Celebrating tech wins in a way that resonates with customers can be tricky—so how should SaaS companies do it? John, Kris, and Garrett break down how they approach communicating improvements, from backend optimizations to feature rollouts. They debate whether customers care about upgrades like Rails 6 and share ideas on writing updates that connect with both technical and non-technical users.

The conversation then shifts to hiring—how to evaluate developers, why trade-offs are crucial in the interview process, and the unique challenges of hiring remote vs. local talent. John shares insights from his GitHub hiring experience, Kris talks about building teams for different projects, and Garrett explores the psychology behind finding people who truly align with company culture.

The episode wraps up with wins of the week, including major Fireside updates, basketball coaching victories, and a heated discussion about Notre Dame football.

"If you don't celebrate, it can feel like nothing is happening—even when big things are."

Links:

• Fireside.fm
• Riverside.fm
• Ruby on Rails
• Postgresql
• Redis
• This Episode on Youtube

This episode tackles the highs and lows of Black Friday marketing and its relevance to SaaS businesses like Fireside. John, Kris, and Garrett discuss how customer-centric timing could outperform traditional holiday discounts, with ideas ranging from New Year podcasting pushes to conference-aligned offers.

The trio also delves into the backend challenges of modernizing software, balancing Rails upgrades with visible customer improvements, and finding psychological triggers to help customers start and sustain new initiatives. They share insights on turning performance boosts into happy customers and why community-building could hold the key to podcasting success.

“What if instead of discounts, we focused on lowering the risk for customers to try podcasting?” - Garrett

“You don't have to go crazy and work a ton. You can you can achieve great success by turning a few levers. But sometimes it just takes a lot of work to figure out what those levers are.” - John

"I'm just thinking about swag, but that's a discussion from another day." - Kris

"I feel like that's the thing with SaaS in general. I'm sure some people have gone viral, new product just hit the sweet spot, nailed it, they knew exactly what they're doing, had a bunch of experience. But, on the other hand, every other SaaS app I've been involved in, it is nothing but just slow and steady constant improvements that are customer centric. And eventually at some point you've removed enough of the friction in onboarding, registration, daily usage, whatever it is, you know, either it combats churn a little bit or it increases registrations. And then, you look back three years later and you're like, it got there. But without that immediate reward all the time, it's definitely challenging to keep the faith." - Garrett

Links:

• Fireside — The one, the only.
• Speaker Deck
• Stripe
• Shop | The most amazing way to shop online
• Riverside — Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing
• Ruby on Rails — A web-app framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.
• Ruby — Programming Language
• Honeybadger — Application Monitoring & Error Tracking for Developers.
• AppSignal — Application Monitoring for Ruby on Rails, Elixir, Node.js & Python
• Mailjet — Email Delivery Service for Marketing & Developer Teams
• Matz
• Liminal — A place for calm, long-form discussions
• Fireside Discover Page — We talked about the performance improvements to this page and the algorithm.
• Fireside.fm Blog — Now up and running. New articles coming soon!

The art of prioritization takes center stage in Episode #3 of “Standing in the Fire.” John, Kris, and Garrett explore how they balance the demands of running multiple SaaS companies, tackling technical debt, strategizing marketing efforts, and avoiding burnout. From Rails upgrades to marketing plans and hard-stop productivity hacks, this conversation reveals how founders navigate the chaos to move their businesses forward. Tune in for relatable stories, practical tips, and a touch of humor about the realities of entrepreneurship.

Links:

• Fireside
• Flipper Cloud
• Box Out
• Bluesky
• DHH — John mentions DHH's latest push for compression of complexity.
• Jesse Itzler — Kris mentions Jesse's year end planning.
• Very Good Software Company — The owner of fireside.fm.
• South Bend Watch Company - A piece of history on your wristory. — John's old pocket watch to wrist watch conversions.
• Speaker Deck — Kris' app for sharing presentations online that John sometimes works on.

The Standing in the Fire crew — John Nunemaker, Garrett Dimon, and Kristopher Priemer — returns with Episode #2, where they discuss:

Whether you’re a podcaster or just curious about the behind-the-scenes of building a SaaS app, this episode offers insights into problem-solving, customer experience, and the future of podcasting.

Links:

• Riverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing
• Garrett's Starting & Sustaining Podcast
• John's fireside performance work
• Ruby on Rails — Web framework Fireside is built on
• Fireside Blog — Features, News, and Insights for Podcasters. Kris mentioned this near the end.
• Continuous integration - Wikipedia — Garrett mentioned this and how he wishes it existed for podcasting.

Welcome to the first episode of Standing in the Fire, where John Nunemaker, Garrett Dimon, and Kristopher Priemer share their journey as the new owners of Fireside.fm. This podcast isn’t just about running a SaaS business—it’s about living the Fireside experience as podcast hosts and users.

In this episode, we:

Introduce the team and their backgrounds in software, marketing, and entrepreneurship.

Share our vision for Fireside.fm, from better analytics to fostering a podcaster community.

Links:

• John Nunemaker
• Kristopher Priemer
• Garrett Dimon
• Sifter — The SaaS app that Garrett founded, ran for many years and eventually sold.
• Fireside.fm — Our podcast host!
• Homepage — What we used to record and edit this episode so we could get going quick.
• My First Million Podcast — Good example of fun intros and outros in podcasts.
• Tecmo Super Bowl - Wikipedia — One of John's favorite Nintendo games. He talked about how he is a stats addict and use to track all the stats for this game and tecmo basketball.
• FounderQuest — John mentioned this podcast as a cool intro style where they just start talking.
• Ruby on Rails — The web framework fireside.fm is written in that John and Garrett have extensive experience in.