Startups For the Rest of Us

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. Join Rob as he chats with Brian & Scottie for the final episode of Season 2 of TinySeed Tales. In the last year, Gather managed to double their revenue and overcome most of the challenges they faced along the way. It's been about a month since we last spoke and during that time, their recent cash crunch has started to resolve itself. In this episode, we reflect on the past year and their success (and struggle) with moving upmarket. The topics we cover [01:01] Gather's recent cash crunch Cashflow is not our biggest concern anymore, which is a great relief. Since that time growth has been either sorta normal steady when you average it out or maybe a little slower the last month and a half. Small Business Association loan and PPP loan changed things for us,. One was the loans, the other was that Gather landed a bigger enterprise client who was willing to fund features and who w

Episode 521 is a roundtable episode where Rob brings on a couple of guests to talk through topics today that relate to bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped startup founders. Today, we have Tracy Osborn and Einar Vollset joining us, as we talk through a potential impending recession, the Google anti-trust suit, Dropbox moving to permanent work from home, as well as a handful of other topics. The topics we cover [04:03] What do the revenue trends look like in 6-7 months from now? [13:36] Google anti-trust suit [19:23] Dropbox remote offices [27:29] SPACs and why it's so hard to go public in the US [39:35] A warning about Glassdoor Links from the show The 99 Investor Problem U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly Dropbox will let all employees work from home permanently as it turns its offices into WeWork-like 'collaborative spaces' The TinySeed Investment Thesis A Warning About Glassdoor Tracy Osborn | Twitter Einar Vollset | Twitter If y

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. Last time we spoke, they were bouncing back from the initial shock of the COVID-19 crisis with the potential to sign two large enterprise deals that could help them out with an ongoing cash crunch. In this episode, Rob talks with them about customer-funded development, always following up when doing outbound sales, and restarting a productized service. The topics we cover [01:14] Status on large enterprise deals One closed, one did not. The first touch with them was almost a year. They had a software proprietary software that they built internally and have been actively seeking a new tool Custom data migration and storage and it was also a bunch of custom development Win-win they got what they wanted and we got some new cool features Big win, I would say, to get paid, to build a feature that you expect other customers to be able to use. Optimistic that maybe we can sort of

In this episode, Rob talks with the founder of SegMetrics, Keith Perhac. SegMetrics is a SaaS product that helps users get clarity on where their leads come from, how they act, and how much their marketing is worth. We dive into the difference between SegMetrics and other options for attributing sales and revenue to traffic channels. We also go through Keith's background and learn about why he shut down his million-dollar marketing agency to double down on his SaaS. The topics we cover [04:28] Where does SegMetrics fit within the analytics and attribute market? [09:35] Why build a SaaS when you are running a 7 figure agency [12:56] Dealing with a growth plateau [21:28] Shifting focus to work on SegMetrics full-time [28:05] Frugality as a bootstrapper (and how it can backfire) Links from the show SegMetrics | Twitter SegMetrics | Website Keith Perhac | Twitter If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by clicking the link and sharing what you learned. C

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. Today's episode was recorded after the COVID-19 shelter in place orders went into effect. We talk with Brian and Scottie about how the pandemic has affected Gather as well as their life beyond the scope of their business. The topics we cover [01:10] How the pandemic has affected their lives beyond the scope of their business. Brian and Scottie live in Mexico Living in almost what feels like two worlds here. The ex-pat community is very tuned into what's happening in the US and sheltering in place [03:11] Current financial situation Our situation hasn't changed financially. I think that at the time we had hopes that we could raise some money or at least get alone. We're not even pursuing that at this point We're certainly used to bootstrapping and feeling that stress and coming up with interesting solutions to our cash problems. [05:57] High point or biggest wins since the last

On this episode, Rob talks through profit sharing, stock options, and equity and makes a comparison between these various approaches. If you are thinking of ways to incentivize team members as a bootstrapper, this episode is for you. The topics we cover [04:34] Bonuses [07:52] Equity Grants [11:47] Stock Options [20:09] Profit Sharing [26:09] Which is best for your SaaS? Links from the show Trends.vc Peldi Guilizzoni's Profit-Sharing Plan Rob Walling | Twitter If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by clicking the link and sharing what you learned. Click here to share your number one takeaway from the episode. 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! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. On this episode, Brian and Scottie share with us an update on their unexpected MRR growth, the psychology of raising prices, and the difficulty of making decisions amidst a mountain of unknowns. The topics we cover 01:07] Update on MRR growth since we last spoke Had a goal to grow a thousand dollars of MRR in a single month. Trailing 30 days is like $1,006. MRR is currently $8,200. Get caught up in the day to day to actually celebrate. Is good for us to stop and recognize that we have made a lot of progress. We're still burning more cash than we're making. [03:53] Closing a large 20-person enterprise deal They did do a trial. Then they bumped up to an enterprise plan. You can have your sights set on a goal and before long you might achieve it. But that's not the end of your journey. You're onto the next hurdle. This is one of the things I've found so difficult about st

Episode 518 of Startups For the Rest of Us is an experimental format where Anthony Blatner, a LinkedIn expert, live consults with John Samuelson, a B2B SaaS founder on advertising a SaaS business on LinkedIn. There's a wealth of knowledge in today's episode so if you are considering or have thought about LinkedIn ads, this episode is worth a listen. We'd love your feedback on this new format. Was it helpful? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@startupspod)! [BONUS] Download a LinkedIn campaign brief PDF developed during this episode The topics we cover [04:29] Should a B2B SaaS founder consider LinkedIn? [07:33] Scatterspoke's ideal customer profile [13:12] Ideal company size for Scatterspoke [21:16] Looking at adds other companies are running [24:43] Putting this together into a campaign [30:36] Audience size and example ads [36:19] Setting a budget for ads [22:59] Free trials on LinkedIn Links from the show Episode 517 | Married Co-founders Who Turned a Free T

On Episode 5 of TinySeed Tales, we learn about the success of their recent outbound email campaign. We also hear about their progress with raising their prices and transitioning away from Gather's solo pricing tier. The topics we cover [02:00] Checking in on the past few weeks A little bit of an emotional roller coaster We have definitely made some inroads with teams We haven't had the growth that we were hoping for Feeling a a little anxious about how it's all gonna play out. There's a time here where it's very uncertain because you're kind of leaving the solo practitioners behind, but you haven't quite reached product market fit. There's also a little bit of insecurity with the product It's a huge mind shift all together selling into these teams We were hoping for more of a spike and it's just been this slow, steady growth, which is not bad. It's growing as usual, but that's not helpful when you had to take all this risk [05:51] Patience can be dangerous Going forward Gather will be dro

We're joined in this episode by the founding team of Scatterspoke, John Samuelson and Colleen Johnson. What started as a lark to learn new technology has now turned into a successful business with more than $12k MRR. In this episode, we learn how they turned a side project into a successful fulltime business. The topics we cover [02:09] The launch story behind Scatterspoke [10:02] Shifting to enterprise customers [16:17] The toll of working fulltime while trying to bootstrap Scatterspoke [18:01] Hiring out for development [26:00] Free plan and raising prices Links from the show Scatterspoke | Twitter Scatterspoke | Website Colleen Johnson | Twitter

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. Today we're going to dive into the stress that comes with entrepreneurship and how it shows up in their personal lives. Moving up from one customer segment to another is hard. Each customer segment is like an Island with a body of water between them. They're crossing that body of water from servicing one and two-person teams to serving larger architecture firms with 20 person teams. We hear how they are managing this difficult and stressful moment both as co-founders and as married partners. The topics we cover [01:40] Leveraging testimonials when moving upmarket It's an approach you should explore as early as possible when trying to move into a new segment of the market One of the reasons why trials are kind of a little bit lower this month is because some of the traffic that we've been getting is probably more geared towards the residential side and they're seeing this new messaging

Matt Wensing returns for his third appearance on the podcast. He is the founder of Summit and was in TinySeed Batch 1. We dive into Matt's decision-making process for re-writing the entire codebase. We talk about choosing the right features to build, talking to your customers, starting with a blank slate vs templates, and much more. The topics we cover [06:48] How to handle customers that are not engaging [11:35] Figuring out the right features to build [19:24] Making the decision to re-write the codebase [31:27] The value of forecasting [33:18] Designing a sparse SaaS homepage Links from the show Out of Beta Things You Should Never Do, Part I Episode 450 | Founder Hotseat: Matt Wensing of SimSaaS on Making Consistent, Needle-Moving Progress Episode 491 | Hard Lessons Learned, Reaching High-Touch Prospects, Finding Advisors, and More Listener Questions Episode 489 | 15 Years to a SaaS Exit (Plus Why Forecasting is Crucial) Summit | Twitter Summit | Website Matt

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. Today, Rob chats with Brian & Scottie about their new hires, setting ambitious revenue goals, and managing stress and anxiety as entrepreneurs. The topics we cover [01:01] Update on hiring, new sales, and more Hired a VA Hired an industry expert to help with marketing/copywriting Scottie & Brian now focused on documenting the processes Had their first "team plan" subscription One thing you'll notice as an entrepreneur is that when you start to expand your team beyond just the founders, new hires, propel you to get more organized, creating standard operating procedures like Brian & Scottie are now doing is a big step towards cementing the continuity and value of the business. [03:18] Attending the TinySeed retreat and setting ambitious revenue goals Brian and Scottie attended their first in-person retreat for their TinySeed batch Setting batch goals are less of

Rob is joined by Anthony Eden from DNSimple as they answer your listener questions. They cover topics ranging from tax liabilities with contractors, getting feedback on a prototype, and finding a technical cofounder. If you have questions about starting or scaling a SaaS that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for the next episode. We’d love to hear from you! The topics we cover [01:26] Tax liabilities and managing international contractors [10:45] Starting when stair stepping isn't feasible [16:38] Getting better at sales as a solo founder [24:00] Finding a sales/marketing cofounder [30:28] Getting feedback on a prototype, finding the right developer co-founder, and protecting your startup idea [40:11] Considering a technical cofounder vs hiring a developer Links from the show Episode 509 | Revisiting the Six Stages of SaaS Growth with DNSimple Intellectual Property Agreement W-8BEN Episode 498 | Selling During a Pandemic with Steli Ef

Brian & Scottie Elliott are the husband & wife co-founders of Gather, an interior design project management app. On this episode, Rob chats with Brian & Scottie about taking their product upmarket, focusing on customer success, hiring consultants and contractors, and more! The topics we cover [01:43] Check in on how this week has been going Setting things in motion with some new hires MRR now growing off the chain but feeling good about accomplishments Shifting focus from growing while also building out process MRR growth is not everything [04:50] Scottie talks about hiring Looking at three potential hires right now: lead gen, VA, and an industry expert Consultant vs contractor. A contract shows up and performs a task, a consultant is an expert in the industry Moving from task-based hires to project-based hires With Tinyseed funding now have the opportunity to do more hiring [08:59] New business processes Scottie was initially doing customer support Now realizing needing

Producer Xander Castro has been working on MicroConf since 2014 and is a long-time listener of the show, but this is his first time on the podcast. On this episode, we take an inside look at MicroConf Remote from a few weeks ago and discuss what worked well, what we'll do differently next time and the difficulties of translating events from in-person to remote. The topics we cover [03:26] Turning to virtual events [07:38] Stats & production technicalities for MicroConf Remote [17:12] What worked well: pricing, timezones, and programming [30:27] Things we learned from our first MicroConf Remote Links from the show MicroConf Remote Xander Castro | Twitter If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by clicking the link and sharing what you learned. Click here to share your number one takeaway from the episode. 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 t

Welcome to Season 2 of TinySeed Tales, where we follow the founders of one SaaS startup week by week through their struggles, victories, and failures. On the first episode of this series, Rob introduces us to Brian & Scottie Elliott from Gather, an interior design project management app. Show Notes 1:30 Meet the Co-Founders of Gather, Brian Elliott, and Scottie Elliott Brian and Scottie have been working on Gather since late 2014 Scottie has 20+ years in the interior design industry Brian was looking for software to build and continued to hear Scottie's frustrations with current software in the interior design industry 6:02 Gather's current Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and why Brian & Scottie decided to join TinySeed MRR is $5,600 with 8% growth They were compelled by the three components of TinySeed (funding, mentorship, community) As opposed to mastermind groups, everyone in TinySeed is serious about their business They hadn't considered angel funding -- never felt like the

On today's episode of Startups For The Rest of Us, Rob Walling (@robwalling) talks with David Newell (@davidsnewell), a Senior Advisor at Quiet Light Brokerage, about the dos and dont's of SaaS valuations. The topics we cover 4:12 Running your business as if it were a sellable asset 5:15 Quiet Light deal count and other stats 8:53 SaaS valuations today and how SDE valuations work 17:50 How revenue valuations work 21:19 David Newell shares stories of dos and donts of valuations 29:52 What do the best buyers do? Links from the show ProfitWell ChartMogul Baremetrics Quiet Light Summit Resources for Buying and Selling Online Businesses How can I support the podcast? If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by clicking the link and sharing what you learned. Click here to share your number one takeaway from the episode. 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 upco

Join us for a Rob Solo Adventure version of Startups for The Rest of Us as Rob Walling talks about the power of optionality.  He explores the importance of having different paths and avoiding backing yourself into a corner and being constrained when making important life decisions. The topics we cover 1:27 The story of Gary Gygax and Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) 6:56 The Entrepreneurmobile 13:00 How to keep your options open 17:33 DotNetInvoice and fake reduction of options Links from the show Tactical Studies Rules Gary Gygax Factoring The Entrepreneurmobile Episode 510 | The Story of Startups.com Episode 496 | The Press Covers Exceptions, Don’t Compare Yourself to Slack or Zoom How can I support the podcast? If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by clicking the link and sharing what you learned. Click here to share your number one takeaway from the episode. If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you'd like f