On the show today Nate & Josh discuss the exploration process on Nate’s project – OrderTRK. We dig into feedback loops, stages of exploration and the backwards GTM approach Nate is using.
This is episode 126
Today on the show, we stumble upon invalidation. Nate shares an update on his customer service project and how invalidation helped him overcome setbacks in the process. Josh weighs in with ways he’s using it in his business and suggests how Nate can move forwards.
This is episode 126
Today on the show Nate shares how the customer interview pipeline is going. Josh weights in with some modern strategies on how to make contact with Nate’s target audience.
Links:
– Jason Lemkin GTM – https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ol2xgMUUlkFSC9SfwTONl?si=1341698660ee46e2
– Jason Lemkin ChatBot – https://www.delphi.ai/saastr/talk
This is episode 124
Today on the show, we talk about finding killer features in customer interviews and avoiding sales triggers with customers. Finally, we dig into the age old adage that successful solutions remove steps for the customer.
Links: My First Million – AI App – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZ8-WQGb-g
James Clear Article – https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/a-journey-on-the-information-highway-by-evan-williams
This is episode 123
Today on the show, we talk about the place of growth teams as Josh talks about his business. Nate’s frustrated with cold outreach and Josh gives some tips to improve the odds.
This is episode 122
Today on the show Nate & Josh pull together some credible ideas on how to improve our odds of success building a SaaS. In a world of conflicting advice, we’re looking for repeatable, credible advice from people who have actually been successful in the trenches.
Links:
– My First Million: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkcFcwb6mk0&list=PLWloxQyF_2n4aCanY4Y45HLTY2zoeZF8U&index=9
– Jason Cohen: https://longform.asmartbear.com/startup-drake-equation/
– Lenny Podcast: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/podcast
This is episode 121
Today on the show Nate’s found a market, but feels like the competition is too good. Josh doesn’t think so and points out some ways to uncover opportunities.
Links:
https://userlist.com/podcast/bullseye-customer-research-with-michael-margolis/
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/finding-your-bullseye-customer-michael-margolis
https://www.systm.co/post/how-to-write-the-perfect-headline-for-your-landing-page
Today on the show Josh and Nate talk about narrowing the search for a new SaaS. They recap Josh’s bootstrap business idea search framework and discuss a new focus to help narrow the search field.
Links:
– https://x.com/hnshah/status/1875997046219645270?t=6EfbrvsoqwuaBeIk41E9cQ&s=19
This is episode 119
Today on the show, we discuss some big changes for Nate and Josh weighs with his method for validating early stage bootstrapped business ideas.
This is episode 118
Today on the show Josh and Nate talk about conferences and reasons why a startup founder may or may not choose to attend. They dive into customer discovery, early marketing approaches, and language market fit.
Links:
Marketing Against the Grain: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5AVbuUGM7MftTFVAf86RTT
Market / Language Fit: https://review.firstround.com/finding-language-market-fit-how-to-make-customers-feel-like-youve-read-their-minds/
ChatGPT Customer Interviews: https://www.systm.co/post/can-chatgpt-replace-customer-interviews
AI Customer Exploration: https://www.app.supercopy.ai/
This is episode 117
Today, we chat with Aaron Weiche co-founder of LeadFerno and CEO at GatherUp. Aaron shares his take on the current SMB market, how he grew LeadFerno, GatherUp and his strategy for the future.
You can find Aaron at https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronweiche/
Today on the show we talk about responding to partnership inquiries. We go through everything from white labelling, reselling, affiliates and specific customization. Josh shares some of his experience from the trenches as we think through these ideas.
This is episode 115
Today, Tyler King shares the ups and downs of growing his SaaS over the last 15yrs+. We dig into the origin of LessAnnoyingCRM, mistakes they made along the way and how they currently look at the world. Tyler is a great guy and was very open about sharing his story. Enjoy!
You can find Tyler at:
– Twitter: https://x.com/TylerMKing
– Company: https://www.lessannoyingcrm.com/
– Podcast: https://www.startuptolast.com/
This is episode 114
Today, we talk about our methods and approach to competitive and technical research. Let’s dive in!
This is episode 113
Today on the show we talk about market positioning and the two archetypal marketing messages: Bags Fly Free and Soup is Good Food.
We also discuss the most urgent question your startup needs to answer: Why Buy Now?
This is episode 112
Links:
Bags Fly Free vs Soup is Good Food
https://kellblog.com/2018/06/13/the-two-archetypal-marketing-messages-bags-fly-free-and-soup-is-good-food/
Dave Kellogg Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Jozji543Svs2oj9x1wfPK
Ruben Gamez on Twitter
https://twitter.com/earthlingworks/status/1815165607144513572
Why Buy Now? The Most Urgent Question Your Startup Needs to Answer
https://medium.com/unusual-ventures/why-buy-now-the-most-urgent-question-your-startup-needs-to-answer-1492e1bc2ea0
Today we’re talking about personal strengths, weaknesses and where to focus your attention. Nate & Josh are pretty sure they’re uncommon approach works much better than the status quo.
This is episode 111
Today on the show we talk about patterns in prospects, co-workers and even our families that change how we approach sales, management and life. It’s a full bag of truisms that have impacted us in unexpected ways.
This is episode 110
Today we talk about a tool Nate’s been working on and who the target market is. Josh has some great insights on how to hone this idea for better growth.
This is episode 109
Today on the show we talk about the non-saas podcasts Josh has been listening to and how this has changed his perspective. All this learning has Josh thinking of a new app idea that he shares with us towards the end of the episode.
This is episode 108
Some market areas seem to be consistently successful while others are not :thinking_face:. We dive into what those successful areas are and what it’s like to run a company there. We also get a sneak peak into Josh’s experience with Arc for Windows.
Link: https://www.saastr.com/how-do-i-start-a-successful-saas/
This is episode 107
Today, Nate & Josh talk about what can be done to grow Status List. Messages to be clarified, trust signals to be added, pricing to be improved. There’s a lot to get through in this episode!
This is episode 106
Today on the show we talk to our friend Colleen about her SaaS journey, her latest product for the reporting space and her thoughts on getting from 0 to 1.
This is episode 105
Today we talk about two products, one in an emerging market, one in a commodity and the challenges with each. This is episode 104
Today we dig into the complex feelings of customers. A company could be on the way in, the way out or about to be dropped like a hot potato by it’s customers. This is episode 103
Today, Chris Savage from Wistia joins us to talk about all things brand and video. We walk through Chris’ journey building the brand of Wistia, making technical bets and navigating changes in the market. You don’t want to miss this one!
This is episode 102
Today, we talk about the practise of apprentices and how we could benefit from that today.
This is episode 101
Can you believe it?! Today we’re celebrating 100 episodes of Searching for SaaS! Nate & Josh take a trip down memory lane and look at fun times, great guests and things we’d change. Join us for the centennial episode of S4S 🎉
Today on the show we dig into Josh’s year long project to update pricing for his company. We also get an update from Nate on Testing Taxi growth and the guys talk about experiments Nate could try to grow MRR.
This is episode 99
On the show today, we talk about marketing Nate’s testing project from 0 to 200MRR. Josh has lots of questions.
Let’s start off 2024 with a bang!
This is episode 98
Happy new year everyone! We’re working on some new episodes for you. See you soon!
Today we discuss how to balance the nuance of what info to discuss, what insights we can gain, and how to mentally prepare for a meeting like this.
This is episode 96
Today on the show we talk about tech for marketing sites (wordpress, headless CMS, web flow…) and Josh tells us about his experience building a little no-code project.
Links: Jesse Hanley https://twitter.com/jessethanley
This is episode 95
On the show this week, we talk about business retreats and why some are so great!
There are things we love, and things we’d rather avoid and today we talk about it all.
This is Episode 94
Today on the show we dive into the world of A/B testing and the tools around that.
This is episode 93
On the show this week we share our quick takes on category creation (Christopher Lockhead), word of mouth, abandoning business frameworks and Google Podcasts shutdown.
Links
– Lenny’s Podcast (https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/podcast)
– Category creation – https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-become-a-category-pirate-christopher#details
– WOM – https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-drive-word-of-mouth-nilan-peiris-cpo-of-wise/
– Frameworks – https://commoncog.com/reality-without-frameworks/
This is episode 92
Today on the show we’re joined by Colin from Customer.io. He takes on the journey of building an integrated messaging platform and his thoughts on pricing and branding.
Colin’s Twitter: @alphacolin
This is episode 91
Today on the show, we dive into 4 validation strategies Lenny Rachitsky suggested in a recent newsletter. Nate & Josh lean into what’s worked for them and which methods they think are the most effective.
Lenny’s article: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-validate-your-b2b-startup
This is episode 90
Today on the show Nate & Josh look at Testing Taxi and how to reach the audience – and which audience to go after. We also dive into some side tunnels with messaging and early MVPs. Buckle up, this is a good one!
Links:
– https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heyrobk_voice-of-the-%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F%3F-voice-of-activity-7101581893774573568-tdtv/
– https://sparktoro.com/blog/modern-content-marketing-your-new-growth-flywheel/
This is episode 89
On the show today, Josh tells us all about Swipefiles, how it helps his creative process and his team. We also into how Josh tracks interesting companies and ideas.
Links:
– Corey Haines: https://twitter.com/coreyhainesco
This is episode 88.
Today on the show, we dive into value propositions and how to to make better ones. We dive into Nate’s value prop for Testing Taxi and how it could be improved.
Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oICXfZg68x0
This is episode 87
Today we dig into the tools and habits we use to stay on top of things and prioritize the right things. Josh comes at it from the angle of working with a team, while Nate is in the ever changing landscape of consulting clients.
This is episode 86
Today we talk to Luca from Customerly.io about last month’s huge pricing change. He walks us through the thinking behind it and discussed previous pricing choices he’d never do again. Join us for a great chat about everything pricing.
You can find Luca at https://twitter.com/iLucaMicheli, and the pricing we’re discussing at https://www.customerly.io/pricing/
This is episode 85
Today we talk about embedding in a customer community. Nate gives an update on Testing Taxi and Josh weights in.
Join us for a good discussion on the early stages of customer development.
This is episode 84
Today, we explore some strong opinions of serial entrepreneur, Hiten Shah (https://twitter.com/hnshah). We dig into our own ways of thinking differently and how strongly we express that.
This is episode 83
On the show today Nate and Josh talk about AI and why we aren’t jumping in with both feet.
This is episode 82
Today on the show, we dig into partnerships – what makes them work and what doesn’t, what keeps them alive and what undermines them. Josh has had over 5 partnerships and he weighs in on some of the insights he’s uncovered.
Further reading:
– https://joshho.substack.com/p/staying-aligned-on-the-big-things
This is episode 81
Today on the show we have Mike from Wafris talking about his fledgling internet security company and how he’s using social media to get off the ground. We explore where social is working for Mike and what he can do to get even more reach.
Links:
– https://wafris.org/
– https://wafris.org/ip-lookup
This is episode 80
Today on the show we talk about the signup process for Nate’s new SaaS – Testing Taxi. Self-guided trials are not an option so what should he do?
We also check in on Nate’s SEO push on Status List and where he’s running stuck.
Links:
https://testing.taxi
This is episode 79
Today Nate and Josh dive into 3 different SaaS companies and ask: would this be a good business to buy? We dive into how we might market, position or turn a profit with each. The results may surprise you.
We also dig into the AI-powered things SaaS businesses are spinning up lately – a full gamut on the show today.
This is episode 78
Today we talk about Nate’s latest project and if it’s time to buy a domain and tell the world. Josh weights in and gives some helpful SEO tips to get started.
Also today, we talk about abilities and environment and how those have both shaped our entrepreneurial journey.
Links:
https://lawrenceandco.com/your-oxygen-mask-first
This is episode 77
Today, Josh and Nate discuss the value of domains. What would you pay
for a used domain? Why do people pay millions of dollars for special
domain names? Some of us like to hold 90+ domains for a “rainy day”.
Others only buy domains when they’re ready to launch something.
More on aquisition of chat.com
https://twitter.com/dharmesh/status/1641094109187260421
This is episode 76
Nate shutdown a project because it wasn’t panning out. All of a sudden, customers are showing up
asking to have it turned on. Nate shares the story and what he’s going to do about it.
Also today, Josh went on a founders retreat. He shares the wonders of diverse paths in company building
and how finding “your people” is so meaningful.
This is episode 75
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
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
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
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
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
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
Emil Shour is a long time demand gen builder. He’s worked with fin-tech, prop-tech and other saas companies over the last number of years. Today, we ask Emil all our SEO questions.
Today we review 2022 and make some big goals for 2023.
What do you think our most listened to episode of 2022 was?
What should Nate & Josh focus on this year?
Find out more on today’s pod
This is episode #67
Vitamin and painkiller products are a classic analogy used in SAAS circles. Which type of business would you prefer to operate? Why? And perhaps the larger question, are these actually useful ways to describe a business?
Let us know what you think!
We’re always reachable on Twitter Josh is @jlogic, Nate is @natebosscher
This week we talk about selling brown sugar water and why netflix would want you to watch more tv.
Have you seen the Pepsi Where’s my Jet documentary on netflix? They’ve got some interesting marketing strategies that we get into today on the show. Who knew that selling carbonated water could require next-level marketing?
We’ve all hit that feature on netflix that auto-plays the next episode in the show. Why would netflix do that? It costs them more bandwidth, people go through shows faster, people aren’t re-enforced to ask for more. What’s going on here? Nate and Josh have some ideas.
Want to hang out online? Come find us at @natebosscher and @jlogic on Twitter
Josh and his team take another look at the positioning of Referral Rock. Today we talk through some of the exercises and factors he’ll use with his team.
Today, Josh and Nate look through 3 SaaS listings – would they buy them and turn them around or take a pass?
Today Josh shares his methods for continued education and his how he keeps track of his ideas and learnings.
Nate has goals for his saas, but he keeps discovering new requirements he has but didn’t realize. Today we dig into those requirements and how to prioritize them with the existing goals.
Nate seems to been in his happy place with technical challenges, how can we use this to help him create a business out of it?
Today we catch up with Nate’s progress implementing the idea sources from last episode.
Nate’s looking for SAAS ideas, Josh helps narrow the search with some clever questions any founder can use to hone their search.
Today Josh & Nate talk about product led growth and other ways to grow a company.
This week Nate and Josh debate about small bets and come to some unexpected conclusions.
Would you work on a startup for 7 years not knowing if it will succeed? Today Nate and Josh dive into the metal space of long bets and if they’re worth it.
Today we dive into Status List (Nate’s Uptime Monitoring service) and what strategies could be used to grow that business.
We’ve made it to #50!! This week we do a little reflection and look forwards at more things to be done for Product Sonar.
On this special .5 episode, we look into 3 startups: Baremetrics, Profitwell and Chart Mogul, they all were founded in the last ~5yrs, originally they did mostly the same thing, they were fierce competitors, and today 2 of them have been acquired. Today, an outsider’s view of the 3 horse race.
This week we talk about the tech slowdown and ways we can make the best of this as bootstrapped companies.
Josh has some ideas for Referral Rock that involve scraping and Nate wishes he could launch a company around dashboarding.
This week Nate & Josh talk about a strange opportunity for a print ad to reach Product Sonar’s audience.
This week Nate and Josh riff on possible pivots for Product Sonar. Go pro-sumer with the contractor market, to upstream with the developer market, so many possibilities!
Josh has some ideas for an new Product Sonar offering. Nate and Josh debate the efficacy of this new idea.
Nate and Josh dig through how to price Product Sonar (Nate’s SAAS) for that market.
This week we celebrate the ups and downs of our first year in podcasting. Things we liked, things we didn’t and where we’d like to head.
Marc shares his story being a journalist, stumbling into SaaS, customer signal problems, and finally running growth at Powered by Search.
Today Josh and Nate talk about classic company moats and defensible ways to grow our businesses.
Josh and Nate talk about their goals for 2022 and goal setting in general.
Josh and Nate interview James about the role of product marketing managers in B2B SaaS. What makes a good one and where they fit in various stages.
Today Josh shares the inside of Referral Rock’s remote work culture. Nate & Josh explore what’s worked what hasn’t.
Nate wants to reach customers via cold email outreach and talks to Josh about various approaches.
Nate talks through the an opportunity for him to reach ideal customers at an upcoming trade show.
Nate’s recent buying experience is frustrating. He just wants a SaaS to take his money. Josh sheds light on why it’s not so easy on the other side depending on the stage of the business.
Nate and Josh talk about the various founder communities they are in. They can see the great benefits as well as unique challenges of being involved in founder communities.
Nate and Josh debate their views on these well known marketing terms and how to make sense of it for B2B SaaS
Josh and Nate explore how Josh’s product had some serious onboarding problems, why it took so long to solve them, and the advantages services played in a optimum outcome.
Nate is thinking through initial pricing and chats with Josh on how he has done it with his products.
Josh and Nate discuss software review sites and how they relate to lead gen and SEO. Josh was especially fired up and gives some hacks/tips to give the sites less power.
Ryan Castillo is a developer, marketer and analyst. He’s worked at a publicly traded, 1000+ employee company and he just jumped ship! Today we cover Ryan’s journey and what brought him to where he is today.
This week Josh and Nate talk about SEO and how to get results with relatively little effort. We also get an update from Nate about his work on Product Sonar.
This week we take a deep look into customer.io as a B2B case study. We look at distribution, getting started and how they plan to win in their market.
Today Nate tells us about the journey that led him to start on an MVP and Josh tells us about the Referral Rock feature that was removed a while a go and just got re-introduced.
This week Michele Hansen from Geocodio tells us all about her startup journey and her new book Deploy Empathy. Join us for Michele’s journey and why she believes empathy is the way to build a better business.
Josh and Nate discuss two topics of interest. We dive into how June.so (the analytics company) went from idea to seed round and chat about all the fun Josh and his team are having with enterprise SaaS selling.
Today we bring you Jane & Benedikt, founders of Userlist. They share their story and the lessons they’ve learned on their way to a milestone.
What do you look for in your first hires? Today Nate asks Josh about his first 10 hires. What worked, what didn’t and how he thought about those decisions.
We had a great conversion with Ramli John author of Product Led Onboarding. We pick his brain on why he wrote the book, how he’s killed it with his book launch, and fun throwback conversations on freemium.
This week we chat about where we look for information and how we learn. Turns out we approach learning very differently depending on what category it is.
We’re 18 episodes in and we get a little meta about the podcast so far. Revisiting the “why”, how we far we’ve come, and where we want to go next.
Hiring is a tricky business. Bringing in the wrong person can be incredibly expensive and even damaging to your team. Nate questions Josh on the hiring processes he and his company have developed to help get the right people on the team.
Both Nate and Josh have a development background. In this episode we find out how they got into software programming which is a bit of a trip down memory lane. We also hear updates on Josh’s 6-week sprint and Nate’s ad-spy idea.
Whether you’ve only listened one episode or all of them, we need your help to make the podcast better. Please give us feedback using the link below.
We won’t require email or anything personal. It’s easy to complete on a mobile device!
https://searchingforsaas.com/feedback/
Arvid Kahl joins the show as our very first guest. We jump right into the advantages of an audience-first approach to getting a business off the ground [topic of his new book – The Embedded Entrepreneur] and dive into Arvid’s backstory where audience is THE source of inspiration for his projects and ideas.
Nate discusses his customer interviews with his new idea. Josh challenges Nate with a set of additional idea validation questions to think about based on challenges Josh has seen in churn and onboarding
This week we learn about Nate’s new idea and the steps he’s taking to validate it. We’ll go through the one page validation strategy and what he’s working on now.
This week we dive into the perils and positives of building in public. We talk to Nate about how much he’s going to share with listeners.
The last 3 ideas have some pitfalls and some interesting research. Josh and Nate jump into analyzing the last 3 of Nate’s homework ideas and discuss next steps.
Looks like Nate’s ideation brain has been rewired a bit with this new approach to coming up with a new SaaS idea. Josh and Nate dive into the new process and assess 2 of out the 5 ideas Nate was challenged to come up with in 1 week
Nate and Josh compare their approaches to assessing markets and looking for niches. By the end, Josh’s throws down an unique 1 week challenge for Nate.
Josh quizzes Nate on a game of “How much does that company make in ARR?” We find out how big some of these “niches” are and how to look at them differently.
Josh and Nate give their varying points of view on the State of Independent SaaS 2021 Report. Part 2 covers the remaining 3 sections of the report about SaaS Metrics, Marketing, and Growth.
Josh and Nate give their varying points of view on the State of Independent SaaS 2021 Report. Part 1 covers the first 3 sections of the report about the founders, companies, and pricing.
We get an update from Nate on his search as Josh asks about recent ideas and projects. Nate wonders when it will “happen for him” and Josh talks about building skills and assets that one takes with you on your journey.
Nate and Josh dig into their first listener question (woot!) regarding Josh’s use of low/no-code to validate product ideas
Today Josh and Nate get into a lot of whys. Why did they start this podcast? And why is SaaS for them and why not other indie types of businesses?
Nate and Josh go back in the time machine to talk about UberNote and how Josh got his start in what wasn’t even called SaaS yet
Josh and Nate continue their conversation around Nate’s SaaS ideas. Today we go deeper into the challenges of positioning in a competitive space.
Can you believe it? Nate has more than 3 failed startup attempts! On today’s episode, Josh pulls out the story and some interesting nuggets on what works and what doesn’t.
