Build Your SaaS

Jon and Justin, still making sense of life (and business) in a pandemic:

• Jon put on pants today.
• Justin is mad at Amazon.

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Sofia Quintero
• Diogo
• Chris Willow
• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

Jon and Justin are hunkered down, and reeling from COVID-19:

• This is moving fast, so this podcast might already be out-of-date.
• Difference between the restrictions in Chicago and Vernon.
• "It's hard to focus on Transistor and write any code."
• "There are all these people out there suffering, it's hard to know what to do."
• "You see these effects rippling through society, and then rippling towards you."
• 7:50 – "It'd be nice to donate to everyone, but you just can't."
• 8:40 – It's a multidimensional difficulty for businesses.
• 9:15 – The tools for small shops are still not very good (especially the UX).
• Justin's tweet about Square
• 10:14 – DNS is still the most difficult thing.
• 11:00 – "These people are scrambling to save their businesses."
• Ivy and Dan Meehan’s podcast, Local
• When did you start taking this seriously? On the Not Overthinking podcast
• What makes a business recession-proof?
• Henry Mintzberg: The Three Pillars for rebalancing society
• Interview with Henry Mintzberg
• Are we going to band together, and fight this together?
• MegaMaker Slack

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Sofia Quintero
• Diogo
• Chris Willow
• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

This week, Justin is joined by Marie Poulin, co-founder of Oki Doki. They discuss:

Chatting with Marie Poulin, Oki Doki

• 3:40 – "I used to be in the 'Ra Ra! Everyone should build a web app' crowd."
• 4:18 – "Now there's this feeling that maybe everyone shouldn't start a SaaS?"
• 9:30 – When you're starting a business, there are so many dynamics you need to get right.
• 13:40 – Why so many people fail to go from zero to one in business.
• 16:20 – Why are you starting a business in the first place? What's driving you?
• 23:41 – There's a company called Tighten that gives their employees mental-health days.
• 26:00 – What is the most efficient way for you to improve your life?
• 27:00 – Sometimes folks try to make a part-time business into a full-time business.
• 33:00 – Is it possible for a business to be lucrative, easy, and fun?
• 42:00 – Having money does solve a lot of life's problems.
• Marie's super-secret Notion course

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @mariepoulin
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters

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

This week, Jon and Justin celebrate 100 episodes:

• Jon was on the Cody Story podcast awhile back.
• Justin, on the other hand, loves writing testimonials:
  • Jack McDade's new course
  • Tailwind UI
  • Fathom Analytics
• "We are in our mid-life crisis of SaaS building. I think, for me, the problem is not quite knowing what's next."
• Is this the time we hire a business coach? 
• Where does your personal motivation for work come from?
• What difference are we trying to make in the world?
• Derek Sivers: "You've got to take off the old clothes in order to put on the new clothes."
• Organizational cadence: what team retreats do we do each year?
• Inertia: "things don't move unless you apply an external force to them."
• "Brian Rhea seems thoughtful about this kind of stuff."
• Jon has been using AlpineJS by Caleb Porzio – it's really nice.
• Vampire movie recommendation: Let the Right One In
• Justin is contacting our winners from the contest. (We used ContestKit.com for this)
  • 410 registrations
  • 64 people were already on our MailChimp list.
  • 55 of these people have been a customer at some point (trial + paid)
• Printing and sending t-shirts via Printful.

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Diogo
• Chris Willow
• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

This week, Justin is joined by Michele Hansen (co-founder of Geocodio). We explore a bunch of questions:

• What it's like to bootstrap with your spouse
• 6:30 – where Michele and Mathias found the idea for their company
• 7:00 – when you have kids you need diapers at 1am
• Why people start companies
• 7:55 – how getting pregnant motivated them to build a product
• 10:15 – Matthias initially built a really basic geocoder for their purposes
• 11:30 – a lot of bootstrappers get motivated to start a business after they have their first kid
• Tyler Tringas: "Building, Owning (& possibly Selling) a profitable remote SaaS business is the new American Dream."
• 13:20 – "we were so surprised that people wanted to pay us."

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @mjwhansen
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Chris Willow
• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

This week, Justin is joined by Ward Sandler from MemberSpace (launched in 2015). We explore a bunch of questions:

• How do you find a cofounder?
• Ward explains to Justin (a Canadian) what a fraternity is.
• What it's like doing enterprise sales.
• How two sales guys ended up learning design and programming.
• "Everybody needs to build a website for Uncle Larry"
• Justin and Ward go through a sample sales phone call.
• How they found the idea for MemberSpace through their consulting company.
• How Ward knew there was a lot of interest in the product.
• The unconventional reason Ward and Ryan took money from Ernest.
• 47:25 – what to do about that feeling of dissatisfaction and listlessness. 
• 48:45 – "You have to ask yourself: why are you constantly running? What are you trying to achieve?"
• 49:50 – "Don't succumb to the ennui."

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Chris Willow
• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Dave Young, magnusrush.com/
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

This week, Jon and Justin discuss:

• Justin's office is under construction 🛠️.
• How to talk about things that are hard.
• A review exercise from the book: The Great CEO Within (as recommended by Ben on Art of Product).
• It gives each founder the ability to say: "This bugs me."
• We've hired Helen (NamesAce) as a part-time contractor.
• Switching out our UI framework: Jon is rebuilding the Transistor app with Tailwind.
• How do you move to V2 of your app? Should you rebuild?
• Joel on Software: Things you should never do
• Interview with Mike from Freshbooks on Founders Talk.
• "It's possible that you build something new that's worse."
• Justin built a public changelog: transistor.fm/changelog
• A contest announcement at 23:20
• Jon needs a hat education: this is a 5-panel cap.
• Good option for startup swag: Printful.com.
• Print-on-demand fades differently than screenprinting.
• Interview with Ryan Holiday (on Noah Kagan's podcast)
• Funny Panic podcast episode

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Dave Young, magnusrush.com/
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

This week, Jon and Justin discuss:

• What makes a good podcast for product people?
• New American Dream: building, owning, selling a SaaS (Tyler Tringas)
• What do you worry about when you own your own software company?
• How would we handle an economic downturn?
• Why do software founders not sleep well at night?

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, snapshooter.io
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Dave Young, magnusrush.com/
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

This week, Jon and Justin discuss:

• Repeating calendar item: "Jan 5th, GTFO."
• How are you doing with the winter blue?
• The Transistor Volkswagen bus, surfboards, and snowboards.
• Monolithic vs mico-services
  • https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1222966700913479681
  • https://changelog.com/posts/monoliths-are-the-future
• Pushing ahead with our “switch from Semantic UI to Tailwind CSS" cycle.
• "Retargeting is like squeezing the last drop of juice out of the lemon. Is it worth it?"
• "We were adding more and more things to the business hoping we'd be able to get it to work." justinjackson.ca/margin
• Jon is running to Austin, Texas using Wolfram's computer harness.

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, saasreality.com
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Dave Young, magnusrush.com/
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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

Jon is back! This week, we discuss:

• This book, The Timeless Way of Building, that Justin is reading.
• When you work for yourself, there can be sense of not being grounded. What do you do?
• What's better than meditating?
• Why co-founders should have a weekly phone call.
• How the environment we're in influences our actions.
• Jon's been rebuilding our dashboard using Tailwind CSS + Alpine JS.
• Tutorial: Rails and Tailwind
• People complaining about Webpack
• "What's that Rails gem that everyone buys?" "Sidekiq"
• People have gotten so used to free software!
• Justin's advice for Statamic.

You can reply to this podcast here:

• Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda
• Leave a comment on PodHunt; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts.
• Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
• Interact on WhatPods.
• Email us: [email protected]

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

• Mason Hensley
• Borja Soler teami.io
• Ward from MemberSpace.com
• Eric Lima
• James Sowers (like Flowers) with UserInput.io
• Travis Fischer
• Matt Buckley, from NiceThings.io 
• Russell Brown
• Evandro Sasse
• Pradyumna Shembekar (PD), pradyumna.dev
• Noah Prail, eventOneHQ.com
• Robert Simplicio, Simplicio.com
• Colin Gray alitu.com
• Josh Smith, hellosift.com
• Ivan Curkovic
• Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
• Shane Smith, dev.transistor.fm
• Austin Loveless
• Simon Bennett, saasreality.com
• Michael Sitver, letterjoy.co
• Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, usefathom.com 
• Dan Buda danbuda.com
• Darby Frey
• Samori Augusto, thebicrowd.com
• Dave Young, magnusrush.com/
• Brad from Canada
• Sammy Schuckert
• Mike Walker
• Adam DuVander
• Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
• Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com

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