Bootstrapper's Paradise

Car manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes are getting aggressive in charging customers subscriptions for features that are already built into the car itself. I want to talk about the outrage this has caused and where the line actually should be from a product pricing perspective.  We'll also talk about the history of where it came from. Related article - https://adguard.com/en/blog/subscriptions-car...

You need to be careful with how you handle product pricing discounts.  If you aren't, you could create a PR nightmare like Tesla has recently. Let's talk about how they created this mess so you can avoid it.  Plus we'll get into how you should manage it instead to avoid this situation altogether. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://...

Tesla has dominated the electric car space in recent years, but recently their performance has gotten worse, much worse.  Let's talk about what's changed and what we can learn from their story about how to avoid a similar situation they find themselves in currently. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Episode Transcr...

Most product development processes don't consider ROI, but it's probably the best way to improve the effectiveness of this process for your product company. Let's talk about how to find your customer's bottleneck and what that means for providing them and your company with more value. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/f...

Prioritizing design over function for your product can actually make it harder to validate your value proposition. Let's talk about why design isn't critically important and why you should focus on experience more than anything. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Episode Transcription Hey folks, Sean here. And today...

Accessing information will never be the same.  Let's talk about what ChatGPT has the potential to change with its disruptive technological capabilities.  If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Episode Transcript Hey, folks, Sean here and I am so geeking out about ChatGPT. I want to talk to you about what I think are the...

The type of product you choose to build has implications on everything from the customer experience to the pricing model. Let's talk about the differences and why you might choose one or the other. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Episode Transcript Hey folks, Sean here and today what I want to talk to you about a...

Hyundai and Kia have decided to leave out a key anti-theft device from their vehicles.  As such, there's now a growing social media trend where people are joying in recently stolen vehicles. This is a great lesson in what can happen if your product doesn't include key features that your customer is expecting. Article - https://fortune.com/2022/09/22/hyundai-kia-cars-stealing-hack-thieves/ If you w...

Product companies that get caught in the build loop often get trapped in a death spiral. Let's talk about what the build loop is so you know how to avoid it and the approach you should be taking instead. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course Private Coaching...

Brian Casel is a software company owner and founder with a background in software product design and web design.  Brian has found, operated, and sold 4 different businesses and is now focused on his company ZipMessage, a tool for swapping video, audio, or text messages with clients and customers asynchronously. Brian started out as a professional designer for the web, offering this as a consultant...

Salesforce has avoided giving future revenue guidance which is rare for them.  They are blaming it on economic conditions, but are there bigger problems at the world's most successful SaaS company?  Let's find out. Techcrunch article - https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/18/salesforce-ends-2022-in-an-unusually-turbulent-position Reddit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1001pd3/sales...

Southwest Airlines has just given us the perfect example of how not to manage technical debt.  Let's review what happened to see what we can learn from it. NY Times Article - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/opinion/southwest-airlines-computers.html Open Letter From The Union - https://makeitrightswa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/President-Remarks-March-2022-RH-ed.pdf If you want to reach produ...

The Metaverse has had a rough go of it so far.  The project has incurred more than $18B in losses and the company stock has fallen 70% in a year. Besides that terrible performance on paper, I feel there's something obvious they are missing and if they don't fix it, I think the whole project is likely to fail. Seeking Alpha article - https://seekingalpha.com/article/4547009-meta-why-the-metaverse-f...

Product-Market Fit is often thought of as this elusive ambiguous concept, but I feel most people overthink it. There are two important dimensions from which to measure Product-Market Fit: Qualitative and Quantitative. Allow me to explain how I measure each using my own product company StaffGeek as an example. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course he...

Customer Discovery and User Research both provide critical benefits to your product. Let's talk about the impact and benefits of each so you can make sure you are doing everything you can to find and keep product-market fit as quickly as possible. If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Free Email Course - https://bootst...

I needed to purchase a standing desk for someone as a gift.   I want to walk you through my experience from start to purchase to help you understand what I think UPLIFT Desk did well to get me to buy and what that might mean for making your own product experience better. Here's a link to the New York Times article and the UPLIFT Desk website: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-standin...

Pushing features is a big trap that I see most product companies fall into.  It will prevent you from finding product-market fit. You need to avoid what I call the 'field of dreams' trap because 'if you build it they will come' only works in the movies. Let's talk about what you should do instead. Credit to the late great Clayton Christensen and his incredible book Competing Against Luck . If you...

Customers are aggressively slashing their product budgets due to economic fears of a prolonged recession. Let's talk about how they are going to decide so you can make sure your product makes the cut. Here's a link to the article in the video - https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/trying-to-cut-software-and-cloud-costs-here-s-how If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5...

What I talk about in this episode: Why the Amazon Alexa failed The HIPPO risk Why products should be sold for profit (not break even) The risk of passion projects Why research and discovery are critical Why you need to find the obvious unmet need If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/ Free Email Course - https://bootstr...

Derek Osgood is a trained brand marketer with an entrepreneur's mindset who is experienced in leading teams in the startup growth trenches.  Derek is both a marketing executive and consultant and has consistently delivered double-digit monthly growth across a variety of markets and business models. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch: How to define product...

Scott Leigh is a lawyer by trade and an entrepreneur at heart, founding several businesses throughout the years while practicing law at the same time. After being involved in the legal industry for over 10 years, Scott leveraged his experience to buildAltFee. While Digby Leigh brings his 15 years of entrepreneurial and marketing background to the legal industry to provide a fresh strategic perspec...

Caleb Avery has worked in the payments industry for nearly a decade and with the problems that he encountered, he decided to build his own solution, thus the birth of tilled.com. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss in this episode: Caleb discusses his background and how he got to where he is today. What is PayFac-as-a-Service What was life in the world like for tilled.com customers and how...

Rebecca Block is an experienced leader focused on continuous learning and innovation grounded in meaningful measures of success, data-informed decision making, and appreciative inquiry practices. Rebecca has built departments from scratch, managed small and large teams, and navigated a variety of environments from established institutions to the innovative chaos of social entrepreneurship. Rebecca...

Lindsay Tabas is a public speaker and workshop leader at Tabas Consulting and has worked with over 100 startups & investors over a span of more than 15 years. She has worked with both Fortune 500 firms and early-stage tech startup founders, where she assists organizations to work with software developers in the best possible way. Lindsay also has experience working with investors, where she pe...

Linda Wittich has over 20 years of experience in the fintech industry and is currently the FinTech Advisor & Consultant at Top Line Focus where she helps B2B fintech CEOs focus on their top line activities, increasing sales into banks and wealth management firms and accelerating user adoption. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch: How Linda helps B2B fin...