In episode 710, join Rob Walling for another solo adventure where he answers listener questions. He answers whether you need a burning passion to be successful in entrepreneurship, and how that relates to developing a product alongside a day job. Rob also discusses competing against VC-backed companies, learning to code in the age of AI, and how much risk lies in IP theft when building your SaaS.

Episode Sponsor:

Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball?

Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad.

DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. 

Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success.

You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. 

Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves.  

Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement.

Topics we cover: 

• 3:00 – Reacting to needing a burning desire for entrepreneurship
• 5:20 – Maintaining a day job to enable space for entrepreneurial pursuits
• 8:52 – Balancing build speed vs. scalability with your tech stack
• 10:30 – The April Fools Episode
• 12:55 – Competing against VC-backed companies in a “hot” space
• 18:34 – Is learning to code dead?
• 27:33 – Risk in SaaS of IP theft

Links from the Show: 

• MicroConf Connect
• Episode 704 | Landing Pages, Buying a SaaS, the Right Tech Stack, and More Listener Questions
• Episode 706.5 | Rethinking My Most Common Advice
• The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling
• Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling
• TinySeed
• Episode 688 | Growing Boot.dev From $6k to $110k in Monthly Revenue in 15 Months
• Ask a Question on SFTROU

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 709, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure as he shares his story of growing his personal wealth over the past few decades. Selling companies was the major driver of wealth, but he also explores the role of cryptocurrency, running profitable companies, and angel investing. Rob emphasizes the power of entrepreneurship in achieving financial freedom, while acknowledging there are ways to do so while keeping risk relatively low.

Episode Sponsor:

We have been partnering with Lemon.io for several years, and they’ve proven to be a great choice when it comes to hiring for a highly skilled developer to work on your project.

Here are five reasons why you should consider working with Lemon.io.

1. The time from your request to getting a candidate is just 48 hours.
2. Developers have previously worked with tech giants such as Apple, Google, Netflix, Airbnb, Intel, and LEGO. 
3. They only provide senior devs, with an average of 7 years' experience.
4. Their talent pool covers more than 300 dev languages & frameworks.
5. Your hire comes with a zero-risk, replacement guarantee.

Customers of Lemon.io typically stick around for at least a year, proving they know how to gain your trust by delivering consistent results.

Quit wasting time searching for a solid developer at a great price. Get in touch with Lemon.io.

As a bonus for our podcast listeners, you’ll get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer at lemon.io/startups. That’s lemon.io/startups

Topics we cover: 

• 2:50 – A lesson on how to build wealth
• 4:31 – Entrepreneurship was our biggest tool
• 6:37 – Building, acquiring, then selling companies
• 10:45 – Building slowly while staying risk-averse
• 13:27 – Investing in riskier assets like cryptocurrency
• 19:39 – Running profitable companies
• 20:56 – Angel investing, and WP Engine
• 23:44 – Traditional, salaried employment
• 24:53 – Typical investments: stocks, bonds, REITs
• 27:36 – Real estate investing

Links from the Show: 

• MicroConf Connect
• Christopher Gimmer (@cgimmer) | X
• Christopher’s tweet
• Sherry Walling (@sherrywalling) | X
• The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping
• Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling
• This Took 11 Years to Be An "Overnight Success" - SaaS Exit Strategy
• Zen Founder
• The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling
• WP Engine
• TinySeed
• Barbell Strategy Explained for Stock and Bond Investors

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 708, Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer tackle listener questions about building development skills vs. business skills and strategies for entering competitive markets. They also chat about building on top of AI services, addressing the risks of platform dependency and the importance of managing infrastructure costs. 

Episode Sponsor:

Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball?

Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad.

DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. 

Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success.

You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. 

Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves.  

Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement.

Topics we cover: 

• 02:38 - Should you build technical skills or business skills?
• 11:41- Entering a competitive market
• 21:14 - Building a valuable analytics dashboard tool
• 29:29 - When should a solo founder hire for marketing roles?
• 36:29 - The rare skillset of a full-stack marketer 
• 38:18 - Implications of building on openAI and scaling infrastructure costs

Links from the Show: 

• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• Rob Walling | X
• Derrick Reimer | X
• Derrick Reimer
• SavvyCal
• Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling
• The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling
• Devin AI

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

In episode 707, Rob Walling, alongside guests Tracy Osborn and Einar Vollset, give their hot takes on some recent news in the world of SaaS. They discuss Once.com’s launch, liquidation preference nuances in startup buyouts, with moving from open source to full time income and more. 

Episode Sponsor:

Find your perfect developer or a team at Lemon.io/startups

The competition for incredible engineers and developers has never been more fierce. Lemon.io helps you cut through the noise and find great talent through its network of engineers in Europe and Latin America.

They take care of the vetting, interviewing, and testing of candidates to make sure that you are working with someone who can hit the ground running.

When it comes to hiring, the time it takes to write your job description, list the position, review resumes, schedule interviews, and make an offer can take weeks, if not months. With Lemon.io, you can cut down on a lot of that time by tapping into their wide network of developers who can get started in as early as a week.

And for subscribers of Startups For the Rest of Us, you can get 15% off your first 4 week contract with a developer by visiting lemon.io/startups

Topics we cover: 

• 2:18 - Once.com and the Implications of One-Time Software Sales
• 10:39 - Liquidation Preferences in Startup Acquisitions
• 21:59 - Turning an open source project into a business
• 24:32 - Book recommendations
• 30:30 - Is building a startup actually hard?
• 32:46 - Startups vs. lifestyle businesses

Links from the Show: 

• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• Once.com
• Campfire
• Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
• The Anomaly by Herv Le Tellier
• The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
• The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
• TinySeed
• Einar Vollset (@EinarVollset) | X
• Tracy Osborn (@itsTracyMakes) | TikTok

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 706.5, join Rob Walling as he reconsiders some of his most common advice. He explores why lowering prices might make sense and discusses the benefits of a B2C business model. Rob also walks back his prior advice on bootstrapping two-sided marketplaces and launching multiple products to see what sticks. 

Topics we cover: 

• 1:04 – What would happen if you lowered prices?
• 3:56 – Benefits of a B2C approach
• 7:05 – Two-sided marketplaces allow to reach two audiences
• 8:47 – Launch a bunch of products to see what sticks
• 10:52 – This episode was released April 1, 2024

Links from the Show: 

• The SaaS Playbook
• Rob Walling (@robwalling) | X

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

MicroConf US in Atlanta is here in just a couple weeks, and this is your last call to buy tickets. We've sold more than 90% of the tickets, and we will sell this event out as we have for many years. The event is April 21st through the 23rd in Atlanta, Georgia at the amazing Starling Atlanta.

There are going to be 200-ish of your closest bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped founder friends who are showing up to hear talks from folks like Rand Fishkin of SparkToro, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven. I'm giving a talk as well, and Dr. Sherry Walling will be talking about staying motivated as an entrepreneur. We have a special guest MC, Lianna Patch, and we'll have a very special guest who has never appeared on the MicroConf stage before- Ben Chestnut, the co-founder of MailChimp.

Get all the details and secure your ticket before they run out at microconf.com/americas.

In episode 706, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure where he discusses a variety of topics. He starts with why it’s important to both consider and credit “prior art” in business. Rob outlines his 2/20/200 idea validation framework used to repeatedly evaluate ideas. He also covers why, though there are some advantages, designing by committee has some significant downsides. 

Episode Sponsor:

Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball?

Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad.

DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. 

Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success.

You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. 

Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves.  

Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement.

Topics we cover: 

• 2:37 – Learning from, and crediting, prior art
• 10:27 – The 2/20/200 Idea Validation Framework
• 16:03 – Be wary when designing by committee
• 21:09 – When to crowdsource feedback

Links from the Show: 

• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• Do Things That Don’t Scale by Paul Graham
• David Sacks (@DavidSacks) | X
• Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham
• Episode 705 | From Bootstrapped to Mostly Bootstrapped
• Episode 628 | The 5 P.M. Idea Validation Framework
• Use This PROVEN Formula to Validate Your Next Startup Idea
• Validate Your SaaS Idea FAST (Step-by-Step SaaS Validation Process)✅
• Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling
• Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 705, Rob Walling interviews Braden Dennis, co-founder and CEO of FinChat. They discuss Braden’s journey going from fully bootstrapped, all the way to taking venture capital as FinChat scaled. Braden shares his experience in initially launching to an audience, how they successfully launched a second product, and how FinChat operates well with multiple co-founders.

Episode Sponsor:

Find your perfect developer or a team at Lemon.io/startups

The competition for incredible engineers and developers has never been more fierce. Lemon.io helps you cut through the noise and find great talent through its network of engineers in Europe and Latin America.

They take care of the vetting, interviewing, and testing of candidates to make sure that you are working with someone who can hit the ground running.

When it comes to hiring, the time it takes to write your job description, list the position, review resumes, schedule interviews, and make an offer can take weeks, if not months. With Lemon.io, you can cut down on a lot of that time by tapping into their wide network of developers who can get started in as early as a week.

And for subscribers of Startups For the Rest of Us, you can get 15% off your first 4 week contract with a developer by visiting lemon.io/startups

Topics we cover: 

• 2:55 – What does FinChat look like today?
• 4:00 – Starting with an audience and building a SaaS
• 6:40 – Formulating the product and moving upmarket
• 8:35 – Launching a second product
• 12:25 – The common pitfall of launching a second product
• 16:25 – How FinChat found explosive growth
• 19:27 – Deciding to take venture funding 
• 26:13 – Making hard decisions with incomplete information
• 30:31 – Working with multiple co-founders

Links from the Show: 

• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• Apply for Director of Marketing and Operations for MicroConf
• MicroConf YouTube Channel
• TinySeed
• Braden Dennis (@BradoCapital) | X
• FinChat (@finchat_io) | X
• FinChat
• Episode 681 | Why Launching a Second Product is Usually a Bad Idea

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 704, join Rob Walling for another solo adventure where he answers listener questions. He weighs in on buying a SaaS, how to validate ideas using landing pages, and what tech stack to choose. Rob also provides guidance for those considering leaving their comfortable day jobs in favor of being a founder.

Episode Sponsor:

Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball?

Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad.

DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. 

Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success.

You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. 

Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves.  

Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement.

Topics we cover: 

• 4:00 – Comparing your business to successful outliers
• 9:50 – Exploring business outside of a comfortable day job
• 15:45 – Early access landing pages prior to development
• 20:00 – How do you vet SaaS businesses that you are trying to acquire? 
• 27:16 – Evaluating a seller’s intentions
• 29:50 – Choosing a tech stack for your SaaS

Links from the Show: 

• MicroConf Remote – Early Stage Saas Strategies
• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• Apply for Director of Marketing and Operations for MicroConf
• MicroConf Connect
• Startups For The Rest of Us – Ask a question
• 37signals
• 7 Proven Ways to Create Profitable SaaS Ideas EVERY Time
• The SaaS Playbook
• Quiet Light
• Acquire.com
• The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 703, Rob Walling interviews Jordan Hansen, founder of Cobalt Intelligence. They dive into Jordan's unexpected journey into SaaS and the growth of his company, which specializes in business verification through API. Jordan reflects on quitting his job to pursue his startup and the benefits of community and mentorship he has received from TinySeed. 

Episode Sponsor:

Find your perfect developer or a team at Lemon.io/startups

The competition for incredible engineers and developers has never been more fierce. Lemon.io helps you cut through the noise and find great talent through its network of engineers in Europe and Latin America.

They take care of the vetting, interviewing, and testing of candidates to make sure that you are working with someone who can hit the ground running.

When it comes to hiring, the time it takes to write your job description, list the position, review resumes, schedule interviews, and make an offer can take weeks, if not months. With Lemon.io, you can cut down on a lot of that time by tapping into their wide network of developers who can get started in as early as a week.

And for subscribers of Startups For the Rest of Us, you can get 15% off your first 4 week contract with a developer by visiting lemon.io/startups

Topics we cover: 

• 2:30 – What does Cobalt Intelligence offer?
• 5:45 – Team scale, market, and business origins 
• 9:55 – Starting YouTube and finding motivation to continually publish
• 13:27 – Working with a savings runway and applying to TinySeed
• 23:50 – Finding product-market fit
• 26:58 – Unlisting content to align with business goals
• 31:50 – “Accidental” SaaS founder

Links from the Show: 

• Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024
• TinySeed
• The SaaS Playbook
• Jordan Hansen (@JordBHansen) | X
• Cobalt Intelligence (@CobaltIntell) | X
• Cobalt Intelligence 
• Lianna Patch (@punchlinecopy) | X
• The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping
• Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual by John Sonmez 
• Episode 698 | How to Launch a Million Dollar Business (With Noah Kagan)
• Episode 696 | The Truth about Product-Market Fit + Doing Sales as an Introvert (With Ruben Gamez)
• Cobalt Intelligence YouTube channel

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google

In episode 702, join Rob Walling for another solo adventure where he answers listener questions. He answers how to introduce friends to bootstrapping, when to lower your prices, and addresses the difference in revenue and profit multiple valuations. Rob also offers advice when weighing a career move versus building side projects and scaling your MVP.

Episode Sponsor:

Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball?

Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad.

DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. 

Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success.

You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. 

Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves.  

Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement.

Topics we cover: 

• 3:15 – How to introduce friends to entrepreneurship and bootstrapping 
• 6:00 – When to focus on profit vs. top-line revenue
• 10:40 – Considerations for building, scaling, and differentiating an MVP
• 15:45 – Rare circumstances where you should lower prices
• 20:25 – Pursuing career moves vs. building on the side
• 23:43 – Managing cap tables and equity vesting

Links from the Show: 

• MicroConf Remote – Early Stage Saas Strategies
• TinySeed
• The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping
• Start Small, Stay Small
• The SaaS Playbook
• MicroConf YouTube Channel: Building Your First SaaS: The Ultimate Crash Course
• SFTROU Greatest Hits
• Episode 222 | The Stair Step Approach to Launching Products
• What is a SAFE?

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Google