing? >> I need to see where your hole is. >> Oh, >> that sounds great. >> Yeah, just leave that. We'll see how that works. I'll check that in a minute. >> I'll make sure to cut that. >> Yeah. Well, you're not recording yet, are you? >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> I'm sorry. >> This is why I need to have technical people like >> your computer >> do that. Yes, I know. I know how to work this. I'm just I got to turn this thing off first. >> Save this for the blooper real. >> Yeah. >> Well, we do have a before and after uh on the YouTube side of this. So, um, I'll cut some of this, but yeah, we typically have a pre-show and a post show, um, kind of like before behind the scenes kind of stuff that we show on YouTube. >> Yeah, >> we cut that out of the podcast part, but we keep it on YouTube for fun. >> Yeah. Gives them a little bonus uh, material and such. All right, let's see what we got here. How's that working? There we go. Oh, wow. That is Where's the little thing to >> You want less. >> Yes. Nope. That's none. There we go. Yeah, that's not too bad. All right. So, uh, we do this, let me straighten my hat out of here a little bit. We do this as a really just a conversational kind of thing. We will, uh, we'll come in, we'll start an episode. We always break it down into two. Um we end up doing about I don't know about 25 minutes a pop something like that that we will do uh in editing afterwards as far as the discussion here. We will start off essentially beginning an episode. I'll introduce myself, introduce Michael, we'll allow you to introduce yourself and then really we're going to go we'll be off and running from there. uh because nine times out of 10, 99 out of 100 basically right from the interview, we've got a couple of good questions and and places to go with our um with the conversation and pardon pardon me as I bring up some info here and there we go. Any questions? Um I guess the um audience is uh technical people basically figure starting out slash getting into their career for the most part. They a lot of them are more uh self-starters, hustlers, gig economy, side hustles, stuff like that kind of people. So that's where the entrepreneurial side is. We often talk about um building a business, taking what you've got, what your skills are, and find a way to turn that into a product or service or something along those lines. And um then we go from there. So it's we go from there. We can get honestly we can get fairly technical sometimes um from a business side as far as you know marketing and networking and things like that. We'll also talk about uh we can get very deep sometimes on the programming side as well. So we excuse me we end up sort of just leaving the there's not a lot of constraints on how deep or how high you want to talk essentially. Um, >> how old is your audience range? >> Uh, typically figure mid mid20s, mid-30s, maybe late 30s, something like that. Whatever that is. I'm not sure what generation that is now, but yeah, >> millennials, I guess. >> Yeah, exactly. >> So, uh, let's see. And then I've got to, this is actually going to be the first episode, second episode, first interview in a new season. And now I've got to remember what we decided that season's gonna >> The season is forward motion. Getting started on your goals. >> All right, cool. So, that works. Let me get back over here. And uh so no, where' I put my water? Right there. All right. No further questions or are you ready? Any questions that you have? Uh everything >> way off camera. There you go. That's better. >> Um yeah. So, it sounds like you guys have some ideas on where you want to take it. How do you feel about like um me asking you questions about your careers and I I've looked into your your book a little bit, Rob, and have your background, but I don't want to I don't want to take it off track too far if if that's not what you or the audience is is interested in, I guess. Is it more casual or do you want to make it more actionable? >> Uh casual is good. Um we It's nice to have a an action at the end. have something actionable that we'll throw at them. Usually we'll get that actually in the bonus if nothing else the the trailing step was we'll come back and just sort of say after as we're wrapping up is say hey what's you know what's one thing that you'd recommend or you know something along those lines. >> Uh and we will before we close out the the audio portion uh the main portion of it is we'll ask for you know links and stuff like that. How can you know how can people best reach out to you? But if you've got questions, that's yeah, we can definitely keep it as a a conversation. That's uh that would be a really cool new path to take. So, I'm more than happy to for happy for us to do a little back and forth like that. >> Yeah. on my on my side. Um, I've been thinking about a lot of the things you've written about about happiness and developer productivity and how to level up as like a full stack developer in the sense of like life and your work and um, so yeah, as I know you've thought about this more deeply and I've read your book sample, so I have a little snippet about it, but I'd like to hear after you've just talked to so many people who who are trying to do this like what you've learned. So, however we can work that in, that's just something personally I'd be curious to hear about. >> Yeah, I think definitely we can find a way to we'll find a way to work that in for sure. Maybe they'll be that may be how we sort of like transition from a part one to a part two. Something along those lines. >> All right, Mike. Mike mic is good, Mike. All right, so we'll go with our three. This has been a long time since I've done one of these. We've been down for like three weeks. Hello and welcome back. We are into our new season of developer building better developers and we are going to talk about quite a few things talk to quite a few people this time around as we did in the prior season but first let me introduce myself my name is Rob Broadhead one of the founders of developing also the founder of RB consulting where we help you leverage technology to do your business better whatever that happens to be good thing bad thing good thing is it is as I'm sitting here a new year. Uh so got you know got through 2025. It was not a fun year for me. It was a lot of challenge, a lot of work. I am very much ready to like look forward into 2026. Uh bad thing is 2025 is still like kicking my butt a little bit. I'm still like recovering from that. Uh it's been a little bit of a slow, you know, slow burn getting out of it, but uh now it's starting to build that momentum and move forward much like we're going to talk about this season, getting unstuck, getting your momentum. Perfect kind of thing as we start a year to start with things like, you know, you have your uh your resolutions and all that and you've come through last year like maybe I did. I got to the end of the year, got a decent survived it, but also got some uh some goals and some challenges for the year ahead. not exactly where I want to be and maybe that's what you can do and you'll get some of this from our discussions this year but first one who is not stuck because he's gonna forward motion himself right into this inter this gosh I've lost words right introducing himself Michael go for it >> hey everyone my name is Mike Moash I'm one of the co-founders of developer building better developers I'm also the founder of vision QA where we build and test custom software design around your business uh good things bad things uh good things We are in a new year. Things are off to a better start this year than last year. Uh bad thing. Uh the weather in Tennessee still is so freaking unpredictable. We're freezing one day, warm the next. So, uh allergies are already upon me. And today our guest is Tyler Dayne. And I'm going to let you go ahead and introduce yourself. So, why don't you stand up and introduce yourself to the crowd there? Yeah, I'm already standing, but I'll tell you, I'm a developer of uh 10 years officially, but I've been coding for probably 14 or so. And recently, I've been um doing more of the entrepreneur stuff. So, last year in the fall, quit my job um and am going all in on the tool I currently have to bring it to market and get it profitable. So, day-to-day I'm doing a lot of coding, uh but also marketing and getting it off the ground. And that is gosh that's a sweet spot. I think there's a lot of people out in the audience that have some that are somehow related to that. We've either done that or are considering doing something like that. So I think I'll start with the big question is what what prompted you to to go ahead and dive, you know, fully into this product? What is it that that led up to this maybe? >> Yeah, I've gotten that a few times and um honestly the completely honest answer is I was just sick of having a full-time job. you did not need to go full-time on this. Um, I just feel like I don't like having a full-time job. I don't like being told what to do. I'm very stubborn. I have a big ego. Um, and I had enough financial savings from my full-time job of the last two years when I was a a lead engineer when I said, "Okay, I have enough where I can give myself some padding to do this." But if you were just to be like responsible, I would say just keep moonlighting. Um, don't go full-time and then try it out and see what the market says. Um, but it was honestly I was just so I was so sick of it. And nothing against the other job or the other employees. I still stay in touch with them and um, appreciate them a lot. It's just more of the it just doesn't fit me and I know that. And I had enough savings to um, allow myself to take another swing and make it work this time. Yeah. And I think that's a that's again it's a it's one of those things that I think people struggle with a little bit because you there's the love of your product. I think anybody that's building their own product, there's some sort of a love. There's a desire to get that thing out the door. And then there's the responsible side of you I've got to pay bills and things like that. And then also there's just whatever sort of loyalty that you have to your to an existing job. And then there's the fear of stepping out and saying, "Okay, now I'm, you know, it sounds really cool. I'm going to be my own boss. Until day one, when you're your own boss, you're like, "Okay, well, all right. Now, what do I do?" It's one of those things where sometimes it's very challenging to to get out of bed and say, "Okay, now I've got to go to work when work is not anything that you've you've related to before." So, I I love that that recommendation. just say keep trying out, you know, do a little moonlighting of essentially sort of that side hustle where it's you've got your real job and allow yourself to to work your way in. And that leads me to the next question. So, you did this, did you, as you were moving to leave your job and go into this full-time, did you sort of put together, you know, a plan and a road map and say, "All right, you know, I'm working towards this day one when I'm my own boss. I'm going to go do this." or did you leave your job and then say, "Okay, now I'm all my own boss. I've got to figure out where I want to go from here." >> That's that's what I did the first time. So, this is like my third time doing this pattern of thing. Like, get full-time job, get financially stable, get sick of it, quit. So, this is round three for me. And round one was um I'm so great. I don't need to have a plan. I'm just going to quit and do it. And I I didn't have a product. I didn't know what kind of person I wanted to serve. I it was just like open free time and I had no structure and um and I kept the runway low or my expenses low and so I could extend the runway a lot and I was in my um mid20s so it like wasn't that tough to live frugally. Um, but then I just never got anywhere and the long delays and the lack of momentum and um, doing it yourself all solo, it it just wore me down. And um, this time I do have a plan, a rough plan on who I want to serve, which is software engineers. Um, which is why I was really excited to to chat with you guys today. And a rough plan about what the product could look like. Um, and a couple problems to solve. And the product is out there now, one version of it. So it's an open source tool and anyone can use it and we're going to pivot it um to make it more more useful. But I have a lot like set up. I have the analytics set up. I have bunch of users I've talked to. I've got all the CI pipelines and it's all deploying and like I can I can ship something within 3 minutes if I want to. Um so there's a lot the foundation is a lot better. And then I'll also say on a personal side, um, like I'm a lot more stoic or emotionally stable than I was before. So I don't get knocked off center when someone doesn't like the app or when someone says no to a call or um when I can't get the ear of someone I want to uh get some feedback from. Like before that really threw me off. I think there's also a part of like a character stability that that needs to be there um to really go for it. Uh so you don't so I don't go back and forth and like waste too much time. So all that came together I felt like okay this is enough to work with and make something happen. >> So you say this is your third attempt. So between the three different attempts and in between, you know, taking these jobs uh to get financially stable, we've all kind of done that, but what's kind of your lesson learned? Why are you doing this a third time? You know, between the first and now, what are some of the steps that you have uh like lessons learned and what do you think uh you've improved upon and why you think it's going to work this time? Um, okay. I'll tell you why I'm just doing it in general, then I'll say the lessons I learned the first two two attempts. Um, I think some people are um can just be employees and that I have nothing against that. Like that's awesome and I'm jealous of those people. Um, but as I just learned about um the benefits of ownership, as I saw myself as a creator, I wanted to have more control over my creation and I wanted to um decide what I was creating instead of just signing up for someone else's creation. I think that's one of the double-edged swords of being a developer is that you have the skills to create anything, but then to get off your feet, to get your first job, to get your experience, you have to give up all your time creating someone else's thing. And that's a trade-off you make. And I felt like if I just stuck in that lane forever of creating someone else's thing and just getting better at the creation part, um like the craft of it, uh I would I would just not be happy. Like I I've proved that at job after job after job after job. Um so I just know that about myself. And so now it's just a matter of actually executing better than I did before. Um which goes to your second question. And the thing I keep coming back to is um just speed. Like I didn't want it to be this conclusion. I wanted to have more balance or to just be really tuned into my judgment where anything I did was the right thing and I could just do it well and then I could go a little slower and still out compete. But now I think it's just doing a lot and seeing what works, doubling down on what doesn't work or on what works, letting go of what doesn't work, and then just the sheer like violent volume lets you hone your judgment. So, you do get to that point where you can decide what is the right thing to do and what isn't. Um, but early on, I just didn't do enough. It took too long to ship. My users saw it. uh my teammates saw it, the potential people I was trying to recruit, saw it, and um I think that was the main thing. I was just not willing to work hard enough or long enough and do enough. Um so I'm flipping that this time. Now I've set up my whole life where it's all simple. Um all I need to do is have some good food, uh get some sunlight, do some exercise, and then I work. And that's that's my whole life now. And I'm at peace with that. um it it actually gives me a lot of joy living this way. So um that's the main thing. >> Excellent. All right. So you talked about being a creator and you've talked about this is your third time and you're working, you know, you're basically putting all your eggs in your basket. You're, you know, focusing on your application. You're trying to get it out there. How did you come up with your current product? And how are you ensuring that you have a product that has a customer base or how did you define the problem that you're solving and you know that you actually it that is a problem that people want to purchase? >> Yeah, I was building for myself. So I told you that first time I just quit and um went out there without a plan and I saw when I was doing that I had no structure around my time. like I went from having my full days uh with a bunch of product managers filling up my calendar with meetings um and PR reviews and whatever and then I quit and then I had nothing and I saw myself just not having any accountability or direction. So I'm like I need some structure um now that I have full control of my time. But what I was seeing was um there was the solutions were at the opposite ends of extremes. There was the kind of tools that wanted you to time block every minute of your day and like go all out and then there were tools that like were too loose and didn't let you do enough. So I wanted a tool where I can hold myself accountable but like not overdo it and be subservient to the tool itself. So that's what I started building. Played around with a lot of different things. Um but the problem was trying to solve my own problem of not structuring my time well and being accountable. Especially when you're solo, you can buy you can buy your own BS like so easily. So having some kind of a metric or tool or um something to reflect reality back to you is really important. Uh so I built it and what I learned about the market is um selling it as a general productivity tool appeals to a lot of people, but um it's hard to really cut through there. I had a hard time competing on um just that as a selling point. Like here's a productivity app that'll make you more productive cuz so many other apps are already out there and they have such a rich feature set that to compete with them. I would have need needed to raise a lot of money and have a big team and then get to feature parody with these other tools um and then make it cheaper or have some other um tweak on it. Whereas when people would come to my app with that in mind, like, oh, it's a Google calendar clone or it's a Calendarly clone, um, they would just find all these things that Google calendar could do that mine couldn't or Calendarly could do that mine couldn't. Um, so that comes to the pivot and the pivot is just focusing more on a specific person and picking like one specific job that that one specific person does. And so that's where I'm coming to to coders to developers software engineers and um the problems I'm looking at are either writing the code um helping that workflow get better or planning to write the code like creating issues and structuring those. Um but that was a long winded um response. That's that's what came to mind. So if I were to use your application and say I was your customer, what so you just compared this to like calendar or people have compared this to calendar or Google calendar. How like how are you going to sell this to me? You know, how is this tool going to make my life better for me if I were to use this tool? What are the expectations from the user that you're you know what are I guess at the end of the day what kind of metrics and things are you going to be showing me that this is working for me or that this application is actually going to make my day better. >> Yeah. So I'm pitching it now as like what the product is today. Um since I mentioned the pivot and how we're changing but today it's out there it's live. Um, how it helps you now is it's a better UX. Uh, and it's built for like an engineer sense. So, the keyboard shortcuts offline. Uh, it just works. It's not too bloated. It's lightweight. So, people who like premium tools, um, people who like taking vitamins, everyone used to say to me like, don't build, um, build a build a painkiller out of vitamins. And I always say like, I have vitamins every day. I love vitamins. Vitamins are a huge industry. Some people just love vitamins and some people just love premium tools that feel good. So, if you're if you're in your calendar all the time, if you're in your to-do app all the time, if you're on your computer, your whole life is there. You want to have the best tools. Uh and so mine is in that category. And that's how I pitch it to people. So, if you really care about having a really nice, lightweight, premium feeling tool, you might be interested in in my app, Compass. But if not, just keep using Google Calendar and like that's fine. No worries. >> Yeah, I think that's often the struggle. Uh, and this is there's a lot a lot to unpack in what you've you've already laid out is that that I think especially as developers, we can create, you know, just about anything. And it's those of us that that make that step into it and say, you know what, I've got this itch I want to scratch. And so you build something. And then you go, well, everybody should love this cuz I love it. Because you build it, you know, for yourself. And I think that's often the first the first hurdle to get over is like, okay, this is how I work. Maybe not everybody else does. Or if there are people that do, I've got to go make sure I'm talking to those people. I'm not talking like you found out. You don't want to talk to everybody that's got a calendar app because everybody's got one on their phone and and you run into exactly what you found is it like if you look like X then people are going to say why can't you do the same thing that X does you know it's and Ken I got to you know I got to say that where you're at has got to be one of those areas it's just flooded like you said there's productivity tools out the wazoo every you know there's phone apps there's desktop apps there's automated things there's enterprise level there's small. So, you know, that's it is definitely an area that's difficult to to, you know, get yourself heard amongst the noise and it's great to take that and focus and say um this is always people come back to the idea of having your avatar, your ideal customer and saying this is who I'm serving and focus on that. I think, you know, people talk about uh riches in the niches and some of those kinds of things and and niching down, but it's not about shrinking your your available customers as much as it is is making sure that you're laser focused on the customer that's going to most benefit from your product. And uh I've seen that a lot where people sort of go and have done it myself and I think Michael's done it as well where we we go through these iterations of like okay we're going to give it a shot and then we back off because it's not quite what we want to do. So we'll you know we re sort of like you know recuperate reset and say okay now we're going to take a shot and then we you know maybe it doesn't succeed and so we come back all right so now we're going to take a shot. But I think each time you learn, and that's one of those key things is that incremental each time you do it, you're further along. You've learned more and you've hit the, you know, one of the things I've I've often said, which is why developer is what it is, is that developing and creating tools is not going to get you everything you need. You have to actually get on the entrepreneur side, the business side of it, and understand that, okay, we've got a product, we've got to be able to deliver, we've got to be able to sell sell it and market it, and we've got to be able to, you know, have all of the things that are involved with that. So, it's really uh it's really fascinating to hear you you talk about this so much in line with, you know, what we we talk about very often, turning you into like almost I guess you may almost be like our avatar, you know, like our ideal kind of of of person out there in the audience. that's saying, "Okay, we're, you know, you're going through it. You got some skills, and then now you're out there and doing it on your own." >> Can I can I ask you then, um, since you've talked to more people who, um, are in this kind of same phase, what are some of the skills that great developers or engineers have um or are lacking when it comes to the entrepreneurship side? So, uh, that they don't learn when they're becoming great developers, that they have to learn quickly when they're bringing it all together. >> I think the biggest one is um, honestly, especially senior engineers, and I've even suffered from this in my career a little bit, is actually listening to your customers. Finding out who your customer is and listening to them because it is is too easy for us to say this is what needs to be built. these are the requirements and then you put in front of somebody and you you're not listening to what their feedback is where they say well yeah this is great but these are some things that it would would make it easier to use and a lot of times we hear this is great so and then the butt just sort of gets lost in you know in the static uh and I think that I think you um you alluded to earlier is the um being personally tied to what we build uh we've actually had I think almost whole seasons where we've talked about some of this where it's it is very hard to be a creator and then have somebody say that your baby is ugly. But that's not you know we need to not look at it that way but instead to hear oh you've built something and somebody cares enough that they're giving you feedback and so take that and say okay I'm going to serve that person by building that feedback back into into my solution. And it's you when you're building it for yourself, that's one thing because you you know if you like it or not and you can iterate through stuff and you can wash away the warts and stuff like that because you say, "Well, at least it's doing what I want it to do." But if somebody's paying for a product or a service, then they have expectations and you have to remember that that's part of it. And particularly I think coming out of corporate we'll call it corporate America you know being an employee I think I think one of the hardest things figure out how to direct yourself how to organize your time how to know what your priorities are because it's you laid it out like you'll have a project manager or a manager that says this is the project you're working on these are the requirements this is the design this is this is how it goes and we love to complain about that as developers and say well nobody does it right they're not doing this right they didn't do enough of this they did too much of that. But when we do it ourselves now all of those things that we I'll call it got for free now have disappeared. We don't have a team. We don't have other people to ping stuff off of. We don't have uh software, you know, all the tools and all of that kind of stuff. We don't have the freedom to take a day off unless we like now we're not getting paid when we take a day off. So there's it's a lot of those things that um I think we run into and it really is it's just like that's why I love the idea of a side hustle is like forcing yourself to to a schedule even of like I'm going to spend 5 hours a week on a Saturday let's say and and do this work and I'm going to make sure that I'm making it productive because otherwise it's really easy for it to your backlog to never get addressed. >> For sure. Well, you might >> Yeah. The other the other problem with that is um and I've run into this multiple times where you have this idea, you build this product and you've got a customer in mind and then you go out to find those customers and you're not finding the right people or you're not getting the right customer. You're talking to people, yes, but the people you're talking to aren't your ideal customers. So the feedback you're getting can lead you to scope creep or you end up changing your product to serve the wrong customer. And you got to be careful of that. Especially this is your third iteration. But really at any iterated process or anytime you're doing this starting a side hustle, starting a business, you have this vision. You have this idea of your application. You you may have already written the application. You have to be careful. As Rob mentioned, you have to listen to yes, we like this, but and you do have to pay attention to the butt. You want to listen to the feedback. You want to listen to that criticism to find out, are you in the right niche? Is your product really serving the customer that you're after, but again, you also have to listen to make sure that the customer you're trying to serve that you're talking to those customers and you're not talking to the wrong customer. It it's kind of like that old saying, you know, build a better mousetrap and you'll lead the world to your door. The problem is there are too many mousetraps out there. You don't necessarily want to flood a market and be the app of everything because you'll be the app for no one because there's too much competition. You want to make sure that you find that niche that your software is serving a purpose. it's solving a problem and that you're getting in front of the right people for them, you know, for to solve their problem and make their lives better. And that is where we're going to pause this interview. Uh don't worry, we are not done. Uh Tyler is going to continue to pick our brains while we continue to pick his. It's just a great little thing going on here. Had a great conversation with him. really appreciate his time and uh the questions he asked were were excellent and uh the experience that he's brought that that he shared. I really uh really appreciate that he's he's opened up and and given us some of that and just sounds like a great guy to follow. So definitely uh reach out. The links will be in the show notes and things like that. So uh reach out, say hi and uh maybe he can help you also be more productive and get to whatever product it is that you are creating. That being said, it's time for us to wrap this one up. We will be back before you know it with our next episode. But go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time.
Transcript Segments
Oh, let's see. All right. So, I guess
while I'm getting some stuff here,
Tyler, we'll give you a little idea of
what little rundown of what we've got.
What are you doing?
>> I need to see where your hole is.
>> Oh,
>> that sounds great.
>> Yeah, just leave that. We'll see how
that works. I'll check that in a minute.
>> I'll make sure to cut that.
>> Yeah. Well, you're not recording yet,
are you?
>> Yeah.
>> Yes.
>> I'm sorry.
>> This is why I need to have technical
people like
>> your computer
>> do that. Yes, I know. I know how to work
this. I'm just I got to turn this thing
off first.
>> Save this for the blooper real.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, we do have a before and after uh
on the YouTube side of this. So, um,
I'll cut some of this, but yeah, we
typically have a pre-show and a post
show, um, kind of like before behind the
scenes kind of stuff that we show on
YouTube.
>> Yeah,
>> we cut that out of the podcast part, but
we keep it on YouTube for fun.
>> Yeah. Gives them a little bonus uh,
material and such. All right, let's see
what we got here.
How's that working? There we go. Oh,
wow. That is Where's the little thing to
>> You want less.
>> Yes. Nope. That's none.
There we go. Yeah, that's not too bad.
All right. So, uh, we do this, let me
straighten my hat out of here a little
bit. We do this as a really just a
conversational kind of thing. We will,
uh, we'll come in, we'll start an
episode. We always break it down into
two. Um we end up doing about I don't
know about 25 minutes a pop something
like that that we will do uh in editing
afterwards as far as the discussion
here. We will start off essentially
beginning an episode. I'll introduce
myself, introduce Michael, we'll allow
you to introduce yourself and then
really we're going to go we'll be off
and running from there. uh because nine
times out of 10, 99 out of 100 basically
right from the interview, we've got a
couple of good questions and and places
to go with our um with the conversation
and pardon pardon me as I bring up some
info here
and there we go.
Any questions? Um I guess the um
audience is uh technical people
basically figure
starting out slash getting into their
career for the most part. They a lot of
them are more uh self-starters,
hustlers, gig economy, side hustles,
stuff like that kind of people. So
that's where the entrepreneurial side
is. We often talk about um building a
business, taking what you've got, what
your skills are, and find a way to turn
that into a product or service or
something along those lines. And um then
we go from there. So it's we go from
there. We can get honestly we can get
fairly technical sometimes um from a
business side as far as you know
marketing and networking and things like
that. We'll also talk about uh we can
get very deep sometimes on the
programming side as well. So we excuse
me we end up
sort of just leaving the there's not a
lot of constraints on how deep or how
high you want to talk essentially.
Um,
>> how old is your audience range?
>> Uh, typically figure mid mid20s,
mid-30s, maybe late 30s, something like
that. Whatever that is. I'm not sure
what generation that is now, but yeah,
>> millennials, I guess.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> So,
uh, let's see. And then I've got to,
this is actually going to be the first
episode, second episode, first interview
in a new season.
And now I've got to remember what we
decided that season's gonna
>> The season is forward motion. Getting
started on your goals.
>> All right, cool. So, that works. Let me
get back over here.
And uh so no, where' I put my water?
Right there. All right. No further
questions or are you ready? Any
questions that you have? Uh everything
>> way off camera. There you go. That's
better.
>> Um yeah. So, it sounds like you guys
have some ideas on where you want to
take it. How do you feel about like um
me asking you questions about your
careers and I I've looked into your your
book a little bit, Rob, and have your
background, but I don't want to I don't
want to take it off track too far if if
that's not what you or the audience is
is interested in, I guess. Is it more
casual or do you want to make it more
actionable?
>> Uh casual is good. Um we It's nice to
have a an action at the end. have
something actionable that we'll throw at
them. Usually we'll get that actually in
the bonus if nothing else the the
trailing step was we'll come back and
just sort of say after as we're wrapping
up is say hey what's you know what's one
thing that you'd recommend or you know
something along those lines.
>> Uh and we will before we close out the
the audio portion uh the main portion of
it is we'll ask for you know links and
stuff like that. How can you know how
can people best reach out to you? But if
you've got questions, that's yeah, we
can definitely keep it as a a
conversation. That's uh that would be a
really cool new path to take. So, I'm
more than happy to for happy for us to
do a little back and forth like that.
>> Yeah. on my on my side. Um,
I've been thinking about a lot of the
things you've written about about
happiness and developer productivity and
how to level up as like a full stack
developer in the sense of like life and
your work and um, so yeah, as I know
you've thought about this more deeply
and I've read your book sample, so I
have a little snippet about it, but I'd
like to hear after you've just talked to
so many people who who are trying to do
this like what you've learned. So,
however we can work that in, that's just
something personally I'd be curious to
hear about.
>> Yeah, I think definitely we can find a
way to we'll find a way to work that in
for sure. Maybe they'll be that may be
how we sort of like transition from a
part one to a part two. Something along
those lines.
>> All right, Mike. Mike mic is good, Mike.
All right, so we'll go with our three.
This has been a long time since I've
done one of these. We've been down for
like three weeks. Hello and welcome
back. We are into our new season of
developer building better developers and
we are going to talk about quite a few
things talk to quite a few people this
time around as we did in the prior
season but first let me introduce myself
my name is Rob Broadhead one of the
founders of developing also the founder
of RB consulting where we help you
leverage technology to do your business
better whatever that happens to be good
thing bad thing good thing is it is as
I'm sitting here a new year. Uh so got
you know got through 2025. It was not a
fun year for me. It was a lot of
challenge, a lot of work. I am very much
ready to like look forward into 2026. Uh
bad thing is
2025 is still like kicking my butt a
little bit. I'm still like recovering
from that. Uh it's been a little bit of
a slow, you know, slow burn getting out
of it, but uh now it's starting to build
that momentum and move forward much like
we're going to talk about this season,
getting unstuck, getting your momentum.
Perfect kind of thing as we start a year
to start with things like, you know, you
have your uh your resolutions and all
that and you've come through last year
like maybe I did. I got to the end of
the year, got a decent survived it, but
also got some uh some goals and some
challenges for the year ahead. not
exactly where I want to be and maybe
that's what you can do and you'll get
some of this from our discussions this
year but first one who is not stuck
because he's gonna forward motion
himself right into this inter this gosh
I've lost words right introducing
himself Michael go for it
>> hey everyone my name is Mike Moash I'm
one of the co-founders of developer
building better developers I'm also the
founder of vision QA where we build and
test custom software design around your
business uh good things bad things uh
good things We are in a new year. Things
are off to a better start this year than
last year. Uh bad thing. Uh the weather
in Tennessee still is so freaking
unpredictable. We're freezing one day,
warm the next. So, uh allergies are
already upon me.
And today our guest is Tyler Dayne. And
I'm going to let you go ahead and
introduce yourself. So, why don't you
stand up and introduce yourself to the
crowd there? Yeah, I'm already standing,
but I'll tell you, I'm a developer of uh
10 years officially, but I've been
coding for probably 14 or so. And
recently, I've been um doing more of the
entrepreneur stuff. So, last year in the
fall, quit my job um and am going all in
on the tool I currently have to bring it
to market and get it profitable. So,
day-to-day I'm doing a lot of coding, uh
but also marketing and getting it off
the ground.
And that is gosh that's a sweet spot. I
think there's a lot of people out in the
audience that have some that are somehow
related to that. We've either done that
or are considering doing something like
that. So I think I'll start with the big
question is what what prompted you to to
go ahead and dive, you know, fully into
this product? What is it that that led
up to this maybe?
>> Yeah, I've gotten that a few times and
um honestly the completely honest answer
is I was just sick of having a full-time
job. you did not need to go full-time on
this. Um, I just feel like I don't like
having a full-time job. I don't like
being told what to do. I'm very
stubborn. I have a big ego. Um, and I
had enough financial savings from my
full-time job of the last two years when
I was a a lead engineer when I said,
"Okay, I have enough where I can give
myself some padding to do this." But if
you were just to be like responsible, I
would say just keep moonlighting. Um,
don't go full-time and then try it out
and see what the market says. Um, but it
was honestly I was just so I was so sick
of it. And nothing against the other job
or the other employees. I still stay in
touch with them and um, appreciate them
a lot. It's just more of the it just
doesn't fit me and I know that. And I
had enough savings to um, allow myself
to take another swing and make it work
this time.
Yeah. And I think that's a that's again
it's a it's one of those things that I
think people struggle with a little bit
because you there's the love of your
product. I think anybody that's building
their own product, there's some sort of
a love. There's a desire to get that
thing out the door. And then there's the
responsible side of you I've got to pay
bills and things like that. And then
also there's just whatever sort of
loyalty that you have to your to an
existing job. And then there's the fear
of stepping out and saying, "Okay, now
I'm, you know, it sounds really cool.
I'm going to be my own boss. Until day
one, when you're your own boss, you're
like, "Okay, well, all right. Now, what
do I do?" It's one of those things where
sometimes it's very challenging to to
get out of bed and say, "Okay, now I've
got to go to work when work is not
anything that you've you've related to
before." So, I I love that that
recommendation. just say keep trying
out, you know, do a little moonlighting
of essentially sort of that side hustle
where it's you've got your real job and
allow yourself to to work your way in.
And that leads me to the next question.
So, you did this, did you,
as you were moving to leave your job and
go into this full-time, did you sort of
put together, you know, a plan and a
road map and say, "All right, you know,
I'm working towards this day one when
I'm my own boss. I'm going to go do
this." or did you leave your job and
then say, "Okay, now I'm all my own
boss. I've got to figure out where I
want to go from here."
>> That's that's what I did the first time.
So, this is like my third time doing
this pattern of thing. Like, get
full-time job, get financially stable,
get sick of it, quit. So, this is round
three for me. And round one was um I'm
so great. I don't need to have a plan.
I'm just going to quit and do it. And I
I didn't have a product. I didn't know
what kind of person I wanted to serve. I
it was just like open free time and I
had no structure and um and I kept the
runway low or my expenses low and so I
could extend the runway a lot and I was
in my um mid20s so it like wasn't that
tough to live frugally. Um, but then I
just never got anywhere and the long
delays and the lack of momentum and um,
doing it yourself all solo, it it just
wore me down. And um, this time I do
have a plan, a rough plan on who I want
to serve, which is software engineers.
Um, which is why I was really excited to
to chat with you guys today. And a rough
plan about what the product could look
like. Um, and a couple problems to
solve. And the product is out there now,
one version of it. So it's an open
source tool and anyone can use it and
we're going to pivot it um to make it
more more useful. But I have a lot like
set up. I have the analytics set up. I
have bunch of users I've talked to. I've
got all the CI pipelines and it's all
deploying and like I can I can ship
something within 3 minutes if I want to.
Um so there's a lot the foundation is a
lot better. And then I'll also say on a
personal side, um, like I'm a lot more
stoic or emotionally stable than I was
before. So I don't get knocked off
center when someone doesn't like the app
or when someone says no to a call or um
when I can't get the ear of someone I
want to uh get some feedback from. Like
before that really threw me off. I think
there's also a part of like a character
stability that that needs to be there um
to really go for it. Uh so you don't so
I don't go back and forth and like waste
too much time. So all that came together
I felt like okay this is enough to work
with and make something happen.
>> So you say this is your third attempt.
So between the three different attempts
and in between, you know, taking these
jobs uh to get financially stable, we've
all kind of done that, but what's kind
of your lesson learned? Why are you
doing this a third time? You know,
between the first and now, what are some
of the steps that you have uh like
lessons learned and what do you think uh
you've improved upon and why you think
it's going to work this time? Um,
okay. I'll tell you why I'm just doing
it in general, then I'll say the lessons
I learned the first two two attempts.
Um,
I think some people are um
can just be employees and that I have
nothing against that. Like that's
awesome and I'm jealous of those people.
Um, but as I just learned about um the
benefits of ownership, as I saw myself
as a creator, I wanted to have more
control over my creation and I wanted to
um decide what I was creating instead of
just signing up for someone else's
creation. I think that's one of the
double-edged swords of being a developer
is that you have the skills to create
anything, but then to get off your feet,
to get your first job, to get your
experience, you have to give up all your
time creating someone else's thing. And
that's a trade-off you make. And I felt
like if I just stuck in that lane
forever of creating someone else's thing
and just getting better at the creation
part, um like the craft of it, uh I
would I would just not be happy. Like I
I've proved that at job after job after
job after job. Um so I just know that
about myself. And so now it's just a
matter of actually executing better than
I did before. Um which goes to your
second question. And the thing I keep
coming back to is um just speed. Like I
didn't want it to be this conclusion. I
wanted to have more balance or to just
be really tuned into my judgment where
anything I did was the right thing and I
could just do it well and then I could
go a little slower and still out
compete. But now I think it's just doing
a lot and seeing what works, doubling
down on what doesn't work or on what
works, letting go of what doesn't work,
and then just the sheer like violent
volume lets you hone your judgment. So,
you do get to that point where you can
decide what is the right thing to do and
what isn't. Um, but early on, I just
didn't do enough. It took too long to
ship. My users saw it. uh my teammates
saw it, the potential people I was
trying to recruit, saw it, and um I
think that was the main thing. I was
just not willing to work hard enough or
long enough and do enough. Um so I'm
flipping that this time. Now I've set up
my whole life where it's all simple. Um
all I need to do is have some good food,
uh get some sunlight, do some exercise,
and then I work. And that's that's my
whole life now. And I'm at peace with
that. um it it actually gives me a lot
of joy living this way. So um that's the
main thing.
>> Excellent. All right. So you talked
about being a creator and you've talked
about this is your third time and you're
working, you know, you're basically
putting all your eggs in your basket.
You're, you know, focusing on your
application. You're trying to get it out
there. How did you come up with your
current product? And how are you
ensuring that you have a product that
has a customer base or how did you
define the problem that you're solving
and you know that you actually it that
is a problem that people want to
purchase?
>> Yeah, I was building for myself. So I
told you that first time I just quit and
um went out there without a plan and I
saw when I was doing that I had no
structure around my time. like I went
from having my full days uh with a bunch
of product managers filling up my
calendar with meetings um and PR reviews
and whatever and then I quit and then I
had nothing and I saw myself just not
having any accountability or direction.
So I'm like I need some structure um now
that I have full control of my time. But
what I was seeing was um there was the
solutions were at the opposite ends of
extremes. There was the kind of tools
that wanted you to time block every
minute of your day and like go all out
and then there were tools that like were
too loose and didn't let you do enough.
So I wanted a tool where I can hold
myself accountable but like not overdo
it and be subservient to the tool
itself. So that's what I started
building. Played around with a lot of
different things. Um but the problem was
trying to solve my own problem of not
structuring my time well and being
accountable. Especially when you're
solo, you can buy you can buy your own
BS like so easily. So having some kind
of a metric or tool or um something to
reflect reality back to you is really
important. Uh so I built it and
what I learned about the market is um
selling it as a general productivity
tool appeals to a lot of people, but um
it's hard to really cut through there. I
had a hard time competing on um just
that as a selling point. Like here's a
productivity app that'll make you more
productive cuz so many other apps are
already out there and they have such a
rich feature set that to compete with
them. I would have need needed to raise
a lot of money and have a big team and
then get to feature parody with these
other tools um and then make it cheaper
or have some other um tweak on it.
Whereas when people would come to my app
with that in mind, like, oh, it's a
Google calendar clone or it's a
Calendarly clone, um, they would just
find all these things that Google
calendar could do that mine couldn't or
Calendarly could do that mine couldn't.
Um, so that comes to the pivot and the
pivot is just focusing more on a
specific person and picking like one
specific job that that one specific
person does. And so that's where I'm
coming to to coders to developers
software engineers and um the problems
I'm looking at are either writing the
code um helping that workflow get better
or planning to write the code like
creating issues and structuring those.
Um
but that was a long winded um response.
That's that's what came to mind.
So if I were to use your application and
say I was your customer, what so you
just compared this to like calendar or
people have compared this to calendar or
Google calendar. How like how are you
going to sell this to me? You know, how
is this tool going to make my life
better for me if I were to use this
tool? What are the expectations from the
user that you're you know what are
I guess at the end of the day what kind
of metrics and things are you going to
be showing me that this is working for
me or that this application is actually
going to make my day better.
>> Yeah. So I'm pitching it now as like
what the product is today. Um since I
mentioned the pivot and how we're
changing but today it's out there it's
live. Um, how it helps you now is it's a
better UX. Uh, and it's built for like
an engineer sense. So, the keyboard
shortcuts offline. Uh, it just works.
It's not too bloated. It's lightweight.
So, people who like premium tools, um,
people who like taking vitamins,
everyone used to say to me like, don't
build, um, build a build a painkiller
out of vitamins. And I always say like,
I have vitamins every day. I love
vitamins. Vitamins are a huge industry.
Some people just love vitamins and some
people just love premium tools that feel
good. So, if you're if you're in your
calendar all the time, if you're in your
to-do app all the time, if you're on
your computer, your whole life is there.
You want to have the best tools. Uh and
so mine is in that category. And that's
how I pitch it to people. So, if you
really care about having a really nice,
lightweight, premium feeling tool, you
might be interested in in my app,
Compass. But if not, just keep using
Google Calendar and like that's fine. No
worries.
>> Yeah, I think that's often the struggle.
Uh, and this is there's a lot a lot to
unpack in what you've you've already
laid out is that that I think especially
as developers, we can create, you know,
just about anything. And it's those of
us that that make that step into it and
say, you know what, I've got this itch I
want to scratch. And so you build
something. And then you go, well,
everybody should love this cuz I love
it. Because you build it, you know, for
yourself. And I think that's often the
first the first hurdle to get over is
like, okay, this is how I work. Maybe
not everybody else does. Or if there are
people that do, I've got to go make sure
I'm talking to those people. I'm not
talking like you found out. You don't
want to talk to everybody that's got a
calendar app because everybody's got one
on their phone and and you run into
exactly what you found is it like if you
look like X then people are going to say
why can't you do the same thing that X
does you know it's and Ken I got to you
know I got to say that where you're at
has got to be one of those areas it's
just flooded like you said there's
productivity tools out the wazoo every
you know there's phone apps there's
desktop apps there's automated things
there's enterprise level there's small.
So, you know, that's it is definitely an
area that's difficult to to, you know,
get yourself heard amongst the noise and
it's great to take that and focus and
say um this is always people come back
to the idea of having your avatar, your
ideal customer and saying this is who
I'm serving and focus on that. I think,
you know, people talk about uh riches in
the niches and some of those kinds of
things and and niching down, but it's
not about
shrinking your your available customers
as much as it is is making sure that
you're laser focused on the customer
that's going to most benefit from your
product. And uh I've seen that a lot
where people sort of go and have done it
myself and I think Michael's done it as
well where we we go through these
iterations of like okay we're going to
give it a shot and then we back off
because it's not quite what we want to
do. So we'll you know we re sort of like
you know recuperate reset and say okay
now we're going to take a shot and then
we you know maybe it doesn't succeed and
so we come back all right so now we're
going to take a shot. But I think each
time you learn, and that's one of those
key things is that incremental each time
you do it, you're further along. You've
learned more and you've hit the, you
know, one of the things I've I've often
said, which is why developer is what it
is, is that developing and creating
tools is not going to get you everything
you need. You have to actually get on
the entrepreneur side, the business side
of it, and understand that, okay, we've
got a product, we've got to be able to
deliver, we've got to be able to sell
sell it and market it, and we've got to
be able to, you know, have all of the
things that are involved with that. So,
it's really uh it's really fascinating
to hear you you talk about this so much
in line with, you know, what we we talk
about very often, turning you into like
almost I guess you may almost be like
our avatar, you know, like our ideal
kind of of of person out there in the
audience. that's saying, "Okay, we're,
you know, you're going through it. You
got some skills, and then now you're out
there and doing it on your own."
>> Can I can I ask you then, um, since
you've talked to more people who, um,
are in this kind of same phase, what are
some of the skills that great developers
or engineers have um or are lacking when
it comes to the entrepreneurship side?
So, uh, that they don't learn when
they're becoming great developers, that
they have to learn quickly when they're
bringing it all together.
>> I think the biggest one is um, honestly,
especially senior engineers, and I've
even suffered from this in my career a
little bit, is actually listening to
your customers. Finding out who your
customer is and listening to them
because it is is too easy for us to say
this is what needs to be built. these
are the requirements and then you put in
front of somebody and you you're not
listening to what their feedback is
where they say well yeah this is great
but these are some things that it would
would make it easier to use and a lot of
times we hear this is great so and then
the butt just sort of gets lost in you
know in the static uh and I think that I
think you um you alluded to earlier is
the
um being personally tied to what we
build uh we've actually had I think
almost whole seasons where we've talked
about some of this where it's it is very
hard to be a creator and then have
somebody say that your baby is ugly. But
that's not you know we need to not look
at it that way but instead to hear oh
you've built something and somebody
cares enough that they're giving you
feedback and so take that and say okay
I'm going to serve that person by
building that feedback back into into my
solution. And it's you when you're
building it for yourself, that's one
thing because you you know if you like
it or not and you can iterate through
stuff and you can wash away the warts
and stuff like that because you say,
"Well, at least it's doing what I want
it to do." But if somebody's paying for
a product or a service, then they have
expectations and you have to remember
that that's part of it. And particularly
I think coming out of corporate we'll
call it corporate America you know being
an employee
I think I think one of the hardest
things figure out how to direct yourself
how to organize your time how to know
what your priorities are because it's
you laid it out like you'll have a
project manager or a manager that says
this is the project you're working on
these are the requirements this is the
design this is this is how it goes and
we love to complain about that as
developers and say well nobody does it
right they're not doing this right they
didn't do enough of this they did too
much of that. But when we do it
ourselves
now all of those things that we I'll
call it got for free now have
disappeared. We don't have a team. We
don't have other people to ping stuff
off of. We don't have uh software, you
know, all the tools and all of that kind
of stuff. We don't have the freedom to
take a day off unless we like now we're
not getting paid when we take a day off.
So there's it's a lot of those things
that um I think we run into and it
really is it's just like that's why I
love the idea of a side hustle is like
forcing yourself to to a schedule even
of like I'm going to spend 5 hours a
week on a Saturday let's say and and do
this work and I'm going to make sure
that I'm making it productive because
otherwise it's really easy for it to
your backlog to never get addressed.
>> For sure. Well, you might
>> Yeah. The other the other problem with
that is
um and I've run into this multiple times
where you have this idea, you build this
product and you've got a customer in
mind and then you go out to find those
customers and you're not finding the
right people or you're not getting the
right customer. You're talking to
people, yes, but the people you're
talking to aren't your ideal customers.
So the feedback you're getting can lead
you to scope creep or you end up
changing your product to serve the wrong
customer. And you got to be careful of
that. Especially
this is your third iteration. But really
at any iterated process or anytime
you're doing this starting a side
hustle, starting a business, you have
this vision. You have this idea of your
application. You you may have already
written the application. You have to be
careful. As Rob mentioned, you have to
listen to yes, we like this, but and you
do have to pay attention to the butt.
You want to listen to the feedback. You
want to listen to that criticism to find
out, are you in the right niche? Is your
product really serving the customer that
you're after, but again, you also have
to listen to make sure that the customer
you're trying to serve that you're
talking to those customers and you're
not talking to the wrong customer. It
it's kind of like that old saying, you
know, build a better mousetrap and
you'll lead the world to your door. The
problem is there are too many mousetraps
out there. You don't necessarily want to
flood a market and be the app of
everything because you'll be the app for
no one because there's too much
competition. You want to make sure that
you find that niche that your software
is serving a purpose. it's solving a
problem and that you're getting in front
of the right people for them, you know,
for to solve their problem and make
their lives better.
And that is where we're going to pause
this interview. Uh don't worry, we are
not done. Uh Tyler is going to continue
to pick our brains while we continue to
pick his. It's just a great little thing
going on here. Had a great conversation
with him. really appreciate his time and
uh the questions he asked were were
excellent and uh the experience that
he's brought that that he shared. I
really uh really appreciate that he's
he's opened up and and given us some of
that and just sounds like a great guy to
follow. So definitely uh reach out. The
links will be in the show notes and
things like that. So uh reach out, say
hi and uh maybe he can help you also be
more productive and get to whatever
product it is that you are creating.
That being said, it's time for us to
wrap this one up. We will be back before
you know it with our next episode. But
go out there and have yourself a great
day, a great week, and we will talk to
you next time.