Startups For the Rest of Us

In episode 646, Rob Walling catches up with James Kennedy, the founder of ProcurementExpress, about James’s unconventional approach to price increases. Every year, James does an annual price increase across the board. He talks about how he communicates it to both leads and customers, the pros and cons of this approach, and why it is been a net positive for the business. Topics we cover:  2:03 - Ab...

Mastermind Matching applications are now open.  Whether you are in the process of validating your SaaS idea and looking for product-market fit to finding a scalable marketing channel, or maybe you are looking for an extra dose of accountability and support as you grow the company, joining a mastermind can help. With hundreds of successful matches under our belt, we have brought together founders f...

In episode 645, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure where he covers whether bootstrapping is the anti-bro movement, the difference between working with someone good vs. someone great, and the rise of outrage culture on social media and how that doesn’t leave much room for nuanced thinking. Episode Sponsor: Find your perfect developer or a team at  Lemon.io/startups The competition for incredible...

In episode 644, Rob Walling chats with Dan Martell about founder productivity, delegating, and the difference between being effective and efficient. Dan also shares the key frameworks from his first book, Buy Back Your Time, which was released this week. Topics we cover:  2:40 - Dan’s process for writing his first book 7:56 - The Buyback Principle 12:31 - Hiring and delegating to an assistant 18:0...

In episode 643, Rob Walling chats with fan favorite Derrick Reimer, the founder of SavvyCal, as they answer listener questions. They cover topics ranging from SaaS feature flags to communicating product needs to a technical founder and combating imposter syndrome. Episode Sponsor: Find your perfect developer or a team at  Lemon.io/startups The competition for incredible engineers and developers ha...

In episode 642, Rob Walling chats with Tara Reed, who is the founder of Apps Without Code. We talk about her journey getting into no-code, bootstrapping Apps Without Code to $5M ARR, and the decision she made last year to throttle growth to become more profitable. In our conversation, we also cover some of the pros and cons of no-code tools, along with some entrepreneurial mindset shifts that new...

In episode 641, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure as he answers more listener questions. Topics covered range from dealing with high churn when your tool is project-based, what product feedback to listen to in the early days, and when to hire project-level thinkers vs. task-level thinkers. Topics we cover:  3:18 - Dealing with high churn when your tool is project-based 8:38 - Going upmarket 9:...

In episode 640, join Rob Walling, Einar Vollset, and Tracy Osborn for Hot Take Tuesday, where they analyze and discuss some of the latest news. We dig into ChatGPT, the new tool everyone is talking about from OpenAI. We also discuss Elon Musk acquiring Twitter and the drama around this entire endeavor and whether or not the U.S. is in a recession right now. Topics we cover:  2:06 - ChatGPT 14:29 -...

In episode 639, Rob Walling chats with Andrew Berkowitz, the co-founder and CEO of Suggestion Ox, about the secret sauce to building happy, high-performing teams and how we as founders need to unlearn some of the strict policies that have been in place for hundreds of years. Suggestion Ox is a feedback platform that helps HR teams build candid communication between leadership and employees. And be...

In episode 638, Rob Walling chats with Justin Vincent about how to generate startup ideas. They share 8 startup ideas in this episode along with Justin’s approach for coming up with thousands of startup ideas. Topics we cover:  1:58 - Coming up with SaaS ideas 3:51 - Transcription for team meetings 11:42 - Online time capsule 15:41 - Pest control using drones 20:29 - Prerecorded live interviews 25...

In episode 637, join Rob Walling for another solo adventure as he answers a handful of listener questions. Topics covered range from hiring your first salesperson and acquiring a web app to dealing with the fear of having your idea copied and why bootstrapping a two-sided marketplace is usually a bad idea. Episode Sponsor: Find your perfect developer or a team at  Lemon.io/startups The competition...

In episode 636, Rob Walling chats with Claire Suellentrop about the new book she co-wrote with her co-founder, Georgiana Laudi. The book is called Forget the Funnel: A Customer-Led Approach to Driving Predictable Recurring Revenue. Gia and Claire have run a consulting firm for the past several years where they are working with startups and SaaS companies to help them learn more about their custome...

In episode 635, Rob Walling catches up with Tony Chan, the co-founder of CloudForecast, an AWS cost monitoring tool. Tony shared his victories, challenges, and failures in TinySeed Tales Season 3. It has been over eight months since we recorded the final episode. In this episode, we reflect and catch up on what’s been happening with Tony and CloudForecast. Episode Sponsor: Find your perfect develo...

In episode 634, join Rob Walling for another solo adventure where he answers listener questions on topics ranging from naming your startup to initial aha moments and how to know if you have tapped out a specific niche. 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...

In episode 633, Rob Walling chats with Matt Wensing, the founder of Summit. Matt is no stranger on the podcast. And we talk about Matt's decision to change Summit's brand positioning and the far-reaching impact on his business. 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 he...

In episode 632, join Rob Walling and Einar Vollset for Hot Take Tuesday, where they analyze and discuss some of the latest news. Some topics covered include the Figma exit, side project distractions, no-code apps, 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...

In episode 631, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure as he answers listener questions on topics ranging from when to rewrite your codebase to founder salaries and balancing your founder vs. developer mindset. Episode Sponsor Find your perfect developer or a team at Lemon.io The competition for incredible engineers and developers has never been more fierce.  Lemon.io helps you cut through the nois...

In episode 630, Rob Walling chats with Jonathan Weinberg, who is the founder of Builder Prime, a CRM software for home improvement contractors. We chat about how he came up with the idea for Builder Prime, getting early traction, and finding product-market fit. Topics we cover:  2:46 - Getting Builder Prime to almost $1M ARR 3:32 - Deciding who to hire next 4:40 - How did Jonathan come up with the...

In the final episode of TinySeed Tales Season 3, Rob Walling checks in with Tony Chan of CloudForecast. They reflect on some of the most prominent challenges and milestones that the business has faced over the last year. Topics we cover:  1:31 - Tony reflects on attending his first MicroConf Growth in Minneapolis 3:30 - An update on how CloudForecast’s content marketing efforts are going 7:59 - Ge...

In episode 628, join Rob Walling on a solo adventure where he dives into his newest framework. The 5 PM Pre-Validation Framework is a helpful way to evaluate different startup ideas through a set of criteria to gauge the size of the opportunity. Want to download the PDF version the the 5 PM Pre-Validation Framework? Join the Startups For The Rest Us Mailing List , and we'll send you the link in th...

In the penultimate episode of TinySeed Tales Season 3, Rob Walling checks in with Tony Chan of CloudForecast. Tony shares some recent big wins, including hiring a senior engineer. We also meet Tony’s cofounder, Francois Lagier, for the first time. Topics we cover:  1:49 - The story of how Tony and Francois first met 2:14 - Hiring a senior engineer at CloudForecast 8:51 - Tony shares two recent big...

In episode 626, Rob Walling chats with Nick Swan, the founder of SEOTesting.com. SEOTesting helps SEO professionals and agencies automate the reporting of page updates and changes. Nick originally launched it as a free tool under a different name. In this episode, we cover when Nick decided to charge for it, renaming the tool, rewriting the codebase, and the journey to growing to $18,000 MRR. Topi...

In the fourth episode of TinySeed Tales Season 3, Rob Walling checks back in with Tony Chan of CloudForecast. Tony shares that they’ve doubled their MRR in the last couple of months, and it feels like he has unlocked a cheat code. Topics we cover:  2:02 - What’s changed since the last episode? 3:14 - Winning a huge enterprise deal that nearly doubled their MRR 5:21 - Deploying capital 12:31 - A ke...

In episode 624, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure as he answers some listener questions on topics ranging from customer interviews to transitioning from a free to a paid product and prioritizing marketing vs. development. Topics we cover:  2:11 - What episodes should I start with to get up to speed? 3:27 - When to transition from a free to a paid product 11:37 - Customer interviews as a servic...

In the third episode of season 3 of TinySeed Tales, Rob Walling checks in with Tony Chan of CloudForecast to see how he is faring since his co-founder is now on paternity leave. During this time, Tony shares a big win along with dealing with some hiring and growth setbacks. Topics we cover:  1:24 - How the business is doing while Francois is on paternity leave  2:36 - Tony’s perspective on being a...