Build Your SaaS

It's the fourth anniversary of Transistor's public launch! This is part 2 of "Jon and Justin answer your questions."

• (00:37) - When did you start paying yourself how much you wanted to make?

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

1. Jason Charnes
2. Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
3. Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af
4. Alex Payne
5. Bill Condo
6. Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
7. Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
8. Oleg Kulyk
9. Ethan Gunderson
10. Ward Sandler, Memberspace
11. Russell Brown, Photivo.com
12. Noah Prail
13. Colin Gray
14. Austin Loveless
15. Michael Sitver
16. Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
17. Dan Buda
18. Darby Frey
19. Adam DuVander
20. Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
21. Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

It's the fourth anniversary of Transistor's public launch! In this two-part series, Jon and Justin answer your questions.

• 01:22 - Our history
• 14:51 - What is the secret to running Transistor as a company? See our values here.
• 21:19 - What was the most challenging aspect of the past 4 years?
• 22:14 - Where do you see Transistor at 5 or 10 year?
• 26:19 - Do you ever feel like you're not doing enough? Book: Running the Dream.
• 32:09 - Have we reached peak podcast?
• 34:36 - What's something you've gotten better at over the past 4 years?
• 38:23 - What was the lowest point in Transistor's history?
• 40:09 - What have you learned about partnership?
• 43:17 - What has been the most fun memory of your journey?
• 47:04 - What is the definition of enough for Transistor?
• 50:49 - What are your thoughts on open startups vs private?
• 52:25 - What are the most impactful decisions you've made?
• 56:34 - How has your job changed year to year?

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters

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

Baptiste Jamin co-founded Crisp with a friend he met in high school.

Highlights (go straight to 🔥 for the best stuff):

• 1:42 – Crisp competes with massive companies: Zendesk, HelpScout, Intercom
• 2:52 – How did Crisp get started? (they started young!)
• 4:40 – The key insight that lead them to start Crisp 🔥
• 7:03 – "Being young and in France, how much did you know about the startup ecosystem?"
• 9:39 – How they bootstrapped Crisp in their twenties 🔥
• 12:52 – Market insights and how they found their first customers 🔥
• 16:02 – How they got a surge of new customers 🔥
• 22:39 – Why Crisp charges LESS than their competitors 🔥
• 30:14 – What it's like to have a customer base that is comprised of many niches 🔥
• 32:30 – How does a small team ship such high-quality software? 🔥
• 35:06 – Marketing strategy and tactics for small SaaS companies 🔥
• 40:36 – Key insight on Crisp's "job to be done." 🔥
• 45:52 – Crisp's simple sales trick for closing more deals 🔥
• 50:58 – Why some EU countries have an advantage in product differentiation 🔥
• 1:01:54 – Emerging global SaaS markets you might not have heard about

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

1. Jason Charnes
2. Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
3. Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af
4. Alex Payne
5. Bill Condo
6. Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
7. Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
8. Oleg Kulyk
9. Ethan Gunderson
10. Ward Sandler, Memberspace
11. Russell Brown, Photivo.com
12. Noah Prail
13. Colin Gray
14. Austin Loveless
15. Michael Sitver
16. Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
17. Dan Buda
18. Darby Frey
19. Adam DuVander
20. Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
21. Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

Dave Zohrob is the co-founder of Chartable (a podcast analytics startup), talks about selling his company to Spotify in February 2022.

Highlights (go straight to 🔥 for the best stuff):

• 1:00 – What's the Spotify office in New York like?
• 5:24 – Dave's first startup: he started an indie record label (Tellall Records)
• 7:12 – Founding in Chartable in 2017
• 8:00 – Behind the scenes: talking to Chris Enns (our editor at Lemon Productions)
• 9:50 – Dave's first business as a kid: publishing programming tutorials on the internet (Qbasic.com)
• 12:25 – What made you want to make money on the internet?
• 14:25 – Do all geeks have the intuition to start a business? (Justin's tweet) 🔥
• 19:23 – What's your real motivation for building a startup? 🔥
• 24:28 – Side-projects vs Bootstrapping vs Venture Funding (VC) 🔥
• 30:12 – Once you choose the VC-funded path, what's it like? 🔥
• 32:00 – The huge risk/cost for founders with families 🔥
• 34:30 – Public health insurance is the best way to boost entrepreneurship
• 36:30 – Bootstrappers and VC-funded founders have this same anxiety 🔥
• 40:00 – What it's like joining a massive company as a small 11-person company? 🔥
• 48:10 – What's next in podcast ad tech, analytics, and attribution 🔥

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

1. Jason Charnes
2. Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
3. Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af
4. Alex Payne
5. Bill Condo
6. Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
7. Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
8. Oleg Kulyk
9. Ethan Gunderson
10. Ward Sandler, Memberspace
11. Russell Brown, Photivo.com
12. Noah Prail
13. Colin Gray
14. Austin Loveless
15. Michael Sitver
16. Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
17. Dan Buda
18. Darby Frey
19. Adam DuVander
20. Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
21. Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

Patrick Campbell just sold his startup, ProfitWell, to Paddle for $200 million.

Highlights (go straight to 🔥 for the best stuff):

• 0:00 – "My problem is I'm always curious if other people are living a better dream than me."
• 1:30 – The major downside to bootstrapping is the lack of network
• 2:20 – Selling ProfitWell to Paddle, and integrating the two teams.
• 4:15 – How ProfitWell got started (2012)
• 6:00 – Initially three co-founders (Crunchbase)
• 7:20 – Patrick's background (what he did before ProfitWell)
• 10:10 – What did bootstrapping ProfitWell look like? (How much did each founder invest?)
• 14:15 – Do you want to be a lifestyle company or a "big ass company?" 🔥
• 15:55 – What salary did Patrick pay himself? (Tweet) 🔥
• 18:25 – Differences between Patrick (ProfitWell) and Josh Pigford (Baremetrics) 🔥
• 21:45 – Should bootstrapped companies go freemium and try to "win the market?" 🔥
• 26:40 – The characteristics of your market determine most of your outcomes 🔥🔥
• 29:24 – "Don't underestimate the velocity and size of your market." 🔥
• 34:35 – What doe the average SaaS company spend on sales and marketing? 🔥
• 37:39 – Pricing your SaaS discussion 🔥
• 42:45 – Why competitors entering a new market can be better for your company. 🔥
• 47:10 – Should bootstrapped companies try to "own the market?" 🔥
• 52:10 – "We're in the second phase of SaaS: here's what's coming next." 🔥
• 61:53 – Did ProfitWell employees have equity?

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Email us: [email protected]

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

Philippe Lehoux and his two co-founders started working on Missive around 2015, and just passed $2 million in annual recurring revenue.

• 0:00 – Getting to know Philippe, and what it's like living in Quebec
• 3:09 – How Missive got started: "how can we quickly collaborate on an email as a team?"
• 8:15 – How they get most of their customers
• 10:30 – How their first product (Conference Badge), funded the development of Missive
• 13:55 – How the market dictates most of your success
• 16:30 – How they deal with competitors
• 28:00 – Another example: Crisp is competing head-to-head with Intercom
• 30:25 – Why indie startups should compete on price

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

1. Jason Charnes
2. Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
3. Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af
4. Alex Payne
5. Bill Condo
6. Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
7. Mitch
8. Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
9. Oleg Kulyk
10. Ethan Gunderson
11. Chris Willow
12. Ward Sandler, Memberspace
13. Russell Brown, Photivo.com
14. Noah Prail
15. Colin Gray
16. Austin Loveless
17. Michael Sitver
18. Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
19. Dan Buda
20. Darby Frey
21. Brad from Canada
22. Adam DuVander
23. Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
24. Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

Taylor Otwell, is the founder of Laravel, a programming framework for PHP. But he's also one of the most successful indie SaaS operators I know. In this episode we discuss:

• 0:30 – Taylor is changing how he hires and manages people at Laravel
• 6:01 – How Taylor is finding new employees to work on Forge, Vapor, and his other products
• 7:34 – The Laravel ecosystem has incubated incredible talent: Miguel Piedrafita, Caleb Porzio, Adam Wathan, Aaron Francis, Jack Ellis...
• 10:03 – More and more indie SaaS apps are being built in Laravel
• 10:48 – When is the next Laracon conference?
• 13:11 – Taylor Otwell has the classic bootstrap success story
• 14:28 – Laravel has been running too lean
• 17:00 – What's it like to work as a developer at Laravel? (pair programming)
• 18:33 – How Taylor does product development
• 22:08 – "I haven't told anyone this yet, but I actually considered selling Laravel this past year." Here's why Taylor decided not to sell.
• 26:30 – How do you deal with internet fame, and being a "known person?" 
• 28:59 – Dealing with haters on Twitter
• 31:50 – What is the future of web development, and the full-stack developer? What is the future of Ruby on Rails and Laravel?
• 35:53 – Building excitement around PHP and Laravel with young people.
• 42:13 – What inspires kids to get into programming? When it's fun, easy, accessible. This is why so many people started with Hypercard, Microsoft Access, PHP, Adobe Flash...

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Email us: [email protected]

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

Helen and Justin talk about the importance of customer support for indie SaaS companies.

• 1:08 The hardest part about podcasting is doing it every week
• 1:38 We just launched the new podcast website themes feature.
• 2:24 Getting feedback, or seeing people use your product, is fuel for indie makers
• 6:08 Helen's experience doing Customer Success for other companies: education, ConvertKit, MakerPad.
• 8:53 Justin's tweet: "Customer Support is the most under-appreciated role in SaaS."
• 10:00 The different forms of customer support: pre-sales, in-depth bug fixing, answering questions.
• 12:45 How does the Transistor team differ when we do support?
• 14:39 What Justin's learned from Helen in terms of giving better customer service
• 17:25 People expect us to be bots
• 17:45 The number of tickets we get each week: it's about ~100 conversations per week:
  • 60-70% of those are new conversations,
  • 30-40% is us responding to existing threads.
• 18:55 How we manage live chat so we can answer people fairly quickly
• 29:10 More tips for indie hackers who are doing customer support

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

1. Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
2. Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af
3. Alex Payne
4. Bill Condo
5. Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
6. Mitch
7. Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
8. Oleg Kulyk
9. Ethan Gunderson
10. Chris Willow
11. Ward Sandler, Memberspace
12. Russell Brown, Photivo.com
13. Noah Prail
14. Colin Gray
15. Austin Loveless
16. Michael Sitver
17. Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
18. Dan Buda
19. Darby Frey
20. Brad from Canada
21. Adam DuVander
22. Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
23. Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

We got the whole band together: Helen and Jason join Jon and Justin to talk about what it's really like to work at Transistor

Helen, Jason, Jon, Justin, all squeezed into the podcasting closet to make an episode

• 0:55 Jason's first podcast ever
• 1:12 Helen's been on other podcasts: Startups for the Rest of Us, Indie Bites, Indie Worldwide
• 3:06 Should we invest in the "auto publish to YouTube" feature?
  • Tom Webster: why would people listen to podcasts on YouTube?
• 13:32 The best features the ones that feel like "magic" when a customer uses them
• 18:46 The "wait and see" product development philosophy
• 20:15 A new podcast website builder CMS and website designs
• 23:34 Writing a new templating language in Liquid (Shopify)
• 26:23 Our new CLI tool: receiver (built with Go)
• 31:30 Making a few new podcast website themes
• 31:57 Adding language localization for podcast websites (English, French, Spanish)
• 34:30 How we run our weekly team meetings
• 35:44 New podcast website themes are out! (YouTube demo)
• 40:39 For next week: what questions do you have for @jsonpearl and @helenryles?
• 42:16 Patreon shout outs

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

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

Jon and Justin recorded this episode sitting on the same couch!

• Photo of the Coeur de Boeuf
• The last time we were together in person: April 30, 2019 [Photo]
• 2022 roadmap planning. We're exploring what we'd like to accomplish this year. 
  • Update and improve the podcast website builder
  • Build new podcast website templates based on Liquid
  • Add tools that help podcasters promote their show
  • Continue to improve our Dynamic Audio Insertion features
  • Create new features that help podcasters monetize their show
• Sales/marketing planning:
  • Reaching out to major affiliates to see how we can better partner with them
  • Looking at ways of rewarding our customers for referring through Rewardful
  • Freemium?
• Employees/company stuff 
  • Options: Carta
  • Benefits
  • Possible hiring
• Future:
  • Long-term, we’re looking at an acquisition: what do we need to do to build up to that?

What should we talk about next?

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

1. Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af
2. Alex Payne
3. Bill Condo
4. Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com
5. Mitch
6. Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
7. Oleg Kulyk
8. Ethan Gunderson
9. Chris Willow
10. Ward Sandler, Memberspace
11. Russell Brown, Photivo.com
12. Noah Prail
13. Colin Gray
14. Austin Loveless
15. Michael Sitver
16. Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom
17. Dan Buda
18. Darby Frey
19. Brad from Canada
20. Adam DuVander
21. Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
22. Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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