Startups For the Rest of Us

Latest Episodes:

Episode 556 | Zero to $26k MRR as the Solo Founder of Rails Autoscale Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

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.

The topics we cover

[03:30] Background before starting Rails Autoscale

[07:04] Getting to 100 active users

[09:30] Platform risk

[14:59] Working on Rails Autoscale as a side project

[20:54] Rails Autoscale vs. Heroku's Autoscaler

[24:13] Free-trial to freemium experiment

Links from the show

Rails Autoscale
Adam McCrea (@adamlogic) | Twitter

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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Episode 555 | Businesses You Can Bootstrap, W2 vs. Contract, Enterprise Pricing, and More Listener Questions with Ruben Gamez Jun 22, 2021

Show notes

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] Determining if an idea is a good fit for bootstrapping

[28:31] How to develop competitive pricing for large enterprise clients

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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Episode 554 | Thinking Through Your Exit + Grief and Entrepreneurship with Dr. Sherry Walling Jun 15, 2021

Show notes

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

[09:01] The importance of symbols

[12:04] Evaluating reasons to sell a company

[16:37] The three components of burnout

[20:21] Changing your work schedule for summer

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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Episode 553 | Stack Overflow and Moz Acquired, Quitting Instead of Giving Up Remote Work, and More Bootstrapper News Jun 08, 2021

Show notes

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 TinySeed 2020

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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Episode 552 | Google Audits, Partnerships, and Freemium with Mike Taber Jun 01, 2021

Show notes

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

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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Episode 551 | Task-level vs. Project-level Thinkers, No Such Thing as an Autopilot Business, and More (A Rob Solo Adventure) May 25, 2021

Show notes

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

[20:45] Questions you should ask yourself when building/growing a company

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher

This episode is sponsored by Rewardful, turning your biggest fans into your best marketers.

Get 30% off your first 3 months by heading to getRewardful.com/startups. Offer expires May 31st.

Episode 550 | Three Years of Grind to Six Figures in ARR with CloudForecast May 18, 2021

Show notes

In Episode 550, Rob Walling chats with Tony Chan, co-founder of CloudForecast, about his incredible story of perseverance after getting rejected multiple times only to finally find product-market fit and reach six figures in annual recurring revenue.

The topics we cover

[04:11] CloudForecast's current revenue and customer base [08:43] Origin story for the idea of CloudForecast [16:53] Dealing with (many) rejections [28:01] Parting ways with a co-founder [30:07] The journey to Product-Market Fit [35:23] Marketing channels that are working for CloudForecast

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher This episode is sponsored by Rewardful, turning your biggest fans into your best marketers. Get 30% off your first 3 months by heading to getRewardful.com/startups. Offer expires May 31st.

Episode 549 | Hiring vs. Outsourcing, E-commerce SaaS, and More Listener Questions with Jordan Gal May 11, 2021

Show notes

In Episode 439, Rob Walling is joined by Jordan Gal to answer listener questions about starting an e-commerce SaaS and the laws and regulations, and compliance requirements required. They talk about managing enterprise perceptions of risk towards bootstrap startups. They also answer questions about bootstrapping and enterprise SaaS as well as hiring a growth role and whether you should hire full-time or outsource to a contractor or an agency.

The topics we cover

[01:11] Regulatory requirements for starting an e-commerce platform (Solman Ahmed)

[06:18] Managing enterprise perception of risk when selling as a bootstrapper (Noah Stall)

[16:26] Are some markets not feasible with a bootstrapped approach? (Declan Sweeney)

[22:42] Finding someone who is experienced growing SaaS companies (Russ)

[30:10] Hiring full-time versus outsourcing (Filip Kis)

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher

This episode is sponsored by Rewardful, turning your biggest fans into your best marketers.

Get 30% off your first 3 months by heading to getRewardful.com/startups. Offer expires May 31st.

Episode 548.5 | The Companies in TinySeed's Spring 2021 Batch May 06, 2021

Show notes

Episode 548 | The Grind of Building a SaaS During Nights & Weekends May 04, 2021

Show notes

In Episode 548, Rob Walling chats with Zack Naylor about Aurelius and the harrowing tale of launching multiple times and having to rewrite and re-platform the codebase before finally finding success. They also discuss how to interpret feedback from your customers and the importance of listening to your instinct as a founder.

The topics we cover

[03:24] Background on how Aurelius helps UX researchers

[07:56] The struggles of building and launching multiple alpha versions

[15:14] Bootstrapping during a pandemic

[22:20] Taking risks as an entrepreneur

[26:28] Building a third version of the product that lead to unprecedented growth

[30:48] Using your gut as a founder

Links from the show

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher

This episode is sponsored by Rewardful, turning your biggest fans into your best marketers. Get 30% off your first 3 months by heading to getRewardful.com/startups. Offer expires May 31st.