Sean Boyce has run his own consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years and has founded multiple other companies at the same time. He’s extremely experienced in working with B2B SaaS product businesses and is well-known for having a big impact on the businesses he’s worked with. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• What a growth trap is and when it starts to affect businesses.
• Why so many firms fall into a growth trap.
• What a healthy growth trajectory looks like.
• The issue of focusing on the wrong set of metrics.
• Why profit is more important than revenue.
• How to avoid your professional services firm falling into a growth trap.

Resources:

• Blog post: How to avoid the growth trap when trying to scale your professional services business
• Blog post: Scaling services starts with the bottleneck
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn
• Sean Boyce by Email

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Dave Banerjee has been the CEO of RND Resources for over 37 years, where he provides outsourced regulatory compliance consulting to Broker-Dealers, Registered Investment Advisers, FCM, Banks, and Insurance agencies. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• How RND Resources helps financial service companies.
• The fundamental basis of investment markets.
• The increase in innovative activity in financial engineering products.
• The different types of people involved in new digital elements.
• How Bitcoin started and the validity of the idea behind it.
• NFTs, digital autonomous organizations, and how financial service companies are innovating in this space.
• The difference between regulations in the institutional and retail space.
• The level of commitment required to pass the regulatory process.
• Different policies around cross-currency transactions.
• The difference between minimizing taxes and tax avoidance.
• How the world of finance will change in the future.
• The issues with blockchain technology.

Resources:

• RND Resources 
• FCC
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with Dave Banerjee:

• LinkedIn

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Sean Boyce has run his own consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years and has founded multiple other companies at the same time. He’s extremely experienced in working with B2B SaaS product businesses and is well-known for having a big impact on the businesses he’s worked with. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• How to prepare your service firm to be ready for growth with scalable services.
• Common ways people try to scale services.
• Why hiring extra people is an inefficient way to scale your service.
• The value of making your operations more efficient.
• The importance of focusing on profit rather than revenue.
• Why it’s necessary to chart your growth trajectory and how to do it.
• What a value map is and what it needs to include.
• How to identify bottlenecks in your growth trajectory.
• How you can improve operational efficiency through creating repeatable processes.

Resources:

• Blog post - Scaling services starts with the bottleneck
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn
• Sean Boyce by Email

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Nik Shah is an investor, entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of Home.LLC where he helps people buy their first house and build wealth.

Nik sold his first startup in his freshman year of college and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a focus in Business & AI/ML. He has been a management consultant to Fortune-100 clients at Ernst & Young and built a $250M innovation fund as Chief of Staff at Ernst & Young. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• What Home.LLC is and how they help people buy their first home with minimal savings.
• The huge amount of demand there is in the housing market.
• What makes a business model sustainable.
• How to identify pain points that people are willing to pay for.
• How to get authentic feedback and reliable data.
• How to measure product-market fit.
• Ways to build more momentum in your startup.
• Why the name of your company is not important.

Resources:

• Home.LLC
• The Mom Test
• Superhuman
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with Nik Shah:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Sean Boyce has run his own consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years and has founded multiple other companies at the same time. He’s extremely experienced in working with B2B SaaS product businesses and is well-known for having a big impact on the businesses he’s worked with. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• How to avoid making assumptions in the sales process.
• Why repeatability needs to come before scaleability.
• How to create a hook in your sales process.
• The power of running a podcast.
• How podcasting can help you connect with new prospects.

Resources:

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• How to Build a Sales Process for Your Product
• StaffGeek
• People Analytics
• The Consulting Trap
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with the host:

Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Evan Linhardt is a former nonprofit leader and public service executive and is now the Vice President and Financial Advisor for Bernstein Private Wealth Management. He now serves non-profits, foundations, and families to design investment strategies that align and allow them to fulfill their missions to maximize impact.

Evan is a Board Member and Treasurer at LiveWell Foundation, a Board Member at Sow Good Now, an Advisory Board Member at Community Foundation of South Jersey, and an Advisory Board Member at the Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, as well as holding Corporate Responsibility at AllianceBernstein. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• How Evan went from working in nonprofits and charities to being VP in a Private Wealth Management firm.
• How Evan helps individuals build investment portfolios that align with their goals and beliefs.
• The challenges in growing and scaling nonprofits fundraising campaigns.
• How nonprofits can combat the power imbalance they have with their key donors.
• How donors and fundraisers can build strong trusting relationships with each other.
• How investors can invest for impact as well as profit.

Resources:

• Philadelphia School Partnership
• Bernstein Private Wealth Management
• Lean Impact
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with Evan Linhardt:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Connecting with the host:

Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Sean Boyce has run his own consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years and has founded multiple other companies at the same time. He’s extremely experienced in working with B2B SaaS product businesses and is well-known for having a big impact on the businesses he’s worked with. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• The difference between hunting and farming. 
• The pros and cons of both hunting and farming. 
• How to make your sales effort and your marketing effort complement each other. 
• The importance of making your product sales process repeatable. 
• Why you should build the product sales process before you start to leverage help from others. 
• When you should invest in market activities and what that can do for you. 
• The problem with random acts of marketing. 
• The dangers of delegating your marketing to others too early on.

Resources:

• Free templates
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Rob Fitzpatrick has been running small businesses for over 13 years and has written multiple books about what he’s learned along the way, including ‘The Mom Test’.

His first company was a scalable startup that went through the Y combinator accelerator and Rob is now building software to support indie nonfiction authors. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• How Rob found out what he was doing wrong in his sales pitch.
• How Rob wrote his book ‘The Mom Test’.
• Why any sales pitch needs to start with a problem.
• Why you need to know your customer like you know your best friend.
• The goals you should focus on in any customer conversation.
• Why customer research is so important and when you should be doing it.
• Common objections to doing customer research and why they’re not valid.

Resources:

• The Mom Test
• The Goal
• The Phoenix Project
• The Four Steps to the Epiphany
• Songkick
• Never Split the Difference
• This is Marketing
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with Rob Fitzpatrick:

• LinkedIn
• Website
• Twitter

Connecting with the host:

Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Sean Boyce has run his own consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years and has founded multiple other companies at the same time. He’s extremely experienced in working with B2B SaaS product businesses and is well-known for having a big impact on the businesses he’s worked with. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• Why sales should be seen as a process.
• The importance of repeatability when creating a sales process.
• The steps you need to take to set yourself up for large scalability.
• How to know when you’ve achieved a problem-solution fit.
• Why building a product sales process in a repeatable way is the most cost-effective way to sell a product.
• How to achieve scalability while maintaining quality. 
• How to help prepare a sales team and some assets that are helpful with this.
• How to handle common objections.
• How to measure the performance of your product sales process.

Resources:

• How to build a sales process for your product blog post
• Running Lean
• The Lean Startup
• StaffGeek
• Free Templates
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn
• Sean Boyce by Email

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/

Francisco Lopez has over 20 years of experience in financial institutions and is the Chief Operations and Innovation Officer at DreamSpring and is a Board Member at EBA Fund.

Amber Kani is the Director Of Communications at DreamSpring and has diverse experience in marketing, fundraising, corporate social responsibility, operations, employee engagement, project management, impact measurement, and strategic growth. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Product Launch:

• The products and services DreamSpring offers and how they help fund businesses.
• The small businesses and entrepreneurs that DreamSpring tends to work with.
• How DreamSpring was able to scale up and reach more clients.
• The value of investing in your own technology and platforms.
• How DreamSpring sources new clients.
• What DreamSpring’s future goals are and how they determined these.

Resources:

• DreamSpring
• NxtStep
• Podcast Chef

Connecting with Francisco Lopez:

• LinkedIn

Connecting with Amber Kani:

• LinkedIn
• Website

Connecting with the host:

• Sean Boyce on LinkedIn

Free Email Course - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/course

Online Community - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/community

Bootstrapper's Paradise - https://bootstrappersparadise.com/