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TitreDateDurée
Adam Wathan: how small startups hire employees (Tailwind CSS)04 Jun 202401:34:42

How do founders of small bootstrapped companies hire new employees?

Adam Wathan got over 1600 people who applied for two new roles at Tailwind Labs (a small team of six people). They ended up hiring two people, but neither of them actually applied. This wasn't how Adam expected (or hoped) this process would go. There were lots of surprising takeaways and lessons learned from the whole experience.

"If you figure we spend 5 minutes on every single application, that was like 133 hours straight reading applications. Processing these job applications was basically my full time job for 2 months." – Adam Wathan

Links:

Have feedback on this episode?

Timestamps:

  • (03:40) - What's the size of Transistor and when did you last hire?
  • (05:24) - How did you meet or find your employees?
  • (07:12) - Adam's process for hiring
  • (12:44) - The energy required to process applications
  • (17:32) - What got people in to the 100 list?
  • (21:03) - Did Adam get any videos in applications?
  • (24:49) - Previous employment was a good indicator
  • (30:16) - Painting a picture of what the position looks like
  • (32:02) - The kinds of people who applied
  • (34:52) - How did the application process work out?
  • (38:52) - The kinds of questions we asked applicants
  • (42:25) - Does a great conversation impact a hiring decision or not?
  • (49:24) - Does having the position open in public help?
  • (51:36) - How Adam was connected to the people they hired
  • (59:31) - The importance of conference conversations
  • (01:02:20) - Finding ways to share your work in public
  • (01:06:11) - The process does work... just not this time
  • (01:12:30) - Could I ever get comfortable with a 70% success rate?
  • (01:20:53) - Bringing in someone you knew vs a fan
  • (01:26:45) - Keeping a tab in different areas to pull from

Thanks to our monthly supporters

  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Is ONCE enough?10 Feb 202401:10:58

A panel discussion on 37signals' first ONCE product, the launch of Campfire ("pay for it once, install it, and run it on your own server"). Ian Landsman, Tyler Tringas, and Justin Jackson share what they expected to happen before the launch, what did happen, and what it means for indie hackers and bootstrappers who want to launch SaaS companies. Is this the end of SaaS?

Links:

I want to hear your thoughts:

If you listen to the episode, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts:

  • Can you think of a low-price, pay-once, on-prem software product that's succeeded? (The only one I could think of was ​Statamic CMS​)
  • Do you think a different Once product might have made more sales? What kinds of products do you think might work?
  • Did you buy Campfire? What did you buy it for? Are you using it as a chat tool for your company?
  • Other thoughts on our discussion.

👉 ​Leave a voicemail here​

🐦 Reply on Twitter


Timestamps:

  • (00:00:00) - "I appreciate that 37signals exists."
  • (00:01:58) - 37signals' influence in the bootstrapped startup space
  • (00:03:58) - What did we expect from the Campfire/Once launch?
  • (00:06:23) - DHH's tweet on Campfire sales – is that what we expected?
  • (00:09:49) - The Once model, philosophy, and Campfire's history
  • (00:17:21) - Misconceptions about what IT Managers want
  • (00:19:49) - How Campfire was marketed and positioned
  • (00:26:01) - Basecamp's PR, virality, and audience 
  • (00:28:29) - Can you do customer research to validate demand?
  • (00:32:01) - The volume of sales as a success metric
  • (00:33:33) - The Potential for Campfire's expansion
  • (00:37:37) - Distribution opportunities with hosting providers
  • 00:39:31) - The intuition behind HEY Email's success
  • (00:43:42) - The Value of an Audience and Customer Overlap
  • (00:45:12) - The Compounding Advantage of Longevity
  • (00:49:54) - Scorecard

Thanks to our monthly supporters

  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Act now before it's too late: Section 17428 Mar 202300:33:10

Michele Hansen (co-founder of Geocodio) is raising the alarm about Section 174. This legislation could dramatically increase your tax bill this year if you're a small software company in the USA. Michele is organizing a response through the Small Software Business Alliance.

👉 ACT NOW:

  1. Sign up for Michele's list
  2. US citizens: tweet and call your Senators today. They need to know that this is a small business issue and that small businesses in their state are hurt by Section 174.
  3. Share the ssballiance.org URL with your founder friends.

In this episode:

  • (01:37) - What is section 174?
  • (04:37) - What's the benefit to the government for this change?
  • (08:58) - Section 174 is bad for every company that builds software
  • (11:23) - Disclaimer: We're not tax accountants
  • (12:16) - What is the SSB Alliance?
  • (14:00) - Small businesses are the cute puppies of the policy world
  • (22:00) - A practical example
  • (25:25) - This is going to impact small software businesses
  • (28:31) - What can we do?
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
You can't put me in a box21 May 201900:36:06

Happy Two-Four ya hosers! After a Canadian long weekend, Jon and Justin convene to talk about:

  • Justin thinks non-alcoholic drinks are going to be huge.
  • Jon just shipped an update that puts RSS feeds on a CDN.
  • We're still struggling to "find the time" to work on big features.
  • Building things slowly vs BEING IN A RUSH!

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: You can meet the support team at balsamiq.com/support - they're awesome people.
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Ivan Curkovic
  • Brian Rhea
  • Miguel Piedrafita
  • Shane Smith
  • Austin Loveless
  • Simon Bennett 
  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Wrestling with our company's growth14 May 201900:43:42

Jon and Justin are wrestling with thoughts about growth:

  • "Our current rate of growth is nice: it feels sustainable." – Justin
  • "It feels less sustainable for me, because I'm working a full-time job." – Jon
  • We’re able to keep up with demand, and enjoy the process.
  • There are all these stories about folks whose companies are growing like crazy. They’re just always adding more people, more process, more stress. Do we want that?
  • Peldi tells this story about starting Balsamiq. He said his launch was like “holding on to a rocket ship with his fingernails.”
  • Some folks would say we should be capturing more of the market. There’s this idea that you can’t be satisfied with what you have. That you have to juice every bit of growth you can.
  • But then you’re building all of these dependencies that you have to keep up even when the market goes down.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: If you’d like to help in make Balsamiq Wireframes better, and help them shape the future of wireframing, join their Customer Advisory Board at balsamiq.com/support/makeusbetter
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Miguel Piedrafita
  • Shane Smith
  • Austin Loveless
  • Simon Bennett - SnapShooter
  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Burn it all to the ground07 May 201900:49:00

Jon and Justin are back from Portland and wrestling with ideas, bots, and CMSes:

  • Justin's spouse wants to know why we wouldn't sell for $5 million (and each get $2.5 million)
  • Jon found some bot traffic that we need to eliminate from our analytics, and it's giving him a Postgres headache.
  • Justin is trying a bunch of different CMS options: Vapid, Statamic in an effort to get off WordPress.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Miguel Piedrafita
  • Shane Smith
  • Austin Loveless
  • Simon Bennett - SnapShooter
  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Keeping the dream alive in Portland30 Apr 201900:37:20

Jon and Justin do a founder retreat in Portland with Darby Frey and Shay Howe (Lead Honestly). We hashed out some ideas for:

  • How do you start building a really big feature?
  • What does version 1 of our "dynamic content" feature look like?
  • Setting up Mixpanel: creating event triggers, funnels, and onboarding.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Shane Smith
  • Austin Loveless
  • Simon Bennett - SnapShooter
  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
The "charge more" debate23 Apr 201900:58:56

If you're struggling with pricing your app, listen to this episode! Ben Orenstein, Jordan Gal, Patrick Campbell, and I discussed whether "charge more" is always the right answer.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Shane Smith
  • Austin Loveless
  • Simon Bennett - SnapShooter
  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Taylor Otwell: "PHP (and a cheap laptop) changed my life"16 Apr 201900:57:48

Jon is away so Justin called up Taylor Otwell, the creator of Laravel. In this episode we covered:

  • How Laravel become the most popular backend framework on GitHub.
  • Surprise! Taylor wasn't really into computers before he created Laravel.
  • What was Taylor's motivation? Why did he create this, even though there were other alternatives?
  • What's Laravel's secret? Why did it succeed?
  • How is Laravel a business? How does it earn revenue?
"Before Laravel, there were a lot of programmers that were burnt out on PHP. These folks hated their job. But after Laravel, they enjoyed their job more. It helped them in a personal way."


Here's the timeline we discussed:

  • 2010: Taylor starts working on Laravel.
  • 2011: Taylor launched version 1.0 of Laravel.
  • 2013: Taylor launches an ebook
  • 2013: Start working on Forge
  • 2013: First Laracon conference (90 people)
  • 2014: Launches Forge at Laracon (240 people)
  • 2014: after a month he had 1000 customers, $90k / ARR almost right from launch. (He thought it would maybe make $2-$3k / month). Plans started at $10 / month.
  • End of 2014: decided to go full-time on Laravel.
  • 2015: Full-time on Laravel, developed a competitive nature, really driven to see Laravel 
  • 2015: Launched Envoyer.io 
  • 2016: Launched Spark, as a “SaaS starter kit.”
  • 2016: First full-time employee, Mohamed Said.
  • 2017: Launched Laravel Echo, Passport, Notifications. 
  • 2017: Second hire, 
  • 2018: Laravel Nova.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Simon Bennett - SnapShooter
  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
The market for your startup matters09 Apr 201900:46:44

Jon's away! Today I talked to Spencer Fry, from Podia about:

  • How do you find a good startup idea?
  • What are the worst types of companies to start?
  • Should you raise money or bootstrap?
  • Why the target market for your product matters.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Corey Haines
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
  • Dan Buda
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Balsamiq.cloud
  • Clubhouse.io
  • GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
When should bootstrappers get paid?02 Apr 201900:45:22

Recorded on April fools day! Here's what we covered:

  • If you're bootstrapping, when should you get a salary?
  • An update on the worst day ever. (We're fine now)
  • A SPECIAL SURPRISE
  • "It feels like there is this convergence in podcasting and I don’t know what to do about it."
  • Anxiety and insecurity about "missing out on better opportunities."

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Worst day ever26 Mar 201900:51:09

On Sunday, we had a service outage. Jon and Justin talk about what happened:

  • TLS / SSL day of horror
  • Sunday morning Justin started getting messages from a few Android users that they couldn’t download episodes.
  • Then, the afternoon hits, and we started getting a flood of tweets, DMs, text messages, and support requests.
  • We talk about how we fixed it, and what we'd like to change for next time.
  • Also: how we're earning 29% of our SaaS revenue. (A channel we didn't expect)

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.
  • Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Pro athletes are mocking me on the internet19 Mar 201900:48:38

Lots of interesting items this week:

  • Justin got a personal message from an NFL player
  • Jon moved everyone over to the new CDN
  • Podcasting has a lot of confusing paradigms for users
  • It took two days of transferring files (just under 1TB)
  • Justin signed up for the Transistor as if he was a customer
  • He live-streamed the whole thing (got tons of good input from live chat)
  • Jon is wondering how we're going to handle hate speech on the platform

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.
  • Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
This would kill our company immediately21 Mar 202300:38:31

Jon's back from his first real vacation in years. In this episode, we discuss how we've been removing inactive accounts on Transistor, SVB, Section 174, Revin is shutting down their Merchant of Record service, SaaS sales tax compliance:

  • (00:37) - Jon in vacation mode
  • (02:30) - Kicking off inactive accounts
  • (04:30) - Silicon Valley Bank
  • (06:06) - What is Mercury bank?
  • (13:16) - Section 174 in the USA
  • (19:05) - Sales tax compliance update
  • (25:56) - What could we do?
  • (32:13) - Patreon integration update
  • (34:57) - MyPodStudios
  • (36:33) - Patreon Thanks

Links:


From the Revin email:

“The most relevant reason [we are closing] is that the Merchant of Record model is too risky for both sellers and the MOR operator. Sellers bear the risk of platform shutdown (as seen in the example of Flurly & Stripe), and the MOR operator could potentially become involved in illicit or illegal activities quickly, which could lead to all sorts of problems.

Furthermore, it became increasingly clear that the Merchant of Record model primarily appeals to small-scale sellers or businesses with questionable and high-risk business models. This presents a significant challenge as we strive to move up the market.

The recent change in Stripe's risk behavior has caused us to experience issues with keeping Stripe accounts live.”

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Do startups need specialists or generalists?12 Mar 201900:45:51

Good stuff this week:

  • Justin wants to know: when's the last time you changed your business' homepage?
  • Jon does a deep dive into Apple's podcasting docs.
  • Justin built a status (uptime) page for Transistor using Tailwind.
  • Jon thinks there is enterprise demand for private podcasts.
  • Justin chats about Startup Kung-Fu.
  • They both chat about specialists vs generalists.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.
  • Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Full-on sweatpants mode05 Mar 201900:46:39

Good stuff this week:

  • Jon ran into Myke Hurley at the Cards Against Humanity office.
  • Whether you should work from home or the office.
  • Spotify analytics update in Transistor.
  • How do you feel about "walled gardens?"
  • Sometimes the best plan is to do nothing. Just wait and see what happens.
  • Billing updates for delinquent customers
  • Did someone try to phish us on-air?

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.
  • Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Did we solve our bandwidth cost crisis? 26 Feb 201900:44:10

Jon and Justin share their progress on:

  • The bandwidth / CDN cost problem (and how it might affect our profitability).
  • Marco Arment: "It would cost them probably thousands of dollars a month in bandwidth and CDN costs to host our show."
  • We made a decision on whether we'll take investment now. (Hats off to Earnest Capital, TinySeed, and Indie.VC for offering such great options!)
  • Should founders use their savings to fund their company? What about credit cards?
  • When should we start hiring people?
  • What about government-funded community loans for startups? ~9% interest.
  • Nathan Barry: "You should get a loan when you don’t need it because once you do it won’t be available."
  • Our accountant might be a socialist. ;)
  • Can you really "build something out of nothing?"

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Counting beans and getting hit by a bus19 Feb 201900:48:34

This week, Jon and Justin are wrestling with some heavy startup founder topics:

  • What should your SaaS company's gross margins be?
  • How much is bandwidth going to cost us? How does it affect our margins?
  • Example: [Account A] does 495,000 downloads in a month, average file size is 8 MB, that’s 3960 GB of bandwidth in a month. If bandwidth is $0.01 per GB, that’s $39.60 just for bandwidth for that one account. And that’s if we can get it that cheap. Otherwise, we’d pay $198 on AWS, or Azure. If we used Google Cloud it’d be $316.
  • The burden of keeping our service up rests on Jon's shoulders. How can we reduce the risk?
  • How can we increase platform resiliency, automation, and improve our internal customer service tools?

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • GetRewardful.com: Guess what? Affiliates is providing almost 30% of our revenue. Rewardful makes it easy for SaaS companies to start an affiliate program on Stripe.

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Is this the best time to start a podcasting startup?13 Feb 201900:51:19

Dave Zohrob, the CEO of Chartable, chats with Justin about bootstrapping a startup in the podcast space. We cover:

  • Why Jon and Justin started Transistor
  • Navigating co-founder relationships
  • How to stand out and build a podcast audience in 2019
  • Our thoughts on Anchor (this was recorded pre-acquisition)

This is a re-broadcast of the Chartable Radio podcast.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Getting real: sharing our founder struggles05 Feb 201900:43:16

In this episode:

  • Jon and Justin open up about the challenges of bootstrapping "on the side." 
  • How things have gotten harder (in some ways) now that we have customers.
  • Jon is finding it hard to juggle his day job, and getting time to build the "big features."
  • Justin flip-flips back and forth about investment. Would investors and advisors meddle too much?
  • We also discuss the Spotify rumors: buying Gimlet for $200 - $230 million?
  • Also, a theory about why Apple should have made Gimlet an offer.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
How to grow your audience29 Jan 201900:42:23

In this episode, Jon and Justin discuss the golden rule for growing your audience. This could mean:

  • How to get more paying customers for your software product.
  • How to get more followers on Twitter.
  • How to get more podcast listeners.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Alitu.com
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Dan Ericson
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Podcastinsights.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Should startups worry about their competition?22 Jan 201900:44:12

In this episode Jon and Justin discuss talk about how you should think about your software product's competition.

Why you shouldn’t focus on the competition

  • It’s a distraction. The main point by many folks is: “when you focus too much on the competition, it means you’re not focusing enough on your customers.”
  • It causes anxiety.“Last summer, I stopped[reading industry news]. I had just reached the point at which I could feel an unhealthy level of toxicity piling up inside of me. I felt myself getting too involved, too absorbed, and a bit too anxious about what I was missing, and about what I knew or didn't know, but thought I should know. I was checking Twitter too often and reloading sites too often. If someone told me about something I hadn't heard of, I felt like I should have already known about it. Industry news was becoming an addiction.” - Jason Fried
  • It’s too tempting to copy features. “Copying skips understanding. Understanding is how you grow. You have to understand why something works or why something is how it is. When you copy it, you miss that. You just repurpose the last layer instead of understanding all the layers underneath.” – Jason Fried
  • It can lead to feature creep. company A is doing this, company B is doing that, so let’s do them all. also, paralyzing indecision and no real thought about why you’d be building a feature.
“I wouldn’t advocate spending much time worrying about the competition — you really shouldn’t waste attention worrying about things you can’t control — but if it helps make the point relatable, the best way to beat the competition is to last longer than they do.” – Jason Fried


Why you should focus on the competition

  • It’s a way of understanding your customers. You should be aware of why customers are choosing (or not choosing) the competition. 
  • It’s more competitive now. I wrote a post about this.  “It's getting more expensive to build SaaS companies and exits are weak.” Mattermark, 2016. “We're not building these basic CRUD apps like we used to be able to. The stuff's too competitive now.” – Rob Walling. "No one wants to admit it, but the old ‘your product must be 10x better than existing solutions’ trope is dead. I think this is one of the most hostile times for startups that we’ve had, really. Products are better, and competition is enormous." – Zach Holman
  • It’s a way of revealing opportunities. “Everybody's drilling for oil in the same spot because some other guy found oil there already.” – Nick Quah. What’s everyone else missing? Where’s the untapped well?
  • You’re stealing time, attention, and money from somebody, and it’s not always who you think!(Article) When Uber launched, they stole customers from the taxi industry. When the iPhone launched, Apple took customers from Kodak and the film industry.

How to think about the competition

  • SWOT. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What are their opportunities? What are their threats? Do SWOT on yourself too!
  • User interviews. One of the best ways to do user research is to interview folks who are actively using the competition! What brought them to start using it? How’d they find it? What was going on in their life at that time? Why do they keep using it?
  • When people switch. If people switch away from you to a competitor, that’s a great time to ask questions. "The only two people who can give you real feedback about your product are people who just purchased it and people who just canceled.” – Jason Fried
  • Think about how you can outlast them. What are practices you can put in place that will help you outlast the competition? “Whenever a startup goes out of business, the first thing I get curious about are their costs, not their revenues.” – Jason Fried
  • Figure out how you can make things easier.How can you make your app easier to use than the competition?
  • Look for unmet desires. What are the unmet needs of users using competitors’ products? Search Twitter, support forums, etc for instances of people complaining. What are they complaining about?

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

Marketing tactics for your SaaS: how to get the word out15 Jan 201900:33:27

We received some product marketing questions from Nirav Mehta: 

  • How to get the word out about your SaaS?
  • Should you pursue partnerships?
  • How can you get distribution for your software product?
  • What marketing channels work best?

Build anticipation before you launch

One big opportunity many folks miss is building up anticipation before they launch. Examples:

  • Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger shared design tips on Twitter and on their blog for 6 months before they released their book, Refactoring UI.
  • Derick Reimer allowed people to “Claim their username” for Level.App before he launched. So far 5,787 people have registered.
  • Ben Orenstein talked about Tuple.app, his new product, on podcasts for months before they launched. 

Build a reputation for being helpful

  • Adam, Steve, Derrick, and Ben also have something else in common: they were consistently helpful to their respective audiences for years before they launched anything.
  • Being helpful now, in forums, on Twitter, in podcasts, on your blog, in your mailing list, at conferences, at meetups, in email, is an investment in your future.
  • It’s an advantage that can’t be easily copied or replicated.

Bake SEO into everything you do

  • The most underrated, and often under-pursued, grow strategy is investing in Search Engine Optimization.
  • “SEO is the biggest growth lever that you have and it's something that you should prioritize." - Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt”
  • Think about it, when people have a desire to solve a problem, what do they do? They Google it! If your product is the answer to people’s question, you want to make sure they can find it on Google. 

Quick SEO tips: 

  1. Explore what questions are asking on: Answerthepublic.com.
  2. Use a tools like Ahrefs.com on your competitors’ sites! See what keywords people are using to find their site, and what their most popular pages are.
  3. Make sure you have Google Search Console set up for your website. They have a new “Performance Report” that will show you what keywords people are using to find your site, and where you could rank better.
  4. Focus on what matters on each page:
    1. Main title - should feature the focus keywords, preferably at the beginning of the title.
    2. Subheader or first paragraph – expanded description, should also feature the focus keywords.
    3. Alt text in images – alt text was designed to show text when an image is not loading properly, or if someone has to use a screen reader. This text is read by Google as any other content.
    4. Meta description – a short, concise (usually 300 characters or less) description of a webpage, shown in search results.
  5. Keep a document on “blog post title ideas.” For example, I can see, through all my research, that “podcast distribution” is a good keyword combination to pursue. So I could write a blog post with the title: “Podcast distribution made easy - 5 steps.”
  6. Write these authoritative guide on a topic. Ben Orenstein noticed that there weren’t any good pair programming guides, so he wrote one! http://learntopair.com. These guides typically get shared a lot, which means you’ll get high quality backlinks to your site (which is important for SEO).
  7. People will also search for “[competitor name] alternatives.” Those are great keywords to target.

The big list of marketing channels:

  • Ads: Facebook Ads, Adwords, LinkedIn ads, etc. 
  • Partnerships: finding influencers that have a similar audience to you, and cross-promoting
  • SEO: getting backlinks to your landing page from other sites, and ranking for certain keywords
  • Content marketing: blogging, infographics, viral videos
  • Platform marketing: engaging in Facebook Groups, on forums, in comments threads
  • Direct mail: sending your prospects stickers, postcards, or letters by post
  • Events: attending tradeshows, conferences, and meetups and handing out business cards (or other swag) with your website address

Things to remember:

  • Marketing doesn't work like a jackpot. You're not going to hit that "one thing" that works and creates an avalanche of sales. Instead of "putting it all on black," it'd be better for you to diversify your marketing investments: you'll get customers from a variety of channels and tactics
  • Marketing is a lot like physical fitness. Small gains every week give you biggest gains in the long term. It's like hitting the gym once on January 1st and expecting to look like Arnold Schwartnegger. You've got to do something every week to get good results overall.
  • Last: for many of you, marketing is a big, hairy, ugly problem. And what's the best way to deal with a big overwhelming problem? Break it into smaller pieces.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Our predictions for 201908 Jan 201900:58:26

Jon Buda and Justin Jackson make predictions for the tech industry, the podcasting space, and the startup ecosystem.

Predictions for 2019

  • There will be a global economic downturn. Companies will be looking for more affordable marketing spend. Brands that don't have a strong relationship with their audience will lose.
    • This could be increase the number of companies who invest in podcasting. Audio is still a "good deal" compared to other communication channels.
    • Related: will we see the big “5” (Squarespace, etc) advertising less?
  • 2019 will be the year of non-gaming livestreaming. More programmers, business people, podcasters will be livestreaming. Plus: more audio-livestreaming.
  • Related: Podcasting without editing will become more popular. No intro music. Just recorded live with an outline, and published immediately.
  • Podcasting will grow to 800,000 shows. (Currently ~619,000 in Apple Podcasts)
  • In 2018 Spotify went from 10-25% marketshare of the podcast player market. I think it will grow again to 35%. (Justin admits he was wrong about this tweet).
  • Continued focus on "mindful technology." Very possible that iPhone will have a "dumb phone" mode: only texting, phone calls, and GPS. All other apps will disappear from your homescreen when enabled. 
  • Smart speakers will not have a big effect on podcast consumption. I think they will become more popular, but I don’t see people using them to listen to podcasts. (These folks think it will be big, I disagree. Currently 1% of listenership) 
  • Apple is going to make a big media move to challenge Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. It will finally break iTunes apart on desktop. Maybe we'll see a standalone desktop Apple Podcasts app?
  • More branded podcasts and production companies. (example)
  • Dynamic content (outside of advertising) will be bigger.
  • More traditional media brands will buy podcast related IP. Podcasts turning into → TV shows. For example: Homecoming on Amazon Video.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Alitu.com
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young (new)
  • Brad from Canada
  • Kevin Markham
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Brand Shouter
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Podcastinsights.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
One pepperoni pizza please01 Mar 202300:02:06

"I don't get it: if that money is for the government, how come the pizza place put it in their cash register?!?"

(Jon is on vacation - our next real episode is coming soon!)

Listen to our past episodes on the headache that is SaaS sales tax compliance:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
How to find the right customers for your software business19 Dec 201800:31:48

In this episode, we talk about the different types of customers for a SaaS:

  • B to C: selling to consumers. Here, we'd think of products and services like Verizon, iPhone apps, etc...
  • B to Prosumer: selling to prosumers. Prosumers are power users; serious hobbyists. Sometimes, they earn a bit of money from their hobby. Examples: a photographer who shoots a few weddings a year, a painter who sells a few paintings on the side, or a podcaster who has a few supporters on Patreon.
  • B to Aspirational: selling to aspirational business owners. Rob Walling uses Pat Flynn's "Smart Passive Income" audience as an example. Sometimes called "wantrepreneurs," these are folks who are willing to invest money in their business startup. 
  • B to very small business: selling to solopreneurs, or teams of 2-3.
  • B to small business: this is selling to regular small businesses. Loosely defined as teams of 10-100.
  • B to enterprise: depending on the industry, "enterprise" might mean any company with more than 250 people. However, "large enterprise" is probably 5,000+.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
  • Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Let's chat about the podcast industry13 Dec 201800:42:45

Justin gets interviewed by Harry Duran on the Podcast Junkies show, and answers questions about:

  • Is podcasting really having it's moment now?
  • Is now a good time to invest in the podcasting industry?
  • How is Transistor going to be different than other competitors?
  • Who should be starting podcasts right now?
  • Can anyone be a podcaster?
  • Is podcasting a "mindful technology?"

★ Thanks to our two sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Why does Jon need a co-founder?05 Dec 201800:42:33

In this episode Jon talks about why he decided to partner with Justin (even though he'd already built the product).

★ Thanks to our two sponsors:

  • Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
  • Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
How did you split equity in Transistor?27 Nov 201800:20:29

How did you split equity in Transistor? How do I start a podcast? How do you say Adam's name?

★ Thanks to our sponsor: podcastinsights.com

If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Colin Gray
  • Samori Augusto
  • Mike Walker
  • Brad (from Canada)
  • Darby Frey
  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Podcastinsights.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Interesting ways you can use a podcast20 Nov 201800:45:35

Why do you want to start a podcast?

Ideas on how you can use your podcast to reach your goals:

  • Private feed just for your team / employees
  • Q&A: get users, customers, audience to leave you a voicemail. Answer 1 question per week.
  • Interview your customers: interview 1 customer per week. Ask them about their business, how they’re using your product.
  • Expert tips: if you’re a professional (lawyer, accountant, coach), give your listeners an actionable piece of advice every week. Give them one thing to improve every week.
  • Read your blog posts: already writing a blog post ever week? Just read it “audible” style for your audience.
  • Recycle your best talks / videos.
  • Conferences: give attendees a private feed of all the talks!
  • Share your journey.

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Colin Gray – Alitu.com
  • Samori Augusto
  • Mike Walker
  • Brad (from Canada)
  • Darby Frey
  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Insulating our recording studio13 Nov 201800:40:23

Jon and Justin respond to the new funding options available for bootstrappers, mainly Earnest Capital.

The GP, Tyler Tringas, told us what types of companies he's looking to invest in:

  1. Organic customer acquisition channels
  2. Low levels of structural churn (ready to stay customers for a long period of time)
  3. Founder is a good fit
  4. Product launched and has revenue
  5. In a space that Tyler feels comfortable with

They're looking for a 3x-5x return from their investment; which they'll take from founder earnings. (Read more about that here)

Show notes:

What do you think?

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Samori Augusto - thebicrowd.com
  • Mike Walker
  • Brad (from Canada)
  • Darby Frey
  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
There's a new funding option for bootstrapped founders06 Nov 201800:47:42

Tyler Tringas recently announced Earnest Capital; a new way for bootstrappers to raise money for their startups. 


Should Jon and Justin consider this type of funding for Transistor?

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Mike Walker
  • Brad from Canada
  • Darby Frey
  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Your startup's expenses are too high30 Oct 201800:56:57

How much does it cost to run a SaaS in 2018? We take a look at our bootstrap expenses.

Every business accrues monthly expenses. The danger? Business owners can get in the habit of spending money, believing that "you gotta spend money to make money."

Transistor's expenses

  • Start up:
    • Logo and branding: $2,500 
    • Stripe Atlas: $500
    • Legal: $366.45  
  • Monthly expenses:
    • Editing: $320 / month
    • AWS: $300 / month
    • Media: $60 / month
  • Yearly expenses:
    • Domain: $100 / year
    • Incorporation: $200 / year
    • Accounting: $2k / year

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Brad from Canada
  • Darby Frey
  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
How'd you get into computers? (Apple II, PC clones, BBSes, CYBERSPACE)23 Oct 201801:12:44

If you used computers in the 80s and 90s you're going to love this episode.

  • Apple IIe in the school computer lab
  • The original Macintosh
  • "I wanted an Amiga so bad!"
  • The BBS scene: Wildcat, Roboboard/FX, being a SySop
  • Compuserve and AOL
  • Tandy 1000, 386, 486, building your own Pentium
  • Fave games: Commander Keen, King’s Quest, Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem, Raptor, Apogee Games
  • Our first websites: high school swim team website, snowboarding website (with a guestbook)
  • Our first computer businesses

It's a fun one. ;)

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Darby Frey
  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
You forgot $20,000 in your snowboard pocket10 Oct 201800:58:33

Here we are at episode 30! Just found this old 2012 interview with the founder of MailChimp, before they became a $4.2 billion company. This quotes is awesome:


Back in 2001, we had multiple customers who needed help sending their email newsletters. They were using really big, expensive, bloated software. We had some “scrap code” lying around, so we modified the code and turned it into an email newsletter app for them. We opened it up to the public, set up some Google Adwords, and basically forgot about it. Then, in 2005, we noticed it was a better business than our web-dev agency so we decided to take all of 2006 to wind down the agency business and beef up MailChimp’s features. We officially hit the “reset button” in 2007 and became a product company.


More recently, MailChimp was in Forbes:


Ben Chestnut and his cofounder, Dan Kurzius, have both profited richly from their patience. With $600 million in revenue, Mailchimp is in the black and has more than doubled its estimated valuation to $4.2 billion in the last two years, giving Chestnut, 44, and Kurzius, 46, its sole owners, stakes worth $2.1 billion each.


Even more interesting for us:


Mailchimp, launched in 2001 and remained a side project for several years, earning a few thousand dollars a month. Then in 2007, when it hit 10,000 users, the two decided to commit full-time. 


This was the part that surprised me: MailChimp was a side-project for 6 years (earning just a few thousand to start).


Especially interesting in light of this DHH quote I shared in a previous episode:


If it takes five years to get to the point where the business can pay two salaries, it's possible that the business isn't destined for that long-term.


Bootstrappers need to be more patient! (And maybe keep their day job)

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Super Fun SaaS Sales Tax (Part Deux)21 Feb 202300:46:13

Last week's episode hit a nerve! "The idea that every small software company in the world will be able to be in perfect compliance will every foreign federal, provincial, state, and municipal government that imposes a sales tax is ridiculous. It's an impossible task.

  • (00:11) - Follow up to previous episode
  • (02:32) - Responses we got about sales tax
  • (06:20) - A brief history of sales tax
  • (08:56) - Many vendors aren't collecting sales tax
  • (10:41) - What about Stripe Tax?
  • (12:35) - It's new to North America
  • (16:12) - How it affects subscription based businesses
  • (19:30) - It's not clear who's liable
  • (24:28) - Make it easier and gov't make more money
  • (27:58) - What about Merchants of Record?
  • (30:28) - Where is Stripe going?
  • (35:17) - What are going to do now?
  • (44:45) - Patreon supporters

Broadly, there were a few different camps with the responses we received: 
  1. North American SaaS companies who have been using Stripe:  "Yes! Sales tax compliance for SaaS is brutal."
  2. European SaaS companies that have had to deal with VAT for a long time (many of whom use a Merchant of Record).
  3. Smaller North American solopreneurs and companies who had no idea they needed to collect and remit sales tax internationally.
  4. North American companies who have one-time sales and use Merchant of Record services.

Responses from indie hackers:

  • European: “Once again, I notice that the indie hacking community has a somewhat naïve approach to what running a business actually entails. As a European, not having a plan for sales tax is... mindboggling.”
  • Cooper: “I think it might be a European perspective; we are dealing with VAT from day 1, so it's just one of the parts of running a business from the start, it can't really be neglected.”
  • Edwin Saraccini: “To clarify, [for Canadians] this is absolutely new territory (Debated in parliament for years) and recently put to legislation in 2021.”
  • Daniel Vassallo: “It's impossible to be compliant everywhere. The Kingdom of Tonga could tomorrow come up with an internet tax and require you to remit 25% of your sales to the tax office in person in their local currency. And they won't tell you about it. It's just a cost/benefit analysis.”
  • Derrick Grigg: “How can they enforce tax collection on a business they have no jurisdiction over? Governments are shaking businesses down. I’m all for collecting and paying properly where you physically operate but collecting and remitting outside your province never mind nation is a stretch.”
  • Derrick Reimer: “Dear Stripe: We SaaS founders are desperate for a full-stack global tax compliance solution without having to leave you for a merchant-of-record. Are you planning to solve this?”

Did you know...

"There are actually several different types of sales tax systems in use throughout the United States. The biggest difference is whether the seller or the purchaser is the main taxpayer. In some states, the tax is imposed on sellers, who then have the option of passing the tax along to their purchasers. In other states, the tax is imposed on the purchaser, with the seller being responsible for collecting the tax and remitting it to the state. And then there are other states where the liability for the tax is shared by sellers and purchasers." 


(Source)


New thoughts on Sales tax compliance

  • I still haven’t heard from anyone who has successfully migrated a “mature” SaaS from Stripe to Paddle or LemonSqueezy. These are no-gos:
    • Can’t cause more churn.
    • Can’t require customers to re-enter information.
    • Can’t change our checkout experience.
  • We might consider Paddle / LemonSqueezy if:
    • Their fees were more affordable (compared to our existing fees it would be ~$63K year more, $5,250 per month more)
    • Their dev experience had a better rating from the folks we know.
    • I had heard from anybody who was at our stage and had actually migrated successfully.
  • A few folks suggested Revin, which promises “simple global sales tax compliance for Stripe for only $499/month,”  but:
    • They have to “create a new Stripe account for your brand.”
    • Do they own your Stripe account?
    • You’ll lose your historical stats and revenue analytics
  • The current solution we’re considering is Stripe Tax + TaxJar (and start with US and Canadian tax remittance)

Thanks to our monthly supporters

  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
You drew a prototype on that napkin from Portland02 Oct 201800:50:15

After one failed attempt, we're back with a new episode. Sorry it's late!

"We, as the customer, are paying people who make apps so that their good work continues."

Responses from last week's episode: "What should our one main metric be for our SaaS?"

  • Adam: “Don’t focus on MRR. That’s a cop out. Focus on increasing downloads.”
  • Daniel: “Justin should get out and sell like crazy.”
  • Colin and others said: “Re-examine your pricing.”

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta


Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
What's the most important metric for a web app?25 Sep 201800:46:24

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our Patreon supporters:

  • Kevin Markham
  • Adam Duvander
  • Dave Giunta
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
We have some explaining to do18 Sep 201800:45:12

Jon and Justin are back from Portland and the XOXO festival.

In the last few weeks we've had a chance to interact with many of our customers in-person:

  • Nate Smoyer – "I’ve been using the podcast as a prospecting tool. Signed one dreams client two weeks ago. Interviewed with one yesterday. Got invited to lead a panel and live podcast for an industry event."
  • Kyle Marshall – Kyle's creating multiple shows for MediaLab in Calgary.
  • Matt Cassinelli and Alex Cox have a new podcast called Supercomputer.
  • Jaime Macías has a great show called Open Tabs.

How big is the podcast market?

  • How many podcasts are there? Over 550,000 shows on iTunes and over 18.5 million episodes.
  • 64% of the US population is familiar with the term “podcasting” – up from 60% in 2017 (Infinite Dial 18)
  • 44% (124 million) of the US population has listened to a podcast – up from 40% in 2017 (Infinite Dial 18)
  • 26% (73 million) listen to podcasts at least every month – up from 24% in 2017 (Infinite Dial 18)
  • 17% (48 million) listen to podcasts weekly – up from 15% in 2017

We recorded this episode live

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Your revenue forecast is wrong28 Aug 201800:45:47

What does "bootstrapping" mean really?

For most folks, bootstrapping means self-funding your business from revenues. It means not taking Venture Capital, not taking Angel funding. It's a little bit of a religion and like so many religions different people have different definitions of what it takes to "fit in." Some people say you can't even take money from friends and family. If you take any outside money, you're no longer a part of the bootstrappers club.

We recorded this episode live

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
The problem with podcasts21 Aug 201800:53:16

Nick Quah shared this in his recent newsletter, commenting about podcasts:

[I have] this feeling that everybody’s drilling for oil in the same spot because some other guy found oil there already.


Nick thinks podcasters have two options:

  1. Build something that does the same thing for the same audience, but do it better. If this is the case, he says, “you better bring it.”
  2. Or, “identify and pursue a pocket of pent-up demand that has yet to be unleashed.”

Note: apologies about Justin's audio in this episode! We'll fix that for next time.

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
What's a good conversion rate for a web app?14 Aug 201800:30:27

SaaS conversation rate cheatsheet:

Credit card upfront:

  • Visitor to trial: 0.75% - 1%
  • Trial to paid: 40% - 60%

No credit card upfront:

  • Visitor to trial: 5%+
  • Trial to paid: 8% - 20%

Transistor's conversion rates since launch:

  • Total traffic since launch: 40,162 unique pageviews, 11,614 visitors
  • Total new trials since launch: 32 (out of 49 active trials total)
  • Conversion %(visitor to trial): 0.3% (should be 0.75% - 1%)
  • Conversion %(trial to paid): 8.9% - 16.7% (should be 40% - 60%)
    • July was 17.9%
    • June was 29.6%
    • May was 48.7%

What do you think?

Show notes:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Launch week hangover07 Aug 201800:27:52

What do you think?

Show notes:

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!


Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
The opposite of bored money24 Jul 201800:09:22

In 2013, I interviewed Jason Calacanis, the angel investor.

One of the things I asked him: "Why do venture capital investors take these big risks with their money?" 

"There's a lot of money in the world. There are trillions of dollars just sitting around, and people are bored. The money is bored! Money wants to burn! Money does not want to sit in a safe."


Uh. What an interesting idea: "the money is bored."

Jon Buda and I are bootstrapping Transistor.fm and Spots.fm. We've invested our own money into both of these projects.

When you're self-funding a startup, your money is the opposite of bored. Your money is stressed. You're caught between these two realities: you're investing real time and money into the product, but the product isn't yet giving you anything back.

For example, we're launching Transistor.fm on August 1st.

Right now we have 51 early access customers and $781 in MRR.

Let's say that when we launch on August 1st, we double MRR to $1,500.

To get to $21,000 in MRR (enough for Jon and me to focus on Transistor full-time), it will take five years (assuming 10.0% exponential growth and 5.0% churn).

Five years. 60 months. That's a long time to wait for a paycheque.

There's this tricky tension when you're bootstrapping a SaaS. On one side, you're investing in this product that could be an incredible asset.

If Transistor hits $20,000 a month, that's dependable, recurring revenue.

But on the hand, investing all that time and money in something that isn't a sure bet is a risk.

It's easy to see why bootstrapped founders get stressed. It's easy to see why many experience burnout and have to quit.

That's something Mike and Fred talked about on their podcast, Hit Reply.

Bootstrappers who are building something new have to walk this fine line:

  • We need to invest a considerable amount of effort to launch our product.
  • But we also need money to live, and it can be years before a SaaS can support you full-time.

Which has me thinking about Basecamp.

What Jason Fried and DHH achieved with Basecamp is what most bootstrappers aspire for. Heck, most of us would be happy for even a fraction of their success.

They've long been the example of how you can self-fund a product, bring it to market, grow it, and have it succeed.

But the story many of us are telling ourselves about how they achieved that success isn't quite right.

Yes, they've bootstrapped Basecamp since 2004.

But in 2006 they didn't something a lot of us bootstrappers haven't paid a lot of attention to.

They took investment!

I recently read this interview with DHH on Startup.co. The interviewer asked:

"As you’ve built Basecamp you’ve been very vocal about resisting the temptation of unicorn culture. How have your perspectives changed?"


David's answer is interesting:

It wasn’t without temptation or struggle to stay like this. Especially in the early years, before our bombastic views on venture capital, the IPO rat-race, and other ills of funding were known. We had, I think, close to 50 different VCs get in contact. 

Ironically, part of what did give us the confidence to turn down that whole world was a small sale of equity to Jeff Bezos. That gave our personal bank accounts just enough ballast that the big numbers touted by VCs and acquisition hunters lost their lure.


This is something the bootstrapping culture doesn't think about a lot.

37signals, the poster child of the bootstrapped world, took investment two years after they launched the product.

That Bezos money didn't go into the company. It went into their personal bank accounts.

Jason and David were able to hedge their bets. That Bezos investment removed a lot of the stress and risk that comes from bootstrapping a product.

Bootstrappers have created a religion out of building something from scratch and self-funding the entire thing.

But what if that ideology leads to burnout? Or bankruptcy? Or not being able to go the distance?

Here's David again:

"I really wish that more founders who are on to something could find ways to diversify their accounts just enough to dare go the distance."


It's something we need to think about.

What do you think?

Show notes:

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Startup advice from Justin Kan, Stephanie Hulburt, and Naval17 Jul 201800:29:50

Three tweets Tuesday

Justin Kan: 


"B2C is a gamble while B2B is (more) within your control."


Stephanie Hulburt: 


"We have a philosophy of “no hard sells” and it has served us well. If someone’s not convinced we move on; we don’t hang on trying to convince one person. It’s tempting to defend yourself, but not good for business."


Naval on making decisions:


"If you can’t decide, the answer is no. If two equally difficult paths, choose the one more painful in the short term. Choose the path that leaves you more equanimous in the long term."

Show notes

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Meet me in Chicago10 Jul 201800:35:58

How to build anticipation for your product launch

  • Have a mailing list! Email them consistently during development.
  • The week of launch you should send the following emails:
    • Pre-launch announcement: "We're launching in a week!"
    • Day before announcement: "The launch is tomorrow. Here's how much it will cost."
    • Launch day email: "We're launched! Sign up here"
    • Day after email: "You've still got time to sign up."
    • Launch discount is ending email: "This is your last chance to register"
  • Use services like Product Hunt, Product Hunt Ship, BetaList, to build anticipation.
  • On Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, Instagram: constantly send out product updates.
Building anticipation before you launch is the most underrated tool you have for your product launch.

Show notes

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!

Check out these new shows on Transistor:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Nobody wants to talk about this (SaaS sales tax)10 Feb 202300:49:07

Sales tax compliance: nobody in SaaS wants to talk about it. Jon and Justin tried to do something about it and it turned into a nightmare. According to Stripe Tax, there are about 90 different regions that software companies may have to register in, and then calculate, collect, and remit sales tax on their behalf. But in North America, many SaaS companies don't seem to care: many that we looked at weren't collecting sales tax at all, while a few had just started collecting in the US states.

  • (00:13) - Welcome
  • (01:49) - Benefits of podcasting for a small business
  • (03:39) - New Year's update
  • (05:54) - Patreon integration feature
  • (10:18) - Dear listener... a request!
  • (10:45) - Exciting! Sales Tax! Discussion!
  • (28:56) - What have we tried
  • (40:07) - A new issue that we can't make progress on
  • (46:55) - Thanks to our Patreon supporters

If you've been wondering about how sales tax applies to SaaS, listen to this episode.

Thanks to our monthly supporters

  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
I see Spots03 Jul 201800:41:34

Jon and Justin are still moving forward with Transistor. We're planning to launch in July. But we're being realistic: this could be a slow-growing business. The good news? We're both okay with that. We talked through different funding scenarios – VCs, fund-strapping, bootstrapping – and realized what really matters is building something meaningful with people we like. In the meantime, Justin is exploring a side project called Spots.fm (think Calendly for podcast sponsorships). The plan is to start manually, helping a few podcaster friends fill their ad slots, before we build any software.

Show notes:

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!

Check out these new shows on Transistor:

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Our Voltron needs fuel26 Jun 201800:31:37

Show notes

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Teaser: I don't want to get crushed by the VC monster19 Jun 201800:01:08

Show notes

★ Please review us in iTunes – it helps other folks find the show!

Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Rewardful.com
  • Mitchell Davis from sixsides.co
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dave Giunta
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
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