Build Your Saas

How do founders of small bootstrapped companies hire new employees? Adam Wathan got over 1600 people who applied for two new roles at Tailwind Labs (a small team of six people). They ended up hiring two people, but neither of them actually applied. This wasn't how Adam expected (or hoped) this process would go. There were lots of surprising takeaways and lessons learned from the whole experience."If you figure we spend 5 minutes on every single application, that was like 133 hours straight reading applications. Processing these job applications was basically my full time job for 2 months." – Adam WathanLinks:Hackers Inc podcastTailwind job opening announcementDesign Engineer job postingStaff Software Engineer job postingReddit: 11 months of job searching visualizedHave feedback on this episode?

A panel discussion on 37signals' first ONCE product, the launch of Campfire ("pay for it once, install it, and run it on your own server"). Ian Landsman, Tyler Tringas, and Justin Jackson share what they expected to happen before the launch, what did happen, and what it means for indie hackers and bootstrappers who want to launch SaaS companies. Is this the end of SaaS?Links:Once landing pageCampfire sales pageDHH's tweet: "ONCE/Campfire hasn't even been for sale for a week, but we've already sold more than quarter of a million dollars."Tyler Tringas's videoI want to hear your thoughts:If you listen to the episode, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts:Can you think of a low-price, pay-once, on-prem software product that's succeeded? (The only one I could think of was ​Statamic CMS​)Do you think a different Once product might have made more sales? What kinds of products do you think might work?Did you buy Campfire? What did you buy it for? Are you using it as a chat tool for your company?Other thoughts on our

Fast Company called Acquired "the #1 tech podcast sensation." I've been a huge fan of the show for years. So, I was surprised when they contacted me and wanted to switch to Transistor for podcast hosting!Since switching, they've had a breakout year. Their clips started showing up everywhere on my social media feed; they had chart-topping episodes on Nintendo, Nike, and Costco, and they interviewed the CEOs of NVIDIA, Uber, and Charlie Munger. And this was the year that Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal (the co-hosts) both went full-time on the podcast. Podcasting is now their job.With all of that activity, I thought Build your SaaS listeners would be interested in hearing my interview with David about their entire story:How they got started, how they built momentum over time,how they were able to double their audience every single year since 2015, And how that momentum ended up Attracting an incredibly valuable audience that they've now monetized through sponsorships. This interview has so much that podcasters,

The whole team is on the show! Jon, Helen, Jason, Josh, and Justin are on the mics to discuss our recent team retreat to Nashville, Tennessee. If you're wondering what a retreat looks like for a remote team, you'll get a lot out of this episode. We also reveal some of our exploits in Music City:"Going to a Tiki Bar is usually a mistake."Highlights (00:10) - Welcome (01:15) - Highlights of our retreat in Nashville (13:00) - It's not easy to get everyone together (20:31) - Our schedule for the retreat (26:42) - Electrolytes are a good idea (32:08) - Things to improve or tips for other teams "For 51 weeks, our small team works efficiently. Our team retreat week is a culmination of celebrations, milestones, birthdays, and holidays we might have missed. It's special to condense these moments into one week and see everyone in person to celebrate our achievements from the previous year." – HelenLinks: Photos from our trip to Nashville.  PhotoWalk Nashville service. SurfOffice Location Finder: "Discover the optima

Justin catches up with his old internet friend Paul Jarvis. Today, Paul co-founded Fathom Analytics with Jack Ellis: a simple alternative to Google Analytics. Paul is also the author of the book "Company of One," which has influenced a whole generation of indie entrepreneurs (and has been reviewed by Cal Newport, Chris Guillebeau, Ben Chestnut, Tiago Forte, and more). Previously, Justin and Paul did a weekly mastermind, where they supported and encouraged each other around our indie businesses. They decided to do a catch-up call and recorded it so you could listen in.

Tim reached out after the Aaron Francis episode: "I wanted to pitch you on the idea of coming on the podcast and sharing my journey of building side projects for the last decade while raising a family. I can also share the guardrails I put in place before finally going full-time on T.LY."Highlights: (00:12) - Welcome (01:24) - Who is Tim Leland? (03:31) - What guardrails did you put in place? (06:35) - What's the sales funnel? (08:24) - Family as a motivator (16:32) - How would you describe your effort during this process? (20:17) - What about family boundaries? (23:36) - How do you manage your thoughts? (31:26) - How have you been able to manage the effort level? (34:55) - The pressure of cutting the cord from your job (38:27) - What's it been like being full time on t.ly? (40:10) - What's your SEO magic touch? Links: Tim's startup: T.LY Tim's Twitter Tim's blog: tools for marketers Thanks to our monthly supporters Pascal from sharpen.page Rewardful.com Greg Park Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.a

This week Jon and Justin are joined by Marcella Chamorro. Previously, she worked in startup marketing but has recently transitioned to coaching founders and teams. We discussed how startup founders and their team members can realize their full potential.Here are some highlights: (00:24) - Introducing Marcella (03:14) - How do you define your coaching? (05:21) - What do you see with rising stars? (09:48) - Do you navigate team dynamics or individual work? (14:51) - Any advice for founder's stress (23:33) - Personal lives do come to work (33:09) - The ability to have difficult conversations (47:30) - A lot of value in speaking to someone who's not you (50:51) - How can people reach out Marcella? Quote:"I think people who choose to do coaching want to be really good at what they do and they want to have a really good life. They are looking to optimize their time on planet Earth."  – MarcellaLinks: Subscribe to Marcella's newsletter Marcella’s coaching website Check out Marcella's articles Marcella on LinkedIn Ma

In this podcast episode, Michele Hansen (Geocodio) gives us an update on Section 174 and provides her take on "bootstrapping with kids."Michele explains you can be a part of the Small Software Business Alliance, and fight Section 174. If you're in the USA, please contact Congress! In the second half of the episode, Justin and Michele talk about the challenges of balancing starting a business while you have young kids. For more on this topic, check out the last episode with Aaron Francis.For more context on Section 174, check out our previous episode with Michele. (00:12) - Welcome (01:50) - Quick refresher on section 174 (05:48) - Updates since last episode (09:15) - You can still help raise awareness (14:09) - What's happening next? (17:41) - How does this work on the accounting side? (20:30) - Anything else people can do? (22:47) - What advice do you give to people with families wanting to start a business? (26:50) - Did you try a few things on the side? (29:11) - Definition of success at the start (31:26)

In this episode, Justin speaks with Aaron Francis about being a new parent and trying to bootstrap a startup. Aaron argued the other side of Justin's tweet thread: "Wait until your kids are older to start a company." Aaron is well-positioned to talk about this because he has twins and is also bootstrapping Hammerstone with his co-founder Colleen. The whole conversation is a nuanced take on the topic and full of important insights, especially on: the risks involved (especially if you're not working a full-time job) the kind of foundation (mentally, financially, emotionally, relationally) you need to be able to take the risk Highlights from this episode: (00:12) - Welcome Aaron (01:16) - Topic introduction (02:28) - What's Aaron's story? (05:34) - What is a maximum effort era? (11:02) - What are you willing to sacrifice? (15:23) - What's your daily routine like? (17:36) - Context matters in all of this (28:07) - Are you sacrificing social connections? (30:59) - Blind spots can affect you on your journey (33:29)

Jon and Justin welcome Joshua Anderton to the Transistor team! Josh is an amazingly talented full-stack web developer (Laravel, Rails, Tailwind CSS, Alpine, and more!) He's been helping us as a part-time contractor since Oct 2022, and we're excited to have him on board full-time! In this episode, we discuss why we hired another person and how we think about hiring at Transistor. (00:28) - 150! (01:38) - Trials into paid customers (09:28) - Hiring philosophy (27:51) - Hiring Josh (31:45) - Hiring people you know (40:41) - Product updates (44:00) - Patreon supporter thanks Links: Joshua's personal site Joshua's podcast: Getting to Ramen Jason Cohen's article Acquired.fm is now on Transistor! Thanks to our monthly supporters Pascal from sharpen.page Rewardful.com Greg Park Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af Ethan Gunderson Bill Condo (@mavrck) Ward from MemberSpace.com Russell Brown from Photivo.com Evandro Sasse Austin Loveless Michael Sitver Dan Buda

Michele Hansen (co-founder of Geocodio) is raising the alarm about Section 174. This legislation could dramatically increase your tax bill this year if you're a small software company in the USA. Michele is organizing a response through the Small Software Business Alliance.

Jon's back from his first real vacation in years. In this episode, we discuss how we've been removing inactive accounts on Transistor, SVB, Section 174, Revin is shutting down their Merchant of Record service, SaaS sales tax compliance: (00:37) - Jon in vacation mode (02:41) - Kicking off inactive accounts (04:41) - Silicon Valley Bank (06:17) - What is Mercury bank? (13:27) - Section 174 in the USA (19:30) - Sales tax compliance update (26:21) - What could we do? (32:38) - Patreon integration update (35:22) - MyPodStudios (36:58) - Patreon Thanks Links: Matt Levin's excellent summary of the Silicon Valley Bank run Ian Landsman: "This is why I don't use startup-friendly banks (Mercury, etc)" Section 174: join ssballiance.org Revin has shut down its Merchant of Record service Flurly (another Merchant of Record) was shut down by Stripe From the Revin email:“The most relevant reason [we are closing] is that the Merchant of Record model is too risky for both sellers and the MOR operator. Sellers bear the ris

"I don't get it: if that money is for the government, how come the pizza place put it in their cash register?!?"(Jon is on vacation - our next real episode is coming soon!)Listen to our past episodes on the headache that is SaaS sales tax compliance: Part 1 Part 2 Thanks to our monthly supporters Pascal from sharpen.page Rewardful.com Greg Park Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af Ethan Gunderson Bill Condo (@mavrck) Ward from MemberSpace.com Russell Brown from Photivo.com Evandro Sasse Austin Loveless Michael Sitver Dan Buda Colin Gray Dave Giunta ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Last week's episode hit a nerve! "The idea that every small software company in the world will be able to be in perfect compliance will every foreign federal, provincial, state, and municipal government that imposes a sales tax is ridiculous. It's an impossible task. (00:11) - Follow up to previous episode (02:43) - Responses we got about sales tax (06:31) - A brief history of sales tax (09:07) - Many vendors aren't collecting sales tax (10:52) - What about Stripe Tax? (12:46) - It's new to North America (16:23) - How it affects subscription based businesses (19:41) - It's not clear who's liable (24:53) - Make it easier and gov't make more money (28:23) - What about Merchants of Record? (30:53) - Where is Stripe going? (35:42) - What are going to do now? (45:10) - Patreon supporters Broadly, there were a few different camps with the responses we received:  North American SaaS companies who have been using Stripe:  "Yes! Sales tax compliance for SaaS is brutal." European SaaS companies that have had to deal wi

Sales tax compliance: nobody in SaaS wants to talk about it. Jon and Justin tried to do something about it and it turned into a nightmare. According to Stripe Tax, there are about 90 different regions that software companies may have to register in, and then calculate, collect, and remit sales tax on their behalf. But in North America, many SaaS companies don't seem to care: many that we looked at weren't collecting sales tax at all, while a few had just started collecting in the US states. (00:13) - Welcome (02:00) - Benefits of podcasting for a small business (03:50) - New Year's update (06:05) - Patreon integration feature (10:29) - Dear listener... a request! (10:56) - Exciting! Sales Tax! Discussion! (29:07) - What have we tried (40:18) - A new issue that we can't make progress on (47:06) - Thanks to our Patreon supporters If you've been wondering about how sales tax applies to SaaS, listen to this episode.Thanks to our monthly supporters Pascal from sharpen.page Rewardful.com Greg Park Mitchell

The whole Transistor team got together for a retreat in Montréal. Jon, Justin, Helen, and Jason chat about the experience. What should we talk about next?  Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts. Email us: support@transistor.fm Thanks to our monthly supporters: Jason Charnes Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af Alex Payne Bill Condo Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast Oleg Kulyk Ethan Gunderson Ward Sandler, Memberspace Russell Brown, Photivo.com Noah Prail Colin Gray Austin Loveless Michael Sitver Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, Fathom Dan Buda Darby Frey Adam DuVander Dave Giunta (JOOnta) Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com Check out Simon and Volkan’s new bootstrappers podcast: https://shipsaasfaster.com/  Thanks to our monthly supporters Pascal from sharpen.page Rewardful.com Greg Park Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au Marcel Fahle,

It's the fourth anniversary of Transistor's public launch! This is part 2 of "Jon and Justin answer your questions." (00:37) - When did you start paying yourself how much you wanted to make? (01:39) - Any broad advice for startups? (11:43) - How did you decide on your tech stack? (14:21) - How did you prioritize features? (15:54) - Were you embarrased by the first version you shipped? (17:53) - How did you decide on pricing? (21:12) - How would you have found employees without your network? (27:30) - Do you have more or less freedom or stress in your lives? What should we talk about next? Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @helenryles Leave a review/comment on Podchaser; it's like Reddit, but for podcasts. Email us: support@transistor.fm Thanks to our monthly supporters: Jason Charnes Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au Marcel Fahle, ​​wearebold.af Alex Payne Bill Condo Anton Zorin from ProdCamp.com Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast Oleg Kulyk Ethan Gunderson Ward Sandler, Memb

It's the fourth anniversary of Transistor's public launch! In this two-part series, Jon and Justin answer your questions. 01:22 - Our history 14:51 - What is the secret to running Transistor as a company? See our values here. 21:19 - What was the most challenging aspect of the past 4 years? 22:14 - Where do you see Transistor at 5 or 10 year? 26:19 - Do you ever feel like you're not doing enough? Book: Running the Dream. 32:09 - Have we reached peak podcast? 34:36 - What's something you've gotten better at over the past 4 years? 38:23 - What was the lowest point in Transistor's history? 40:09 - What have you learned about partnership? 43:17 - What has been the most fun memory of your journey? 47:04 - What is the definition of enough for Transistor? 50:49 - What are your thoughts on open startups vs private? 52:25 - What are the most impactful decisions you've made? 56:34 - How has your job changed year to year? What should we talk about next? Twitter: @buildyoursaas, @mijustin, @jonbuda, @jsonpearl, and @hele

Baptiste Jamin co-founded Crisp with a friend he met in high school. Highlights (go straight to

Dave Zohrob is the co-founder of Chartable (a podcast analytics startup), talks about selling his company to Spotify in February 2022. Highlights (go straight to