Builders Gonna Build

By Metacast

Interviews with people who build awesome products. Hosted by Metacast co-founders Ilya Bezdelev and Arnab Deka.

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FAQs about Builders Gonna Build:

How many episodes does Builders Gonna Build have?

The podcast currently has 12 episodes available.

Builders Gonna Build episodes:

April 14, 2025Moment: Ditching unlimited pricing for a B2B SaaS (ep. 9)
Co-founder of Honeybadger Ben Curtis talks about unlimited pricing, its deficiencies for a bootstrapped startup, and how they ditched unlimited all-you-can-eat buffet in favor of usage-based pricing.
Full episode: 9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood
Where to find the badgers
Honeybadger
FounderQuest podcast
Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
5min
March 25, 2025Moment: It took us two years before we switched to our business full-time with Honeybadger co-founder Ben Curtis (ep. 9)
Co-founder of Honeybadger Ben Curtis discusses freelancing before switching to work on the product full-time.
Full episode: 9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood
Where to find the badgers
Honeybadger
FounderQuest podcast
Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
2min
March 22, 2025Moment: How we got first customers for our SaaS with Honeybadger co-founders (ep. 9)
Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood discuss getting the very first customers and making first sales for their app and error monitoring SaaS Honeybadger.
Full episode: 9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood
Where to find the badgers
Honeybadger
FounderQuest podcast
Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
3min
March 19, 20259. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood
Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood discuss the origins and growth of their app monitoring product, challenges of bootstrapping, calm work environment, evolution of co-founder relationships, and buying out a departing co-founder.
Chapters
01:27 - Introduction of Honeybadger
03:50 - The genesis of the company
10:40 - The first customers
12:26 - How much money do you need to feel like it's real?
14:37 - Switching to the business full-time
16:42 - Moving from unlimited to usage-based pricing
21:14 - Stress about revenue
23:40 - When do you start paying ourselves?
26:29 - The evolution of founder relationships
31:14 - Dealing with a co-founder departure
34:49 - Is a calm company possible?
36:30 - Who does what in the company
41:25 - Advice for entrepreneurs
42:12 - Where to find Ben and Joshua
Where to find the badgers
Honeybadger
FounderQuest podcast
Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn
Links
Honeybadger meme
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
44min
May 09, 20248. Growing your LinkedIn and newsletter audience | John Crickett
John Crickett is the creator of Coding Challenges, a newsletter for engineers that has over 54k subscribers. John’s LinkedIn profile grew from 3k to 150k+ followers in a year. In this episode, we dive into the process and mindset that allowed John’s following to grow so quickly.
Chapters
00:58 - Introduction
03:18 - Spending a million Euros and a year on an MVP
05:54 - Coding Challenges
08:15 - MVP for an info product vs. software
13:51 - Growth on LinkedIn
17:32 - Post structure
19:48 - Comments on posts
21:48 - Twitter/X
25:15 - Coding Challenges newsletter
27:12 - Building a personal brand
34:09 - Nicheing on LinkedIn
41:50 - Selling B2B vs. B2C
47:18 - Tangent on car salesmen
50:13 - Book recommendations
Where to find John
John’s LinkedIn
Coding Challenges
Coding Challenges newsletter
Coding Chats podcast
30 Day LinkedIn Personal Branding Challenge for Software Engineers (starts on May 20, 2024!)
Links
Advent of Code
Carrd website builder
AirChat
Podcasts
My First Million (Jason Cohen episode)
Books
Stop Asking Questions by Andrew Warner
Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
54min
April 24, 20247. Jason Fried on building products, calm companies and the Jeff Bezos investment
Jason Fried is a co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp and HEY. Together with his business partner David Hannemeier Hanson, Jason co-authored seminal entrepreneurship books Rework, Remote, and It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work.
This episode was originally published on the Metacast podcast, episode 28 in July 2023.
Chapters
03:17 - Introduction of Jason and 37signals
05:38 - Founder role vs. CEO role
08:37 - Working with the same co-founder for 20 years
11:10 - Disagreements between founders
13:31 - Disagree and commit principle
15:14 - The business side of things (numbers, accounting, etc.)
18:17 - On costs and profitability
21:01 - Intentionally keeping the company small
24:01 - Managing risk
26:11 - Jeff Bezos' investment
32:34 - Working on several products at the same time
33:31 - Six-week cycles vs. long-term projects
38:50 - Evolution of 37signals
44:45 - Keeping products until the end of the Internet
47:28 - Calm companies
48:38 - Listening to customer feedback
54:25 - Jason's email is public. Is this a good idea?
58:07 - Employee performance reviews and fixed salaries
59:45 - Can the "calm company" mindset work in big companies?
1:05:51 - How does one find a calm company to work for?
1:08:46 - Publishing books
1:11:38 - On being contrarian and no politics at work
Podcasts
Rework
#496: Marc Randolph on Building Netflix, Battling Blockbuster, Negotiating with Amazon/Bezos, and Scraping the Barnacles Off the Hull on The Tim Ferriss Show
Books
Rework
Getting Real
It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
Shape Up
Maverick by Ricardo Semler
Blog posts
Founder & CEO is kinda a BS title by Jason Fried
Basecamp's new etiquette regarding societal politics at work by DHH
But what if you're wrong? by DHH
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
1h 16min
April 10, 20246. Creating a niche of your own | Corey Quinn, The Duckbill Group
Corey Quinn is the Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group and a big celebrity at the AWS circles well known for his sense of humor and unrelenting focus on making some good fun of the cloud providers.
In our interview, we are learning Corey’s background, how The Duckbill Group got started, and how he runs the media side of his business. As usual, we talked about bootstrapping and running consulting services while building a product.
This episode was originally published on the Metacast podcast, episode 32.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:49 - Meet Corey Quinn, Chief Cloud Economist
06:16 - What does a cloud economist do?
08:08 - From sysadmin to independent consultant
11:53 - Starting The Duckbill Group
13:00 - Choosing a business partner
15:59 - Finding your authentic voice on social media
17:08 - Route 53 as a database and early Twitter fame
19:01 - Audience growth and depth of engagement
22:15 - Navigating humor and legal boundaries
25:16 - Naming The Duckbill Group
25:52 - Team structure and bootstrapping a services business
27:01 - Why cloud cost optimization is a people problem
30:28 - Bootstrapping and managing founder psychology
32:59 - Who does what at The Duckbill Group
34:04 - Producing a podcast and outsourcing operations
36:30 - Getting first customers through your network
39:47 - Evolution of Corey's media empire
42:55 - Sponsorship revenue and the media business model
43:44 - Starting the Screaming in the Cloud podcast
49:09 - Attributing business value to content
51:59 - Usage-based vs. subscription pricing
56:09 - Advice for bootstrap founders on consulting
57:49 - The power of niching down
1:01:11 - Comparing AWS, GCP, and Azure
1:05:54 - AWS losing its customer obsession
1:06:33 - Using ChatGPT for content creation
1:09:32 - Book recommendations and how Corey learns
1:11:50 - Keeping up with the pace of AWS releases
1:13:07 - Where to find Corey
Where to find Corey
Screaming in the Cloud (podcast)
Last week in AWS (newsletter)
AWS Morning Brief (podcast)
X: @QuinnyPig
Duckbill Group
Books
Practical Monitoring: Effective Strategies for the Real World by Mike Julian
Never Eat Alone by Tahl Raz Keith Ferrazzi
Other references
Route 53, Amazon’s Premier Database
Writing New Editions and Ticking All the Boxes with Andreas Wittig
Metacast Ep. 8 - SquadCast Founders on Remote Collaboration in Podcasts
Yes, I Test in Production (And So Do You) by Charity Majors
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
1h 15min
March 13, 20245. Don't do agile, be agile | Co-author of Agile Manifesto and Pragmatic Programmer | Dave Thomas
Dave Thomas, co-author of The Pragmatic Programmer and Agile Manifesto, on the true spirit of being agile (vs. "doing agile"), mistakes engineering teams make, and common practices of successful teams.
Chapters
10:29 - The genesis of The Pragmatic Programmer
11:41 - People don't know what they want, importance of feedback loops
22:17 - Doing Agile vs. being agile
26:36 - Practices of successful engineering teams
36:35 - Being pragmatic at an early stage startup
44:10 - Things that are still true 24 years after the book was published
55:25 - How does a book define its author's identity?
Show notes
The Pragmatic Programmer
The Pragmatic Bookshelf
The Agile Manifesto
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
1h
February 28, 20244. Henry T. Kirk, entrepreneur, ex-engineer at Google & Amazon
For 10 years, Henry built mobile apps at Google and Amazon. Now he is a partner at a software development agency studio.init(). Henry shares his thoughts on using cross-platform frameworks vs. native languages, argues that Apple’s 30% cut of the in-app purchases is acceptable, and tells us how Google layoffs became a blessing in disguise.
Chapters
01:31 - Introduction
04:03 - Viral LinkedIn posts about layoffs
08:13 - Google layoffs
17:36 - Cross-platform app development with Flutter vs. native languages
30:12 - Getting apps into app stores
31:43 - Apple's 30% in-app purchase fees
42:09 - Building apps within Google and Amazon
50:30 - Starting studio.init() and finding first customers
56:58 - Book recommendations
Show notes
Where to find Henry
LinkedIn
studio.init()
Books
Permission to Screw Up by Kristen Hadeed
Crucial Conversations
Getting More by Stuart Diamond
The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johnson
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
1h
February 14, 20243. Dennis E. Taylor, author of best-selling sci-fi series Bobiverse
Dennis E. Taylor built software for 35 years before trying himself as a sci-fi author. His first novel Outland earned him some “Starbucks money” on Amazon, but his second book We Are Legion made him a best-selling author. Dennis retired as an engineer and became a full-time writer.
In this episode, we talked about the parallels between writing software and writing books, Dennis’s process of coming up with ideas and turning them into reality, working with agents, and writing audio-first books.
Chapters
02:30 - Introduction
04:42 - Transition from software engineering to writing
07:37 - Primer on Dennis's books
12:02 - Parallels between writing software and writing books
16:10 - Where do ideas come from?
19:41 - The process of writing
22:38 - Writing for an audio-first format
27:28 - Narrating a book
30:43 - Engaging with fans
32:06 - Doing research for sci-fi
36:17 - Making money with books
38:58 - Dennis's favorite authors
41:04 - On following the best practices in writing
44:22 - How writing has changed over time
46:06 - Advice for aspiring authors
47:10 - Where is the Bobiverse series going?
Show notes
Where to find Dennis
Audible profile
Amazon profile
Twitter/X
Books
Bobbiverse #1: We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
Bobbiverse #2: For We Are Many
Bobbiverse #3: All These Worlds
Bobbiverse #4: Heaven’s River
Outland
Roadkill
Listen to this podcast on our app!
Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast
Get in touch!
Send us an email at [email protected]
Ilya's LinkedIn
Arnab's LinkedIn
...more
49min

FAQs about Builders Gonna Build:

How many episodes does Builders Gonna Build have?

The podcast currently has 12 episodes available.