Tweets

@smithtimmytim Congrats Tim! 🔥🔥🔥

Fully funded!!! 🙌

@louisnicholls_ @LandonB32 @mubashariqbal @tylertringas I've served some pretty small markets! 😉

You could be right about being able to mitigate churn (with a smaller customer base). And you might be right; maybe it is more fun!

It'd be nice if we had more open data on how "# of active customers" effects different parts of a biz.

@LandonB32 @louisnicholls_ @mubashariqbal @tylertringas Even niche SaaS businesses that service small markets (like Moraware) generally need more than 500 customers to achieve profitability.

https://www.tedpitts.com/the-most-important-saas-metric-nobody-talks-about/

@LandonB32 @louisnicholls_ @mubashariqbal @tylertringas Again, just reiterating my original points:

- Generally, the "total market" you target needs to be pretty big. Example: @Userfeedio targets Intercom users (100,000 monthly active users and 30,000 paying customers).
- In SaaS, having < 100 customers is usually riskier than 500+.

@theleviallen @CalebWojcik will you get one?

@MoreWillie That Depeche Mode tune tho

@nbashaw Sounds like a great blog post intro Nathan! 😉

@tylertringas @Shpigford @mubashariqbal Judging from my inbox, DMs, and replies, most folks are taking it the way @ryanthejenks is describing.

(Especially those that have read the full-length blog posts)

@RyanTheJenks @tylertringas @Shpigford @mubashariqbal 🎯

@lynnetye @deadcoder0904 @CADbloke Yup. Exactly! 🙌

@mubashariqbal @tylertringas Like I said:

For bootstrappers, you need to target a market that’s total size is in the millions, or, is worth 10s of millions.

Zen Planner targets the fitness training market: 60,704 businesses, worth $10 billion.

WPengine targets WordPress sites: 37,500,000 potential sites.

@tylertringas @mubashariqbal Guess we disagree!

All the successful companies I’ve seen have targeted large niches (millions of potential customers, or 100s of millions potential revenue).

The reason: even a great company will only be able to capture a fraction of their niche.

@tranhelen 👍

@tylertringas @mubashariqbal The message is pretty simple:

https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1134881883169337344?s=21

Definitely other factors as well, but I’m passionate about this one.

Especially as I’ve seen how it’s affected some of my friends who have started local businesses (retail, coffee, restaurants).

The market matters a lot!

@tylertringas @mubashariqbal True.

I’m trying to say: “The market you choose to target is important.”

You can build an incredible product for a bad market (small, no money, not motivated) and you’re guaranteed to fail.

But in a large market that’s hungry for solutions, even mediocre products win.

@mubashariqbal Also: thousands of other video rental places *did* compete with Blockbuster and did well.

In 2002, Blockbuster had 8,000 stores, Hollywood Video has 1,800 stores, Movie Gallery had 1,400 stores. (Plus, there were 1000s of indie stores that did well during the rental heyday)

@mubashariqbal Can you tell me more about what you mean by “building a path to growth?”

What does that look like?

How is it a better approach than what I’m advocating?

@louisnicholls_ Total Available Market if fairly well defined: “the total market demand for a product or service.”

Are you talking about the Serviceable Obtainable Market? That’s the portion of the available market that you can (realistically) capture.

@louisnicholls_ Can you give me some examples? Happy to be proven wrong.

I have a bunch of examples here:
https://justinjackson.ca/niche

@louisnicholls_ And also here: https://justinjackson.ca/build

@CADbloke You can definitely do that! But it’s riskier, and not really a good fit for bootstrapping.

@isterin Yes! 🙌

@5harath I send it mine out every Saturday morning.

People like the reliable frequency, and also the habit forming stuff:

"Read it while you drink your morning coffee."

@rezzz @wesbos When is Wes going to offer tattoos?

@sammyschuckert @buildyoursaas @jonbuda 🤜🤛

yes!

@gpickin lol. it’s like this:

@DanHerd @stripe @Mailchimp @ConvertKit @monosnap yes! 🙌

@pjrvs Vernon is close to Kelowna. 😉

@BrendanHufford 🧐 good question

@gilesgoatboy thanks!

@ramsey @Beryllium9 If anything, my guess is PHP devs has increased.

If you consider the amount of PHP still out in the world (WordPress, Drupal, MailChimp, legacy apps, boring business app, etc...) it's a big number.

@ezekgabrielse BTW - I'm with you.

I don't think we need to be at $1 million ARR.

$50k MRR is incredible! Jon and I have both said that's our "enough" number.

@ramsey A few places:

- @StackOverflow's survey say 30% of devs are PHP devs.
- in 2017 Computer World says there were 18.2 million devs (although that's now estimated to by 26 million)

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2483690/india-to-overtake-u-s--on-number-of-developers-by-2017.html

@jasondoesstuff is it oprah

@nitish24p cc @glenmccallumcan

@IanFortier @andymci Oui! J'ai mangé ça pour le petit déjeuner hier.

@andymci I grew up going to French Immersion school (Grades 1-12).

I agree with you:

Les crêpes sont supérieures.

@YoFolyo Honestly, everything after the first 200 customers.

In terms of "% of market effort vs outcome" Transistor feels way different.

@sethlouey That's my point. It wasn't a great market. 😉

@mysweetcate I had some because of this tweet.

@tylertringas I'm certainly not the only one to make this observation.

@paulg's 2006 essay made a similar point:
http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

@eliajf yes!!!

@swyrazik This is true, but more often than not, having competitors is a good sign.

A niche without competition generally means it’s not a viable market.

WPengine came into the WordPress hosting market when there were plenty of good hosting companies already there. But now, they dominate

@iamjz @r00k @PairWithTuple Sorry, just the remote access feature is being canned.

@joshuap @FounderQuest 😱

@blirwin I've noticed that too 🤔

@pradipcloud Not working towards an exit either.

Currently, I feel like I'd be happy to work on Transistor for the rest of my life.

@gpickin 1. Profit First (although I recommend you buy that as a hard cover)

2. Anything You Want by @sivers

3. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination

@osullica Thanks!

@jozacks Yup

@akebrattberg Thanks!

@petersuhm 😜

@mattragland Do it! 💪

@mjwhansen Nice work!! 🔥

@daverodenbaugh @scottbolinger @earthlingworks @CasJam @JordanGal @Patticus I'm happy to jump on a Skype call now if you're game. 👌

@daverodenbaugh @earthlingworks @scottbolinger @CasJam @JordanGal Hey Dave, can you give me an example?

Also, what does "WTP" mean?

@Folletto Totally. I like that you asked about that, because success is relative.

I'm thinking largely of folks in the bootstrapping community who want to support their families.

@productgangsta Can you give me an example of a smaller niche that you felt worked?

@kodiebeckley but I backed 32 games on kickstarter 5 years ago and they just all got shipped to my house.

@3dfordesigners Just donated. Rooting for you!

@podcastharry Hey Harry! We average out the first 24 hours of downloads of your last 3 episodes to calculate an estimated subscriber count. The graph is an estimated count over time.

@teslainvernon @frankholdem @BCSCRAPIT Super helpful; thank you!

@owenconti Yup! http://join.megamaker.co

I sell my books + courses there. 👍

@owenconti yup!

@BradyHaran You'd have to forward your old RSS feed to ours. (We can't currently support feeds on custom domains).

Forwarding the old RSS is pretty painless. I wrote a quick guide on that here: https://transistor.fm/switching-podcast-hosting/

@siddharthkp @r00k Initially, I used Garageband.

Then, I used Screenflow (much faster).

Now, @iChris does our editing. 👌

@DaronSpence Nice work! I've got a pretty good sample landing page here that has all the basic elements in it:

http://MegaMaker.co/sample

@MRyanMcCarthy 😜

https://twitter.com/shpigford/status/1121465923381153792?s=21

@shellen Yes! Party time! 🕺🔥💃

@CasJam @adamwathan @tailwindcss @TransistorFM Not live yet.

My personal site is on @statamic and i ❤️ it.

@CasJam Try being a kid who grew up watching Gretzky and the Oilers in the 80s. 😳

@jimhilluk Complexity in terms of HR. Meaning: managing one person is often as much work as managing ten.

In the past, my initial hires were a huge amount of work (compared to the output received).

It eventually evened out, but then I had the anxiety of ongoing salaries. 😅

@siddharthkp Such a good album

@SamPodlogar Thanks!

@dohertyjf @PairWithTuple @adamwathan I probably *should* use CodeMentor, but I just bug my friends instead. 😜

@rskopecek @TransistorFM Yes. Moving forward with Transistor has felt good.

@abigailotwell This is amazing! My squats are terrible. 😜

@pjrvs 🔥🔥🔥

@brennandunn In Glasgow, Paesano pizza is good.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUxGIGUjK86/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1bcfnoxzwujwa

@supremerumham @deadcoder0904 @IndieHackers @jonbuda Check out http://podcast.gift 👍

@smithtimmytim 👌

@johnnytong Yes! It's true.

And there are other dynamics too. You might 2x the LTV for a few years, but then see LTV plummet. So the accounting gets tricky. 😜

@missbikesalot @disruptprodsguy Yes, such a good idea for a podcast. 👌

@lukehebb @freetrade @buildyoursaas @TransistorFM @jonbuda Thanks for listening Luke!

@Delafina777 @HarvardPolitics Damn. I'm 1980. Caught between two worlds!

@songadaymann Bueller? Bueller?

@jonnym1ller @tylertringas @earnestcapital Yup! Lots of folks using it for that already. 💪

@nelsonjoyce @dominicstpierre Wait until we add our "automated insights" layer. 😉

@r00k Yes! I should try adding this myself.

You're talking about in the embedded player, correct?

@caseyfulgenzi @dominicstpierre Oh yeah! That's a good idea. 👌

@davidpots @dominicstpierre Recorded and edited in @ScreenFlow.

@brandonhull @dominicstpierre remind me, what was that again?

@podcastharry @buildyoursaas @jonbuda YES! I've been loving @statamic for http://justinjackson.ca too. 🕺🔥💃

@siddharthkp For writing? I dig it!

@statamic supports it (although, for http://justinjackson.ca I end up using Bard + HTML).

@spencerfry The folks at @PairWithTuple have been figuring that out.

@takeitev @TransistorFM @OvercastFM @marcoarment It looks like it's live on Overcast and pulling from your Transistor feed.

https://overcast.fm/itunes1406531012/take-it-ev

However, you still need to update your "website address" in your "Show Settings."

@clayhebert @TransistorFM yup! http://headliner.app

@BradHalverson Yes! I wrote about Roy here: https://justinjackson.ca/cofounder

@MarcLittlemore I hope it was helpful!

@colby__donovan this one here 👍

https://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Triumph-American-Imagination/dp/0679757473/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=walt+disney&qid=1556863531&s=books&sr=1-1