In episode 744, Rob Walling is joined by Tracy Osborn and Einar Vollset to give their hot takes on some recent news. They cover the recent rise of Bluesky, kicking off a 4-figure bet between Tracy and Einar. Then they discuss TinySeed’s third fund, YC Combinator backing competitors, dealing with imposter syndrome, and finally government involvement in banning social media.

• (1:49) – Will Bluesky survive and thrive?
• (9:07) – The bet on Bluesky growth
• (13:46) – TinySeed is raising a third fund
• (17:25) – Y Combinator backs duplicates
• (22:18) – Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
• (27:46) – Australia's social media ban

• The SaaS Launchpad – Start Free with “The DNA of a Great SaaS Idea”
• Invest in TinySeed
• Rob Walling (@robwalling.com) | Bluesky
• TinySeed (@tinyseed.com) | Bluesky
• Tracy Osborn (tracymakes) (@tracyosborn.com) | Bluesky
• Einar Vollset (@einarvollset) | X
• Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
• Procrastination and the Fear of Not Being 'Good Enough' by Swapnil Chauhan
• Startup Founders, Do THIS to Beat Imposter Syndrome
• Australia proposes 'world-leading' ban on social media for children under 16

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

In episode 743, Rob Walling and Dr. Sherry Walling read the first chapter of their new book, Exit Strategy: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Selling Your Company Without Regret. They discuss the emotional and psychological challenges of selling a business, and why it’s often harder than founders expect. They offer insights on how to prepare for a sale, protect your mental health, and how to best navigate this major life change that few others understand.

Back the book on Kickstarter

Hiring senior developers can really move the needle in your business, but if you bring on the wrong person, you can quickly burn through your runway. If you need help finding a vetted, senior, results-oriented developer, you should reach out to today’s sponsor, Lemon.io.

For years, they’ve been helping our audience find high quality, global talent at competitive rates, and they can help you too.

Longtime listener Chaz Yoon, hired a senior developer from Lemon.io and said his hire ”definitely knew his stuff, provided appropriate feedback and pushback, and had great communication, including very fluent English. He really exceeded my expectations.”

Chaz said he’d definitely use Lemon.io again when he’s looking for a senior level engineer.

To learn more and get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer at lemon.io/startups.

• (1:49) – Exit Strategy Introduction
• (6:56) – Exits are complicated
• (11:16) – One of the hardest things you’ll ever do
• (15:57) – Your business is your baby
• (18:35) – Entering the unknown
• (26:49) – Six factors that shape how you feel about an exit
• (31:03) – Making it real

• Exit Strategy: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling Your Business Without Regret
• Back the book on Kickstarter
• MicroConf Connect Applications Close Today, December 10th
• Rob Walling (@robwalling) | X
• Dr. Sherry Walling (@sherrywalling) | X
• The SaaS Playbook
• Built to Sell by John Warrillow
• Touching Two Worlds by Dr. Sherry Walling
• The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together by Sherry Walling, PhD, Rob Walling

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your quest...

In episode 742, Rob Walling goes solo to explore normalizing doing hard things and facing your biggest threats. He also discusses a framework for founders looking to scale without cutting corners – making things work, making them right, and then making them fast.

Exit Strategy Kickstarter ends on December 12!

• (2:39) – Normalizing doing hard things
• (6:54) – The “hard things” in your startup
• (10:27) – Walking into the storm
• (16:21) – ”Make it work, make it right, make it fast”
• (22:04) – Building your “Founder Gut”
• (25:42) – Think in years, not months

• Exit Strategy: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling Your Business Without Regret
• MicroConf Masterminds Applications Close on December 4th
• Rob Walling (@robwalling) | X
• Dr. Sherry Walling (@sherrywalling) | X
• The Comic Lab Podcast
• The SaaS Playbook
• The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping
• This Took 11 Years to Be An "Overnight Success" - SaaS Exit Strategy

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

In episode 741, Rob Walling talks to Wes Bush, CEO and Founder of ProductLed, about the nuances and misconceptions of product-led growth. Wes debunks common myths and explains how companies can leverage their product to drive user acquisition, engagement, and growth. They dive into a real-world example and explore how founders can avoid the trap of thinking the product will “sell itself” while contrasting PLG and sales-led strategies.

Hiring senior developers can really move the needle in your business, but if you bring on the wrong person, you can quickly burn through your runway. If you need help finding a vetted, senior, results-oriented developer, you should reach out to today’s sponsor, Lemon.io.

For years, they’ve been helping our audience find high quality, global talent at competitive rates, and they can help you too.

Longtime listener Chaz Yoon, hired a senior developer from Lemon.io and said his hire ”definitely knew his stuff, provided appropriate feedback and pushback, and had great communication, including very fluent English. He really exceeded my expectations.”

Chaz said he’d definitely use Lemon.io again when he’s looking for a senior level engineer.

To learn more and get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer at lemon.io/startups.

• (2:01) – Defining product-led growth
• (6:07) – Are users able to get value for free?
• (11:38) – Hybrid: both product-led and sales-led
• (14:52) – Determining the main outcome of your free model
• (19:23) – Misuse of the PLG terminology
• (22:00) – The benefits of PLG over sales-led growth
• (24:08) – Workshopping SavvyCal’s product-led strategy

• Mastermind Applications are open until December 4th
• Wes Bush (@wes_bush) | X
• ProductLed (@productled) | X
• ProductLed
• Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself by Wes Bush
• The Product-Led Playbook: How to Unlock Self-Serve Revenue and Dominate Your Market (With a Tiny Team) by Wes Bush
• Free Audiobook of The Product-Led Playbook
• Product-Led Onboarding by Ramli John
• TinySeed
• SparkToro
• SavvyCal

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

In episode 740, Rob Walling speaks with Dr. Sherry Walling about their new book, "Exit Strategy: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling Your Business Without Regret." They explore the emotional, psychological, and practical aspects of selling a business, emphasizing the universal challenges entrepreneurs face. The book draws on both Rob and Sherry’s unique experiences that they’ve shared with countless founders throughout their careers.

Exit Strategy is now live on Kickstarter!

• 2:01 – Not just a book for those selling SaaS
• 8:13 – The Kickstarter for the book is live today
• 12:16 – Before, during, and after the exit
• 14:55 – Why exiting is so hard
• 20:39 – Life after the exit
• 25:10 – A few traps await founders shortly after exit
• 26:24 – What do you do with a big pile of money?

• MicroConf Remote Goes Live November 20th!
• Exit Strategy: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling Your Business Without Regret
• Rob Walling (@robwalling) | X
• Dr. Sherry Walling (@sherrywalling) | X
• Zen Founder
• Zen Founder Podcast
• The SaaS Playbook
• The Art of Selling Your Business by John Warrillow
• Before the Exit by Dan Andrews
• Finish Big by Bo Burlingham
• MicroConf
• TinySeed
• Touching Two Worlds by Dr. Sherry Walling

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

In episode 739, Rob Walling interviews Andy Kim, co-founder of Trotto, about his unique journey into SaaS. Andy shares how “go links” work, and why they are so valuable for internal, enterprise use despite their relative obscurity. They also explore the marketing hurdles and customer adoption challenges in a business like Trotto.

Hiring senior developers can really move the needle in your business, but if you bring on the wrong person, you can quickly burn through your runway. If you need help finding a vetted, senior, results-oriented developer, you should reach out to today’s sponsor, Lemon.io.

For years, they’ve been helping our audience find high quality, global talent at competitive rates, and they can help you too.

Longtime listener Chaz Yoon, hired a senior developer from Lemon.io and said his hire ”definitely knew his stuff, provided appropriate feedback and pushback, and had great communication, including very fluent English. He really exceeded my expectations.”

Chaz said he’d definitely use Lemon.io again when he’s looking for a senior level engineer.

To learn more and get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer at lemon.io/startups.

• 3:13 – Go links, URL shorteners for enterprise
• 6:14 – History of the problem and core users
• 9:44 – Customer education and growth opportunities
• 15:37 – Finding the repeatable marketing funnel
• 21:07 – Buying into a co-founder role at Trotto
• 24:42 – What’s the hardest part of running Trotto?

• Exit Strategy: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Selling Your Business Without Regret
• MicroConf Masterminds - Applications close on December 4th, 2024
• Trot.to
• Trotto go links (@TrottoHQ) | X
• TinySeed
• How did go links start and evolve at Google?
• Quiet Light

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

In episode 738, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure as he answers listener questions. He explores how to target larger, enterprise deals after achieving product-market fit, and why word of mouth marketing can be great, yet is tricky to control. Rob also answers a later-stage question and cautions against trying to educate the market as a bootstrapper.

• 1:58 – Expanding to enterprise deals after product-market fit
• 6:39 – Word of mouth marketing is tricky for B2B SaaS
• 14:36 – Educating the market as a bootstrapper
• 20:07 – Selling integrations through incubators and accelerators
• 24:38 – Developing a profit sharing model

• Register for MicroConf Remote before Nov. 7th for Early Bird pricing & extras
• Ask a Question at Startups For the Rest of Us
• The SaaS Playbook
• TinySeed
• Adjacency Matrix: How to expand after PMF by Jason Cohen
• F5Bot
• Syften
• Podscan
• Veed
• Devising a profit sharing program for micro-multinationals by Peldi Guilizzoni

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

In episode 737, Rob Walling is joined by Derrick Reimer to recap the experience from MicroConf Europe 2024 in Dubrovnik. They discuss the differences between MicroConf US and MicroConf Europe, some small programming tweaks over the years, and they revisit the highlights from the talks at this event.

If you missed the event and had some MicroConf FOMO, get your tickets now for our New Orleans event!

Hiring senior developers can really move the needle in your business, but if you bring on the wrong person, you can quickly burn through your runway. If you need help finding a vetted, senior, results-oriented developer, you should reach out to today’s sponsor, Lemon.io.

For years, they’ve been helping our audience find high quality, global talent at competitive rates, and they can help you too.

Longtime listener Chaz Yoon, hired a senior developer from Lemon.io and said his hire ”definitely knew his stuff, provided appropriate feedback and pushback, and had great communication, including very fluent English. He really exceeded my expectations.”

Chaz said he’d definitely use Lemon.io again when he’s looking for a senior level engineer.

To learn more and get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer at lemon.io/startups.

• 2:47 – MicroConf Europe vs. MicroConf US
• 6:44 – Adding “excursions” to the programming
• 11:29 – From Maker to Founder to Owner to Entrepreneur with Peldi Guilizzoni
• 18:55 – Thinking big and small: Data-driven growth strategies to grow your business with Andrew Davies
• 20:45 – Contributing factors to the success of this event in particular
• 23:47 – 10 Lessons Learned in 10 Years of Starting, Growing, and Selling WebinarNinja with Omar Zenhom
• 26:40 – Bootstrapping Our Freemium Form Builder: From Zero to $1.5M ARR with Marie Martens
• 30:37 – 3 mistakes I won’t repeat after growing my business to +35M and selling it with Tim Vandecasteele
• 33:50 – Breaking Through the 7 SaaS Growth Plateaus with Rob Walling

• Get Tickets for MicroConf US 2025, New Orleans
• Signup for the MicroConf newsletter
• Derrick Reimer (@derrickreimer) | X
• SavvyCal
• Peldi from Balsamiq (@peldi) | X
• The SaaS Playbook
• Omar Zenhom (@TheOmarZenhom) | X
• Episode 717 | Bootstrapping to $1.3M ARR and 300,000 Free Users

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please