John NunemakerEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

John Nunemaker is a Rails developer, entrepreneur, and indie hacker behind Flipper Cloud, Boxout, and Fireside. He joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about managing a portfolio of products at different stages of growth, how AI has transformed his development workflow, and the unique opportunity (and anxiety) that this moment in tech represents. Related Links Flipper Cloud Boxout Fireside Momentum (South Bend entrepreneurship hub) John on X / Twitter Articles mentioned: Something Big Is Happening AI isn't coming for your future. Fear is. 75 Years of AI Adoption

In this episode of Rooted & Reaching, Marty speaks with serial entrepreneur John Nunemaker, Partner at Fireside.fm, to explore the winding path of building meaningful work. John shares insights from his entrepreneurial journey and the role he’s played in shaping the startup ecosystem across the South Bend and Elkhart communities. Their conversation touches on the importance of flexibility, curiosity, and choosing passion over pure profit. John reflects on how a strong work ethic, grounded in purpose, can sustain entrepreneurs through changing seasons of business. Marty and John discuss the power of collaboration, community, and mentorship, while reminding us that even in a tech-driven world, traditional craftsmanship and human connection still matter. RESOURCES Fireside.fm: https://fireside.fm/?ref=johnnunemaker.com CONTACT Martin Mechtenberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-mechtenberg-515a648/ Mentioned in this episode: Hello Home

Chad catches up with John Nunemaker, self-employed programer on a plethora of products, about all things technical to gain insight into life as a self-employed developer. The pair share their experiences as rail devs and what keeps them using Ruby, John’s journey to success, his recent acquisition of Fireside (the podcast platform that hosts this very podcast!) and the lessons he learnt along the way. — If you’re interested in any of the projects John mentioned in this episode, you can head to them directly here - Fireside Podcast Hosting - BoxOut - Flipper Alternatively you can keep up to date with the work that John does through his website , podcast , or by connecting directly with him through LinkedIn . Your host for this episode has been Chad Pytel. You can find Chad all over social media as @cpytel, or over on LinkedIn . If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page , or check out our website . Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@giantrobots.fm This has been a thoughtbot podcast. Stay up to date by following us on social media - LinkedIn - Mastodon - YouTube - Bluesky © 2025 thoughtbot, inc. Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

This year, I want to expand the show in a new direction. I want to hear from startups and companies that are building with Rails. Today's episode feature John Nunemaker and Garrett Dimon who recently acquired Fireside.fm, the podcast hosting platform we use for this show. We talk about what it's like taking over a Rails app that was under different ownership! Show Notes [p3.dev](op3.dev) [verygoodsoftware.company](verygoodsoftware.company ) [flippercloud.io](flippercloud.io) [John's Website](johnnunemaker.com) [Garrett's Website](garrettdimon.com)

Josh and Ben catch up with John Nunemaker after Rails World and dig into John's recent acquisition of Fireside.fm, the podcasting platform created by Dan Benjamin. What's next for John? In short, he's curating some Very Good Software™. https://www.johnnunemaker.com/acquiring-fireside/ https://www.johnnunemaker.com/how-to-find-a-business-partner/ https://danbenjamin.com/ http://sifterapp.com/ https://www.indierails.com/

Josh and Ben are joined by John Nunemaker to discuss their recent trip to Detroit for RailsConf, as well as the announcement from RubyCentral that 2025 will mark the final RailsConf (though not the last Rails conference!). Later in the episode, Josh and Ben reveal the outcome of their Honeybadger Insights launch goal and discuss the team's last dev cycle. John also shares an update on his work with Flipper! Links: Chartkick Frictionless Generators Flipper todo_or_die gem heya gem Userlist John Nunemaker Last RailsConf announcement and survey Detroit People Mover FounderQuest Mastodon - @FounderQuest@honeybadger.social Twitter - @honeybadgerapp Honeybadger

John Nunemaker is a long-time Rails developer known for his writing on the RailsTips blog, his open source gems like HTTParty and Flipper , and his work at Ordered List, GitHub, and now Box Out Sports and Fewer & Faster . He joins us to share about his developer journey, the origins of the Flipper gem, and the creation of Flipper Cloud . Relevant Links Website Twitter GitHub Box Out Sports Flipper Cloud Fewer & Faster Speaker Deck RailsTips Flipper HTTParty

[00:03:25] We get to know more about John, what he does, what he’s built, and what he’s most famous for. [00:08:52] John fills us in on what Flipper is. [00:13:04] Jason talks about how they’ve been using groups to do a stair-step rollout within the company, and John tells us about a new thing coming out that’s going to replace groups that will be easier. [00:14:21] Andrew explains more about Trunk Based Development. [00:16:23] John details more about Flipper rules that he’s working on. [00:28:38] Andrew asks John if Cloud has metrics around what feature flags are being hit, and John tells us a project he wrote recently called “brow.” [00:31:55] John fills us in on the very interesting watch app he’s building. [00:41:18] Chris tells us about The Clock of the Long Now. [00:44:06] Find out where you can follow John online. Panelists: Jason Charnes Chris Oliver Andrew Mason Guest: John Nunemaker Sponsor: Hook Relay Links: Ruby Radar Newsletter Ruby Radar Twitter John Nunemaker Website John Nunemaker Twitter Flipper Box Out Sports Trunk Based Development Ruby Gems brow 0.4.1 The Watch Archive-South Bend Watch Company 1 1908 The Watch Archive-South Bend Watch Company 2 1912 The Clock of the Long Now Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

In this episode, John Nunemaker and I discuss what it's like to work at GitHub for seven years, and how Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub impacted John's job and career. John Nunemaker.com John Nunemaker on Twitter John Nunemaker on GitHub John Nunemaker on Instagram

Dave Kimura, Luke Stutters, and John Epperson talk with John Nunemaker about Rails Authorization. John dives into the Pundit and how he had created a wrapper around the authorization to provide meaningful messages to his application layer. Panel Dave Kimura John Epperson Luke Stutters Guest John Nunemaker Sponsors Dev Influencers Accelerator Raygun | Click here to get started on your free 14-day trial Links Rails: How to Reduce Friction at the Authorization Layer GitHub | palkan/action_policy FlipperCloud Multiple Resources with Devise Picks Dave- Docker Desktop for Mac [Apple Silicon] Dave- Apple Mac M1 John E.- Archer C7 | AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router John N.- GitHub: Andrew Kane ( ankane ) John N.- GitHub | ankane/pghero Luke- $60 for an 800GB PCIe SSD, and it'll last forever???- YouTube Luke- Fans Luke- GitHub | picoruby/picoruby Special Guest: John Nunemaker. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ruby-rogues--6102073/support .

John Nunemaker joins Brian and Benedikt to talk about his journey as a founder and the various product he's built, launched, sold, and reaqcuired over the years. John on FounderQuest Harmony Gaug.es Flipper Cloud Speaker Deck Box Out Sports Fewer and Faster John’s Website John on Twitter

Show Notes: Links: John Nunemaker Website John Nunemaker Twitter Flipper Cloud Speaker Deck Scientist Full Transcript: Ben: So today we have a special episode of FounderQuest. We have John Nunemaker with us, instead of Starr. Starr was taking a break today. And Josh and I are going to be chatting with John, and talking about the fun things that John's doing. John, I got to start off by saying that I'm a huge fan. I've been following your work since the Harmony days, back at Ordered List, I guess that was ... I don't know when that was, 2000 and something. John: '07, 8, yep. Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So I think I got introduced to you through the Rails community, being back in the early group. So I don't remember how exactly we bumped into each other back then. But I remember Harmony was pretty cool, and the other stuff you did with Ordered List. Josh: Yeah. Josh: I was newer to the Rails world back then. So both of you are Ruby celebrities to me. So yeah, it's cool. It's cool to have you here. John: Thanks so much. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. I feel the same way about you guys. Especially I remember I was at RailsKits. Ben: Yep. John: I remember ... Yeah. Josh: Yeah. John: I remember that. I remember a bunch of the stuff back in the day. And is it Stympy, or something? Website? Ben: Yeah. John: Yep. Ben: Yeah. John: Oh, yeah. That stuff sticks out. Josh: Nice. Ben: Nice. Nice, cool. Fanboys all around. It's awesome. And you're a prolific open-source author. We have in fact two of your gems in our app right now. We have nunes, and we have httparty running in our app. So thank you for those. John: That's awesome. Josh: Yeah. John: That's really cool. Ben: Yeah. I love nunes. And I love the description of it. It's like, "This is the monitoring app I would add to your app if I was working with you." John: Yeah. I feel like stuff like that, I get lucky and it sticks. But it's just this moment where I'm like, "I got to come up with some kind of a description. I really don't want to do this. What should I put?" And then it's like, "This is what I would. I would do this if I were you." So I'm just going to put that as my description and peel out. Ben: It's cool. But I think the ... We're not going to talk about this much today. But I just wanted to toss this in here. And I think one of the projects that you've done that I'm most interested is probably one there is least information out there about. And that's Haystack at GitHub. John: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I can answer any questions related to that too. On air, off air, whatever you want. Yeah. Ben: Awesome. John: Yeah. I worked on that for a little while. I didn't build it, but I tuned it a bunch. Josh: Remind me what Haystack does. John: It was the exception tracker- Josh: I remember now. Yeah. Cool. John: Yeah. Yep. Josh: I have built a few of those. John: Yeah, I don't know if you guys have heard of exceptions. Ben: Yeah, we did a little bit in that line. But yeah, I remember reading some of your blog posts about Haystack, and I was kind of jealous. I was like, "Oh, man. It'd be cool if we got GitHub as a customer." But yeah, I totally understand why you'd have something totally internal and custom to what you do there at GitHub. John: Yeah. I still always wonder if they still have ... I need to reach out to people who are still there and ask. I'm always curious what technology has lasted and what hasn't, and stuff like that

John Nunemaker, creator and maintainer of HTTParty and Flipper, regaled Brittany with tales of why he loves Ruby & Rails, his change of mindset on being an open source maintainer and how a post-install hook can inspire even the most grumpy of developers. Links for this episode: Box Out Sports - The Best Sports Graphics Solution Fewer and Faster - Measure, Improve and Repeat Speaker Deck - Share Presentations without the Mess jnunemaker/httparty: Makes http fun again! jnunemaker/flipper: feature flipping for ruby Episode Introduction and Outro by Michael Springer Episode Music: "Funkorama" by Kevin MacLeod Brought to you by: Hoefler&Co A good font is one of the best ways to make your project stand apart. At typography.com , you'll find the work of Hoefler&Co , creators of stylish and high-performance typefaces. And now for a limited time, as a Ruby on Rails listener you'll receive 10% off your next purchase from H&Co. Use code RUBY for your discount at checkout!