Episodes

Ed and Steve talk about the challenge of continuing to learn how to run our businesses better, and the challenges we encounter in ongoing learning.

It’s good to take a break!

In this episode Ed and I get self-indulgent and talk about our vacations. From time to time we make a tenuous link between our vacations and our  bootstrapped businesses.

If you've ever thought of selling your business, or acquiring one, you'll enjoy this episode. Matt Zeunert, founder of DebugBear, was curious about the details of my acquisition of Saber Feedback. So we switch roles for this episode, and the guest became the interviewer. Matt asks the questions, and I answer!

Mark Littlewood runs the Business of Software, a series of annual conferences to help us run our software companies better. Mark very openly shares how COVID-19 has hit his business, and his need to adapt almost overnight.

In this solo episode, I talk about successful yet quiet SaaS business all around us. I also tell the full story of why our forum has been closed and put permanently into archive mode.

Peldi, founder of Balsamiq, drops by. We discuss two unrelated topics. First, resellers - why they exist and how to accommodate them. Second, the challenges and benefits of having a podcast for your product.

Ed and Steve go in deep on some enterprise sales work they've both been doing lately for their bootstrapped, mostly self-service SaaS products.

Craig Hewitt runs Castos, a podcast hosting and analytics company. He returns to the show to talk about why he recently sold a chunk of his bootstrapped company to a round of investors.

It's 15 months since I acquired Saber Feedback. I talk about the challenges I've faced so far, the bottleneck I'm currently facing, and where things are headed.

While Steve enjoys a summer break, Ed Freyfogle chats with Adam DuVander, who helps companies like yours market to developers, about his book "Developer Marketing Does Not Exist".

Moritz Dausinger, three-time bootstrapper, tells me why he recently sold a small stake of Refiner.io to Earnest Capital.

Ed and Steve discuss what it is like when a core team member quits, how to reduce the chance of it happening, and how to make our businesses resilient enough to handle it.

Peldi concludes this mini-season with an open and honest discussion with Ed Freyfogle about a problem every business owner eventually encounters. How do you keep at it when you are feeling bored? Are we stuck in our businesses?

Peldi Guilizzoni continues this mini-season as he chats with Trine Falbe, UX strategist & designer, on responsible product design.

Peldi Guilizzoni continues this mini-season as he chats with Asia Orangio of DemandMaven on how founders can – and should – conduct customer interviews, and how to deal with the discomfort us bootstrappers often feel with this type of work.

Peldi Guilizzoni continues this mini-season as he chats with married couple Geraldine DeRuiter (author) and Rand Fishkin (software founder) on how their fields differ – and how they are more similar than you’d think.

Peldi Guilizzoni steps in as host this week, and chats with GDPR expert Aleth Gueguen about how the GDPR is shaping and affecting our SaaS businesses.

Both Ed and Steve are feeling a little bit stressed, perhaps at the beginning of burnout. We discuss why this might be, and what we are doing about it.

Nick Swan was about to launch paid plans for his SaaS when a sudden terrible life event changed everything for Nick and his family.

“The doctor said, ‘You have to go the main hospital now. Drive straight up there. Don’t even pack a bag.’ He didn’t say what it was, but he said it was serious.”

We discuss how this affected his life, his family and his mentality as a bootstrapper.

Aidan Doyle is a science fiction writer. Amongst his work are two self-published books, including The Writer's Book of Doubt. I'm planning to produce a book later this year as a marketing endeavour for Feature Upvote. So I chatted with Aidan to get tips on how to do this well.