Startups For the Rest of Us Podcast Por Rob Walling arte de portada

Startups For the Rest of Us

Startups For the Rest of Us

De: Rob Walling
Escúchala gratis

The original podcast for bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped startups, this show follow the stories of founders as they start, acquire, and grow SaaS companies. Hear when they fail, struggle, succeed, and take you with them through the tumultuous life of a SaaS founder. If you like Mixergy, This Week in Startups, or SaaStr, you’ll enjoy Startup for the Rest of Us.© 2025 Startups For the Rest of Us Economía Gestión Gestión y Liderazgo Liderazgo Marketing Marketing y Ventas
Episodios
  • Episode 794 | From Struggling Side Project to Life-Changing SaaS Exit
    Sep 9 2025

    B2C, low price point, one-time payments… not the typical recipe for a life-changing exit.

    In this episode, Rob Walling talks with longtime listener Zamir Khan, founder of VidHug (now Memento). Zamir’s story broke a lot of SaaS “rules”: B2C, low price point, one-time payments, and years of slow growth. He shares how he nearly gave up, the pandemic surge that changed everything, and the emotional ride that led to a life-changing exit.

    Episode Sponsor:

    AI is completely changing how people discover brands and content online, and Ahrefs has built a full-blown SaaS marketing platform to help you stay ahead.

    With over 15 years of real-world web data, and AI that actually understands marketing, Ahrefs helps you measure your brand presence, build authority, and monitor reputation across search, social, and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Google AIOs, Perplexity, and more.

    You can also dig into what’s driving your competitors’ visibility and spot market gaps before they do, helping you create content that ranks and drive new traffic to your business.

    There's no need to juggle a bunch of disconnected tools- get Ahref’s all-in-one platform to make your brand unmissable in a fast-moving world.

    Try it free at ahrefs.com/awt.

    Topics we cover:

    • (3:47) — From podcast listener to SaaS founder
    • (7:59) — The role of luck, timing, and the pandemic in growth
    • (18:37) — A birthday gift becomes a product
    • (23:54) — Charging early and surviving slow growth
    • (30:47) — From $1k a month to 80k daily users
    • (39:58) — Support load, stress, and the edge of burnout
    • (48:58) — Deciding to sell (and why timing mattered)
    • (52:57) — Life after the exit: slowing down and finding balance
    Links from the Show:
    • TinySeed – Applications close tonight!
    • MicroConf Connect – The community for SaaS founders
    • The SaaS Playbook
    • Memento (formerly VidHug)
    • Zamir Khan (@zam1rkhan) | X
    • Zamir Khan | LinkedIn

    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

    Más Menos
    56 m
  • Episode 793 | TinySeed Tales s5e3: Building Momentum
    Sep 4 2025

    What happens when momentum hits and your biggest challenge becomes keeping up?

    In this episode of TinySeed Tales, Rob Walling catches up with Harris Kenny, founder of OutboundSync. Revenue is growing, the team is moving fast, and enterprise leads are coming in. But with success comes complexity: support load, pricing strategy, and product demands are all increasing. Harris is hiring again, learning to say no, and figuring out how to keep the momentum without losing focus.

    Topics we cover:
    • (1:40) – Closing his biggest deal ever and what it unlocked
    • (4:26) – Learning how to do enterprise sales
    • (6:20) – How SOC 2 made the product stronger
    • (12:18) – New hires are paying off
    • (18:23) – Building the Salesforce integration
    • (22:13) – Getting pull from the market, not pushing
    • (24:10) – Taking customers from unicorns
    Links from the Show:
    • TinySeed SaaS Accelerator - Applications close on September 9th
    • Coaching Call Bonus
    • Invest in TinySeed
    • YNAB (You Need A Budget)
    • Dynamite Jobs
    • OutboundSync
    • Harris Kenny | LinkedIn

    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

    Más Menos
    27 m
  • Episode 792 | Hot Take Tuesday: GPT-5 Struggles, the A.I. Bubble, and the Windsurf Debacle
    Sep 2 2025

    Is GPT-5 a real risk for SaaS founders, or just the beginning of a new chapter?

    In this Hot Take Tuesday, Rob Walling, Einar Vollset, and Tracy Osborn dig into GPT-5’s mixed reviews, signs of stress in the A.I. bubble, and how Windsurf’s $2.4B exit left early employees with nothing. They also unpack why returning a VC fund is such a rare (and big) deal.

    Episode Sponsor

    This episode is brought to you by Gearheart.io, which specializes in helping early-stage founders validate ideas, prototype SaaS products, and build AI-powered MVPs with real user testing, so your code won’t crumble when your first customers show up.

    Founded by entrepreneurs who’ve launched and exited their own startups, Gearheart has helped launch over 70 B2B SaaS products, including SmartSuite (which raised $38 million). They get where you’re at.

    Book your free strategy session at gearheart.io and mention Startups for the Rest of Us to get 20% off discovery, validation, or prototyping services.

    Topics we cover:
    • (3:12) – TinySeed returns Fund One
    • (9:40) – GPT-5: Upgrade or letdown?
    • (19:19) – Are we in an AI bubble?
    • (24:09) – The Windsurf debacle: $2.4B exit, $0 for early employees
    • (31:06) – The bigger problem: Are startups forgetting to share the upside?
    • (40:05) – Lifestyle vs. Ambitious Bootstrapping
    Links from the Show:
    • TinySeed Fall 2025 Applications Live Q&A - Join us Wednesday September 3rd
    • TinySeed SaaS Accelerator - Applications are Open!
    • Invest in TinySeed
    • MicroConf
    • SaaS Institute
    • Discretion Capital
    • Einar Vollset | LinkedIn
    • Einar Vollset (@einarvollset) | X
    • Tracy Osborn
    • Tracy Osborn | LinkedIn
    • Tracy Osborn (@tracymakes) | X

    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

    Más Menos
    46 m
Todas las estrellas
Más relevante
These high quality episodes are a source of inspiration and business wisdom shared in bite size weekly recordings.

Great to hear stories from bootstrapping founders!

Se ha producido un error. Vuelve a intentarlo dentro de unos minutos.

I've been a listener for several years now. Rob Walling produces an amazingly informative and brilliant podcast discussing startups, bootstrapping a startup, and the journey of others who have bootstrapped their companies. He and guests are transparent about mistakes they made and will discuss options in realtime to weigh pros and cons. Listener question episodes and "Rob solo adventure" episodes are an excellent. I can't believe this doesn't have hundreds of 5 star reviews tbh. Highly recommend.

Rob's podcast is THE manual for bootstrapping a startup

Se ha producido un error. Vuelve a intentarlo dentro de unos minutos.