Isaak Tsalicoglou, Author of Northwind Elixir Traders
Isaak Tsalicoglou - In this episode, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp interviews Isaak Tsalicoglou about his book Northwind Elixir Traders. They discuss Isaak’s journey from digitalizing his family business to diving deep into Elixir and Ecto, the joys and challenges of functional programming, and the psychological side of learning and writing technical books. The episode explores how curiosity, creativity, and persistence shaped Isaak’s engaging and educational approach.
In this Leanpub podcast episode, co-founder Len Epp interviews Isaak Tsalicoglou, author of Northwind Elixir Traders: Learn Elixir and database modeling with Ecto and SQLite, all in one project. They discuss Isaak’s professional background in digital transformation, how a conversation with a friend sparked his obsession with functional programming, and why Elixir stood out as a powerful and elegant language for modern software development.
Isaak explains how his book combines real-world business logic with hands-on technical learning by recreating the classic Northwind database in Elixir using Ecto and SQLite. The conversation also explores his passion for education, his iterative writing process, and the balance between accessibility and technical depth when writing for developers.
They touch on the open-source mindset, and the psychological elements of learning and productivity. This episode offers both practical programming insights and inspiration for anyone interested in combining creativity, entrepreneurship, software engineering, and writing books.
This interview was recorded on May 24, 2025.
The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/FM310-Isaak-Tsalicoglou-2025-03-24.mp3. The Frontmatter podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/frontmatter/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.
This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.