We've been taught to believe that creators are only truly successful when they reach the top echelon of their platform, with millions of followers and likes. But this is a false notion that doesn't accurately reflect what success looks like for creators — or what “success” is about in the first place. The truth is … Continue reading Avoid Vanity Metrics

There is a huge difference between building a product, a business, and a company. It's a progression from one to the other, usually involving making significant changes in your life. Requirements change, and so does our lifestyle to make our dreams possible. Ideally, we have a master plan on how to get there. But in … Continue reading Paying the Bills While Building Your First Indie Business

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 … Continue reading When Should You Go from Side-Project to Full-Time?

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 … Continue reading Calm Business Misconceptions

For most founders, running a business is juggling hot coals while riding on a unicycle. It's a stressful occupation, requiring constant vigilance, and offers barely any downtime to recover or relax. But it doesn't have to be that way. Calm Work The history of work is many things. It's complicated, full of oppression, revolution, automation, … Continue reading Operating a Calm SaaS Business

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 … Continue reading Pricing for Calm SaaS Businesses

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 … Continue reading Product Development for Calm SaaS Businesses

When you're building an audience-centric and community-first business, you're delaying finding your business idea and building your product for as long as possible. First, you look into your market, validate the existence of a budget, and zero in on a critical problem to which people need a solution. And even now, we're not talking about … Continue reading Solution Exploration 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