In my conversation with Daniel Vassallo this week, I learned that Daniel uses social media —Twitter in particular— to find inspiration for his own work as a teacher and content creator. Intentionally doomscrolling Twitter to come up with writing prompts and business ideas? Why not!If we consider this a strategic effort, not just wasting our time on social media, let's develop a few frameworks that lead to more tangible results.Today, I want to talk about finding ideas, problems, and points of tension that hint at practical business opportunities on social media.- Find Business Ideas on Social Media- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurshipThis episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Today, I am talking to Daniel Vassallo, writer, founder, and person with very strong opinions. He is building a portfolio of small bets in public, on Twitter. I will talk to him about the importance of making money in diversified ways, how to structure your life around being a founder, and how to figure out which business ideas might actually work. Here is Daniel Vassallo.What is the lifetime value of a subscription business? 1:12Different kinds of software fit different pricing models. 5:04What is a portfolio of small bets? 9:30Business is unpredictable. You need to radically reduce the input. 13:48What common things do you share with other entrepreneurs? 17:46Don’t try to be too novel. 21:31What’s a good approach to spreading out your experiments? 26:14What is the best price for your business? 40:08How Pieter Levels’ portfolio has changed over time. 45:58How you can use social media to get new ideas. 51:26Sometimes it’s something seemingly unrelated that opens your eyes to a new way of doing things. 55:01Links:- Daniel's Revenue/Days on Market graph. This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. Here's the blog post for this episode.You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

I was talking to Damon Chen, who built Testimonial.to to $400.000 in ARR this week, and at one point, he mentioned that he isn’t looking into selling his business just yet. Maybe even never.That got me thinking.While we all want to build sellable businesses, is there such a thing as selling too early? How can we determine when that phase ends and when it’s time to get acquired? Should we even do that, ever?Let’s look into why we might want to hold on to our business even when acquirers come knocking.And by the way, if you’re just starting out on your founder journey and you think that this would be a nice champagne problem to have, don’t underestimate having these things figured out in advance.- Why You Shouldn’t Sell Your Business- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurshipThis episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Today, I am talking to Damon Chen, the founder behind Testimonial.to, a social proof tool that has recently reached $400.000 in annual recurring revenue. Now that’s extremely impressive, particularly considering that Damon got it there all by himself.So, let’s just ask him how this family man accomplished such growth while living in one of the most expensive places you could build a business in. Here’s Damon Chen.LonelyDev is a community that I built to solve my own problem. 1:01Lonely Dev turned into IndieLog. 4:09How to get out of a full-time job to start a business. 12:55Why you need to be healthy and whole to be able to build a good business. 19:33Why you need to add video reviews to your landing page. 26:31Video and authenticity 31:30There is a point where you reach saturation and you need help. 36:20What is your exit plan for your business? 42:27The importance of having a good exit strategy. 47:18The importance of having a community to support bootstrappers. 51:16This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. Here's the blog post for this episode.You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Earlier this week, I talked to Michele Hansen of Geocodio on The Bootstrapped Founder Podcast. Michele co-founded the business with her husband and ran it as a side project for several years. Now, that's a long time to wait before you commit full-time to a project. We also learned during our conversation that there are many ways of determining when the right time is to make that leap: for me, it was reaching a specific revenue figure, and for Michele, it was something else entirely.So let's explore this critical step today. When should you go from side-project to full-time? What are the significant catalysts that speed up this process?- When Should You Go from Side-Project to Full-Time?- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurshipThis episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

I am talking to Michele Hansen, the co-founder of Geocodio, an indie SaaS business in the world of mapping and geolocation. I've been a fan of her work, both as a founder and as an active member of the Indie Hacker community for years now. I followed her journey with the business just as much as her foray into writing her first book, Deploy Empathy. Michelle really gets the founder community, and she's a respected teacher of all things customer development.In this episode, we chat about finding the right time to commit to a business, learning when to say no, finding your niche, and learning languages. Enjoy!You can find Michele on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mjwhansen/. Also, check out her book Deploy Empathy.Here is a short summary of the topics discussed in this episode:How do you set boundaries with a podcast? 3:08How do you judge what you say against what someone else would perceive as useful for themselves? 9:23How do you make sure you serve the right customers? 13:06Focus on what you already have instead of where you can go. 19:47Work in progress vs. goals. 23:13The journey is the interesting part, not the destination. 28:54The challenge of self-actualization after a big transition. 31:58What was the sign that it was time to go full-time? 39:14The financial hurdle of being an entrepreneur in the US. 42:35Where the fear of losing everything comes from. 48:09The mean voice in your head speaking. 51:43Being able to recognize your own growth is a big part of entrepreneurship. 57:38Low expectations allow you to surprise yourself, which leads to a better result. 1:00:47This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. Here's the blog post for this episode.You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

In a world where everyone talks about disruption and hustling, the concept of a calm business can seem out of place or even naive. How can you compete with people who spend 80 hours a week working in their businesses —publicly boasting about their so-called "grindset"— when you treat your fledgling business as a side project that you only work on in the evenings?For many entrepreneurs, calmness is a pipe dream—a nice fantasy but impossible to accomplish.As you can probably imagine, I beg to differ. Running a calm business is definitely possible, and the perception of it being a flawed concept often lies in a few myths and wrongful assumptions that I want to debunk today.- Calm Business Misconceptions- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurshipThis episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Explore the challenges of entrepreneurship and learn about 'calm work' as a solution to stress and burnout in a SaaS business. Discover strategies like prioritizing quality of life, implementing SOPs, and enhancing productivity to reduce stress and anxiety.

One of the biggest points of confusion for any software business is pricing. It often takes months, if not years, to find a working way to charge your customers, and even then, you'll need to adjust it over time. Pricing is never done, and often, it doesn't work.But fortunately, there are a few foundational choices you can make to keep your pricing efforts calm and manageable.Today, we'll look at what dimensions to price along, what kinds of subscriptions to offer, and which pricing models to avoid.- Pricing for Calm SaaS Businesses- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash courseThis episode is sponsored by RailsDevs.com and MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Building a software product is both incredibly simple and excruciatingly complicated. You can build a new mind-blowingly helpful feature within hours, sometimes even minutes. But if you make the wrong technology choices, you might be rewarded with several months of additional work a few years later.Let's talk about building a product that can carry your SaaS business to success calmly and intentionally.- Product Development for Calm SaaS Businesses- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash courseThis episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.