One of the first things you learn about when you look into building an audience is the existence of growth hacks. You'll have a hard time finding a Twitter guide that doesn't mention the concept as a quick and easy way to grow your following. This is a problem. It's not an issue because they … Continue reading The Toxicity of Growth Hacks
Author: Arvid Kahl
I write about bootstrapping, audience-building, and building in public at The Bootstrapped Founder.
Formerly FeedbackPanda (exit/2019)
Wrote Zero to Sold, The Embedded Entrepreneur, and made Find your Following.
Problem Discovery for Calm SaaS Businesses
If you want to build a business by selling a product that people genuinely need, your solution needs to solve a critical problem that your prospective customers are willing to pay for—a problem so obvious and painful that they can't help subscribing to your SaaS. The process of problem discovery is your pathway to finding … Continue reading Problem Discovery for Calm SaaS Businesses
Market Analysis for Calm SaaS Businesses
Few fundamental choices impact the trajectory of your business as much as choosing the market you’ll be operating in. If you get this wrong, it will mean pivots, corrections, and many stressful days. If you get this right, you will spend your energy on better things: growing your business, improving the product, and reaching new … Continue reading Market Analysis for Calm SaaS Businesses
On Art and Artifice
When generative AI systems can create artworks that win Fine Arts competitions, we have reached a point where bleeding-edge technological experiments start seeping into the larger cultural conversation. https://twitter.com/GenelJumalon/status/1564651635602853889 Experience this article as a podcast, a YouTube show, or as a newsletter: That conversation is mainly driven by voices of caution and dissent — it's … Continue reading On Art and Artifice
Infrastructure of a Calm SaaS Business
In a frantic world, calmness is not found in reaching a state or a goal. It's found in structure, process, and ritual. A calm business rests on a foundation of intentional infrastructure choices that allow these activities to flourish. A SaaS business has two major components: its technical product and the operating system that allows … Continue reading Infrastructure of a Calm SaaS Business
Entrepreneurial Strategies & Anti-Patterns for a Calm SaaS Business
Your approach to building your business will impact every part of your entrepreneurial journey. It's imperative to think about your initial strategic choices before you do anything else — unless you enjoy organizing a massive pivot while dowsing the proverbial fires all around you from running your budding business into a very flammable wall. Picking … Continue reading Entrepreneurial Strategies & Anti-Patterns for a Calm SaaS Business
Business Models for a Calm SaaS Business
There are a few proven ways for SaaS businesses to make money. And all of them revolve around subscriptions. Most SaaS businesses have a central success metric: their Monthly Recurring Revenue, MRR for short. It’s calculated by adding up all the monthly fees paid by your subscribers. There are a few vectors that impact how … Continue reading Business Models for a Calm SaaS Business
Fundamentals of a Calm SaaS Business
Software-as-a-Service businesses are all the rage. For some entrepreneurs, it's the top rung of the ladder of wealth creation. For others, they're the prime intersection between building a business and solving interesting technical challenges. You won't find an industry that SaaS has not penetrated yet. Plumbers organize their field service dispatching with cloud-based scheduling software. … Continue reading Fundamentals of a Calm SaaS Business
Fundamentals of a Calm Business
If you're not building a Calm business today, you're making your entrepreneurial journey harder than it needs to be. Calm companies focus on profitability and sustainability. They succeed by growing slowly and deliberately, calmly adapting to changes in the market without the need for a soul-sucking "grind to total market domination." I'm not a fan … Continue reading Fundamentals of a Calm Business
How NOT to Use Twitter DMs
Too many founders use Twitter like they'd use Google. They find someone they'd like to talk to, send them a Direct Message, and never receive a reply. The culprit? Usually, the message itself. When it comes to DMs that do the job, you want them to be warm, low-effort, and short. Yet, in reality, most … Continue reading How NOT to Use Twitter DMs
