Tweets

SaaS is more established now than it was in 2012.

We no longer have to explain to potential customers:

a) what SaaS is
b) that it's secure
c) that they can trust us with their credit card info

Hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses have used SaaS at this point.

I’ve observed quite a few niches, and I’ve never seen anything as good as the dev market.

- Market size
- Ability to pay
- Easy to reach
- Willingness to pay

The total amount of money being spent in the sector is massive.

Lots of opportunity on both the Prosumer and B2B side.

I love Simone's work.

She's inspiring a whole new generation of kids to make stuff, be curious, and... be excited about space!

If anyone should go up there, it's her. https://twitter.com/SimoneGiertz/status/1364288653804068873

That was fun. Thanks to @_rchase_, @NathanG, @SethChaffee, @__tosh, and others who joined!

Unlike Clubhouse, I was able to 🔴 RECORD!

I'm just editing the audio now, but here's a little trailer:

https://share.transistor.fm/s/802b0ccd

(Click "subscribe" to get the RSS feed!)

The negative effects of overcapitalization on podcasting:

- power becomes more centralized in MegaCorps™
- small, indie companies are acquired, or have to shut down
- productions get funding in the near-term, but implode when bubble bursts
- ultimately, people lose their jobs

I'm not the only one scratching their head at Spotify's podcast spending spree. 🤔

Analysts at CITI aren't impressed: "To date, we haven't seen a material positive inflection in app downloads or Premium subscriptions."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/spotifys-big-bet-on-podcasts-is-failing-citi-says.html

This is the GIF I used in my pull request:

“This is the inevitable result of the endless lies about the election spread by President Trump.” – @JamesMartinSJ

A total disgrace.

Made a new GIF today.

https://gph.is/g/aK7my3q

💯 https://twitter.com/HandsomeAnHeavy/status/1120008580214738944

When one company controls the means of distribution, creators suffer.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/26/21403282/joe-budden-spotify-exclusive-leaving-host-podcast

Love how irreverent @fulligin is in this @IndieHackers episode.

Super fun to listen to because he’s not content to stay within the bounds of a normal interview.

https://overcast.fm/+JmiPOuxnw

This advice is mostly for solo-founders (or dual founders) who want to build a small, profitable, bootstrapped company that gives the founders a good living.

People I know in this category (who target SMB) are generally getting at least 200-500 new trials per month.

I realize there are lots of other variables:
- # of founders and employees you have
- what you want out of the business
- cost to acquire a customer
- churn %, and LTV

But generally:

If you're bootstrapping SaaS, you're likely going to need hundreds of trials per month.

We have a long way to go.

This whole thing is antithetical to the spirit of the open web.

Remember when we wanted to index REAL information?

The LEAST these platforms (Yelp, Grubhub, Google) can do is show a real phone number for a local business.

A few years ago, I was really depressed. I’d never been depressed before (I’d previously thought depression was something “weak people” experience).

My depression was debilitating. It resulted in me making way less money which, in turn, made me way more desperate.

"How do you make those little podcast video clips?" is a question I get all the time.

I finally wrote a guide on it here:
https://transistor.fm/podcast-audio-video-clip

@stauffermatt 🤯

*What* you choose to repeat matters a lot.

Putting in the reps only works if you’re focused on the right muscle, skill, market, or project.

*How* you do your reps also matters: if your form is bad you won’t make progress.

Incredibly inspiring piece by @lindsaycrouse:

“I had internalized a narrative – that once I turned 30, there might not be much to look forward to. I didn’t know the opposite could be true.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/opinion/sunday/olympic-runners-women-qualifiers.html

I think something I struggle with is "business strategy."

Lately, @nbashaw (and his Divinations newsletter) have been invaluable to me.

He and I had an incredible chat yesterday.

You can listen to the podcast here:
https://saas.transistor.fm/episodes/whats-your-sustainable-competitive-advantage

There’s a real risk in business to throw “good effort after a bad idea.”

The truth is, if the core business isn’t working, doing more won’t change the tide.

Just learned that the “Airpods revenue is larger than Spotify, Twitter, Snapchat, Shopify” revenue article is wrong.

https://twitter.com/neilcybart/status/1214867813464236032

@patio11 YES!

“If you want something small and beautiful, please, please pick something with fat margins and customer willingness to pay.”

This gets missed so often (like when I started a snowboard shop in my 20s). Bad margins + competing against massive retailers with purchasing power.

Eventually, the accumulation of these tiny changes crosses a threshold and a big change occurs.

This is true for success, failure, creation, and destruction. These are the results you get from a series of small nudges over time.

It’s the *market you’re in* that will determines how big (and how fast) you’ll grow.

The market matters.

It’s the primary multiplier.

If your market is a zero, all your other efforts (no matter how good they are!) will net out to zero.

Wowser.

For example, lots of media companies switched their media strategy to Facebook Video because "the data" told them they were getting lots of engagement there.

But, it turns out, Facebook was inflating video metrics by up to "150 to 900 percent." 🤯

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccurate-video-metrics-inflation-lawsuit

This seems like a good process for exploring a new business:

- Begin researching the idea and see how it feels. 🙋‍♀️
- If it feels right, keep going! 👍
- Doesn't feel right? Get out quick. 💨

There are little discoverability communities (like @podysseyapp + @podhuntapp) that have worked well for me (in terms of getting recommendations), but their reach is currently limited.

https://podyssey.fm/mijustin

But left unchecked, being jaded can poison your mind.

As @GusRazzetti points out here, "negative thinking is deceiving — it initially seems innocuous. Until we fall into a repetitive pattern that ignites a toxic mental spin."

https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-free-your-mind-from-toxic-behaviors-7dd9c9cbdb9d

There have been a few times now where I've stumbled on a fascinating article.

"Wow, this is well-written," I'll say while scrolling down.

Every time I end up at the bottom, only to see it was written by @anthilemoon!

Well done Anne-Laure! Really enjoying these. 🙌

People ask me why I’ve been sharing @robfitz’s book (The Mom Test) so much.

It’s because it represents a single “big idea” that every business person should know:

“You can’t trust what customers say they’ll do in the future. You can only trust how they currently do things.”

@Harris_Bryan I made you a quick video showing you how this is possible in @TransistorFM. 👌



cc @jayacunzo @louisnicholls_

If it's a genuine need, there should be evidence of a current behavior:

"I use Excel all the time for this." (Airtable comes in and capitalizes on the existing behavior)

"I just BCC hundreds of people." (Mailchimp makes this existing behavior easier and better)

Incredible visualization.

Really brings the point home.

Shit. We gotta act.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

📺 @jackmcdade, legendary. https://twitter.com/jason_varga/status/1154542232134963206

goddamn.

I made it NYC.

.@digitaltrouble's new site is cool:
https://benmann.de/

Just look at the difference between request chains on WordPress, and request chains on the new site built with Statamic + Tailwind.

Contrast that with @TransistorFM (and projects like @megamaker and @marketingdevs): these products benefitted from my audience initially, but have found good (ongoing) traction from other channels.

Your product has to have legs outside of your personal network.

The other big problem with having an audience?

Ego.

It’s gratifying to have fans; they make you feel good.

But it can lead to us subconsciously deluding ourselves into thinking we’re on the right path (when what we’re really doing is protecting our ego).

(on that last point, @derrickreimer recently shared this story about how that happened to him with Level)

On the benefit side, an audience can give you more leverage.

Your connections, who you know and who knows you, can provide you with a big boost when you launch.

It’s one thing or the other: there’s either enough people in motion, or there’s not.

You don’t have enough time, money, and energy to change people’s minds.

They’re either motivated to find a solution, or they’re not.

Don't target customers that are rare, hard to find, hard to reach, hard to convince, or don't have sufficient numbers to build a business on!

Going live now: trying to build a new @statamic site with @tailwindcss https://www.pscp.tv/w/b6NUFjM4NTU1MXwxT3dHV2t5eVprcEdRuuv9yWoC6o0b9tgRGCC1uj6qVWARBtfpMkxhbRzgpTA=

Workers want freedom.

They want the flexibility to live anywhere and choose their hours.

This Super Mario Deluxe on Switch is actually a lot of fun (especially multiplayer mode with my kids).

Love @pjrvs' newsletter today.

"Debt doesn't photograph well."

Finally seeing those new @applepodcasts web pages live!

They look good, allow you to play audio on the web, and don't automatically launch iTunes! 💯

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/megamaker/id1074661788?mt=2

@tiggreen As someone who built a lot of projects alone, having a co-founder for @transistorfm has been an incredible change. 👌

As a new SaaS founder, it's so refreshing to hear the team @honeybadgerapp talk candidly about what it was like for them in the "early days."

https://share.transistor.fm/s/0895a57c

Lots of radical ideas for SaaS founders in @garrettdimon's newsletter today. 👍

I've started an open source "hit by a bus" checklist for founders here:

https://github.com/TransistorFM/hit-by-a-bus/

There is tons of UX that serves human beings' legacy needs.

We like the things we're used to.

"The paper document" is an archetype. It's a symbol that will probably last a long time.

https://twitter.com/csallen/status/1095913479305814016

This is important to understand.

It forms the foundation for everything else.

People buy things, read things, use things, and do things for one reason only: to make their lives better.

https://twitter.com/wminshew/status/1089284047975501824?s=21

I had a phone call with @hamstu (engineer at @buffer) and it was so good I'm turning it into a @productpeopletv episode.

Just editing it now! 🙌

These Anchor podcasting stats don't seem quite right to me.

Feels like Spotify is being way overrepresented.

On http://Transistor.fm, even our most popular shows are only seeing 0.1% - 1% of their listens coming from Spotify.

I love how @taylorjackson does his podcast.

I *believe* he just records it using Voice Memos app, and then uploads it to @TransistorFM from his phone.

No intro music
No fancy mic
No editing or post

Just Taylor sharing his expertise with photographers:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/3cc28b59

Writing tomorrow's newsletter.

I think we're making some big ideological mistakes in startup land.

🤔 should be an interesting discussion!

Subscribe here: http://justinjackson.ca/newsletter

Whoa. This trend is encouraging.

I know Tyler personally, and this is a great move from him. 👍

https://twitter.com/tylertringas/status/1057290367241019397

Thanks!

Now that I've used @statamic it's really hard to use these other WordPress sites I have....

https://twitter.com/iluisdaniel/status/1057001031870033920

Also, love this excerpt from this 2012 interview with @benchestnut: http://www.doeswhat.com/2012/09/26/interview-with-ben-chestnut-mailchimp

"We started MailChimp in 2001, bought a few Adwords and forgot about it. And then in 2005, we noticed it was doing more revenue than our agency." 😅

🤓 Doing some Rails dev!

I'm building this into @TransistorFM myself today:

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1028451747734409216

These folks were at the advent of Web 2.0:

@kevinrose is 41
@garyvee is 42
@jasonfried is 44
@ginab is 46
@arrington is 48

They're not even in their 50s yet.

We don't have a completely picture from beginning → retirement.

This is why @kylefox and I are friends.

If you're looking for a private community for solopreneurs, we're opening up summer registration soon!

👉 http://megamaker.co/club

https://twitter.com/MrSimonBennett/status/1012229958222180353

Want to validate your product idea?

Here's my talk from #microconf:
https://youtu.be/F-q3PLqMOoc

(filmed on my iPhone!)

I think I just built an automated podcast-emailing-machine with @TransistorFM + @MailChimp.

If it works, I'll show you how I did it tomorrow!

.@patio11’s advice:

- make more small bets
- decide quickly on reversible things
- do things which still matter in 40 years

#microconf

More from @AlliBlum.

1. When you’re doing onboarding, ask people: why are you here?
2. Listen for “outcome phrases.”

#microconf

First leg of our #microconf trip: YLW to YLV. 🛫

Lots of folks have reached out to say:

“Hey, you should invite @CaseyNeistat to host his new podcast on @TransistorFM.”

Still figuring out how I’ll do that. 🤔

@Swizec @sehurlburt Here's my list of people who are going. 👍

#gid=0" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FgPamAK6dGYNOE5hbBETO2UHk4s6EhtWOo2hk-Mh_2Y/edit#gid=0

Excited to be speaking at #microconf again this year!

http://www.microconf.com/starter/speakers/justin-jackson/

Getting excited for #MicroConf?

Just recorded a 2018 tips episode with @SingleFounder 🙌

Learn why it’s become *the* event to attend for self-funded startups. https://overcast.fm/+MP59nSEsQ

Infamously, I am still using Adobe Fireworks CS5 (2010).

I use it every day, but I can’t imagine paying monthly for it. I grew up buying desktop software, and it *feels* insane to pay for it as a subscription. 😉

Put more effort into selling to people who are motivated to buy.

(Less energy into trying to convince folks who don't really care)

https://justinjackson.ca/motivation/

“7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design” by @refactoringui https://medium.com/refactoring-ui/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-40c736799886?source=twitterShare-a02dd1574d08-1519194191

Entrepreneurs get excited about making things better.

Just created a list of 2018 Bootstrapper Conferences on github:
https://github.com/mijustin/2018-conferences

If 2017 was hard for solopreneurs, next year is going to be even harder.

The old rules don't apply anymore. Things have changed.

Let's make 2018 our best year yet: https://megamaker.co/make2018/

People ❤️ products that remove obstacles for them.

Help them get to their destination faster (or better) than they could have on their own.

Achievement unlocked. 🤘

Dear online retailers:

If the item is "Sold Out" don't display it as a search result.

Case studies are your ticket to finding new customers. They show future users how current users found success through your product.

Observation: I sometimes avoid certain actions, systems, and methods because of past bitterness, resentment, or anxiety.

I'll buy you coffee https://justinjackson.ca/coffee/

Justin's social media detox:

Close TweetDeck.
(wait 3 seconds)

Open Twitter in the browser.
Close.
(Wait 5 seconds)

Open Tweetbot.

Just learned how to "open my DMs" on Twitter.

They're open!

How much do I have to pay Clash of Clans to never see one of their ads again?

Yesterday's live video hangout was fun.

"Marketing mistakes programmers make"

Thanks to everyone who showed up! 🙌
https://youtu.be/5blH6i_fodQ

Happy Birthday to the guy who invented the internet: @pjrvs!

💃

Yes, constraints are good for creativity.

But if you get squeezed too hard you'll get crushed.

The sweet spot is in the middle.

Even the jester looks royal when he puts on a crown.

But he's still a fool.

Lots of folks writing Year in Review posts.

Personally, I ❤️ 'em.

Post yours here: https://yearinreview.me

1. Building a remarkable product is part of the equation, but...

not all markets are created equal.

My answer to: "What would you say was your single biggest strategy for making (success) happen?"