Yesterday, I shrunk the size of my production database from four terabytes to just under one terabyte. Still ginormous, but very impactful for Podscan, in several ways. Something interesting happened last weekend that made me realize I needed to change how I think about scale. While checking my monitoring dashboards, I noticed a pattern in … Continue reading Running Lean at Scale

We SaaS founders find ourselves in a peculiar position. We're simultaneously tenants and landlords, renting the tools we need while offering our own services for a subscription. It's a world where true ownership seems increasingly elusive, yet understanding its nature is crucial for building lasting value. https://share.transistor.fm/s/166e4249 The Rental Economy of SaaS Nearly every component … Continue reading Building Your Castle in Someone Else’s Kingdom

“I didn’t see it coming.” I had to admit that to myself a few times recently. https://share.transistor.fm/s/ea76480b Over the last couple of weeks, I've been experiencing several issues with Podscan that only came to pass because I didn't really have any observability on my system. At least that’s what I know now. Because it always … Continue reading Observability in Software Businesses

As a software entrepreneur wearing many hats - from coding to marketing to customer service - I've found AI systems to be game-changing tools in my daily work. Today, I want to share how I use these systems, particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Claude, to —hopefully— inspire you to benefit from similar … Continue reading The AI-Powered Solopreneur

Just a few years ago, I was a wholly different coder. At my best, I was breezing through documentation and writing mostly functional code. At my worst, I’d be chasing typos and strange bugs for hours, to no avail. Not once would I have thought of using AI to help me — because it didn’t … Continue reading The Evolution of Coding in the AI Era

@kerollmops, the technical brain behind the open-source search engine Meilisearch, joins me for a nerdy chat about all things search. I’ve been using this blazing-fast tech for my own business, Podscan.fm, and kero has helped me through a few challenges over the last few weeks. I really want to dive into the economics of building … Continue reading kerollmops — From Hackathon to Success: The Meilisearch Story

There's this famous saying by Paul Graham from one of his most well-known essays: a command to all founders and startup operators to "do things that don't scale." Graham explains that at the beginning of starting a business, there are things you should do as a founder that you know will never work once you … Continue reading Doing Things that Don’t Scale …Unintentionally

In case you missed it over the last 335 episodes, I’m a huge nerd. I was listening to a miniature painting podcast recently where two of my favorite wargaming creators talked about the 7 Deadly Hobby Sins — and it inspired me to think of the manifestations of these challenges in the indie hacking world. … Continue reading The 7 Deadly Sins of Indie Hacking

Recently, I've been pondering the difference between being sincere and being serious, especially in the context of entrepreneurship. This reflection was sparked by an article I read about how the most successful people are sincere but not overly serious. It's a fascinating concept that ties into the idea of playing the infinite game versus the … Continue reading Sincere, not Serious

I'm at an interesting stage of my entrepreneurial journey, seeing several of my worlds colliding. The frameworks I've been using to get where I am are both working really well and starting to show their limitations. For years, I operated under the paradigm of having many small bets, a framework popularized by Daniel Vassallo in … Continue reading Beyond Small Bets — Embracing the Big Play