Episode 523 | Breaking Through Plateaus, Entrepreneurship for Kids, Common Bootstrapper Mistakes, and More Listener Questions

Nov 17, 2020

In a lively Q&A session, experts tackle key entrepreneurial dilemmas. They discuss whether to juggle multiple ventures or focus on one. Listener questions dive into customer research for product launches and strategies for breaking through growth plateaus. The conversation also touches on teaching kids about entrepreneurship and highlights common mistakes bootstrappers make. Additional insights reveal the benefits of service-based businesses and the importance of planning for retirement, all delivered with a blend of humor and practicality.

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Episode notes

Intro

00:00 • 5min

Strategic Validation and Focus in Product Development

05:25 • 5min

Strategic Insights for Entering Competitive Markets

10:30 • 2min

Strategies for Navigating Competitive Markets and Common Entrepreneurial Insights

12:28 • 14min

Building Successful Service Ventures and the Importance of Early Retirement Planning

26:14 • 4min

In episode 523, Rob hosts a rapid-fire lightning round of listener questions ranging from whether to focus on one or multiple businesses, finding the right amount of customer research, breaking through slow growth, and teaching entrepreneurship to kids.

The topics we cover

[4:38] If you were starting a business today and you were earlier on in your career, would you try multiple business ideas at once or go all-in on one?

[8:11] If building your first tiny product, like a WordPress plugin, what level of customer research should you do?

[10:56] What advice would you give to someone entering a somewhat competitive market?

[15:55] What questions would you be asking yourself if you had a slow-growing 12k MRR B2B SaaS?

[18:22] How would you go about offloading tier-one customer support?

[20:28] How do you feel about entrepreneurship being taught to children?

[22:24] What are things you noticed that bootstrappers commonly overlooked that are preventing them from achieving their goals?

[23:18] What are some of the biggest takeaways you can see across your portfolio of early-stage SaaS companies?

[25:01] Have you ever built a business that got a fairly large portion of its revenue from services instead of products, but not just you consulting?

[26:56] How do you prepare financially or otherwise for your retirement?

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