Online Hustle

Tyler King is the founder of Less Annoying CRM, a simple Contact Management dedicated for Small Businesses. They are fully bootstrapped and making close to $200,000/mo in revenue.

Some questions I ask:

• How did you come up with the company's name 'Less Annoying CRM'?
• What features did the first version have?
• What marketing tactics work for you today?
• How does your day-to-day schedule look like?
• Where do you draw the line between being patient vs working on a terrible idea?

Things we talk about:

• Building a product in a highly saturated market
• Importance of choosing a specific target audience
• Finding early customers and marketing tactics
• Making paid ads work for your business
• Remote team vs having a traditional office
• Advice when working with family members

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• Paul Graham's article
• Tyler's Twitter
• Tyler's email

Ajay Goel is the founder of GMass, a tool that overlays onto Gmail and allows you to send mass mail merge email campaigns—helping you reach more people with your outreach campaigns. Today, the company is generating more than $100,000/mo in recurring revenue and has more than 6,000 plus paying customers.

Some questions I ask:

• How did you come up with the idea for GMass?
• Did you develop and build GMass?
• How did you get your first customer?
• What were you charging in the beginning?
• How do you turn free users into paying customers?
• What were the biggest lessons when going from 0 to $115k in monthly revenue?

Things we talk about:

• Picking the right business idea
• Endless possibilities with Google API
• Promoting  with Reddit, HackerNews and ProductHunt
• Giving your company with personal branding
• How to make content marketing work for your business

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• GMass
• WPBeginner
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog
• BaseCamp
• Ajay's Twitter

Kevin Kelly is most known for co-founding Wired in 1993. He has written a lot of great books, cofounded all Species Foundation, a non-profit aimed at identifying every living species on Earth as well as Rosetta Project, which is building an archive of all documented human languages.   I've looked up to Kevin for a long time and it was amazing to have him on the show. Enjoy! Some questions I ask:

• Is it possible to make a living from every single niche out there?
• How to build up 1,000 true fans?
• How many "true fans" Wired magazine has?
• What's the future of online businesses?
• What advice would you give to people who want to start an online hustle?

Things we talk about:

• 1000 true fans theory
• Strategies and tactics that were used in the beginning to grow Wired magazine
• Getting a job versus taking an alternative path such as traveling the world
• The importance of taking time off and embracing the slack 
• Being content with losing it all
• Advice on starting an online hustle

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• 1,000 true fans article
• Kevin's latest book
• Kevin's personal website
• Kevin's Twitter
• Wired

Dmitry Dragilev is the founder of JustReachOut.io, a PR platform that helps 5,000+ small businesses and startups (as well as big ones such as Airbnb, HubSpot, Chess.com, Nickelodeon) to pitch relevant journalists and get press coverage.

In this interview, Dmitry is incredibly honest and transparent about his whole journey and lessons he had to learn the hard way. I really think you're going to enjoy this!

Some questions I ask:

• How did you get interested in PR in the first place?
• After building the product, how did you get your first customers?
• Tell us about the time when you worked as marketer at Solar and grew it from 0 to 40 million page-views a month?
• How do you deal with loneliness as an entrepreneur?

Things we talk about:

• Leaving your ego behind and realizing that you don't know it all
• Coming up with the business idea for Just Reach Out
• Going from charging $5/mo to $695/mo
• Struggles and challenges with developing a SaaS product
• Selling your tech product on a "deal" type of site
• Dealing with loneliness as an entrepreneur

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• JustReachOut
• PR that Converts
• Dmitry's Blog
• Dmitry's Twitter
• AppSumo

This podcast episode was produced by Oscar Hamilton.

Jesse Patel is the cofounder of WorkFlowy, a simple organizational tool that helps you create lists to stay on top of your daily tasks. WorkFlowy has more than 200,000 active users and it's bringing in close to $1,000,000 a year in revenue.

We covered a lot in this interview, including challenges with his cofounder Mike, competing with the giants and staying productive day-to-day.

Some questions I ask:

• Why did you decide to build WorkFlowy in the first place?
• How much attention do you pay to copycats and your competition?
• Is it sensible to start a company without a co-founder?
• What's the recipe for a good cofounder relationship?
• Tell me how does your typical workday look like?

Things we talk about:

• Biggest lessons from being at Y Combinator
• Ditching an idea to work on WorkFlowy
• Going from 0 to 200,000 monthly active users
• Why most internet businesses fail and never get traction
• Productivity and getting stuff done

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• WorkFlowy
• Jesse's Twitter
• BaseCamp
• Trello
• Asana

This podcast episode was produced by Oscar Hamilton.

Christopher Gimmer is the founder of Snappa, a SaaS app that helps non-designers create online graphics. Snappa has 3,500+ paying customers while bringing in $500,000+ in annual recurring revenue. In this interview we talk how to market anything with a limited budget, advice for people who are looking to find the next big idea, productivity and much more.

Some questions I ask:

• How did you validate your initial business idea?
• What were the first steps you took to get Snappa off the ground?
• What were the biggest lessons building a SaaS product as a non-developer?
• How did you score a partnership with LeadPages?
• Walk me through your recent work-day

Things we talk about:

• Building a side-hustle on the side of your main business
• Competition amongst free stock photo sites
• Partnerships with big companies
• Importance of social proof
• Cash flow over innovation
• Productivity & work ethic

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• Christopher's Twitter
• Snappa

This podcast episode was produced by Oscar Hamilton.

Dinesh Agarwal is the founder of RecurPost, a social media scheduling and post recycling tool. Even though there is a lot of competition in the space, find out how Dinesh used it to his advantage.

Some questions I ask:

• What were the first steps you took to get RecurPost off the ground?
• How did you get your first users?
• What have been the biggest challenges you've had to overcome?
• Why did you decide to have a physical office over remote?
• How does your typical workday look like?

Things we talk about:

• A creative way to validate your idea
• How to make sure your building the right features for your product in the beginning
• Challenges with building a product top of other platforms
• Marketing your business with a small budget
• How to run a productive team

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• RecurPost,
• Dinesh's Twitter

PJ Taei is the founder of UScreen, a video platform that lets people launch their own streaming service. UScreen is serving more than 1000 customers including ToysRus, Wanderlust, and Zumba. Find out how PJ started this business and made it profitable.

Some questions I ask:

• What were the first steps you took you get UScreen off the ground?
• Should people learn how to code or outsource development?
• How did you get your initial customers?
• Is your success because of luck or grind?
• How does your workday look like?
• What advice would you give to people who want to start an online hustle?

Things we talk about:

• Starting a hosting company before UScreen
• Validating a business idea
• Building a successful remote team
• Productivity and work ethic
• Importance of your competition

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• UScreen
• Book recommended: ReWork by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

John Doherty is the founder of Credo, a service that connects businesses with vetted agencies and consultants. It all got started in 2013, and with just two years, John was able to take it full-time. The business is currently bringing in $25,000/mo.

Some questions I ask:

• What was your content marketing strategy in the beginning?
• How did you get your first 2-3 clients?
• What have been the biggest challenges you've had to overcome with Credo?
• Take me through your recent work-day
• At what point did you realize you needed a mentor?

Things we talk about:

• Getting your business off the ground with minimal resources
• Challenges with multi-sided business
• To hustle or not to hustle
• Mentorship
• Whether you need to be passionate about your niche or not

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• Credo
• John's Twitter
• John's article: The Year of No Hustle

Turgay Birand is the founder of EditionGuard, a web based service that protects your eBooks with so you don't have to worry about piracy and unauthorized distribution. We cover a lot in this interview, including importance of saving money, loneliness as an entrepreneur and how to give your business a best chance of success.

Some questions I ask:

• From all the failed ventures you had, what were the biggest learning lessons for you?
• How did you find your content marketing team?
• Whose advice to you listen to?
• Are you planning to sell EditionGuard?
• How important is passion when picking an idea?
• What advice would you give to people who want to start an Online Hustle?

Things we talk about:

• Trying to build Amazon of Turkey
• Why you shouldn't move to Silicon Valley
• Importance of mentorship
• Loneliness as an entrepreneur
• When to quit and when to stick with your idea
• Setting clear objectives and goals when acquiring new customers

Links & resources mentioned in the episode

• EditionGuard
• ThemeForest
• Trello
• Toggl
• Book: The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit