The Bootstrapped Founder

A lot of early-stage founders have understood—mostly because more and more people are talking about their early-stage strategies—that you need to validate your ideas. You need to make an effort to figure out if the thing you're planning to do is actually reasonable to attempt. Validation is important and absolutely worth doing prior to building.

That much, many people have understood.

But here's where things get interesting. Often enough, validation looks like checking if people have the problem—checking if people have the challenge that your idea solves. And if you find people complaining about it, if you find people mentioning that they struggle with this, to some founders, that's a sufficient reason to build a software-as-a-service solution.

Then they bring it to market and realize something frustrating: even if they directly engage people in their market, even if they directly show this and onboard people into the product, they still don't get a sale.

People stick with what they're currently doing, even though it is something that, from your perspective as a founder, is much worse, much more expensive, much more complicated, much less scalable.

Why is that?

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com
You'll find the Black Friday Guide here: https://www.paddle.com/learn/grow-beyond-black-friday

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-missing-piece-in-your-validation-strategy/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/419-the-missing-piece-in-your-validation-strategy

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

We're living through a fascinating moment in software development. AI coding tools can build features faster than ever before. They can scan entire codebases, spot things we might miss, and implement changes across dozens of files in seconds. It's incredible.

But there's something we need to talk about. Something that's quietly accumulating in our projects while we marvel at how quickly we can ship features.

This is called comprehension debt.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/why-ai-generated-code-hurts-your-exit/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/418-why-ai-generated-code-hurts-your-exit

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

A couple of years ago, I tweeted that “the best tech stack is the one you already know.” To this day, this is one of my most resonating tweets. People keep bringing it back, and founders who've been around for a while seem to particularly agree with it. But AI changes things. Or does it?

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-best-tech-stack-in-the-age-of-ai/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/417-the-best-tech-stack-in-the-age-of-ai

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

As I'm building yet another software service business after having built and sold one back in 2019, I keep wrestling with a fundamental question that might sound simple but has profound implications: What do I actually own in this business?

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-ownership-paradox-what-do-you-really-control-in-your-software-business/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/416-the-ownership-paradox-what-do-you-really-control-in-your-software-business

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

This is something I've been wrestling with at Podscan, and I know many of you face the same challenge: you're building a product that could serve two, three, maybe even five different ideal customer profiles. And you're trying to figure out how to keep them all balanced—or whether you should even try.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/handling-multiple-icps-as-a-solo-founder/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/handling-multiple-icps-as-a-solo-founder

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

I was recently reading an article about The Great British Baking Show - or Bake Off, as we fans of this fun TV competition call it. It was written by someone who had been on the show, one of the competitors, and they were talking about how looking at the show from the inside made them realize something profound: there are no real amateurs anymore.

Not only is that changing the media landscape, it also affects what businesses are needed to serve what has replaced them.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-pure-amateur-is-vanishing-why-everyones-a-performer-now/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/414-the-pure-amateur-is-vanishing-why-everyones-a-performer-now

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

You know that moment when you realize the ground has shifted beneath your feet? I had one of those moments recently. I was watching an AI agent build out a complex feature for Podscan in about twenty minutes – something that would have taken me days to code properly just a year ago. And it hit me: the rules of the game have fundamentally changed.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/were-gonna-need-a-bigger-moat/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/413-we-re-gonna-need-a-bigger-moat

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

It took me a long while to realize this: AI isn't just something like a chatbot for my customers. AI can work behind the scenes to facilitate getting the right stuff in front of the right people for me, even just to figure out who people are and how I should talk to them. And today, I want to share exactly what I'm doing, how expensive this is to run, and how I believe this can be part of every single software as a service business out there—even if you don't have any touchpoint with artificial intelligence in that business at all. Even if you don't think you should be offering AI features to your customers.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com — SaaS Happy Hour Series

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-0-20-day-ai-system-that-converts-trial-users-into-paying-customers/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/the-0-20-day-ai-system-that-converts-trial-users-into-paying-customers

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

I was reading Brandon Sanderson's latest novel, Wind and Truth, when I came across a sentence that stopped me cold: "A stronger current makes for stronger fish."

That's it. That's what entrepreneurship is.

We're constantly encountering currents that either facilitate what we want to accomplish—the businesses we want to build, the lives we want to create—or they oppose us, trying to sweep us into dangerous waters. These currents change all the time. They vary in strength depending on where you are in your journey. And here's the thing: they're mostly invisible until you learn to feel them.

Someone on Twitter asked me what my top three currents were after I shared this thought. It turned out to be a revealing exercise—assessing what I'm exposed to, what I'm dealing with, and how I'm navigating these forces. So let me share what I've discovered about the currents pulling at me as I build Podscan.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com — The Web Revenue Lab Series

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/the-currents-of-a-founder/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/411-the-currents-of-a-founder

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

I think we're at the precipice of a pretty significant change in how we build software products. Obviously, the recent ascent of vibe coding and all the agentic coding tools that we find very useful and highly effective shows a difference in how we approach building products. But there's another change - not just in how we build, but in who these products are for.

This episode of The Bootstraped Founder is sponsored by Paddle.com

The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/building-for-the-age-of-ai-consumers/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/410-building-for-the-age-of-ai-consumers

Check out Podscan, the Podcast database that transcribes every podcast episode out there minutes after it gets released: https://podscan.fm
Send me a voicemail on Podline: https://podline.fm/arvid

You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com

Podcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcast

Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter

My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/

My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/

My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com

Here are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.
- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx
- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid
- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid
- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60
- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ
- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q
- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw