All Play w/ Ryan Hefner

Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rLRNnlzIOQM

I connected with Vercel this past week to discuss how I could both optimize and try to control the costs that https://www.starterpacks.net was accumulating. I did walk away with some techniques that I will try on the next site I launch on Vercel where I need to try to maintain a consistent bill. Most notably:

• Fluid Compute is good and does reduce function use/chaos
• ...

Unfortunately I missed my milestone of getting an early release of https://www.skylounge.social deployed during Release Day. But, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. It’s kind of hard to run when it feels like you have a knife in your stomach and you don’t know how to stop the bleeding.

I dig into what attempts I made to optimize the NextJS App for https://www.starterpacks.net to utilize fewer resources on Vercel (spoiler alert...

A quick update on this glorious hump day, just in time before I head out to the Atlanta PHP meetup (https://phpxatl.com).

Tomorrow, May 21st at 11:30am EDT I’ll be chatting with Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com) about his recent launch of Instrumental Components (https://instrumental.dev). Join us in the stream and if you have any questions for Brian or myself you can get them answered live!

Subscribe and join the stream:...

I listened to a podcast episode back on January 30, 2025, and there are 3 little words that have been bouncing around in the back of my head ever since whenever I turn on the mic to stream or record, "oil your chair".

The podcast episode was from Justin Jackson (https://justinjackson.ca) and Jeremy Enns (https://jeremyenns.com) on their Podcasting Marketing Trends Explained (https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/podcast-marke...

Some quick updates on the status of https://www.starterpacks.net and announcing the new project that I am working on!

Since the last update, the crawlers have been crawling—HEAVILY—accessing the site over 24M 👀 times. Needless to say, my Vercel bill is going to be a little higher this month, but 🤞 it will be worth it. Since the last update where the number of indexed pages jumped from 3k to 17k, since the last episode tha...

You can also watch the video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/ENFM-pQK5iM

A quick update about some recent updates I pushed out on https://www.starterpacks.net. In the last episode, I announced the addition of the Quick Starter Pack Editor to the site. Since then, I have rolled out a few tweaks to make it nicer, like preventing duplicate entries to be added to new Starter Packs—even though those were never duplicated when ...

After a few weeks away I am back with some fresh updates that have been deployed to Starter Packs (https://www.starterpacks.net). The first—and best feature, imho—is the Quick Starter Pack Editor. This feature makes it easy to add people to your existing Bluesky Starter Packs in as little as 3 clicks (maybe more if you want to add them to multiple packs at the same time). This was a feature that I had wanted to add to the ...

Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WNmupzrWcAA

What goes into setting and justifying your SaaS (Software as a Service) pricing? I had the goal of getting subscription plans setup for https://www.starterpacks.net before a queued job I had running to backfill data that I needed to support those plans was done processing. I ultimately did get the Stripe integration setup, along with defining the plans and everything ...

The queues are up and running on Starter Packs and I have roughly 2 days before they are done, so my goal is to get all the pricing and subscriptions integrated into the site before they are done. I also dig into some background on getting the queues working in the NestJS app, and how I had to tune them to get them running efficiently—and fast!

Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DzHzOaR_lDA

To follow along, you can...

While I was working on some updates for Starter Packs, I ran into an authentication bug that I wanted to fix. As I was working through the bug, and deploying the updates, all of a sudden my feature branch on Vercel stopped loading pages properly, but not all pages. In this episode, I dig into facing and overcoming obstacles that get in the way of making real progress on the project you’re working on.

Watch on YouTube: https...

After last week’s Jam Session with Brian Casel, I was on the fence on which project I wanted to commit to in 2025. After that conversation, and a little reflection, I realized that I wanted to see Starter Packs through to the original vision for the project. Also, the amount of effort to get it there—I think—will be less than I had originally thought, now that some of my client work has chilled out a bit.

With that said, I ...

Welcome to 2025! I have been kind of having mixed emotions going into the new year, doing a lot of reflecting and projecting what I want to achieve this year. Definitely feeling mostly excited, but also a bit nervous.

I get into creating my new LLC, Commune Software (https://commune.software), looking forward to the live stream today with Mubs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckaGzVTvx98) talking all things side projects an...

Tis’ the season for introspection, self reflection, and projections for what the New Year will hold. Today I share some background into my process of reflecting and projecting on the things I need to get done, along with some ideas on how I plan on expanding and refining that process.

If you have a process you use to help yourself get better I would love to hear it. Please, connect with me on Bluesky, or hit me up on Twitte...

So, what do you do when you start to run into walls, or slow downs, on the project you’re working on? I feel like I am at, or approaching one of those slow downs, and am trying to get ahead of it.

Since my last update when I announced Starter Packs, I have been busy continuing to build the logged out experience of the site. Focusing on gathering as many references as possible to the Starter Packs on Bluesky, and coming up w...

Wow, it’s been over a month since my last episode. That’s not due to me being too lazy, if anything just the opposite. I have been thrashing around on projects, but I would like to introduce you to my latest project that is piggy backing on the mass migration to Bluesky.

Just after the election, it seemed like the draw for a new platform that was a little less Elon and a little more move on was needed, and a lot of people f...

How do you apply and reserve your fuel for the things you are working? That’s what I am wrestling with today. Typically, I reserve these early morning sessions for my personal stuff, so I can take advantage of the fresh tank of brain juice to pull from. I feel like with personal projects there’s always more critical thinking and personal hesitations that get in the way of getting things done that it takes that extra boost ...

Since today is International Podcast Day, I figured it was only fitting to try to get an episode out today. Thankfully I have something very topical to announce today as well, a new podcast! Last week I streamed and posted the first episode of, Jam Sessions: Public Edition, or just, Jam Sessions.

A few episodes back I had announced Jam Sessions: Private Edition, the podcast that I plan on hosting on Ripple.fm. The point of ...

During my run this morning I was thinking about all the different projects I have up in the air, and how some of those can help to provide a foundation, or utility, to the other projects that I am working on, but at the same time can feel like a waste of time to work on in the moment. Then, out of no where, I started to think about the construction of a spiral staircase.

At the start of the project, you have the choice to e...