Co-founder of Honeybadger Ben Curtis talks about unlimited pricing, its deficiencies for a bootstrapped startup, and how they ditched unlimited all-you-can-eat buffet in favor of usage-based pricing.

Full episode: 9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood

Where to find the badgers

• Honeybadger
• FounderQuest podcast
• Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
• Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

Co-founder of Honeybadger Ben Curtis discusses freelancing before switching to work on the product full-time.

Full episode: 9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood

Where to find the badgers

• Honeybadger
• FounderQuest podcast
• Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
• Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood discuss getting the very first customers and making first sales for their app and error monitoring SaaS Honeybadger.

Full episode: 9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood

Where to find the badgers

• Honeybadger
• FounderQuest podcast
• Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
• Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood discuss the origins and growth of their app monitoring product, challenges of bootstrapping, calm work environment, evolution of co-founder relationships, and buying out a departing co-founder.

Chapters

• 01:27 - Introduction of Honeybadger
• 03:50 - The genesis of the company
• 10:40 - The first customers
• 12:26 - How much money do you need to feel like it's real?
• 14:37 - Switching to the business full-time
• 16:42 - Moving from unlimited to usage-based pricing
• 21:14 - Stress about revenue
• 23:40 - When do you start paying ourselves?
• 26:29 - The evolution of founder relationships
• 31:14 - Dealing with a co-founder departure
• 34:49 - Is a calm company possible?
• 36:30 - Who does what in the company
• 41:25 - Advice for entrepreneurs
• 42:12 - Where to find Ben and Joshua

Where to find the badgers

• Honeybadger
• FounderQuest podcast
• Ben: Bluesky, LinkedIn
• Joshua: Bluesky, LinkedIn

Links

• Honeybadger meme

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

John Crickett is the creator of Coding Challenges, a newsletter for engineers that has over 54k subscribers. John’s LinkedIn profile grew from 3k to 150k+ followers in a year. In this episode, we dive into the process and mindset that allowed John’s following to grow so quickly.

Chapters

• 00:58 - Introduction
• 03:18 - Spending a million Euros and a year on an MVP
• 05:54 - Coding Challenges
• 08:15 - MVP for an info product vs. software
• 13:51 - Growth on LinkedIn
• 17:32 - Post structure
• 19:48 - Comments on posts
• 21:48 - Twitter/X
• 25:15 - Coding Challenges newsletter
• 27:12 - Building a personal brand
• 34:09 - Nicheing on LinkedIn
• 41:50 - Selling B2B vs. B2C
• 47:18 - Tangent on car salesmen
• 50:13 - Book recommendations

Where to find John

• John’s LinkedIn
• Coding Challenges
• Coding Challenges newsletter
• Coding Chats podcast
• 30 Day LinkedIn Personal Branding Challenge for Software Engineers (starts on May 20, 2024!)

Links

• Advent of Code
• Carrd website builder
• AirChat

Podcasts

• My First Million (Jason Cohen episode)

Books

• Stop Asking Questions by Andrew Warner
• Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

Jason Fried is a co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp and HEY. Together with his business partner David Hannemeier Hanson, Jason co-authored seminal entrepreneurship books Rework, Remote, and It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work.

This episode was originally published on the Metacast podcast, episode 28 in July 2023.

Chapters

• 03:17 - Introduction of Jason and 37signals
• 05:38 - Founder role vs. CEO role
• 08:37 - Working with the same co-founder for 20 years
• 11:10 - Disagreements between founders
• 13:31 - Disagree and commit principle
• 15:14 - The business side of things (numbers, accounting, etc.)
• 18:17 - On costs and profitability
• 21:01 - Intentionally keeping the company small
• 24:01 - Managing risk
• 26:11 - Jeff Bezos' investment
• 32:34 - Working on several products at the same time
• 33:31 - Six-week cycles vs. long-term projects
• 38:50 - Evolution of 37signals
• 44:45 - Keeping products until the end of the Internet
• 47:28 - Calm companies
• 48:38 - Listening to customer feedback
• 54:25 - Jason's email is public. Is this a good idea?
• 58:07 - Employee performance reviews and fixed salaries
• 59:45 - Can the "calm company" mindset work in big companies?
• 1:05:51 - How does one find a calm company to work for?
• 1:08:46 - Publishing books
• 1:11:38 - On being contrarian and no politics at work

Podcasts

• Rework
• #496: Marc Randolph on Building Netflix, Battling Blockbuster, Negotiating with Amazon/Bezos, and Scraping the Barnacles Off the Hull on The Tim Ferriss Show

Books

• Rework
• Getting Real
• It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
• Shape Up
• Maverick by Ricardo Semler

Blog posts

• Founder & CEO is kinda a BS title by Jason Fried
• Basecamp's new etiquette regarding societal politics at work by DHH
• But what if you're wrong? by DHH

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

Corey Quinn is the Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group and a big celebrity at the AWS circles well known for his sense of humor and unrelenting focus on making some good fun of the cloud providers.

In our interview, we are learning Corey’s background, how The Duckbill Group got started, and how he runs the media side of his business. As usual, we talked about bootstrapping and running consulting services while building a product.

This episode was originally published on the Metacast podcast, episode 32.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 01:49 - Meet Corey Quinn, Chief Cloud Economist
• 06:16 - What does a cloud economist do?
• 08:08 - From sysadmin to independent consultant
• 11:53 - Starting The Duckbill Group
• 13:00 - Choosing a business partner
• 15:59 - Finding your authentic voice on social media
• 17:08 - Route 53 as a database and early Twitter fame
• 19:01 - Audience growth and depth of engagement
• 22:15 - Navigating humor and legal boundaries
• 25:16 - Naming The Duckbill Group
• 25:52 - Team structure and bootstrapping a services business
• 27:01 - Why cloud cost optimization is a people problem
• 30:28 - Bootstrapping and managing founder psychology
• 32:59 - Who does what at The Duckbill Group
• 34:04 - Producing a podcast and outsourcing operations
• 36:30 - Getting first customers through your network
• 39:47 - Evolution of Corey's media empire
• 42:55 - Sponsorship revenue and the media business model
• 43:44 - Starting the Screaming in the Cloud podcast
• 49:09 - Attributing business value to content
• 51:59 - Usage-based vs. subscription pricing
• 56:09 - Advice for bootstrap founders on consulting
• 57:49 - The power of niching down
• 1:01:11 - Comparing AWS, GCP, and Azure
• 1:05:54 - AWS losing its customer obsession
• 1:06:33 - Using ChatGPT for content creation
• 1:09:32 - Book recommendations and how Corey learns
• 1:11:50 - Keeping up with the pace of AWS releases
• 1:13:07 - Where to find Corey

Where to find Corey

• Screaming in the Cloud (podcast)
• Last week in AWS (newsletter)
• AWS Morning Brief (podcast)
• X: @QuinnyPig
• Duckbill Group

Books

• Practical Monitoring: Effective Strategies for the Real World by Mike Julian
• Never Eat Alone by Tahl Raz Keith Ferrazzi

Other references

• Route 53, Amazon’s Premier Database
• Writing New Editions and Ticking All the Boxes with Andreas Wittig
• Metacast Ep. 8 - SquadCast Founders on Remote Collaboration in Podcasts
• Yes, I Test in Production (And So Do You) by Charity Majors

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn

Dave Thomas, co-author of The Pragmatic Programmer and Agile Manifesto, on the true spirit of being agile (vs. "doing agile"), mistakes engineering teams make, and common practices of successful teams.

Chapters

• 10:29 - The genesis of The Pragmatic Programmer
• 11:41 - People don't know what they want, importance of feedback loops
• 22:17 - Doing Agile vs. being agile
• 26:36 - Practices of successful engineering teams
• 36:35 - Being pragmatic at an early stage startup
• 44:10 - Things that are still true 24 years after the book was published
• 55:25 - How does a book define its author's identity?

Show notes

• The Pragmatic Programmer
• The Pragmatic Bookshelf
• The Agile Manifesto

Listen to this podcast on our app!

• Metacast, a podcast app with transcripts: metacast.app
• Builders Gonna Build on Metacast
• Metacast: Behind the Scenes on Metacast

Get in touch!

• Send us an email at hello@buildersgonnabuild.com
• Ilya's LinkedIn
• Arnab's LinkedIn