Startups For the Rest of Us

We need your help!  The 2022 State of Independent SaaS Survey is now live and we need as many eligible founders of B2B SaaS businesses to complete the survey.  This survey will be used to create our third annual State of Independent SaaS report, offering recommendations, insights, and pitfalls critical to planning for a future in B2B SaaS. Venture funded businesses have a wealth of research and da...

In Episode 573, Rob Walling chats with Einar Vollset and Tracy Osborne about the part-time contractor versus hiring full-time debate, the acquisition of Sandhills Development, as well as the launch of a TinySeed Europe. The topics we cover [02:14] FT vs PT Contractor [09:06] When could part time contracting work? [10:25] Sandhills Development acquisition [14:50] TinySeed Europe announced [21:04] D...

In Episode 572, Rob Walling does another solo adventure to talk about taking responsibility for the outcomes of your business and the importance of putting in the reps as a founder. Bootstrapping a startup is a marathon, not a sprint and it's important to enjoy the journey along the way. Thanks to Software Promotions for supporting this podcast! Learn more about their SEO and AdWords services The...

In Episode 571, Rob Walling chats with Peter Suhm about moving on from WP Pusher and Branch. We also dive into how he came up with the idea for Reform and his process for validating the idea with a landing page before building. The topics we cover [1:28] Intros [2:48] Default alive and selling Branch [8:15] Changing customer behavior is hard [12:25] Struggling through customer interviews from a sm...

In Episode 570, Rob Walling answers listener questions about the ideal business for bootstrapping, how to create trust with potential customers, navigating depression as an entrepreneur as well as advice for introverted founders. The topics we cover [1:42] Problems that are more conducive to bootstrapping [8:51] Creating trust with potential customers [10:51] Battling depression or mental illness...

In Episode 569, Rob Walling chats with Anna Maste, a founder who's been a part of the MicroConf community for several years. They talk about how Anna bootstrapped a two-sided RV marketplace and eventually sold it for a healthy multiple. The topics we cover [1:16] An RV boondocker [2:53] Selling for a healthy multiple [5:21 ] Building a business with a a family member [7:02] Tech stack used [8:23]...

In Episode 568, Rob Walling talks about MailChimp selling for $12 billion to Intuit, the largest exit for a bootstrap company, ever. Not that all founders aspire to grow to this scale, but it's truly an incredible day for bootstrapped founders to know that we have the potential to get to this level without raising institutional funding. The topics we cover [1:41] $800 million in ARR without outsid...

In Episode 567, Rob Walling chats with Don Pottinger about joining a company as a developer, transitioning to CTO within 6 months, buying the company for $1, and then later on selling it for a life-changing sum of money. The topics we cover [1:13] Introductions [4:08] Learning to code independently vs learning on the job [06:38] Joining Kevy in 2014 [8:00] Transitioning to Director of Engineering...

In Episode 566, Rob Walling chats with Hana Mohan about her journey as a SaaS founder. They compare and contrast bootstrapping and being venture-backed, hiring a chief of staff early on as a startup founder, and more. The topics we cover [2:17] Intro [3:36] Deciding not to bootstrap MagicBell [6:34] The team Composition at MagicBell [9:15] The marketing approaches that are working today. [10:47] T...

In Episode 565, Rob Walling answers listener questions about focusing on one product vs multiple, sharing revenue metrics with early employees, and how to overcome the lack of motivation when starting new projects. The topics we cover [05:31] Focusing on one core product vs multiple separate products at the same time [14:59] Sharing revenue metrics with new employees [18:37] Struggling with motiva...

In Episode 564, Rob Walling chats with Sol Orwell about growing his website,  examine.com  to millions of views per month, changing revenue models, and the importance of doing customer interviews. The topics we cover [2:14] Intro [3:06] How Examine started [7:21] Examine's differentiated approach based on scientific research [9:33] 10,000 paying subscribers [10:59] Building trust through transpare...

In Episode 563, Rob Walling answers listener questions about startup operating agreements for co-founders, common cloud hosting solutions, struggling as a young entrepreneur, and selling your startup when you have over $1M in annual recurring revenue. The topics we cover [1:40] Operating agreements for startup co-founders [5:50] How to do startup vesting when not working fulltime on a project [9:4...

The application for TinySeed’s Fall 2021 SaaS accelerator batch of startups will open for two weeks starting on August 9th, 2021. Watch the video recording of the Fall 2021 Batch Info Session here: https://youtu.be/6dqTClonO2Y Interested in applying? Join us for an info session with the TinySeed team to talk about the application process, what to expect as a member of TinySeed, and some of the thi...

In Episode 562, join Rob Walling for another solo adventure to talk about enterprise sales, mental frameworks for founders, undoable decisions, and how to handle being approached about an acquisition. The topics we cover [2:33] Enterprise sales advice [5:48] Measure twice, cut once for SaaS [10:56] Holy Grail of SaaS: Expansion Revenue [13:12] Holy Grail of SaaS: Virality [14:25] Holy Grail of Saa...

In Episode 561, Rob Walling chats with Andy Cabasso, co-founder of Postaga, about launching on Product Hunt, having a done-for-you service in addition to a DIY self-service SaaS app, growing to a team of six people, having a free plan, and doing a ton of customer development in the early days. The topics we cover [01:35] Selling an agency with retainers to start Postaga [03:46] Explaining Postaga...

In Episode 560, Rob Walling is joined by Einar Vollset and Tracy Osborn to talk about deciding when it's time to hire someone, how to think about which role to hire next, changing location to force productivity, and more. The topics we cover [2:52] Deciding to hire a community manager [9:28] Location hacks for improved productivity [14:52] Delta airline pilot suing Delta for stealing app [20:35] P...

In Episode 559, Rob Walling chats with Andrew Gazdecki, the founder of MicroAcquire, about bootstrapping a two-sided marketplace in a competitive industry. They talk about Andrew's previous successes, including growing Bizness Apps to $10 million in annual recurring revenue. They also unpack Andrew's current business, MicroAcquire, and talk about how it was started, its current success, and the fu...

In Episode 558, Rob Walling chats with Einar Vollset about bootstrapping versus funding and the many options that exist in between. No longer is it a decision between a bootstrapped or venture path. With their unique perspectives, Rob and Einar talk about all of the funding options that exist. They also share some things to consider when deciding whether or not to take on funding and, if you do, h...

In Episode 557, Rob Walling flies solo to talk about investing for founders, with an emphasis on retirement. Rob views investing as a long-term game, not treating the stock market like a slot machine by buying and selling stocks. As founders, we're busy with our work, our family, and our friends. We don't want to spend a ton of time fiddling with investments. In this episode, Rob outlines an 80/20...

In Episode 556, Rob Walling chats with Adam McCrea about growing from zero to $300,000 in ARR over the course of three years as a Heroku add-on. Adam is still a single founder with no employees and up until joining the TinySeed accelerator in their Spring 2021 batch, has fully bootstrapped Rails Autoscale. Now, he's working to grow the app, deal with platform risk, and launch pricing experiments....

In Episode 555, Rob Walling answers listener questions with Ruben Gamez. They discuss different models of bootstrapping success, hiring W2 versus hiring contractors, determining if a business is an ideal fit for bootstrapping and they revisit enterprise pricing. The topics we cover [01:24] Bootstrappers Rob & Ruben admire [12:25] Pros and cons to hiring contractors vs W2 employees [23:05] Dete...

In Episode 554, Rob Walling chats with Sherry Walling about grief as a part of entrepreneurship and how to get better at handling grief as an entrepreneur. They also discuss burnout and properly evaluating if it's the right time to sell a company. The topics we cover [02:18] Grief is part of entrepreneurship [05:12] Getting better at handling grief and loss [06:07] Grief and selling a company [09:...

In Episode 553, Rob Walling chats with Tracy Osborn about the latest bootstrapper news, including the recent Stack Overflow and Moz acquisitions, quitting instead of giving up remote work, and highlights from TinySeed 2020 Batch. The topics we cover [01:52] Intro [03:45] Stack Overflow acquisition [12:11] Moz acquisition [16:33] Quitting instead of giving up remote work [26:44] Highlights from Tin...

In Episode 552, Rob Walling is joined by co-host emeritus, Mike Taber to chat about his decision-making around whether to launch a freemium plan, whether to do an AppSumo deal, how his potential partnerships merger is panning out. The topics we cover [04:93] Update on the CRM partnership opportunity, AppSumo, and Freemium [23:39] Yet another Google security audit update Links from the show Bluetic...

In episode 551 of Startups For the Rest of Us, Rob does another solo adventure to talk about hiring owner-level thinkers, the fallacy of an autopilot passive income software business, and more. The topics we cover [1:25] Hiring task-level thinkers, project-level thinkers, and owner-level thinkers [07:43] The fallacy of an autopilot passive income software business [15:21] Our bootstrap community [...