Pulse
By madewithlove
PulseJan 24, 2023
From CEO to CTO and a horror story with Arnout Van de Meulebroucke
In today's episode, we have an extraordinary story to share with you. Joining us is Arnout van den Meulebroucke, the founder of Phished, a European market leader in cybersecurity and cyber awareness.
Arnout started Phished as a solo founder, juggling multiple roles, from CEO to CTO, and even sales. But the real twist in the tale came when their main vendor suddenly gave them a shocking 30-day notice to leave their premises. Arnout and his team faced a challenging transition, and we'll dive into how they navigated this unexpected turn of events.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with Arnout from Aalst, Belgium, currently residing in my hometown, Leuven. Welcome to the podcast, Arnout.
On hiring and rehiring with Jason Fried
In this episode, Jason Fried (Founder of 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY) discusses the concept of the "trust battery," a metaphor for the level of trust between individuals in a company.
Together with Andreas, they delve into the idea of "rehiring," where managers should ask themselves if they would hire a person again after a year or not. Jason also shares insights into Basecamp's hiring process, emphasizing the importance of enthusiasm and fit rather than just skills.
They also talk about the company's history, products, the rare instances of rehiring former employees, the importance of mentoring, and the philosophy of "hiring slow, firing fast."
This episode of Pulse is all about the relationship between employees and the company, aiming for a sense of enthusiasm and growth potential.
Hope you'll enjoy it!
On the Evolution of Technical Teams with Steve Tauber
Today, Andreas and Steve talk about the Evolution of Technical roles in software teams. What does the ideal team look like? What is the role of the CTO, CEO, and VPoE? What is the role of the Engineering Manager? Do you need pods? What about shipping vertically? What happens with the CTO when the product or the team grows? Find out right away!
On technical debt with Jonas Drieghe
In this new Pulse podcast, Andreas Creten talks to his colleague Jonas Drieghe of madewithlove, a senior developer that excels in working in legacy code. They discuss the topic of technical debt in this episode.
Technical debt refers to suboptimal decisions made under the pressure of time, lack of knowledge, or skills, resulting in the difference between what was created and what could have been created in ideal circumstances.
Technical debt is categorized as managed or unmanaged, with the former being covered by tests and allowing for controlled changes. The latter is often invisible and can be like a black hole.
Managing technical debt properly is crucial because it can lead to more significant problems, such as the team leaving, creating a cascading problem that becomes a nightmare for a company. While engineers are closest to the issue, everyone is responsible for solving it. However, management teams often prioritize new features over technical debt, so allocating a percentage of time for engineers to work on technical debt can prevent it from becoming a significant obstacle to product development. It's important to differentiate between legacy code and technical debt, as not all legacy code needs to be fixed, but technical debt can hold back progress. The key is to focus on cleaning up the areas blocking progress while introducing new features.
Employee lifetime value with Leslie Carr
As the founder of madewithlove, I am always looking for ways to improve our company and culture. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Leslie Carr, the head of engineering at Pando, to discuss two important topics: giving feedback and employee lifetime value. Welcome to a new episode of Pulse, the lifeblood of the SaaS software industry!
Hiring & retaining talent with Simone Eret
Welcome to Pulse, the heartbeat of the SaaS software industry. Your host, Andreas Creten, CEO of madewithlove, is excited to bring you an interesting episode where he will be joined by Simone Eret, recruiting manager at madewithlove.
Together, they will unveil the secrets of hiring and retaining the best talent in the software industry. From the art of identifying the perfect candidates to the science of building a culture that keeps them engaged and motivated, they will take you on a journey. Whether you're a hiring manager, a team lead, or just someone looking to elevate your own hiring process, this episode is a must-listen. So, come along and join Andreas and Simone as they delve into the world of talent acquisition in the software industry.
The blogpost: https://madewithlove.com/blog/pulse-the-podcast/pulse-episode-9-hiring-and-retaining-talent-with-simone-eret/
Outdated documentation with Christophe Pasquier
In this episode of Pulse, Andreas talks with Christophe Pasquier, founder, and CEO of Slite, about documentation and its lifetime. They also discover a new startup idea when discussing managing and maintaining documentation. Sit back and enjoy the show if you want to get started with proper documentation!
About our brand new book: Free Range Management, with Steve Tauber
This episode is a special one! Andreas and Steve talk about the book they recently wrote: Free Range Management. They outline the content, explain free range management, and share why they wrote this handy book.
More information on the book can be found on this page: https://freerange.management/
Technical Due Diligence with Johann Romefort
In this episode, Andreas and Johann discuss the importance of conducting technical due diligence, the key components of the process, and how it can help startups make informed decisions. They both discuss their approach to technical due diligence with startups, broken product processes, and the evolution of technical roles (mainly that of the CTO). Enjoy!
If you are interested in more, check out Johann's checklist on preparing for tech due diligence.
Between Us - Remote retreats
In this episode, we’re not gonna discuss something technical like we usually do, but we’ll talk about remote retreats. Back in October, with madewithlove, we organized our first remote retreat, something we usually do in real life, but it was obviously not possible last year.
Mike Veerman
Mike Veerman is a software strategist from Belgium. He has tremendous experience in building products and managing engineering teams, and he will enlighten us on how things should be done to get the best results when building software. We'll also talk about a blog article he wrote last year, and that was heavily debated inside madewithlove.
Between Us - PHP
In today's podcast, we're between us again, and we're gonna talk about that famous programming language called PHP. PHP has quite a long history already, and for some reason, it doesn't have a great reputation among some developers who consider it a thing of the past. So, is PHP still a thing? Or to be blunter, is PHP dead? To answer that question, I asked two of the best PHP people I know to join me today: Wouter Sioen and Jonas Drieghe, both software engineers at madewithlove, the latter slowly becoming a regular on this podcast.
Between Us - Refactoring
Jeremy Le Van
Pilot - Andreas Creten
Andreas Creten is the co-founder and CEO of madewithlove, a web application development and technical consulting company based in Leuven, Belgium. Andreas has been working at madewithlove for 11 years and has been the CTO in 22+ companies and counting.