A fresh perspective on the stages of building a SaaS business

About the Searching For SaaS Podcast

A fresh perspective on the stages of building a software as a service (SaaS) business.

In this podcast we hear from Josh Ho and Nate Bosscher, two founders in very different stages of their SaaS journey.

Josh is in the company building phase. While Nate struggles to start a profitable SaaS of his own.

Follow their journey as Josh helps Nate find his footing and they meander the world of SaaS.

Meet the hosts

Nate Bosscher

Nate is a software engineer and entrepreneur. When he isn’t consulting at Blue Giraffe, he’s working on his next startup idea.

He’s had a lot of failed attempts but each attempt is closer and closer to success.

Josh Ho

Josh is the founder of Referral Rock a SaaS business in the marketing technology space.

He’s an engineer by trade but now spends his time wherever the business needs him most.

He sometimes blogs at mojoho, but aspires to write more. You can also find him on LinkedIn but mostly Twitter.

Recent episodes with our SaaS founders

Thinking in Bets, easier said than done

Searching For SaaS Podcast
Searching For SaaS Podcast
Thinking in Bets, easier said than done
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Today, we talk about poker star Annie Duke’s book on decision making. As founders,
we often look at the world through rose colored glasses. Today we talk about
ways to be realistic, limit failure and increase our chance of success.

You can find Annie Duke’s book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/Thinking-Bets-Making-Smarter-Decisions/dp/0735216355/ref=asc_df_0735216355/

This is episode 74

Show Notes »

Teardown of Nate’s Landing Page – Video

Searching For SaaS Podcast
Searching For SaaS Podcast
Teardown of Nate’s Landing Page - Video
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Nate’s landing page hasn’t been converting. Today, we dive into a tear down of what’s good, what’s missing and how we can improve it.

You can find the video version of this episode at:
https://joshho.substack.com/p/c18f4386-f062-463e-9f31-8d632de6e2ea

This is episode 73

Show Notes »

Raise prices? Maybe, not so fast

Searching For SaaS Podcast
Searching For SaaS Podcast
Raise prices? Maybe, not so fast
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This week we talk about the common advice to “raise prices”. Josh talks about where this can go wrong and how he thinks about pricing.

Links:
Peep Leja – podcast episode – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laying-the-foundation-for-long-term-company-alignment/id1575516851?i=1000601807767
This is episode 72

Show Notes »

Naming your SaaS so no one forgets

Searching For SaaS Podcast
Searching For SaaS Podcast
Naming your SaaS so no one forgets
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Do you have trouble remembering the names of software tools? We do too!
Today, we talk about SaaS names and how some stick and some are impossible to remember.

This is episode 71

Show Notes »

A Biz Idea & Exploring by Listening

Searching For SaaS Podcast
Searching For SaaS Podcast
A Biz Idea & Exploring by Listening
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Today Josh has an idea for a site map research tool that could be in Nate’s wheel house. We bat it around and figure out what the key product is and what next steps would be.

We also talk about learning by exploring and listening to others. This is a huge part of how Nate & Josh learn and it’s neat to hear about their experiences with this.

This is episode #70

Show Notes »

Hard things and SaaS drift

Searching For SaaS Podcast
Searching For SaaS Podcast
Hard things and SaaS drift
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Nate’s been reading and today we discuss his questions on SaaS strategy and company management.

SaaSTR Drift Article: https://www.saastr.com/10-lessons-learned-scaling-to-1b-valuation-with-drifts-co-founders-david-cancel-and-elias-torres-pod-626-video/

The Hard Thing about Hard Things
By Ben Horowitz
https://www.amazon.ca/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205

This is episode 69

Show Notes »

Why we started our SaaS podcast

Starting a SaaS business isn’t easy, but it’s definitely more fun with a friend to help you along the way. Since they launched this podcast in early 2021, the most downloaded episode is Episode 4 – Why, why why? Why start this podcast, Why SaaS, Why not other types of businesses?.

Josh and Nate are avid podcast listeners who listen and learn from the best SaaS podcasts and SaaS entrepreneurs such as:

  • The Official Saastr Podcast by Jason Lemkin
  • SaaS Breakthrough
  • Nathan Latka
  • Dan Martell
  • The Saas Revolution Show by Alex Theuma of SaaStock
  • Saas Startup podcast
  • The Saas Podcast by Omer Khan of SaaS Club
  • Startup Chat by Hiten Shah and Steli Efti
 

But they truly drew inspiration from the the Software Social Podcast where their friends Colleen and Michele have created a fantastic dynamic between two SaaS founders at different stages of their business. 

Legend has it that Josh say’s this exact quote to Nate: “What do you think about starting a podcast? I’ll be Michele, you can be Colleen”.

What types of SaaS business topics are covered?

So far they’ve learned a lot about how they each approach ideation, market validation, and the mentality of building assets. They plan on covering more SaaS topics in the future like MRR, ARR, churn, onboarding, customer success, bootstrapping, co-founders, SaaS product, B2B SaaS, growth hacking, entrepreneurship, SaaS marketing, case studies, content marketing, SEO, growth strategies, being a serial entrepreneur, and marketing strategies.  All with both actionable advice and actionable insights.

While both Nate and Josh are bootstrapped, this startup chat style podcast is not exclusively about bootstrapping.

Both Nate and Josh agree that the process of sharing our journey’s as in public as SaaS founders has been both rewarding and fun. Nate approaches this whole process with a beginner’s mindset, yet he’s far from a beginner. While Josh tries to stay open-minded and is careful not to give blanket advice.

Join the guys each week for new episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. (and yes there maybe some SaaS but mostly just josh-splaining)