Build Your SaaS

This week on the program, Justin and Jon talk about: A friend, whose SaaS has grown 300% since the beginning of the quarantine. They just hit $6k in MRR. At that stage, he's in the "almost but not yet." You're either: Brainstorming how to make money faster Brainstorming how to work less Different stages: Pre-launch stage: you're working on your product on the side. It's fun! There's nothing steali...

Structural racism affects every part of the economic system. It affects bootstrappers too! It defines: Who we hire Who we invest in Who we promote Who we chat with Who sees our numbers Who we invite to speak Who gets access to our platform "It's not just about being oppressed or being an oppressor, it's about resisting oppression and resisting being an oppressor; being an ally, being an advocate f...

👋 Justin here. This episode is to let you know why there's no episode today. (I've had a few DMs from folks that were worried!) We're good; we had some server trouble this morning that took all our time and attention today. We're hoping to be back next Tuesday with a full episode. Thanks everyone; we appreciate your support! ✌️ Special thanks to Dean Layton James, from CloudPeriscope and Benedikt...

This week on the program, Justin and Jon talk about: The new Transistor UI , and how folks are responding to it. "Damn the torpedoes!" – seeing if our update worked in IE11 after we deployed. Tobias Lütke, Shopify : “All the trends have been accelerated. The pandemic has moved everything forward 10 years. So now we need to build 2030 level software in 2020.” Restaurant trends: https://www.exploret...

This week on the program: As requested, we're going to start highlighting our listeners who are building their own SaaS. This week: Simon Bennett , a long-time Patreon supporter and a friend of the show. He just went full time on his project https://snapshooter.io , which does automatic backups for Digital Ocean.  Simon had just put his kids to bed (he's in the UK) and sat down in his office to ha...

What do you do when a competitor steals your idea? (plus: Justin and Jon have the giggles). People in tech get bent out of shape about who owns certain ideas, UI patterns, and business models. “They ripped off my idea” "They copied us!" This blog post by Justin Mitchell: https://medium.com/@itsthisjustin/no-idea-is-unique-but-this-is-insane-a247ec80f6a7 Good Stackexchange thread : “In the history...

Justin and Justin talk about where they're at. Podcasts like the Project Journey show , are at the beginning of their journey. Marie Poulin is a good example of an entrepreneur who's experienced a breakthrough this year; we should celebrate those! Justin's tweet : "What are we doing this for? Is the purpose of life to "Start business. Make most money. Die." We want to engage with an audience that...

This week on the show: Jon baked bread. Got some sunshine. Avoiding social media, the other disease Justin WAS ON SOCIAL MEDIA.  Read this Andreesen post that everyone’s talking about: https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/ That conversation lead to this tweet: https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1251946371050954752 What does the future hold? Dan Price tweet : "After the most recent 15 dea...

This week, Justin called up Josh Pigford , founder of Baremetrics : Baremetrics does analytics for SaaS companies I called him up just to get a sense of how this pandemic (and looming recession) has already started to affect different SaaS companies He's already noticing some trends: "A lot of SaaS companies are seeing the biggest loss they've seen in the past 4 weeks. I've heard from some compani...

Today, we are joined by a very special guest: Dave Giunta!  What does Daft Punk look like without their helmets?   HomeChef   How has demand for meal kits and food delivery increased since coronavirus? You can reply to this podcast here: Twitter: @buildyoursaas , @mijustin , @jonbuda , @dgiunta Leave a comment on PodHunt ; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts. Leave a comment on Breaker , the podcas...

Jon and Justin, still making sense of life (and business) in a pandemic: Jon put on pants today. Justin is mad at Amazon . You can reply to this podcast here: Twitter: @buildyoursaas , @mijustin , @jonbuda Leave a comment on PodHunt ; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts. Leave a comment on Breaker , the podcast app for iPhone. Interact on WhatPods . Email us: mail@transistor.fm Thanks to our monthl...

Jon and Justin are hunkered down, and reeling from COVID-19: This is moving fast, so this podcast might already be out-of-date. Difference between the restrictions in Chicago and Vernon. "It's hard to focus on Transistor and write any code." "There are all these people out there suffering, it's hard to know what to do." "You see these effects rippling through society, and then rippling towards you...

This week, Justin is joined by Marie Poulin , co-founder of Oki Doki . They discuss: Chatting with Marie Poulin, Oki Doki 3:40 – "I used to be in the 'Ra Ra! Everyone should build a web app' crowd." 4:18 – "Now there's this feeling that maybe everyone shouldn't start a SaaS?" 9:30 – When you're starting a business, there are so many dynamics you need to get right. 13:40 – Why so many people fail t...

This week, Jon and Justin celebrate 100 episodes: Jon was on the Cody Story podcast awhile back. Justin, on the other hand, loves writing testimonials: Jack McDade's new course Tailwind UI Fathom Analytics "We are in our mid-life crisis of SaaS building. I think, for me, the problem is not quite knowing what's next." Is this the time we hire a business coach?  Where does your personal motivation f...

This week, Justin is joined by Michele Hansen (co-founder of Geocodi o). We explore a bunch of questions: What it's like to bootstrap with your spouse 6:30 – where Michele and Mathias found the idea for their company 7:00 – when you have kids you need diapers at 1am Why people start companies 7:55 – how getting pregnant motivated them to build a product 10:15 – Matthias initially built a really ba...

This week, Justin is joined by Ward Sandler from MemberSpace (launched in 2015). We explore a bunch of questions: How do you find a cofounder? Ward explains to Justin (a Canadian) what a fraternity is. What it's like doing enterprise sales. How two sales guys ended up learning design and programming. "Everybody needs to build a website for Uncle Larry" Justin and Ward go through a sample sales pho...

This week, Jon and Justin discuss: Justin's office is under construction 🛠️. How to talk about things that are hard. A review exercise from the book: The Great CEO Within (as recommended by Ben on Art of Product ). It gives each founder the ability to say: "This bugs me." We've hired Helen ( NamesAce ) as a part-time contractor. Switching out our UI framework: Jon is rebuilding the Transistor app...

This week, Jon and Justin discuss: What makes a good podcast for product people? New American Dream: building, owning, selling a SaaS ( Tyler Tringas ) What do you worry about when you own your own software company? How would we handle an economic downturn? Why do software founders not sleep well at night? You can reply to this podcast here: Twitter: @buildyoursaas , @mijustin , @jonbuda Leave a c...

This week, Jon and Justin discuss: Repeating calendar item: "Jan 5th, GTFO." How are you doing with the winter blue? The Transistor Volkswagen bus, surfboards, and snowboards. Monolithic vs mico-services https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1222966700913479681 https://changelog.com/posts/monoliths-are-the-future Pushing ahead with our “switch from Semantic UI to Tailwind CSS" cycle. "Retargeting is like...

Jon is back! This week, we discuss: This book, The Timeless Way of Building , that Justin is reading. When you work for yourself, there can be sense of not being grounded. What do you do? What's better than meditating? Why co-founders should have a weekly phone call. How the environment we're in influences our actions. Jon's been rebuilding our dashboard using Tailwind CSS + Alpine JS . Tutorial:...

Justin is interviewed by Nathan Baschez to talk about business strategy: "Every strategy is really just a theory: “We bet if we do x, then y will happen. In business, the 'y' that people are usually aiming for is some sort of sustainable competitive advantage." – Nathan Baschez This is a long episode, but it's a good one! What made Jon and Justin feel like they had an advantage in podcasting? Orig...

Justin is joined by podcast producer Chris Enns to talk about: How do you get Alexis Ohanian (cofounder of Reddit, married to Serena Williams) as a client? Getting out of the wrong business, into something better. Why you should get out of your comfort zone (and your town!) "We're all running the same race; how come that person is so far ahead of me?" Links: Hire Chris to edit your podcast: www.le...

Justin does a solo New Year's Eve episode where he shares: Then (Jan 1, 2019) vs now (Jan 1, 2020) Justin's tweet : "Going all-in on Transistor in 2019!" Advice for new founders: "What products get bought every day?" Every day, millions of people wake up and buy a cup of coffee. Every day, there are people who wake up and sign up for web hosting. Will there be people lining up tomorrow morning to...

Justin and Jon talk about: What's happened this year. "You shouldn't be worried about that, but you should be worried about THIS." The SaaS gold rush: “Building, Owning (& possibly Selling) a profitable remote SaaS business is the new American Dream.” – Tyler Tringas It’s harder to get the American Dream these days. “Productivity has increased by 80 per cent, but median compensation (that's wa...

Justin is interviewed by Noah and Ben from the Product Journey podcast : Should you build an audience first? Why finding the right market is the first filter you should use on your idea. Justin also shares some stuff he's changed his mind about this past year. ★ Thanks to our sponsors: Postmark . Postmark delivers your transactional email to customers on time, every time. You'll love their lightni...