Open Threads

Justin Ferriman, founder of LearnDash, talks to me about how he started, grew, and exited from this WordPress business in the LMS space.  Brian and Justin’s conversation was recorded on  November 10th, 2023.(00:00) - From Selling a WordPress Business to SaaS with Justin Ferriman (01:22) - Justin's business transition to coaching (04:10) - Highlights of building a business (05:58) - Taking advantage of untapped markets (10:04) - Using your audience to promote your products (12:11) - Know where your audience hangs out (13:54) - Pricing *gasp* before subscriptions (15:10) - Growing the LearnDash team (16:33) - Biggest challenges growing LearnDash (20:03) - Justin's LearnDash exit (24:18) - After the exit: What next? (29:51) - AI and it's implications on software dev

 Jay Clouse, who runs Creator Science, joins me to talk all things creator businesses.  Brian and Jay’s conversation was recorded on November 8th, 2023 (00:00) - The Science Behind a Creator Business (03:35) - Content as a product (10:03) - Seperating personal and creator brands (16:35) - Creator Science breakdown (26:11) - Creative energy and prioritization (29:20) - Content ideation, production and output (31:25) - Side hustle to full time creator (36:40) - Where to focus your creative energy

Adam Gilbert, founder of My Body Tutor, joins me to talk about how he scaled a personal fitness coaching business.  Brian and Adam’s conversation was recorded on November 3rd, 2023.(00:00) - Scaling a Fitness Coaching Business with Adam Gilbert (01:30) - What is My Body Tutor? (02:34) - The evolution of Adam's business (05:15) - Adam's background in health and fitness (08:15) - Taking the leap and getting those first customers (12:32) - Good businesses solve a problem (13:58) - My Body Tutor today (15:40) - Maintaining core principles in a coaching business (17:28) - My Body Tutor milestones (18:48) - From solo coach to coaching business (21:33) - Practicing routines to turn them into habits (23:02) - Business growing pains (24:57) - Adam's routines (26:58) - My Body Tutor's new plan (28:30) - Catering to a wide range of customers

Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc, talks about his 3+ years as a digital nomad. They discuss choosing the nomad lifestyle, favorite places to live, working across timezones, researching destinations, finding places to stay, social scenes, and challenges of nomad life.

Aaron Francis, creator of screencasting.com and prolific YouTuber joins me to talk about his “Era of Maximum Effort”. We get into building products businesses vs. creator businesses, and more.Brian and Aaron's conversation was recorded on November 16th, 2023.(00:00) - Product vs. Creator Businesses with Aaron Francis (00:45) - Conversations across podcasts (03:18) - Aaron's "era of maximum effort" (09:11) - Focus vs. many "small bets" (14:55) - What are your goals as a creator? (25:05) - The initial business idea really matters (29:07) - How to find a break and relax?

Ian Landsman of HelpSpot joins me to unpack all things Laravel ecosystem.Brian and Ian's conversation was recorded on November 3rd, 2023.(00:00) - The Laravel Ecosystem with Ian Landsman (00:34) - Ian returns to talk Laravel (04:20) - Laravel vs. Rails (06:51) - Developer ecosystem (08:55) - Upgrading Laravel (10:09) - Front-end frameworks for Laravel (16:29) - Young developers learning on today's tools (19:37) - Tradeoffs (19:55) - Funding open source innovation

Colleen Schnettler, founder of HelloQuery, discusses choosing the right product idea, converting a service into a SaaS, evaluating potential ideas, audience growth, survivorship bias, and looking back on mistakes.

Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc joins me to talk about building his Newsletter and Community business and the systems and processes he’s used to grow it.Brian and Dru's conversation was recorded on November 20th, 2023.(00:00) - Systems to run & grow a newsletter business w/ Dru Riley (Trends.vc) (01:17) - Newsletter + Community (04:23) - Breakdown of revenue channels (07:18) - Launching a podcast for Trends.vc (10:46) - Pro membership model (12:55) - Process and delegation (18:02) - Choosing the right topics (21:38) - Marketing funnel

Ian Landsman and his team at Userscape work on HelpSpot, a well-established SaaS product for customer support.  And after well over 10 years in business, they decided to embark on a full rebuild of their app.Brian and Ian's conversation was recorded on November 3rd, 2023.(00:00) - Rebuilding a SaaS with Ian Landsman (00:48) - Ian returns! (01:39) - Rebuild? Redesign? Relaunch? What is this? (02:36) - Is this a SaaS? (06:37) - Is this the first rebuild? (09:26) - Why rebuild? Why now? (15:49) - AI in customer support tools (20:19) - Killing vs. reworking features (23:38) - Thinking about competitors (26:58) - Roadmap and timeframe (28:06) - Founder designing vs delegating (31:52) - Rolling out the rebuild

Open Threads is returning!This is a quick update where I (Brian Casel) give you a preview of what's to come in the upcoming weekly episodes of Open Threads.  Plus a note on some changes to the format, including an interesting use of "dynamic audio" in Open Threads.  Listen in to hear more.The next full episode will drop on Wednesday, December 13th, followed by new episodes every Wednesday throughout 2024!Talk soon!