ChartMogul Podcasts

In this episode of SaaS Open Mic: The story of Mind the Product, the world’s largest community of product managers How it sold to Pendo What software companies should consider before acquiring a community De-Risking acquisitions What community leaders should contemplate when considering an exit Building audiences versus building communities The nex…

For this fifty-third episode, I talked to Matthew Cleevely, Co-Founder of 10to8, a scheduling platform that is built for less digital environments, like the dentist or the national health service.When Matthew was doing his PhD in entrepreneurship, he and his co-founder talked with a dentist friend of theirs who wanted to digitize his business. They…

In this episode of the SaaS Open Mic we discuss: Rapid growth during a pandemic How to tailor priorities and keep focus during a growth phase Establishing clear guidelines and expectations in remote work Measuring success through outputs (and not inputs) Hiring with a standardized process in mind Focus on company values Automating onboarding North …

In this episode of the SaaS Open Mic we discuss: How initial pricing models can be challenging and ultimately need to change Reaching price to value alignment Making the final decision to switch to a different pricing model The three dimensions of pricing experimentation and when to apply A/B testing The metrics that SaaS businesses need to keep an…

We touch on many topics related to pricing migration: The decision drivers that led ChartMogul to decide on a pricing migration How to prepare for a pricing migration Where things could go wrong Maintaining flexibility and making space for conversation Don't forget to subscribe to never miss an episode!…

In this episode of SaaS Open Mic, Ross and I discuss creating repeatable revenue processes and: Customer journey mapping Improving the funnel Positioning and sales/marketing alignment How to know when to iterate on your processes Personas and PMF Revenue generation responsibilities beyond the sales organization Relationship building…

Our interview covers the following: The shift from a service business to SaaS Focusing on the problem and nothing else Raising money The balance between confidence and vulnerability in the leadership team Employee experience I hope you enjoy the latest episode of SaaS Open Mic!By Olivia Jarvis, Jeb Banner

John and I sit down to talk about the success he’s seen running his agency like a subscription business, and: Agency versus subscription model HIstorical data and billing practices LTV, ARPA, and other SaaS metrics Tracking lead source and its contribution to revenue Churn and customer retention Tracking custom attributes Pricing Resources Black Pr…

Alexa and I discuss: The myth of a no sales product-led growth Repeatable trends, Tests, and Metrics: When this happens, know why it will happen Marketing-qualified leads versus product-qualified leads Combine customer firmographic data and product usage to get to closed-won When to you add a sales team to your self-serve model Lead scoring and pri…

For this fifty-second episode, I talked to Susanne Klepsch, Co-Founder of MeetFox, a platform for coaches, lawyers and other independent service professionals to schedule, meet and charge in one seamless flow.After brief stints in the tourism and automotive industry, Susanne took on sales at her father’s plastics companies after he passed away. Aft…

Thomas has sold hundreds of businesses in his 10 years in M&A and understands what it takes to hit your target valuation – but you have to know where you're headed if you want to draw a roadmap to get there. We discuss company benchmarks and how companies can decide on which areas of the business to focus on and when it's best to bring in outside h…

Userflow lets your team build customized in-app tours, checklists and surveys, without code. It’s a tool to help drive onboarding and trial conversions. It was a conscious choice of the Userflow team to focus on product-led growth from day one. They try to avoid hiring people to solve problems and look into improving the product instead. “The essen…

For this fifty-first episode, I talked to Ai Ching Goh, Co-Founder of Piktochart, a software to build beautiful infographics and videos, with the goal of becoming a “business storytelling platform”.After Ai Ching had a burn-out working at P&G, she decided to start her own company together with her husband, at the time a web design agency, with the …

On this weeks episode, Tatiana shares her insights about: When and why Tatiana started Revolv Culture Solutions Before and after: What employee engagement looks like and how it is measured Methodologies and strategies to cultivate culture The role of leadership in creating culture Where remote work goes wrong and what to do about it Hybrid work mod…

What I love about this episode is Adam's willingness to share his thinking and strategy about what it means to succeed as an enterprise solution. We cover: Strategies to diversify and promote your brand How consumer buying trends impact GMV, and how GMV impacts related-SaaS entrepreneurship His approach to analyze, research, and acquire SaaS busine…

In this episode of SaaS Open Mic, I talk to Jenna Wyer (@Jenna W.), Vice President of Partnerships and Head of Payments at Recurly. Jenna has an impressive background in partnerships and payments from her time with Recurly, Spreedly, and as the founding VP of Sales at Braintree. This means she’s no stranger to navigating relationships with payment …

In this episode of SaaS Open Mic, I talk to Adam Jones (@AdamJones85), Vice President of Sales for Thinkific, a product-led company that helps businesses create, market, and sell customized online courses. What’s especially interesting for our listeners is that Thinkific’s sales organization and strategy was layered on 6 years into building the bus…

Matt Spiegel is a licensed lawyer and serial entrepreneur. His first tech startup was called MyCase, a SaaS product that, “keeps all of your important case details — documents, contacts, calendars, emails, tasks, invoices — in a single, organized location.” The transition from criminal defense law to SaaS started as a “scratch your own itch” kind o…

For this fiftieth episode, I talked to Dave Will, Co-Founder of PropFuel, a platform that helps associations better engage with their members.Dave started off his career in the corporate world, working at PwC on systems integration of big corporate systems like Siebel and SAP. The moments that changed everything for him were when his boss told him …

In this episode of SaaS Open Mic, I talk to Brendan Sweeney (@popmenu.com), CEO and Co-Founder of Popmenu, a restaurant technology company. He talks about product market fit by sharing the story of Popmenu and finding success in an obvious place: the online experience of restaurants. “We started off with delivering to restaurants a dynamic menu tha…

We're back with a new season of SaaS Open Mic. To kick things off, I talk to Andrew Gazdecki (@agazdecki), former CEO of Bizness Apps & Altcoin (both acquired). His most recent venture is MicroAquire, a marketplace designed to help startups get acquired. Andrew shares his goal to make a thousand millionaires by helping entrepreneurs exit. “The gene…

Alex Yumashev, founder of JitBit, returns to the show. We discuss: why Alex ditched Google Analytics from his website how he keeps his work interesting after so many years running the same business why differentiation is often not possible finding freelancers the good and bad of being a bootstrapping entrepreneur Alex’s company: https://www.jitbit.…

Nick Franklin and I talked about what it is like to go down the venture capital route instead of bootstrapping. For me this was a glimpse into another way of doing things. Nick and I discussed: why he used outside investment to create ChartMogul ChartMogul’s focus on creating good content finding a steady stream of interesting things to write about…

Peldi Guilizzoni is the founder of low-fidelity wireframing tool Balsamiq. Peldi and Steve discuss: why Peldi tracks almost nothing except revenue and profits talking to customers instead of using analytics on being “so good they can’t ignore you” how to apply a coder’s approach to marketing how Balsamiq is run like a “cozy restaurant on the web” n…

We argue for and against having a monthly email newsletter for your product. Ed is firmly in the “No way” corner. Steve represents the “You gotta have a newsletter” side. Let the debate begin! Also mentioned: Do Open – How a simple email newsletter can transform your business (and it can), by David Hieatt Discuss this topic and more with the Bootst…

Ed and I cover a lot of ground this week: podcasting nerves geotrivia as marketing a brief foray into geopolitics using Twitter for marketing the frustrating unpredictability of what marketing efforts will bear fruit the pleasure of working from home dealing with zombie customers The Bootstrapped podcast now has its own Twitter account – follow to …

Ed and Steve talk about the mental stress of having real-time business metrics, how to find a business mentor, and Steve’s attempt to get started with enterprise sales. And we talk about the blog that posts very infrequently. Discuss this topic and more with the Bootstrapped community. The post #167: The blog gets posts once every 13 years appeared…

Allan Jardine is the creator of DataTables, a popular jQuery plugin. We discuss his challenges and successes as he learned how to make a viable business from creating Open Source software. We also discuss Allan’s new SaaS product, CloudTables. Discuss this topic and more with the Bootstrapped community. The post #166: Making an Open Source business…

In this episode I answer some listener questions about freelancers. I discuss how to find, hire, and communicate with freelancers. Discuss this topic and more with the Bootstrapped community. The post #165: Finding and hiring freelancers appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.By Steve McLeod

Ed grills me on my progress with Saber Feedback, my B2B SaaS, nine months after I acquired it. We talk about SEO, competitors, getting backlinks, finding a niche, and resisting the temptation to write code instead of doing marketing. Discuss this topic and more on the Bootstrapped discussion forum. The post #164: A Saber Feedback update 9 months af…

Ed and I discuss what we want to achieve in 2021. Last year, unexpected world events turned our “goals for 2020” upside-down. Having learnt no lesson whatsoever from this, we fearlessly enter 2021 with plans! We mentioned Ed’s personal blog in this episode. Discuss this episode and more on our discussion forum for Bootstrappers. The post #163: Our …

Steve and Ed look back at the goals they set for 2020 at the beginning of the year. What goals did we hit? What goals eluded us? What did we learn along the way? Discuss this episode and more on our discussion forum for Bootstrappers. The post #162: Reviewing our 2020 goals appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.…

This is a talk I recently gave at Barcelona’s ESIC business school. Ostensibly, I spoke on working with intangibles as products. But actually, I told the story of how I started as a bootstrapper – and revealed how clueless I was at the beginning. So, if you are curious about how I got started creating and selling software products, then you’ll enjo…

Liz is an expert in onboarding email sequences. Over the course of this episode, Liz helps me design a great email sequence for Saber Feedback. On the way, there are plenty of practical tips for better emails that you can apply to your product’s emails. Want to see the results of my conversation with Liz? Sign up for Saber Feedback, and experience …

Ed and Steve talk about recent challenges and successes in their bootstrapped SaaS businesses. Ed tells of the agony of doing enterprise sales. Steve admits to self-doubt when waiting for SEO results. Some things we discussed: 2020 SaaS Podcast Awards Our forum thread on dealing with endless business administration Fathom Analytics Discuss this epi…

Moritz Dausinger, founder of refiner.io, chats about his success as a serial founder of bootstrapped SaaS products. He founded and sold two B2B SaaS apps, and now he’s doing it a third time. Moritz shares some real-world practical, proven tips based on his repeat successes. Moritz’s current SaaS app: refiner.io Moritz’s previous SaaS apps: Docparse…

For this forty-ninth episode, I talked to Lisa Popovici, Co-Founder of Cartloop, an SMS marketing service that offers you a team that helps customers with their abandoned shopping carts on your Shopify store.Lisa went to med school. While doing that, she wanted to earn her own money, and started a women’s fashion brand. She came home from classes e…

Ed and Steve discuss the endless burden of busy-work that comes with running a business – and how we try to minimise it. We also mention Ed’s new marketing-related hire, Feature Upvote‘s dashboard design overhaul, and using a content agency to write blog posts for Saber Feedback. The invoice handling service we mentioned is GetMyInvoices. Discuss t…

Discounts, discounts, discounts! Ed and I discuss how we respond to customers asking for discounts, whether we should offer Cyber Monday offers, and how offering discounts can hurt future sales. Discuss this topic and more on the Bootstrapped discussion forum. The post #156: “May I have a discount?” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.…

Alex runs a successful help desk software company with only 3 employees, competing in a crowded market. We discuss: the importance of industry knowledge, the customer awareness funnel, advanced SEO techniques, bringing on a co-founder after you’ve already got traction. Links: Jitbit Alex on Twitter Gail Goodman’s talk ‘The Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of …

Robin Warren of Corrello tells me how he finds and recruits freelance developers for his bootstrapped software company. We also talk about: Robin’s business creating Trello Power-ups Using Product Hunt to hone your marketing message Juggling multiple products Links: Robin on Twitter Corrello Blue Cat Reports Burndown Charts by Corrello Robin’s prev…

For this forty-eighth episode, I talked to Udesh Jadnanansing, Co-Founder of Mopinion, an all-in-one user feedback platform for high traffic websites.Mopinion started when Udesh and his co-founders had a digital agency that developed websites and apps. One thing they noticed was that getting qualitative information about the user’s perspective beyo…

I seek Ed’s advice on some Saber Feedback stuff. We talk about pricing, free plans, legacy framework woes, and database hosting. We also chat about: running Geomob as an online conference instead as a COVID alternative to an in-person conference automating away common customer support enquiries Other links: SureSwift Capital’s Start-up founder cust…

Ed and I discuss knowledge sharing for bootstrappers, and even for one-person teams. How do you make sure the important knowledge for your business gets remembered, shared, and used? Also known as: the episode in which I praise Notion. Discuss this topic and more on the Bootstrapped discussion forum. The post #152: Practical knowledge sharing for b…

I answer several questions from a loyal listener who wants advice on building a B2B SaaS similar in scope and style to my product, Feature Upvote. Discuss this topic and more on the Bootstrapped discussion forum. The post #151: Advice on validating and building a bootstrapped B2B SaaS appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.…

Robert Brandl of ToolTester Network built his company by developing excellent SEO skills. In this episode he turns his skills to Saber Feedback, and gives me awesome advice on how to solve my SEO problems. We also talk about his recent acquisition of https://howtogetonline.com/ Other links: Robert on Twitter: @robertbrandl Saber Feedback’s guide to…

For this forty-seventh episode, I talked to Will van der Sanden, Founder and CEO of Dux-Soup, one of the leading LinkedIn automation tools in the market.Dux-Soup started when Will wanted to help his wife with reaching out to prospects for her business. As a developer, he built tools to scrape different sites, like Yahoo, the Yellow Pages and Linked…

Ed Freyfogle is back again. This week he interviews Steve on his progress with Saber Feedback, six months after acquisition. Ed marvels at how many words we were able to write about feedback buttons. We also talk a bit about co-working in the age of Covid. Discuss this topic and more on the Bootstrapped discussion forum. The post #149: A Saber Feed…

Ed Freyfogle steps in for me this week and interviews Hrishi Mittal, founder of online learning platform Learnetto. Hrishi shares his struggle to progress past a point of having limited success without finding real traction. He also talks about his desire to bring on a cofounder. Hrishi on Twitter Learnetto Learnetto on Twitter “The Complete React …

For this forty-sixth episode, I talked to Steven Benson, Founder and CEO of Badger Maps, a leading mapping platform and route planning app for field sales people.After studying geography and doing an MBA, Steven spent his whole career in field sales at companies like IBM and HP and then went on to sell the Google Maps API to businesses.Being expose…