Adam Wathan: how small startups hire employees (Tailwind CSS)
Episode 159
Tuesday, June 4, 2024 • Duration 01:34:42
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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:
Greg Wade, the baker that Jon apprenticed with, just won a James Beard award.
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.
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.
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.
Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: mail@transistor.fm
Taylor Otwell: "PHP (and a cheap laptop) changed my life"
Episode 54
Tuesday, April 16, 2019 • Duration 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."
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
: 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:
The market for your startup matters
Episode 53
Tuesday, April 9, 2019 • Duration 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.
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.
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