Startups For the Rest of Us Episode 814 | How to Beat a Venture-Backed Competitor (with Laura Roeder)
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Jan 6, 2026 In this engaging discussion, Laura Roeder, founder of Paperbell and a pioneer in self-serve tools for coaches, shares insights on how her bootstrapped company triumphed over a $10M venture-funded rival. They explore why her competitor invested too heavily in engineering while neglecting marketing. Laura emphasizes the importance of focusing on the right customers and how limited paths for scaling impacted the competition. With clever strategies and efficient operations, Paperbell not only held its ground but emerged as the market leader.
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Lean Engineering Matches Core Needs
- A single engineer can build the core product for many niche SaaS markets.
- Practice built mobile apps and a large team, while Paperbell matched core functionality with one engineer for years.
Build Only What Drives Retention
- Avoid building features customers only 'ask for' unless they cause churn or clear demand.
- Prioritize what you must build to retain and acquire customers rather than chasing every request.
VC Funding Can Skew Priorities
- VC funding often incentivizes rapid scaling and heavy engineering spend rather than distribution focus.
- Laura observed Practice over-invested in engineering while under-investing in marketing and distribution.