Best Indie Stacks Podcasts (2025)

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419: The Missing Piece in Your Validation Strategy 20:09

Play Pause

13h ago20:09

20:09

A lot of early-stage founders have understood—mostly because more and more people are talking about their early-stage strategies—that you need to validate your ideas. You need to make an effort to figure out if the thing you're planning to do is actually reasonable to attempt. Validation is important and absolutely worth doing prior to building. Th…

1
How Olivia Muenter Went From "Recovering Influencer" to Bestseller 57:33

18h ago57:33

57:33

Debut novelist Olivia Muenter joins Book Gang to discuss her hit debut, Such a Bad Influence, and the dark side of online fame in her real and imagined worlds. What happens when your child becomes famous? In Such a Bad Influence, Olivia Muenter pulls back the curtain on the innocent early days of a fictional family's online moment that went viral, …

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Engineering in the Age of Agents with Yechezkel Rabinovich 50:05

1d ago50:05

50:05

Modern software platforms are increasingly composed of diverse microservices, third-party APIs, and cloud resources. The distributed nature of these systems makes it difficult for engineers to gain a clear view of how their systems behave, which can slow down troubleshooting and increase operational risk. groundcover is an observability platform th…

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Static Analysis for Ruby with Jake Zimmerman 47:13

2d ago47:13

47:13

Dynamic languages like Ruby, Python, and JavaScript determine the types of variables at runtime rather than at compile time. This flexibility allows for rapid development and concise code, but it also makes it harder to catch certain classes of bugs before execution. Type checkers for dynamic languages add structure and safety without compromising …

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The Raven Naelo Saga Continues with "Mortal Guardian--Into the Inferno" on the Sunbury Press Books Show 27:43

7d ago27:43

27:43

The Mortal Guardians are preparing for war, but for Raven Naelo, this battle is personal. A necromancer has taken a fellow Guardian captive, and stolen the corpse of Raven's sister. Raven's rescue mission is underway, but it's going wrong. In a world where allies are scarce and the enemy is at hand, Raven's magic has now become erratic, even danger…

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418: Why AI-Generated Code Hurts Your Exit 16:20

8d ago16:20

16:20

We're living through a fascinating moment in software development. AI coding tools can build features faster than ever before. They can scan entire codebases, spot things we might miss, and implement changes across dozens of files in seconds. It's incredible. But there's something we need to talk about. Something that's quietly accumulating in our …

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How Fanfic Led Ashley Jordan to a Reese's LitUp Fellowship 37:58

8d ago37:58

37:58

Author Ashley Jordan joins Book Gang to share her LitUp Fellowship journey to launch her debut, Once Upon a Time in Dollywood, and how fanfiction paved her path. Ashley Jordan, a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow, joins us this week to share the story behind her sparkling debut Once Upon a Time in Dollywood—a romance that pairs laugh-out-loud humor wi…

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Scaling AI in Enterprise Codebases with Guy Gur-Ari 52:05

8d ago52:05

52:05

The rise of language-model coding assistants has led to the creation of the vibe coding paradigm. In this mode of software development, AI agents take a plain language prompt and generate entire applications, which dramatically lowers the barriers to entry and democratizes access to software creation. However, many enterprise environments have larg…

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SED News: NVIDIA Bets on Intel, Meta’s Demo Crash, and Anthropic’s Explosive Growth 53:23

10d ago53:23

53:23

SED News is a monthly podcast from Software Engineering Daily where hosts Gregor Vand and Sean Falconer unpack the biggest stories shaping software engineering, Silicon Valley, and the broader tech industry. In this episode, they cover NVIDIA‘s $5B investment in Intel and $100M stake in OpenAI, Meta’s stumble with its AR glasses demo, and the surpr…

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"The Scent of Violets" Author Joe Regenbogen on the Sunbury Press Books Show 26:57

14d ago26:57

26:57

A bomb rips apart the home of an older couple in Bloomington, Illinois during an otherwise peaceful summer evening. The target: a Jewish couple who found love in the Sobibor concentration camp during World War II. Motivated by antisemitism at a time when the American Nazi Party challenged the US Supreme Court, the perpetrator, Michael undergoes an …

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417: The Best Tech Stack in the Age of AI 15:56

15d ago15:56

15:56

A couple of years ago, I tweeted that “the best tech stack is the one you already know.” To this day, this is one of my most resonating tweets. People keep bringing it back, and founders who've been around for a while seem to particularly agree with it. But AI changes things. Or does it? This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddl…

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Unmasking Hysteria in The Mad Wife with Author Meagan Church 1:01:30

15d ago1:01:30

1:01:30

Author Meagan Church unpacks the hidden lives of women in her chilling novel, The Mad Wife, as we explore the history of hysteria in women's health diagnoses. If you loved Meagan Church’s historical fiction, you’ll be captivated by the bold turn she takes in The Mad Wife, her third novel. Rooted in the untold medical stories of women’s lives, this …

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Orkes and Agentic Workflow Orchestration with Viren Baraiya 46:44

15d ago46:44

46:44

Modern software systems are composed of many independent microservices spanning frontends, backends, APIs, and AI models, and coordinating and scaling them reliably is a constant challenge. A workflow orchestration platform addresses this by providing a structured framework to define, execute, and monitor complex workflows with resilience and clari…

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Turbopuffer with Simon Hørup Eskildsen 50:36

17d ago50:36

50:36

Vector search has become a foundational technology for AI applications, enabling everything from semantic code search to contextual retrieval for large language models. However, a major challenge with vector databases has been the cost as data storage scales. Turbopuffer is a vector database that focuses on speed, cost and scalability. It was creat…

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The History Stacks: Brady Crytzer discusses the American Revolution 29:04

21d ago29:04

29:04

On this edition of "The History Stacks," Dr. Lawrence Knorr invites Brady Crytzer to discuss the American Revolution and his quest to not only keep this part of history alive, but to make it accessible for those interested. A professor of history at Robert Morris University, Crytzer is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Revolution, …

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416: The Ownership Paradox: What Do You Really Control in Your Software Business? 19:12

22d ago19:12

19:12

As I'm building yet another software service business after having built and sold one back in 2019, I keep wrestling with a fundamental question that might sound simple but has profound implications: What do I actually own in this business? This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfoun…

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This Physician Shares Her Indie Publishing Journey 1:01:17

22d ago1:01:17

1:01:17

Curious about indie publishing? Physician Paria Hassouri shares her debut journey to publish Harvesting Rosewater, centering a woman's midlife awakening. If you’ve ever been interested in the independent publishing process, you’re not alone. Today’s revealing conversation with Paria Hassouri, a pediatrician, whose debut, Harvesting Rosewater, recen…

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Building an Indie Hit in Godot with Jay Baylis and Tom Coxon 42:22

22d ago42:22

42:22

Cassette Beasts is a turn-based monster-battling RPG that lets players record creatures onto cassette tapes and transform into them during battle. The game was an indie hit, and is also one of the most successful games built with the open source Godot Engine. Jay Baylis and Tom Coxon are the creators of Cassette Beasts at Bytten Studio. They join t…

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Rethinking GraphQL Frontends with Robert Balicki 38:00

25d ago38:00

38:00

A challenge in modern frontend application design is efficiently fetching and managing GraphQL data while keeping UI components responsive and maintainable. Developers often face issues like over-fetching, under-fetching, and handling complex query dependencies, which can lead to performance bottlenecks and increased development effort. Relay is a …

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"When the Stars Were All I Had" Author Hilary Hauck on the Brown Posey Press Show 41:58

28d ago41:58

41:58

Hilary Hauck has created detailed, researched, and yet thoughtful novels that take the reader to parts of the world they may have only read about or seen in films. She has firsthand experience; self-described as an "Italian-speaking Brit living in the US," Hilary has traveled throughout the world and lived in Italy for twelve years. Her writing enc…

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415: Handling Multiple ICPs as a Solo Founder 20:14

29d ago20:14

20:14

This is something I've been wrestling with at Podscan, and I know many of you face the same challenge: you're building a product that could serve two, three, maybe even five different ideal customer profiles. And you're trying to figure out how to keep them all balanced—or whether you should even try. This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is spon…

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This Lambda Finalist Novel Will Break Your Heart 58:01

29d ago58:01

58:01

In Anyone's Ghost, August Thompson captures the ache of growing up while growing as a writer after his hard-won pursuit of the MFA program at NYU. How do you write a coming-of-age story that's both deeply vulnerable and slyly funny, all while resisting clichés about queerness and masculinity? August Thompson joins me to talk about his debut novel, …

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pnpm with Zoltan Kochan 36:23

30d ago36:23

36:23

Traditional package management systems for JavaScript have faced several inefficiencies related to dependency storage, resolution, and project performance. pnpm is a fast, disk-efficient package manager for JavaScript and TypeScript projects, serving as an alternative to npm and Yarn. Due to its efficiency and reliability, pnpm is increasingly popu…

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SurrealDB 3.0 and Building Event-Driven AI Applications with Tobie Morgan Hitchcock 55:18

1M ago55:18

55:18

Modern application development often involves juggling multiple types of databases to handle diverse data models. The lack of unification can lead to complex architectures with attendant security concerns and fragmented development workflows. SurrealDB is an open-source, multi-model database developed in Rust and integrates functionalities of many …

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Sunbury Press Books Show--Rev. Dr. Reginald Davis discusses his new book, "We Need Each Other--To Transform America" 26:26

1M ago26:26

26:26

In a life of service, Rev. Dr. Reginald Davis feels a nation's problems must be solved by one and all, and his belief that through the Word of God this can be attained. "We Need Each Other--To Transform America--The Call for Unity to Solve Our National Problems Together," from the Scriptoria Press imprint, examines what Dr. Davis has experienced, a…

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414: The Pure Amateur is Vanishing: Why Everyone's a Performer Now 23:08

1M ago23:08

23:08

I was recently reading an article about The Great British Baking Show - or Bake Off, as we fans of this fun TV competition call it. It was written by someone who had been on the show, one of the competitors, and they were talking about how looking at the show from the inside made them realize something profound: there are no real amateurs anymore. …

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How Lake Union Helped Shape The Sideways Life of Denny Voss 1:06:57

1M ago1:06:57

1:06:57

In The Sideways Life of Denny Voss, Holly Kennedy brings humor & heart to a neurodivergent hero, sharing how Lake Union Publishing shaped her journey. What happens when good intentions collide with messy realities? In The Sideways Life of Denny Voss, Holly Kennedy introduces us to Denny, an unforgettable, neurodivergent character whose big heart an…

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Angular with Jessica Janiuk 51:03

1M ago51:03

51:03

Modern web development faces several challenges, particularly when building scalable, maintainable, and high-performance applications. As applications grow, managing complex user interfaces, and ensuring efficient data handling and modular code structures, becomes increasingly difficult. Angular is a TypeScript-based web framework developed by Goog…

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SED News: Perplexity’s Chrome Play, Meta’s AI Freeze, and Intel Becomes Too Big to Fail 48:45

1M ago48:45

48:45

SED News is a monthly podcast from Software Engineering Daily where hosts Gregor Vand and Sean Falconer unpack the biggest stories shaping software engineering, Silicon Valley, and the broader tech industry. In this episode, they discuss Perplexity’s headline-grabbing offer to buy Google Chrome, the U.S. government’s large stake in Intel, Meta’s ab…

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The History Stacks: Steven Richard Smith talks about "The Boys of Rubber City" 31:49

1M ago31:49

31:49

Steven Richard Smith has lived through several "careers," all which have led to literature, both as an author and a teacher. A former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent in the 1990's in California, Smith returned to Ohio to seek his twin passions. Smith earned his Master of Arts in English from the University of Akron. He created the gam…

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413: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Moat 25:15

1M ago25:15

25:15

You know that moment when you realize the ground has shifted beneath your feet? I had one of those moments recently. I was watching an AI agent build out a complex feature for Podscan in about twenty minutes – something that would have taken me days to code properly just a year ago. And it hit me: the rules of the game have fundamentally changed. T…

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How Aftertaste Lands the Genre-Bending Magic 58:22

1M ago58:22

58:22

In her dazzling debut novel Aftertaste, Daria Lavelle takes us on a sensory journey where food, grief, & romance intertwine in this inventive ghost story. What if you could taste the ghosts of the people you've lost? In this intimate conversation, Daria shares how her Ukrainian heritage, her childhood food memories, and her love of genre-bending st…

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Context-Aware SQL and Metadata with Shinji Kim 41:38

1M ago41:38

41:38

A common challenge in data-rich organizations is that critical context about the data is often hard to capture and even harder to keep up to date. As more people across the organization use data and data models get more complex, simply finding the right dataset can be slow and create bottlenecks. Select Star is a data discovery and metadata platfor…

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Modern Data Visualization with Robert Kosara 49:22

2M ago49:22

49:22

Data visualization is increasingly important as organizations prioritize data-driven decision-making. Tools that transform complex datasets into intuitive, interpretable visualizations are arguably just as critical as the data itself. Robert Kosara is a Data Visualization Developer at Observable which is a platform for creating interactive data vis…

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From Disney’s “Where’s My Water?” to Solo Indie Dev Success: How Creativity and Persistence Built a Game Career, with Tim “Walaber” FitzRandolph 1:21:34

2M ago1:21:34

1:21:34

In this episode, we dive deep into Tim’s creative journey behind Disney’s hit mobile game Where’s My Water? and what it really takes to break into and succeed in the game industry. From starting out in QA testing to leading creative teams at Disney, and later becoming a successful solo indie developer, Tim’s conversation is packed with insights, st…

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"The Way We Used to Walk" Authors Megan Engelhardt & Mark Beall on The Brown Posey Press Show! 55:15

2M ago55:15

55:15

"What happens when the saviors of the world are falling apart at the seams?" Fifteen years ago, six college housemates unwittingly opened a portal which unleashed monsters upon the world. Of the six, only Charlie touched this portal, and has paid the price, in the loss of his family. In addition, his friends' memories of the incident were erased. N…

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412: The $0.20/Day AI System That Converts Trial Users Into Paying Customers 25:11

2M ago25:11

25:11

It took me a long while to realize this: AI isn't just something like a chatbot for my customers. AI can work behind the scenes to facilitate getting the right stuff in front of the right people for me, even just to figure out who people are and how I should talk to them. And today, I want to share exactly what I'm doing, how expensive this is to r…

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The Rise of the Airport Novels With Tellthebeees 57:22

2M ago57:22

57:22

TikTok creator and pop-cultural sleuth Josh Lora (TellTheBeees) helps us build the ultimate Airport Novels book list to carry you through your next flight. What makes a perfect book to snag in the airport bookstore? In this fun episode, TikTok creator and pop-cultural sleuth Josh Lora (TellTheBeees) helps us create the perfect book list to get you …

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A Conversation with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels 48:15

2M ago48:15

48:15

Werner Vogels is the Chief Technology Officer at Amazon, where he has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s technology vision for over two decades. Before joining Amazon in 2004, Werner was a research scientist at Cornell University where he focused on distributed systems and scalability, both of which are concepts that would later influen…

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Redis and AI Agent Memory with Andrew Brookins 48:36

2M ago48:36

48:36

A key challenge with designing AI agents is that large language models are stateless and have limited context windows. This requires careful engineering to maintain continuity and reliability across sequential LLM interactions. To perform well, agents need fast systems for storing and retrieving short-term conversations, summaries, and long-term fa…

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The History Stacks: Michael L. Hawley talks of Jack the Ripper 28:09

2M ago28:09

28:09

Michael L. Hawley has become an authority on the mass murderer known as Jack the Ripper, and his contributions have brought us closer to finding out his true identity. He is the author of several books on the subject and related matters, which you may find at his author page. His titles include Jack the Ripper Suspect Dr. Francis Tumblety, and The …

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411: The Currents of a Founder 19:05

2M ago19:05

19:05

I was reading Brandon Sanderson's latest novel, Wind and Truth, when I came across a sentence that stopped me cold: "A stronger current makes for stronger fish." That's it. That's what entrepreneurship is. We're constantly encountering currents that either facilitate what we want to accomplish—the businesses we want to build, the lives we want to c…

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These Memorable Older Characters Wowed Us 39:49

2M ago39:49

39:49

Join Cindy from Thoughts from a Page as we explore unforgettable books featuring older characters. These are her top five picks that deserve space on your TBR. The All‑Star Book Influencer Series is back, and I can't wait to introduce you to more incredible voices in the literary community. Our guests include podcasters, bookstagrammers, and BookTu…

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Complex Workload Deployment with Will Stewart 39:25

2M ago39:25

39:25

Deploying and managing cloud workloads is a complex task that requires developers to handle infrastructure, scaling, CI/CD pipelines, and database hosting. Configuring and maintaining Kubernetes, ensuring smooth deployments, and integrating various services efficiently is a common challenge. Will Stewart is the co-founder and CEO of Northflank, whi…

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Empowering Cross-Functional Product Teams with Tobias Dunn-Krahn and Doug Peete 46:28

2M ago46:28

46:28

Modern software teams typically rely on a patchwork of tools to manage planning, development, feature rollout, and post-release analysis. This fragmentation is a known challenge that can create friction and slow down software development iteration. It’s especially problematic for cross-functional teams, where differences in roles, expertise, and wo…

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"Into the Red Realm" Author Joseph Mazerac on the Sunbury Press Books Show 24:35

2M ago24:35

24:35

The second volume of The Castatine Chronicles, Into the Red Realm carries on Joseph Mazerac's series that effortlessly combines young adult fiction, coming of age, adventure and fantasy on Sunbury's Milford House Press imprint. In book one, Into the Attic of the World, Charles Miller and his friends join the ageless Captain Kid on an adventure thro…

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410: Building for the Age of AI Consumers 23:34

2M ago23:34

23:34

I think we're at the precipice of a pretty significant change in how we build software products. Obviously, the recent ascent of vibe coding and all the agentic coding tools that we find very useful and highly effective shows a difference in how we approach building products. But there's another change - not just in how we build, but in who these p…

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The Best Midlife Books to Inspire Your Next Chapter 57:50

2M ago57:50

57:50

There is nothing more transformative than midlife stories, and Renee from It's Book Talk & More joins me to explore the books that reshape how we see this stage. The All‑Star Book Influencer Series is back, and I can't wait to introduce you to more incredible voices in the literary community. Our guests include podcasters, bookstagrammers, and Book…

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Carbon and Modernizing C++ with Chandler Carruth 1:02:13

2M ago1:02:13

1:02:13

Carbon is a programming language developed by Google as a successor to C++, and it aims to provide modern safety features while maintaining high performance. It’s designed to offer seamless interoperability with C++ while addressing shortcomings of C++ such as slow compilation times and lack of memory safety. Carbon also introduces features like a …

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409: James Phoenix — Claude Code Masterclass 59:26

2M ago59:26

59:26

James Phoenix is an expert in agentic coding, particularly Claude code, a tool that I have been using to great effect over the last couple months. I chatted with James just a couple days ago and have implemented several of the tips that he gave me during a conversation, and I'm already almost twice as effective at using this already magically effec…