Build Your SaaS

Jon's away! Today I talked to Spencer Fry, from Podia about:

• How do you find a good startup idea?
• What are the worst types of companies to start?
• Should you raise money or bootstrap?
• Why the target market for your product matters.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
• Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

• Podia.com
• Carbon Made
• SpencerFry.com
• Spencer on Twitter
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Corey Haines
• Michael Sitver
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
• Dan Buda
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Balsamiq.cloud
• Clubhouse.io
• GetRewardful.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Recorded on April fools day! Here's what we covered:

• If you're bootstrapping, when should you get a salary?
• An update on the worst day ever. (We're fine now)
• A SPECIAL SURPRISE
• "It feels like there is this convergence in podcasting and I don’t know what to do about it."
• Anxiety and insecurity about "missing out on better opportunities."

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Balsamiq: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.com
• Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

• Caddy Server
• Lets Encrypt
• Book: Profit First
• Transistor's SaaS revenue metrics
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Michael Sitver
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom Analytics
• Dan Buda, danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Balsamiq.cloud
• Clubhouse.io
• GetRewardful.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

On Sunday, we had a service outage. Jon and Justin talk about what happened:

• TLS / SSL day of horror
• Sunday morning Justin started getting messages from a few Android users that they couldn’t download episodes.
• Then, the afternoon hits, and we started getting a flood of tweets, DMs, text messages, and support requests.
• We talk about how we fixed it, and what we'd like to change for next time.
• Also: how we're earning 29% of our SaaS revenue. (A channel we didn't expect)

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.
• Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.

Show notes:

• Our status site: status.transistor.fm
• DHH on service outages
• DHH's postmortem on Basecamp's outage
• The affiliate program we use is Rewardful.
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Michael Sitver
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom Analytics
• Dan Buda, danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Balsamiq.cloud
• Clubhouse.io
• GetRewardful.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Lots of interesting items this week:

• Justin got a personal message from an NFL player
• Jon moved everyone over to the new CDN
• Podcasting has a lot of confusing paradigms for users
• It took two days of transferring files (just under 1TB)
• Justin signed up for the Transistor as if he was a customer
• He live-streamed the whole thing (got tons of good input from live chat)
• Jon is wondering how we're going to handle hate speech on the platform

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.
• Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.

Show notes:

• Paul Jarvis got Justin Jackson, from the NFL, to give me a message
• Dropzone.js
• S3 accelerate buckets
• Livestream of Justin signing up for Transistor
• Article: People on the internet can be mean
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Dan Buda, danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Balsamiq.cloud
• Clubhouse.io
• GetRewardful.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Good stuff this week:

• Justin wants to know: when's the last time you changed your business' homepage?
• Jon does a deep dive into Apple's podcasting docs.
• Justin built a status (uptime) page for Transistor using Tailwind.
• Jon thinks there is enterprise demand for private podcasts.
• Justin chats about Startup Kung-Fu.
• They both chat about specialists vs generalists.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.
• Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.

Show notes:

• Adam Wathan, Rebuilding Transistor UI in Tailwind
• Content blocking in Firefox (they block embedded tweets)
• Status.Transistor.fm
• Startup Kung-Fu by Jason Cohen
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Dan Buda, danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Balsamiq.cloud
• Clubhouse.io
• GetRewardful.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Good stuff this week:

• Jon ran into Myke Hurley at the Cards Against Humanity office.
• Whether you should work from home or the office.
• Spotify analytics update in Transistor.
• How do you feel about "walled gardens?"
• Sometimes the best plan is to do nothing. Just wait and see what happens.
• Billing updates for delinquent customers
• Did someone try to phish us on-air?

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Balsamiq.cloud: They make a low-fidelity wireframing tool, specifically geared for non-designers. Get in the zone, and I feel creative right away. Try out their free trial: balsamiq.cloud.
• Clubhouse.io: Clubhouse is the first project management platform for software development that brings everyone together. It's designed for developers, but product folks, marketing, support folks love using it. Get two months free: clubhouse.io/build.

Show notes:

• Mac Power Users in Chicago
• Relay.fm – Myke Hurley's podcast network
• Uproar over Apple Podcasts episode numbers
• ChurnBuster blog on dunning
• Jason Cohen’s Startup Kung-Fu
• Justin Jackson: How to make money podcasting

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Dan Buda, danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Balsamiq.cloud
• Clubhouse.io
• GetRewardful.com

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Jon and Justin share their progress on:

• The bandwidth / CDN cost problem (and how it might affect our profitability).
• Marco Arment: "It would cost them probably thousands of dollars a month in bandwidth and CDN costs to host our show."
• We made a decision on whether we'll take investment now. (Hats off to Earnest Capital, TinySeed, and Indie.VC for offering such great options!)
• Should founders use their savings to fund their company? What about credit cards?
• When should we start hiring people?
• What about government-funded community loans for startups? ~9% interest.
• Nathan Barry: "You should get a loan when you don’t need it because once you do it won’t be available."
• Our accountant might be a socialist. ;)
• Can you really "build something out of nothing?"

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
• Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.

Show notes:

• Marco Arment talks about bandwidth
• I tested our new CDN on Mike Vardy’s podcast (Twitter video)
• Earnest Capital
• TinySeed
• Indie.vc
• Government funded loans: BDC and Community Futures in Canada.
• Nathan Barry on "solving the cash crisis."
• Everything is a Remix
• Justin's article: "How startup growth really works."
• Matt from Supercomputer’s bug report

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Alitu.com
• Podcastinsights.com
• GetRewardful.com
• Dan Buda @danielbuda, danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

This week, Jon and Justin are wrestling with some heavy startup founder topics:

• What should your SaaS company's gross margins be?
• How much is bandwidth going to cost us? How does it affect our margins?
• Example: [Account A] does 495,000 downloads in a month, average file size is 8 MB, that’s 3960 GB of bandwidth in a month. If bandwidth is $0.01 per GB, that’s $39.60 just for bandwidth for that one account. And that’s if we can get it that cheap. Otherwise, we’d pay $198 on AWS, or Azure. If we used Google Cloud it’d be $316.
• The burden of keeping our service up rests on Jon's shoulders. How can we reduce the risk?
• How can we increase platform resiliency, automation, and improve our internal customer service tools?

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
• Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
• GetRewardful.com: Guess what? Affiliates is providing almost 30% of our revenue. Rewardful makes it easy for SaaS companies to start an affiliate program on Stripe.

Show notes:

• LeadEdge Capital: “Gross margins for SaaS typically range from 60% to more than 80%."
• Quora on SaaS gross margins.
• Most users don't realize how much bandwidth costs (Twitter)
• An explanation of bandwidth
• Is 1 GB equal to 1024 MB or 1000 MB?
• Z-cast closes up shop
• We're talking to someone at Cloudflare (tweet)
• Jamie's blog: Implementing Impersonation

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Alitu.com
• Podcastinsights.com
• GetRewardful.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

Dave Zohrob, the CEO of Chartable, chats with Justin about bootstrapping a startup in the podcast space. We cover:

• Why Jon and Justin started Transistor
• Navigating co-founder relationships
• How to stand out and build a podcast audience in 2019
• Our thoughts on Anchor (this was recorded pre-acquisition)

This is a re-broadcast of the Chartable Radio podcast.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
• Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
• Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

• Podnews on the Spotify deal
• Nicholas Quah on the Spotify deal
• National Geographic: Valley of the Boom
• Apple is investing big in content: they've signed deals with Spielberg, Oprah, Jennifer Anniston. 

What do you think?

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Alitu.com
• Podcastinsights.com
• GetRewardful.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!

In this episode:

• Jon and Justin open up about the challenges of bootstrapping "on the side." 
• How things have gotten harder (in some ways) now that we have customers.
• Jon is finding it hard to juggle his day job, and getting time to build the "big features."
• Justin flip-flips back and forth about investment. Would investors and advisors meddle too much?
• We also discuss the Spotify rumors: buying Gimlet for $200 - $230 million?
• Also, a theory about why Apple should have made Gimlet an offer.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

• Alitu.com: Alitu removes all the tech headaches associated with producing your podcast. They take care of processing, editing & publishing your podcast. Go to Alitu.com and check out their video demo.
• Podcastinsights.com: If you want to get into podcasting, check out Podcast Insights. They’re a great resource for folks who want to start and grow a podcast. Podcast equipment guides, how to make money. Join millions of readers learning all about how to start, grow, and monetize a podcast at podcastinsights.com.
• Want to podcast in 2019? Transistor is cooking up something special for the new year.

Show notes:

• Podnews on the Spotify deal
• Nicholas Quah on the Spotify deal
• National Geographic: Valley of the Boom
• Apple is investing big in content: they've signed deals with Spielberg, Oprah, Jennifer Anniston. 

What do you think?

• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Leave a comment on CastBox, the podcast app for Android and iPhone.
• Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: [email protected]
• Create your own podcast at transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Alitu.com
• Podcastinsights.com
• GetRewardful.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto
• Dave Young
• Brad from Canada
• Kevin Markham
• Sammy Schuckert
• Dan Ericson
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)

🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!