aaronfrancis.com

The personal internet homepage of

Aaron Francis

Software developer, educator, keynote speaker, podcaster, and more.

Introduction

I'm Aaron Francis, VP of Marketing and Community at Laravel. I'm also a software developer, educator, keynote speaker, podcaster, conference emcee, content creator, and purveyor of fine educational material like faster.dev and Database School.

I also build products, like Solo, your all-in-one agentic development environment.

But none of that matters compared to this: I'm husband to a wonderful wife and father to a set of five-year-old twins, and a set of almost-three-year-old twins.

Yes, two sets of twins. Impossibly hard, impossibly great.

I'm very online. You can find me posting about databases, books, studios, my family and some philosophy on Twitter, making videos on my YouTube channel, laughing a lot on the Mostly Technical podcast, and not doing too much on LinkedIn.

Below, you'll find links to some of my favorite works, and then links to almost everything I've ever done.

Selected work
  1. TalkYou Can Just Do Things - Laracon 2025My talk at Laracon US 2025 in Denver. It starts with this: if you've ever felt like you don't quite belong at a Laracon, you're wrong. You belong here!
  2. EssayPublishing your work increases your luckBy putting yourself out there, you increase the chances of something good and unexpected happening to you.
  3. EssayBecome known for a thingIf you want more opportunities to come your way, become known for one specific thing.
  4. EssayWhat if you tried hard?I wonder what would happen if you tried really hard.
  5. TalkDatabase performance for application developersI gave a talk called "Database Performance for Application Developers" at a Laravel conference.
  6. EssayEfficient MySQL pagination using deferred joinsA slight modification to traditional offset/limit pagination that can drastically boost performance.
  7. ProjectIndoor Rock WallClimbing wall built for the kids.
Fig. 1 — The author
Newsletter

Every week: the best things I've found and what I've been thinking about.

 

Contents
  1. 01About meMy work, my family, and things I care about.
  2. 02Weekly newsletterEvery Friday I send a newsletter about the things that are on my mind and things I found online. Subscribe or read back issues.
  3. 03NowAn always-up-to-date description of what I'm doing.
  4. 04Social linksAll the places you can find me online.
  5. 05ThingsSome of the things (physical and otherwise!) that I use and like.
  6. 06ListsThings that work when they're broken, the best fountain Diet Cokes, etc.
  7. 07EssaysThings I have written.
  8. 08Podcast guest appearancesAll of the podcasts I've been a guest on.
  9. 09Public speakingPlaces at which I've spoken or served as emcee.
  10. 10ProjectsThings I've built and maintain.
  11. 11Personal YouTubeWeb development videos, mostly about Laravel.
  12. 12Database School YouTubeVideos about databases and related concepts.
  13. 13Database School PodcastVideos about databases and related concepts.
  14. 14The Mostly Technical PodcastA weekly podcast about Laravel, life, business, and more.
  15. 15TutorialsTechnical articles I've written.
  16. 16CoursesEducational courses that I've recorded.
  17. 17RSSSubscribe to the content of this website
Colophon

Set in Tiempos and IBM Plex Mono on a 22px baseline. Every module is cut to whole 44px cells, and each one's coordinates are measured live.

Thanks for spending a little of your day here.