Build Your SaaS

Plus, what's with this summer SaaS slowdown?

Show Notes

This week Jon and Justin discussed:

What should we talk about next?

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

  • Mitch
  • Harris Kenny, Intro CRM podcast
  • Oleg Kulyk
  • Violette Du Geneville
  • Take It EV podcast
  • Ethan Gunderson
  • Diogo
  • Chris Willow
  • Borja Soler
  • Ward Sandler
  • Eric Lima
  • James Sowers (like Flowers)
  • Travis Fischer
  • Matt Buckley
  • Russell Brown
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Pradyumna Shembekar (PD)
  • Noah Prail
  • Colin Gray
  • Josh Smith
  • Ivan Curkovic
  • Shane Smith
  • Austin Loveless
  • Simon Bennett
  • Michael Sitver
  • Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, 
  • Dan Buda 
  • Darby Frey
  • Samori Augusto
  • Dave Young
  • Brad from Canada
  • Sammy Schuckert
  • Mike Walker
  • Adam DuVander
  • Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
  • Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Pascal from sharpen.page
  • Rewardful.com
  • Greg Park
  • Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
  • Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
  • Bill Condo (@mavrck)
  • Ward from MemberSpace.com
  • Evandro Sasse
  • Austin Loveless
  • Michael Sitver
  • Dan Buda
  • Colin Gray
  • Dave Giunta

Want to start a podcast on Transistor? Justin has a special coupon for you: get 15% off your first year of hosting: transistor.fm/justin
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Creators & Guests

Host
Jon Buda
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Host
Justin Jackson
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Editor
Chris Enns
Owner of Lemon Productions

What is Build Your SaaS?

Interested in building your own SaaS company? Follow the journey of Transistor.fm as they bootstrap a podcast hosting startup.

Justin Jackson:

Let's do the intro if we can remember how to do it.

Jon:

How do we do this? Hey, everyone. Welcome to build your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of building a web app in 2021. I'm John Buddha, a software engineer.

Justin Jackson:

And I'm Justin Jackson, and I'm preparing for the apocalypse. Follow along as we build transistor dotfm.

Jon:

You're in the middle of a bunch of fires still.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. We're a lot of fires in British Columbia this summer. This was, I mean, this is probably going to be the reality going forward. But that the how localized fires and smoke are, I think it's still gonna be kind of variable, and this was just our our unlucky summer.

Jon:

Well, eventually, it'll burn everything up and just be living in a wasteland. Yeah. Desert wasteland.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Pretty soon, it'll just be charred a charred landscape. Mad Max. British Columbia. Style, which is great.

Justin Jackson:

They'll coincide perfectly with the launch of the Cybertruck. You know, it'll just be it'll just be a charred landscape and people driving their Cybertrucks around.

Jon:

God. The hellscape.

Justin Jackson:

But let's we've got we've got we've got better news than that. We this is not a downer podcast. We have got some big news. Yeah. What's the big news, John?

Jon:

We hired our 1st

Justin Jackson:

full time engineer aside from me. 1st full time engineer.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

We've gone from a company of 3 full time people, you, myself, and Helen, to 4 Four. Full time people, you, myself, Helen, and Jason Pearl.

Jon:

Yep. Jason is a old friend from Chicago who no longer lives there. We worked together for a little bit, worked in the same office for a while, coworking, have a bunch, you know, bunch of the same friends, stayed in touch, obviously. And, Yeah. We were looking to hire someone.

Jon:

He was looking to get out, and it just kinda made sense.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Now the the this was we gotta take people through the range of emotions.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

I, yeah, I I tweeted this morning, you know, that's basically my full time job now as I'm just starting, controversy on Twitter. But, so yesterday, I had this I had this this thread that really went went, wild, talking about how in a world that idolizes billionaires, I'm cheering for indie creators who are building small, profitable, calm companies. And and that one really resonated. This morning, this one did not resonate as much. Nobody's more capital efficient than a bootstrapped founder.

Justin Jackson:

VCs will burn 100 of 1,000,000 searching for 1 unicorn, but a bootstrapper can invest 5 to 10 k in their startup, build it on the side, and eventually earn 1,000,000 in annual revenue. And the big critique actually of this, which is probably fair, is that bootstrappers are often, they're they they're adverse to investing too much of money in their company. Yeah. You know, because that it often means, like, making less profits. And, you know, as founders, you can you can take some of that profit off the table.

Jon:

Yeah. It's also hedging against potential future downturns. Right? Like, we've had this discussion before where I'm pretty frugal in what we spend our money on. Like, we run we run this pretty cheap.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah.

Jon:

I don't know what other podcast hosts are paying for, you know, all their infrastructure, but this it we're we're running pretty lean. But it it's easy to just throw money at the problem and buy servers and services and sign up for things, but then, you know, you become dependent on those. It gets out of control, and then if you have a downturn, now you gotta still pay those.

Justin Jackson:

Yes. Yeah. There's a threshold here that's that's interesting. We we've definitely had from the beginning. We've been we've been, you're right, fairly frugal.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Except in the sense that once we hit a certain, revenue mark, we started paying ourselves, you know, in quite well. You know? We're we're still not quite making the the that, FANG money. You know? But, we're we're doing fairly well.

Justin Jackson:

Still not paying ourselves as well as the Lipson CEO, but pretty do still doing fairly well.

Jon:

Yeah. Doing well. Hiring a full time engineer is obviously a huge expense, and I it I don't think it was ever a matter of, like, did we not wanna have another engineer for, you know, my sanity and just for helping out with features and building things a little faster? Yeah. It was more, is this the right time and can we afford it?

Jon:

And are we gonna regret this if we do it? Because it's a I mean, arguably, the probably the biggest change we've had yet

Jason:

since we started this

Jon:

in terms of biggest new expense, biggest change to how we work.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. And there's a there's a there is an ongoing debate in our circles. Like, for example, one critique of Transistor would be we a lot of folks would say we have not hired enough and that we should have hired sooner.

Jon:

Right.

Justin Jackson:

On the flip side, I guess, it's just it's always difficult to know whenever you make a decision in business, whether you're making the right decision. I think a lot of business owners delude themselves with the decisions they make. Meaning, let's say that we were looking to hire a salesperson. You know, I I don't like doing all these enterprise conversations. I don't like going through the enterprise sales process.

Justin Jackson:

And so we say, you know what? Let's hire a salesperson here. And the the the hypothesis is that investing in a salesperson is going to generate enough income 12 months down the road that that will have been a good decision.

Jon:

Right.

Justin Jackson:

2 difficult things. 1 is knowing truly knowing your company's baseline. For example, our baseline before COVID was much different than after COVID.

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

The baseline changed, and and that was irrespective of anything we did. That was the environment, you know, creating different momentum. And so we could be we could have been testing something. Like, maybe we we hired a salesperson before COVID. And then all of a sudden, April, May hits, and our numbers are up way up.

Justin Jackson:

And we could end the year and go, wow. That that decision to hire that salesperson was a good idea. Our numbers are way up.

Jon:

Yeah. And it would have been the same regardless.

Justin Jackson:

It would have been the same regardless. The other the other, critique I'll have here, an argument in favor of being careful and not rocking the boat too much, is that I think business owners, when they make decisions, are incredibly hesitant to reverse decisions, especially hiring decisions once they're made.

Jon:

Yeah. So

Justin Jackson:

you could have a hypothesis that you're gonna hire a salesperson. And in 12 months, if if that has not given you the results that you want, how likely is it that you're actually going to fire that person?

Jon:

Right. It's just Oh, firing people sucks.

Justin Jackson:

It's it's sucks. It's it's just incredibly unlikely that you're going to even revisit the decision. You you you will have a new baseline. You will have a new norm. And, and, you know, it's it's it's it's very unlikely.

Justin Jackson:

And it's very unlikely that you'll admit to yourself that you were wrong.

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

The the one thing about this decision to hire another engineer was, I think, at least on my side, this was mostly motivated by a few things. 1, quality of life. Just meaning even if, we're hoping that Jason helps us build features that attract more customers, he certainly wants that, which is amazing. That's that's a kinda Yeah. That's the kinda team member you want.

Justin Jackson:

But the you and I have had this kind of this hanging over our heads, which is all of the technical infrastructure and worries, are on your shoulders.

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

The one thing that actually keeps me up at night is like, how's John doing? How's, you know, how's he feeling? How stressed out is he? Is he is he gonna be okay? What happens if he goes on a, you know, a snowboard trip and, gets a concussion and is in the hospital for 2 weeks?

Justin Jackson:

Right. There's no backup.

Jon:

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a it's a concern.

Justin Jackson:

So that was that was a big part for me. It was just, I, and also knowing that you'd worked with Jason before

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

And enjoyed working. I think you like, you've missed working with people.

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously I work with I work with you, but we don't we don't work together every day. We don't even talk every day

Justin Jackson:

like this.

Jon:

So, yeah, to have someone yeah. It's an interesting it's a fine line. It's like, I love working with other people and and Jason's a good friend. So, obviously, I I really enjoy working with him, but it also does change my day a little bit. Like, this is one of the apparent hinges I had is, like, my day is pretty much open.

Jon:

Right? It's pretty flexible. I don't necessarily have to work all day,

Justin Jackson:

sit in

Jon:

an office from 9 to 5. I still don't need to do that, but I think bringing on, you know, another full time engineer, especially when they're starting out learning the system, I kind of do need to be around more. Yeah. Which is a big change. Yeah.

Jon:

On the flip side, it's great working with a friend and, you know, you can talk about work and then have a tangent and talk about other stuff and joke around and it makes, you know, makes the day much more enjoyable.

Justin Jackson:

I I I'm actually not very good at forecasting how I'll feel after a decision is made. So I was quite apprehensive right up until we hired Jason and made the decision. And then after he he came on and we had someone else in Slack, and we had someone else on Zoom calls, and we had someone else giving ideas and suggesting things. It's like now we have Jason and Helen contributing and participating Yeah. And, giving ideas and giving feedback and pushing back on us Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

And our grumpy attitude.

Jon:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's a bunch of code stuff that's been sitting around forever that I know how it works. Yeah. And it's fine, but it's not great.

Jon:

And there's you know, Jason pushes back. He's like, how do I change this? I'm like, okay.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, now I'm a believer. It just feels like this has been great. And, and it it was a it was a big financial decision.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Both Helen and Jason, I I remember before we brought Helen on, it was like, oh, man. Like, it was like, you have to take some deep breaths. And Yeah. I I still think I still think there is and I think this is where people will disagree with us.

Justin Jackson:

Being slower to hire, being more conservative with how you spend money, being careful about it, being considerate about it. You know, it that it's I think that's still the right idea. But I think we got pushed. We realized we needed to push ourselves into out of our comfort zone.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

And that the timing was right. And in terms of safety margin, there's enough safety margin in the business that we could do that.

Jon:

Right. Yeah. It it was a it was a good time to do it. I think we could have not we could have easily not and discontinued on like we are, and we probably would have been fine. I mean, we haven't had too many problems lately where would that keeps me up at night or anything like that.

Jon:

You know? Yeah. It's running it's running smoothly, but there was a lot of stuff we wanted to do and features we wanted to add that would have just taken a while and getting a new perspective on those and getting some new energy in is is a is a good thing.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. And and like any decision, it's not the data the single data point that, matters. It's the trend. And so, of course, we don't really know how this is gonna turn out in the long run.

Jon:

Right.

Justin Jackson:

Even, like, if you go back to the beginning of this podcast and you listen to you and I talking at the beginning, when we first decided to partner up, there is this apprehension of, like, well, I kinda know this guy. Like, I've Yeah. I've hung out with him at events, and I've chatted with him in Slack. And, you know, we've shared some personal things to each other, and we've been vulnerable. But there's still there's still, like, this idea of, like, these are still just a few data points, and it it's the trend that will matter.

Jon:

Right. Yeah. You can't really predict that.

Justin Jackson:

It's very difficult to predict. Yeah. And, we we see human beings making these mistakes all the time.

Jon:

Change is change is hard for humans. It's a really hard thing to adapt to. It's I don't know. It kind of it's similar to I think the more you get used to, you know, how we work and how we have worked over the last 3 years, it's kind of similar to the actual code base in a way like changing changing something now in our code base is much, much harder, which I think because it can affect so many more people

Justin Jackson:

and you're

Jon:

used to how it works. Yeah. So I think, yeah, for me having someone new in there kind of

Gavin:

who

Justin Jackson:

who

Jon:

doesn't have all that baggage, I guess

Justin Jackson:

Yeah.

Jon:

Things can probably happen quicker.

Justin Jackson:

Yes. Yes. And the other thing that helped me was that we've we've spent some time writing down our values. And I can link this in the in the show notes. We have this on GitHub.

Justin Jackson:

And it was in our initial conversations with Jason, we were able to kinda look over these values. And I think it was just clear that, hiring Helen and then hiring Jason, those two hires aligned with our values.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Meaning Yeah. Our emotional and physical well-being is priority number 1. It's worth investing money and time to take care of ourselves.

Jon:

That's I mean yeah. I mean, hire hiring Helen was, like, looking back in it now was it was such a good idea.

Justin Jackson:

Oh, yeah. It took

Jon:

it took so much stress and just, like yeah. It was Yeah. That was a good decision. So if if Jason's anything like that, I think it'll be fine.

Justin Jackson:

Yes. And well and then we have questions to ask when making decisions. So first question, does this decision match up with our values? Number 2, is this decision gonna make our life more busy and more complicated? Is this decision going to make the company or heavier or slower?

Justin Jackson:

In 6 to 12 months, will this decision cause us to feel less excited about building transistor?

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

And I think, of course, you don't know until you make the decision. But with Helen and Jason, it was just it it felt at the time, like, you know what? This is gonna actually make our lives it might make our lives busier and more complicated in the short term. But in the long term, this decision is gonna allow Jace John to, you know, go to Iceland and go on a meditation retreat for a month and not worry about the the tech stuff. Right?

Justin Jackson:

This decision to hire Helen, is is it gonna make the company heavier and slower? No. It's gonna make it feel lighter for us. Yeah. And so, that was helpful to have values and then questions to ask when making decisions that we could, you know, we could consider.

Justin Jackson:

And, again, the the the proof will always be in the long term, but it it it just feels right. You know? There's like, okay. You know? Now I'm sleeping a little bit better at night Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

Because I know Jason's there. And I know Jason's learning how all of our how all of our hosting setup works and all of the ways you're hosting files and Yeah. Like, the it it just it's it's calming to know we've got somebody else that's on the lookout for things.

Jon:

Once once he gets there, I'm I'm disappearing for a month. I'm gonna go go on my vision quest, disappear into the wilderness.

Justin Jackson:

You're just gonna ghost us? It's just you're just gonna leave a cryptic message in Slack. It's just like a mushroom emoji.

Jon:

Yeah. And then I'll be back in a month. See what happens.

Justin Jackson:

That's a great I'd love us for to have a team of 10 eventually, and it's just like, yeah. Like, John just every once in a while, he'll just post a mushroom emoji and then disappear for

Jon:

He comes back with great ideas or crazy ideas. I don't know.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. He's a he it's the the mythical like, the idea that we could have hired employees and they've never seen you. The all they they see is your last status as the mushroom.

Jon:

So mysterious.

Justin Jackson:

I'll be like, sorry, John. I had to keep hiring. I didn't know when you were gonna be back. It was 3 months. I didn't hear from you.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. So I'm really excited about Jason, being here. He is definitely the other interesting thing is that we opted for somebody who is very senior.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Not junior level, not mid level, not like

Jon:

Yeah. Also, not necessarily full stat. Like, he's not so much a front end guy, which gives me, I think, a little bit more energy to focus on the front end stuff, which I think would be really fun. But he is a very good engineer and good with infrastructure and just has a lot of good ideas even outside of engineering, marketing, and product stuff. And he just yeah.

Jon:

He thinks about all that stuff, which is great.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's and if product wise yeah. That's another thing that got me excited is just, well, having someone else in product meetings and helping us shape ideas is obviously awesome.

Justin Jackson:

But also freeing you up to, for example, have time to think about what the new version of podcast websites will look like Yeah. And work on some some mock ups and, you know, fiddle around and dream and be creative. Yeah. Taking a big load off your shoulders. Of course, there's gonna there's an on ramp to get there.

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

And we're in the midst of that right now. But the eventually, having the freedom to spend time being creative Yeah. And spend time thinking and spend time wasting time.

Jon:

Yeah. There's much less of that than there was early on just because I think we have, like I said, a bigger code base, a bigger customer base, and you kinda have to think about those changes before you make them. And

Justin Jackson:

Yeah.

Jon:

A lot some some of my days are just, you know, fixing little bugs here and there instead of thinking about bigger bigger ideas.

Justin Jackson:

Well yeah. And, again, in terms of the calm and margin that I've wanted and that I've enjoyed as a founder, Part of where I wanted to get myself to was the place where I could, waste time.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Where I could just be out in the field gathering insights and thoughts and pushing back on things and observing what's happening, you know, in the market.

Jon:

Yeah. That that mental that mental downtime is good.

Justin Jackson:

It's very good.

Jon:

It's productive. It's productive in a way that doesn't seem productive.

Justin Jackson:

I mean, the the the I'm not sure who said this, but there's that that idea that the the CEO's primary job is thinking. And, as cofounders, I think I mean, that's just again, part of that's one of the things I've enjoyed about this business we've built is that there's enough margin that it's not like we're running around putting out fires. It's not like we're running around worried that, you know, we gotta sign these next three enterprise contracts or we're not gonna be able to meet payroll next month. We have we can and COVID proved this. We can actually shift down a few gears and really relax in the best sense.

Justin Jackson:

And a relaxed mind can produce incredible insights when you give it space and time to explore and you know? So, I think that's that's gonna be significant for us. And we felt it with when we brought Helen on, and I think we're gonna feel it with Jason as well.

Jon:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Justin Jackson:

Why don't we talk a little bit about the great summer SaaS slowdown?

Jon:

So hiring so, yeah, adding our biggest expense ever coincides with

Justin Jackson:

Yes. It is.

Jon:

The slowest couple of months we've had so far.

Justin Jackson:

Yes. Yeah. And so this has been interesting. One of the benefits of having this community of self funded startups and building relationships with so many other founders is my DMs are always pretty interesting. Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

And I've had a few DMs from not just a few, actually, quite a few from other founders saying, hey, have you noticed any sort of slowdown, like, in terms of growth? How's how's June, July, August growth looking for transistor? Ours was super slow, and I'm curious, whether where other companies have ended up.

Jon:

Yeah. It's interesting because I I look at that and I'm like, oh, the podcast market is slowing down, which may might be true. I don't know. It's possible. But turns out that's maybe not the case.

Justin Jackson:

No. No. And I've got a bunch of tweets I'll link to in the show notes where this has been a public discussion. So, yeah, there's there is a noticeable slowdown, not for everybody, but, especially those of us that were in the the creator economy, I think. And so podcasting, email newsletters, blogging, membership software, course software.

Justin Jackson:

There was a big bump Mhmm. When the pandemic hit and everyone was locked down. People were microphones on Amazon were sold out. Lots of folks were starting podcast. We grew quite a bit in April May.

Justin Jackson:

Some of our, you know, companies like SquadCast reported growing, like, 300%

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

During that time. And, my theory is that during these during the lockdown, a lot of companies were investing in digital products. Right? We saw a lot of companies adopting Zoom for the first time and Slack and all these digital tools. With so a lot of us benefited from that.

Justin Jackson:

And then there was also, you know, this this emergent creator economy where people were were, you know, looking for new ways to make money or new ways to make money on the side or even just new ways to occupy their time because they they, you know, they they suddenly had an extra 2 hours every day because they weren't commuting. And they said, now I I'm gonna start that podcast. I'm gonna start that newsletter, not even to make money, but to for fun. Mhmm. And, the theory is that things have, you know well, we we're in the 4th wave of, this delta variant.

Justin Jackson:

But but things opened up, and there was there's a lot of people who do were like, I'm taking some time off.

Jon:

Yeah. It's summer. Things have opened up. People are vaccinated. I think that's probably correct in that.

Jon:

People are taking time off. Their kids aren't quite back in school yet if they have kids. Mhmm. And, spending time with family and friends and not signing up for new online services. I think that's probably exactly what's happening.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Exactly. And it it also is an interesting there's an interesting thought, which is if COVID accelerated trends, there's this idea that growth can accelerate. But, eventually, the market just catches up with that acceleration and then compensates for it. You know what I mean?

Justin Jackson:

Like, most markets just grow at a steady rate. And these short term bumps we saw oh, everything's accelerating. You know, some companies are growing 300%. But, eventually, there's a the the market kinda catches up and then compensates. It's like slows down.

Justin Jackson:

There's only so much room for growth in any market, and there's, like, kind of this median baseline. And, sure, the peaks might you know, during certain times, things might go up and down. But, overall and I think this is true in podcasting. Overall, the growth rate in podcasting has been pretty steady over the years. And, yeah, I think this is just, the market kind of shifting down to a lower gear.

Justin Jackson:

And, hopefully, of course, September, October, things will speed up again.

Jon:

We'll

Justin Jackson:

probably see another slowdown in January, February. And then, you know, hopefully, January so March, April, May is usually pretty good for us. Yeah.

Jon:

It's concerning to see, but we still we still have yet to have a negative month

Justin Jackson:

Yes.

Jon:

Which is good. Yeah. It's just very slow growth.

Justin Jackson:

I gotta I I should actually look at our numbers, but there's even a hesitancy right now. I I know I I'm just gonna say it because I know people think about it. But, you know, I know that if I send out an email newsletter to our customers, that could accelerate people canceling.

Jon:

Right.

Justin Jackson:

And so there's this, there's part of me that's like, like, I don't wanna I don't know if I wanna I don't know if I wanna do that. But which is incredibly short term thinking, like, who cares? And also difficult to know how it affects things one way or the other. Right? Like, it could it could help

Jon:

or

Justin Jackson:

it could not help. Right. That's the kind of thinking you get into when it's like when you're looking at your numbers and you're going, oh, man. Like, it'd be really nice if, you know, churn wasn't that high.

Jon:

Yeah. And

Justin Jackson:

I was looking at ConvertKit's numbers because they're still open. And, yeah, churn definitely goes up. You know? Like, your growth their growth rate is gone down quite a bit. Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

And churn is up, not by a ton, but, you know, even marginal. It's like if churn doesn't go up a ton, so, like, their churn's gone up since June has gone up 5%, which isn't a ton. But if if growth slows down so their growth is down 76%, your churn has been relatively steady. You know? It's not been massive, but it's the what's killing a lot of companies is new trials, new customers, new business.

Justin Jackson:

You're just not seeing the trials. Yep. And, and especially in our category and ConvertKit's there as well. We serve a lot of prosumers. And Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

And in the prosumer category, you want a lot of trials.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Because there's gonna be a baseline of churn every month. Like, if you look at ConvertKit's numbers, you know, every month, there's there's just going to be a a bunch of folks canceling. Like, that's just the the nature of the category.

Jon:

Yeah. For us too, we could, yeah, probably focus on preventing other people from leaving, what what we can do, or switching. Right?

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Like, we had that one idea that I actually I like, which is when people go to cancel right now, we give them a warning. Hey. If you cancel your account, we're gonna be removing all your files and your feed and everything on this date. It'd be interesting to experiment with people go to cancel, and then we show them a warning.

Justin Jackson:

Hey. Everything is gonna get deleted because this is web hosting. It's just, like, if if you cancel your plan, we have to remove everything. But here's a new option. You can pause your account and choose 1 episode in your feed to keep public.

Justin Jackson:

We'll we'll remove we'll make everything else a draft and lock it. And, you don't have to pay while it's in this paused mode. So it has the advantage of them staying. It has the advantage of their feed staying active, because there's at least one episode published. Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

But it it might and it would give people the assurance that, you know, their files are still there. If they want to turn it back on, they can just turn it on, and then we can revert everything to published. There'll be a few syncing problems with that when you when you remove the episodes on on bulk and and whatever. But, what do you think about that idea?

Jon:

Yep. That could that could work.

Justin Jackson:

And be interesting because then we're at least we do have people come back.

Jon:

Yeah. I mean, we've had yeah. People do tend to leave sometimes because they're just not podcasting right now. Yeah. Other people leave because other platforms have different features, which maybe we'll be able to mitigate some of that by adding some of the things we're working on.

Jon:

But

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that, actually. So now we've got Jason. And

Jon:

one

Justin Jackson:

of the things Jason was excited about was he brought up the idea of us maybe looking at dynamic audio again.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

And folks may want to go back in the archives. This is what's so great about having this podcast is that we can, like, actually go back and look at at episodes where we explore this. Because for a long time, you and I were we we've actually thought about the idea of dynamic content and dynamic, audio insertion since before we even launched officially. Like, we have notes, from before, August 1, 2018 where we were discussing this. But I that that was one of the reasons we were interested in hiring him is because he was kinda fired up about that idea.

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah. We've we've been pretty hesitant about it, for various reasons, but I think, yeah, we I think we have a idea, sort of a plan in place to sort of slowly roll it out, but do it simply and not Mhmm. Some like, we're not gonna have an audio editor. It's gonna be a very simple, solution to it for now Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

That I

Jon:

think will help, you know, most of the people that want it.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. And and, you know, like, I think when we initially explored dynamic audio and we mapped it out in in Portland during that retreat, it did just feel like, wow. This is gonna be a big heavy lift, and we just didn't feel ready for it. It was just

Jon:

Yeah. I think it was a good decision not to do it then.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. So that's something we're exploring now is dynamic audio. We've where Jason's kind of mapped out some of that stuff, and, we're looking at at ways of doing it. Initial version will probably just be, allowing people to do pre roll. Right?

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

Pre roll audio. Yeah. That's it it's kind of exciting, actually, to still be a small lean team, but to think, like, we could tackle this now. Yeah. Suddenly, it felt doable.

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah. It's not I think yeah. After having another, you know, another person to talk through it with, it's like, yeah. This isn't you know, there's moving parts, but it's not impossible.

Jon:

Mhmm. It's not gonna kill us to do it. So that's it. We are looking for people to test it out. Right?

Jon:

Yeah. A hand a handful of people who wanna try it out early whenever that's ready. I don't know when that's gonna be. But

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. If that's if that's you, there's some ways to contact us in the show notes, and we'd love to hear from you. And then, yeah, you've you've also released some new stuff. We we did a, a transcripts feature.

Jon:

That was initially and another thing I was hesitant to do is I thought it was a lot of heavy lifting, but it's not just because I wanted to kinda do it right and not just have, like, a blob of text you paste in. But, yeah, you can upload your transcript in various different ways. You can paste it in if you want, but it also will integrate with the podcasting 2 point o feature, right, where it's included in your RSS feed and some audio players will actually use that as, like closed captioning in the player. Mhmm. Yeah.

Jon:

And then along with that, once that was built out, we could then build out this pretty simple I don't know. I think they do it pretty smartly with, Descript, the audio editor. Mhmm. Instead of, like, building this API integration, they actually just have this way to link back to a podcast host like Transistor with, a URL that includes more URLs that point to your audio file and your transcript file, which then can be imported directly into Transistor when you create new episodes. So that is ready to go.

Jon:

Mhmm. We're waiting on Descript to add it to the app.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. And I had a call with them, and that actually feels like this is actually one of the first times where I felt in integration is could be truly aligned, because they've got this incredible recording, editing, transcription software. I'm a big fan. I've been using it a ton to not just generate transcripts, but to, like, edit podcast episodes, to edit screen recordings.

Justin Jackson:

And I've been promoting them quite a bit on Transistor just because it's it's it's a great way for people to get into podcasting. It makes the editing process so much better.

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin Jackson:

And, to have them, reach out and say, hey. Like, you know, they've they've been wanting us to integrate with them for a while. So to have, you know, that that ability to export directly to Transistor from Descript and then include, like so now the payload could be an m p 3 file that you've exported, but also your transcript. Right?

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

That's So yeah. That's dope.

Jon:

One click it, yeah, one click puts in your audio file and your transcript. You have to fill out a few bits of episode details, and then you're done.

Justin Jackson:

And the other thing I like about it is it gets back to the joy of podcasting and creating something, you know, like, to to feel like Transistor is a part of a process, a creative process that should be enjoyable and gratifying for the people that are doing it.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

And, of course, we can't do everything. We can't build, Descript level, features, editing and recording and everything. And so to have folks that we can we can integrate with, and partner with and have them, you know, promote us as well. And, Yeah. It just seems like such a great fit.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

You've also I mean, looking into our changelog, transistor.fm/changelog, we have some features I've even forgotten about. You can compare podcast episodes

Jon:

Oh, yeah.

Justin Jackson:

In your analytics now, which is super cool. So you can drill down into individual episodes and then say, I wonder how this the performance of this episode compares to

Jon:

I forgot I added that too.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. I totally forgot about that. And then, new podcast analytics charts. So now Oh, yeah. You you can find out how many of your podcast listeners use desktop, mobile, smartwatch, or smart speaker.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. There's there's some pretty cool, you can now upload an audio file via the API. Yep. So, just because we haven't released an episode in a while, there's, there's cool stuff. There's a cool stuff we released in in these months.

Justin Jackson:

Lots, actually. You you, shipped quite a bit in July.

Jon:

Yeah. That's true. I did.

Justin Jackson:

So, yeah, it feels feels good that, it feels like we continue to make great progress. I'm still convinced. And I I know some people get tired of my rhetoric here. But I am still convinced that a small, calm, profitable company and, of course, this is gonna depend on the founders. It's gonna depend on who you hire.

Justin Jackson:

But in the right people working on the right problem in the right market can create the best software in the world. I feel like Transistor as a small two person team, we were product wise, we were competing with much much bigger companies. Yeah. We're in the same boat as much bigger companies. And there is a narrative out there that sometimes bootstrap software is not as good.

Justin Jackson:

Sometimes bootstrap software doesn't have as good of customer support. And, of course, that can be true. The problem with that with, bias or survival bias in business is you actually almost wanna look for survival bias. What characteristics do the best examples have? Because, of course, there's gonna be tons of people starting bad businesses.

Justin Jackson:

Of course, there's gonna be tons of people who are bad product people or bad engineers or bad designers that are starting companies. So you yeah. You don't wanna look at those. You wanna clear them out of your your your sample set.

Jon:

Right.

Justin Jackson:

And I think it's okay for companies that are, small and are building great software to be proud of it. And small and giving incredible customer service 24 hour 24 hour live chat support to be proud of it. Yeah. And, I'm continually amazed by the the number of indies that are tiny compared to their competitors who are just building better products

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Building better software.

Jon:

I think people are still amazed once in a while that we're as small as we are.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. They're continually amazed. Yeah. Every time I'm, you know, on a call, I've been doing I've still been doing a few of these enterprise, calls, experimenting.

Justin Jackson:

I I that would actually have been a good topic too. Just like, I think I'm gonna be done, doing these enterprise processes. But, you know, when I when I talk to enterprise potential enterprise customers, I'm very, honest. Hey. This is a 2 person company.

Justin Jackson:

Hey, this is a 3 person company.

Jon:

You're not gonna get your own support person.

Justin Jackson:

No. No. There's there's there's no ops team for you to talk to after this conversation. I am the ops team.

Jon:

Yeah. There's no security team for you to have a call 3 hour call with?

Justin Jackson:

No. And, and they're impressed. They're impressed with the the service we're able to provide. Of course, this is I I I wanna know what this is called. But, of course, the most exceptional examples of profitable bootstrap companies are going to be exceptional.

Justin Jackson:

But that is kind of the point. And so the the lesson, I think for everybody is to figure out how to be exceptional. And that that's decades of practice, decades of investing in your own skills, investing in your own network, things we've talked about for years. Of course, none of this is easy. And even for for folks who are exceptionally skilled and gifted, there's no, there is no guarantee.

Justin Jackson:

But I'm I'm I'm I'm fairly bullish. I'm fairly, certain that for folks and, again, I I I'm not trying to be egotistical here or to encourage people to be egotistical, but to have the self knowledge to know that, you've got the skills and the advantages and the strengths in a certain area and then to find people that that that, make up your weaknesses, that Mhmm. That do things that are good, that you're not good at. We've said this over and over again on the show. Like, us teaming up has it it it's it's been a revelation for me just to have that feeling of, like, I could have not done this without John.

Jon:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Justin Jackson:

And also to know that you couldn't have done this without me.

Jon:

It's like, what is it? Gobots? Gotron? Voltron. Voltron.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. It's it's the Voltron principle. It's the yin and the yang. It's it's, you know, it is again, people message me and say, well, that's fine for you guys that you've finding a good partner is hard. I know.

Justin Jackson:

Exceptional examples are going to be exceptional. The key is to cultivate a life where you can be exceptional.

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look how long it took us to actually find a partner that works. Like, we built we built things before with other partners. It's been 10 you know, a decade.

Jon:

Took forever.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Exactly. And and this isn't to say you shouldn't take, this isn't to say there's not a place for people to take a chance on people. Like, I think investors need to take a chance on founders. I think, employers need to take a chance on certain employees.

Justin Jackson:

You're always going to be doing that. I partners, need to take a chance. There's a chance. There's a risk that that all of this won't work. And, you know, I'm again, I'm certainly thankful that in some ways, at one of the, emotionally lowest parts of my times of my life, you took a chance on me.

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. I I I I felt like a little bit like I was a a burning heap of garbage at the time. So there is there is always going to be a place for some luck and for some people who are willing to take a chance on each other and for people who are willing to give a hand up to folks, especially folks who might not have grown up with the same privilege. You know, there's all those all those elements exist. But and at the same time, the goal for anybody listening and and not in a way that feels that feels like, oh, this is impossible or that this is never gonna happen for me.

Justin Jackson:

But to just think I can do this, but I've gotta cultivate this this, this idea of being exceptional. And with the hopes that if I do decide to start a business, which is very risky, that what what are the things that are going to make me the exception to the rule? How can I cultivate those skills, those relationships, that network, all of those things? And, and maybe it'll take you know? I I I launched my first business when I was in my early twenties.

Jon:

Yeah. So it

Justin Jackson:

took me a decade.

Jon:

I started I started working for myself when I was 21, 22.

Justin Jackson:

So it might take a while. 2 2 decades in retrospect feels long. But the benefits, if you are one of the lucky folks that are able to cultivate this this existence and then pass the the the the this threshold of creating a business. It's such a great it's it's it's wonderful. Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

So, yeah, I think, that's probably a good place to leave in. Hey?

Jon:

Probably. It's been a while. It's been a while since we did this.

Justin Jackson:

Oh, dear listener. Thank you for sticking with us. Yeah. And, John, I think, we gotta thank the the folks on Patreon who continue to support the show. And, Yeah.

Justin Jackson:

Again, we we have been, we have been, donating these Patreon donations to other creators. So, yeah, let's let's thank the folks Yeah. On Patreon.

Jon:

Absolutely. Thanks to everyone. We have Mitch. I think Mitch is new. Right?

Justin Jackson:

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Mitch is new.

Jon:

Harris Kenny, Oleg Kulik, Violette De Genevieve. Did I say that right?

Justin Jackson:

Violette De Genevieve.

Jon:

Alright.

Justin Jackson:

Yep. Yeah. Pretty good pronunciation. You you you had the first two. Those those French classes paid off.

Jon:

I took 0 French classes.

Justin Jackson:

Well, you're Violette. Great.

Jon:

Alright. Nice. Maybe I got it from you. I don't know. We have the Take It EV podcast, Ethan Gunderson, Diogo, Chris Willow, Borja Solaire, Ward Sandler, Eric Lima, James Sours, Travis Fisher, Matt Buckley, Russell Brown, Evander Sassy, Prada Yumna Schimbecker, Noah Praill, Colin Gray, Josh Smith, Ivan Kerkovic, Shane Smith, Austin Loveless, Simon Bennett, Michael Sitber, Paul Jarvis, and Jack Ellis, my brother Dan Buddha.

Justin Jackson:

Hey, Dan.

Jon:

Darby Frey, Samori Augusto, Dave Young, Brad from Canada, Sammy Shukert, Mike Walker, Adam Devander, Dave Junta.

Justin Jackson:

Junta.

Jon:

And, finally, Kyle Fox from get reward for dot com.

Justin Jackson:

Thanks, everyone. We will see you next time we drop an episode, hopefully soon.