I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society,.
Almost went bankrupt
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A lot of people don't know this about me, but in the early 2000s, I owned a snowboard shop in Alberta called the Real Deal. It almost bankrupted me. I just published a video where I tell the whole story: It describes how I emerged from that failure and was (eventually) able to bootstrap a successful SaaS company. It took a few steps to get there! If you're on your own indie SaaS journey and want a sense of what my path looked like, I think you'll dig it this video. (It also has a bunch of my old clips and photos that I think you'll enjoy). Also, publishing this video marks the relaunch of my YouTube channel. It would mean a lot to me if you could watch it and leave a comment! Cheers, PS: I got a lot of responses from my last email about that revenue-based analytics tool. If you'd like to participate in their paid beta, you can apply here.
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Justin Jackson's SaaS marketing experiments
I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society,.
"Never tell me the odds." – Han Solo, Star Wars. What are the odds? Yesterday, I watched my favorite hockey team (the Edmonton Oilers) lose to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup finals. Every season, all 32 NHL teams have the same goal: "Win the Cup." But only one team can win. Even a strong team (like the Oilers) has only a 12% chance of winning. Put another way: they had an 88% chance of not winning. What are your odds? A founder building a new startup also faces daunting odds. As...
When I got to the address, the door looked like this: sketchy However, once inside, I was surprised to see an incredible podcast recording studio: Justin and Nathan at Kit studios On April 1st, Nathan Barry (founder of Kit) asked me to join him in an industrial area of Chicago to record a podcast. This was for the opening of the new Kit Studios in Chicago. Even cooler: anyone with a Kit account can use it. (I'm told the outside is much nicer now. 😉) Nathan and I sat down, and he interviewed...
Overall, I've been pretty unimpressed with many of the promises coming from the "AI code bois." I got tired of watching video demos that hyped things up, only to try it myself and be disappointed. But after this conversation with Adam Wathan (creator of Tailwind CSS) and Brian Casel (Instrumental.dev), I'm starting to see AI development differently: I was surprised that Adam is this bullish on AI dev tools: "I used to be more skeptical. But then I forced myself to download Cursor and build an...