Episode 599 | Finding the Bootstrapper Hockey Stick

In episode 599, Rob Walling chats with Dominic “Dom” and Tracy Phillips of CodeSubmit. CodeSubmit provides a library of real-world, take-home tasks in more than 60 coding languages. Some of their customers are Audi, Netflix, Carbon Health, 3M, and Apple.

Dom and Tracy were also a part of the spring 2020 batch of TinySeed. During that year, they managed to 25x their MRR. In this episode, we’re digging into how they did that, what led to their bootstrapped hockey stick growth moment, what it is like working on a company with your spouse, and much more.

Topics we cover: 

[2:20] How Dom and Tracy came up with the idea for CodeSubmit 

[6:59] The approach they used to build their product MVP on nights and weekends 

[11:16] Running a startup with your spouse 

[13:42] The catalyst that led to their hockey stick growth moment 

[17:06] When they knew they had product market fit  

[21:46] The number of different marketing channels they tried before they decided to double down on content marketing and SEO 

[26:19] The biggest mistakes that hiring managers and recruiters make when vetting new developers via take-home challenges 

[29:40] Thoughts on building a lifestyle business 

Links from the Show:

• CodeSubmit
• Dominic Phillips @domrdy I Twitter
• Tracy Phillips @tracy_s9z I Twitter
• ScrapingBee

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you.

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