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,.
Your brain is tired too?
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I'm back from Guatemala. It was a great trip: beautiful country and lovely people. (I posted some photos here) ------------- So many tired brains π§I was surprised by the number of responses I got to this draft:https://docs.google.com/document/d/15mrg8c3HGKEJyC9tgSwBVuIvWPYUr9Xw0fEkReRH0Fw/edit#heading=h.kgdbinp41isoβ One person responded: Iβve been struggling with the same thing. I never quite had the terms to define it so clearly, but that captures it perfectly. β Until the last few years, Iβve been able to do anything I wanted with the confidence that I could figure it out. β But now, I feel like I canβt learn anything new. It just falls away like a magnet on wood. Nothing sticks. I have to clear my schedule, concentrate, take supplements, stay up late, and take copious notes just to make a bit of progress on anything. This shift isn't unique to us; often you'll hear artists describe a similar effect. In his 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, the interviewer asked Bob Dylan about his early hits:
Ed Bradley: "You wrote 'Blowing in the Wind' in 10 minutes. Is that right? Where did that come from?"
Bob Dylan: "It just came from... that wellspring of creativity. I don't know how I wrote those songs; those early songs were almost magically written."
Ed Bradley: "You don't think you can do it today?"
Bob Dylan shakes his head: "No."
Ed Bradley: "Does that disappoint you?"
Bob Dylan: "Well, you can't do something forever. And I did it once, and I can do other things now... but I can't do that."
I want to be as self-aware as Bob Dylan: there's something freeing about not trying to recapture the "magic" we had in our youth. Our 40s, 50s, and 60s might be the time to gear down. Why force ourselves to stay in high gear? We're not turning the engine off; we're just shifting into a new stage of life. Now, we'll use our wisdom, experience, and instincts to get things done. I'm curious to hear from my older readers who have navigated this transition. How did it look for you? ---------------- Effort inflation πββοΈπ¨
---------------- SwagFan updateFerdinand and I are still working towards a launch for SwagFan (here's the background on the project). We just finished building a cool feature that allows people to sign up for a waiting list and get notified about future merch giveaways: It's also been super gratifying for Ferdinand to see 7 people sign up and become paying customers (in early access). We're hoping to submit/schedule it for Product Hunt this week. We'll keep you in the loop! Cheers, PS: I've noticed a bunch of tech folks starting new podcasts in the last few months (especially since Laracon and Rails World). If you're looking to start a show, let me know! I've got a special "40% off for 4 months" of Transistor hosting coupon I can send you. β This newsletter is brought to you by the MegaMaker Slackβ |
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,.
I didn't expect the last newsletter to generate so much debate! It ended up getting posted to Hacker News. Aaron and Ian talked about it on Mostly Technical, and many other folks responded in comments and emails. Some folks felt the tone was too pessimistic/defeatist. Others felt like I was discouraging older founders from starting companies. (I also had quite a few folks who responded and resonated with the spirit of the post). I recorded a response to all this feedback here: A few...
I recently listened to three podcast episodes, all with bootstrapped founders over the age of 40: Paul Jarvis has retired from Fathom Analytics Matt Wensing steps down from Summit, takes job with Customer.io Brian Casel and Jordan Gal talk about building SaaS at this stage of life It's interesting to see how differently this stage of life is compared to our 20s and 30s. (I'm 44). An Evolving Definition of Success: "I've been at Summit for 5 years. My last company took 15 years, and I didn't...
Every day in Transistor's #marketing channel in Slack, we track our new trial signups: Like most SaaS companies, our growth relies on new people finding us every day. Whenever I see these numbers, I ask myself: "Where are these signups coming from?" There's this idea in marketing that we'll be able to find a magical channel that brings in thousands of customers. But, when I look at where these signups come from, there's never one dominant source. Here's what we saw in August: Search (40%):...