Col and Dan are both in-between breaks and decided to catchup to see how things have been progressing.

In today's episode we cover:

• Getting back into hobbies - Warhammer and BasicFantasy RPG
• Col's business partner, Charles, has completed a rebuild of the Userlot marketing website, and it's looking good!
• Dan has an MVP and is prepping to start alpha testing
• Designing a database model for flexibility in handling SaaS subscriptions
• Getting involved in the Customer Success Australia community

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

When it comes to building a SaaS product, one option is to build a tool, or a service or some sort of enhancement to an existing platform.

• Is this a good thing? Can it help you?
• Are there risks involved? What can go wrong?

On today’s show, we talk about some of the pros and cons of setting up shop on top of somebody else’s lawn. We go into why it works and what benefits you can get. But importantly, we also consider what could go wrong and how it can impact you.

Things we cover:

• What does it mean to build on top of a platform? 
• Examples of products people have built based on other platforms.
• Why would you build on top of a platform? What benefits are there?
• What are the risks? What is 'Platform Risk'? What can go wrong?
• Some Less-Obvious Sources of Platform Risk
• Col & Dan's opinions about building on other platforms.

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

Shout out to Morten Stensland for the inspiration for this show's topic - We discuss the ethics of copying and cloning in Indiehacking.

• [02:00] - Userlot Catchup
• [06:36] - Dan's Catchup
• [10:49] - Shoutout and Intro to Main Topic & Disclaimers (copying in Indiehacking)
• [13:50] - Big picture - Layers of Innovation
• [15:55] - Copyright, trademarks, Patents etc..
• [17:25] - Innovation, Inspiration & Imitation
• [19:15] - Previous Startup Experience
• [23:07] - Drawing line at deception
• [32:45] - What happens if you've been copied
• [38:34] - What happens if you are copying?
• [43:00] - Outro

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

We chat about design UI and UX with Nathan Powell and discuss wether technical founders can learn to be good Product Designers.

• [01:00] - Intro to Nathan Powell and today's topic - Design
• [02:28] - Nathan's Background
• [05:20] - Definitions, Product, UI/UX & Engineering
• [09:54] - Nathan's Experience on dealing with Developer built designs 
• [15:30] - Is it ok to be scrappy in design in a startup, to get things shipped?  
• [22:20] - How design is really about building relationships and trust
• [32:10] - Taking action and spending time to learn
• [34:00] - Figma & and other tools
• [38:00] - Other tips and resources to kick off on the right foot
• [42:25] - Closing out

Resources mentioned

RefactoringUI - https://www.refactoringui.com/
The Design of Everyday Things - https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/
Undercover User Experience Design - https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Experience-Design-Voices-Matter/dp/0321719905/
Don't make me Think - https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability-dp-0321965515/dp/0321965515/

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

We chat about positioning and niches and focus on how applicable this is to a startup or not. We run through April Dunford's positioning framework from her book 'Obviously Awesome'

• [00:35] - Intro - And Dan & Colin are catching up in IRL!!
• [01:59] - Long weekend activities
• [04:29] - Dan's update on his SAAS
• [05:20] - Update on Userlot & Positioning introduction
• [07:15] - Introduction and what is positioning?
• [13:17] - April Dunford's Obviously Awesome book and positioning process.
• [16:36] - 5 (6) Step Positioning Process
• [31:36] - Does an early stage business need to position with no customers?
• [34:18] - Userlot's thoughts on niches
• [44:20] - Learnings about positioning
• [45:50] - Closing out

Shoutouts to https://twitter.com/Mortenbrekkes & https://twitter.com/icebearlabs

Colin's review of Obviously Awesome
April's new podcast - https://www.positioning.show/

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

We pick up into our second installment of our Mini series on Saas hosting - This time focusing on Functions as a Service (Faas)

• [00:35] - Intro & Quick Catchup
• [04:40] - Main Topic - Functions as a Service
• [07:45] - Overview the available providers
• [14:00] - Faas and Scaling
• [15:35] - Pricing
• [22:05] - Use cases
• [26:50] - How could you start and some benefits
• [34:20] - Challenges and downsides
• [40:27] - Closing out

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

Very special episode with a great guest, Tobias Arweiler from the Code & Conquer Podcast

• [00:35] - Intro to Tobias, the Push to Prod crew & the topic
• [04:10] - Why should we consider motivation in Indie Hacking?
• [11:40] - What does motivate you to build your own product?
• [21:20] - Are there things that reduce your motivation? What are they and how do you deal with them?
• [33:35] - How do you manage your work life balance?
• [45:26] - How do you balance financial stability with desire to pursue indie hacking?
• [56:24] - Do you have Self doubts?
• [1:03:25] - Listener questions
• [1:11:32] - Key Takeaways
• [1:17:30] - Outros & Thank you

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

Colin's back from a family trip to the UK and catches up with Dan on Mother's day.

• [00:10] - Intro
• [01:00] - Colin's UK trip - Nothing technical here peeps :) 
• [06:06] - Dan get's BLOCKED!
• [10:32] - Do we speak to fast?
• [11:45] - Technical challenges and building Userlot
• [20:16] - Dan builds a marketing site
• [28:00] - Chat on Devs like to use new things
• [34:07] - Outros

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

Colin's on a family trip to the UK so this is our first experiment in a series of episodes on Saas Hosting - focusing on PAAS - Platform as a Service.

• [00:35] - Intro
• [02:00] - Story telling background of Cloud hosting and PAAS
• [05:15] - Pros of using a PAAS 
• [10:55] - Cons of using a PAAS
• [17:33] - What PAAS options are out there?
• [19:00] - Why use a PAAS?
• [24:25] - Wrap up

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]

We're a week behind but we make up with it with a recap of Microconf 2023

• [00:35] - Intro
• [02:50] - Background on Microconf and overall impressions
• [06:40] - Pre-Microconf adventures 
• [09:00] - Microconf - Take away 1 - The welcoming nature of Microconf
• [18:24] - Microconf - Take away 2 - The actionable talks of Microconf
• [30:49] - Microconf - Take away 3 - How Userlot can be positioned to address CS challenges that startups face
• [36:13] - Opening up about the challenges of startup life

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Visit us at www.pushtoprod.show - follow us on twitter @pushtoprodpod and we'd love questions or comments via email to [email protected]