Build Your SaaS

Spoiler: he doubled revenue!

Show Notes

This week, Justin catches up with Simon Bennett of Snapshooter:

  • Every once in a while, we highlight one of our listeners who are building their own SaaS.
  • This week: Simon Bennett, comes back to tell us what's happened since he left his full-time job 7 months ago.
  • Looking for automatic backups for Digital Ocean, AWS, WordPress, or Laravel? Check out https://snapshooter.io.
  • Simon had just put his kids to bed (he's in the UK) and sat down in his office to have a chat with Justin.

What should we talk about next?

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Creators & Guests

Host
Justin Jackson
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Editor
Chris Enns
Owner of Lemon Productions
Guest
Simon Bennett
Founder of SnapShooter

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:

Hey, everybody. Welcome to web build your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of building a web app, bootstrapping your own thing, getting to a significant amount of revenue so that you can quit your day job. And, this week, John is away, but I caught up with Simon Bennett of SnapShooter dot io. I last spoke to him in May, I believe, right when the the pandemic was kind of in full force.

Justin:

And, I thought it would be a good idea to catch up, see what has happened since then. He had just quit his day job. Yeah. Let's see how things have developed since then. So, Simon, the last time we chatted, I think, was 7 months ago.

Speaker 2:

Yes. May. Yes. Just after I'd gone full time.

Justin:

Or You just gone

Speaker 2:

quit my job.

Justin:

Yeah. You just gone you you like, you were going full time the next morning on and you were you're going full time on Snap Shooter. Yeah. How how long have you been working on Snap Shooter up until that point?

Speaker 2:

It started in February 2017, so coming up to the full year anniversary soon.

Justin:

Okay. So it it was about 3 years to get you to the point where you could go full time?

Speaker 2:

Yep. That's right. Yep. So I took the leap a little bit earlier just due to circumstances with COVID and family and having essentially 2 jobs, but it's it seems to have paid off.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. So since you went full time Mhmm. How's it been? Are you living the bootstrapper's dream or what?

Speaker 2:

I don't know what the bootstrapper's dream is, but revenue has definitely increased, and the and the trajectory of revenue has sort of increased, from when I quit, if that makes sense. So it'll there's some sort of correlation between putting more effort in and getting more reward out.

Justin:

Oh, interesting. Because that's not always the case. Sometimes people quit Mhmm. And what they find is that even though they have all this extra time and all this extra energy, it doesn't actually move the needle that much. But for you, you feel it has.

Speaker 2:

Yes. So while maybe not like I don't know. There's a bit of lag in the revenue charts or whatever, but it it definitely feels like it's been key. Had a lot more time to think from a more zoomed out perspective of the business. So I think that's that's been probably the best thing about it.

Justin:

Yeah. And can you give us a sense of, like, how are you're how you're doing revenue wise?

Speaker 2:

I like, I've doubled revenue this year.

Justin:

You've doubled revenue in 2020? Yes.

Speaker 2:

Yep. Yep. Monthly recurring revenue has doubled here.

Justin:

Wow. So so pretty successful year for you.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yes. Definitely.

Justin:

And and you're just saying most of that growth happened once you decided to, go full time.

Speaker 2:

1 yes. So I decided to go full time slowly earlier than I did, and I started putting a lot more time into the business before, I actually pulled the trigger to go full time. So from that point, I can see the revenue growth. It may have led me go full time earlier because that's a very stressful thing to do, which is do a full job all day and then get straight back on the computer after sort of the wife's gone to bed and grind again, and then get up at 5 in the morning and grind

Justin:

again. Yeah. And I think we talked a bit about this last time, but that is I I think it's especially more difficult for me now to really feel that even though I felt it back then. But now that, you know, Transistor is doing well and we're comfortable, you kind of forget about what that's like of, you know, working a full day job and trying to make money, you know, the old way.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Justin:

And then every night you get home, it's like, okay. Well, you know, and and interspersed in there, I think, especially for those of us with families is the you know, it's hard on your relationships. It's hard on your personal life when you're Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I don't hear anyone really talking about this in the bootstrapping space. It's just all about them and the business, never sort of them, the business, and the family.

Justin:

Yeah. Like, do you think you you you think that that part gets ignored a bit?

Speaker 2:

Maybe. Maybe they're not in the same circumstances, but, yeah, it has, you know, it it wasn't a a positive thing for a married couple during those times. So,

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. I find that too. I found that too. The my ambition was to build an online business.

Justin:

And and we had the other disadvantage of in our in my early twenties, I had these 2 snowboard shops that ended up closing and losing a lot of money.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

And so we had this this old, trauma from the past Mhmm. Which was like, oh, last time you did this, Justin, it didn't turn out so good.

Speaker 2:

Are you sure?

Justin:

Yeah. And and so but even even you know, what I like, just even waking up early on Saturday morning to get a couple hours work in, or I would always stay up late on Friday nights to write my weekly newsletter.

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Justin:

Even stuff like that, I found really did negatively affect, yeah, my marriage. And just it's just hard. You're just you've got way more on your mind. You're way more exhausted, emotionally and just with your energy. So, yeah, I think you're right.

Justin:

I think people should talk about that part more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's like the hidden secret. I I can't it cannot be just us 2.

Justin:

Yeah. No. I don't think it's just us, which and I'm kind of conflicted about it because on one hand, it's hard to know if I could have done it any other way. Mhmm. Like, there had to be the sacrifice.

Justin:

And but on the flip side of that sacrifice was like, it's one thing to sacrifice things personally just as an individual, but when it's affecting your family

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

And there's a real cost there yeah. It's hard to know because I don't know if I could've it's kinda like going through the burning ring of fire. Right? It's like you it it's necessary, but there is a cost to it. I I don't know how to reconcile that yet.

Speaker 2:

No. I think I'm I'm lucky. My wife has been very supportive with the whole thing. She was very clear that the the risk the jump to full time was gonna happen once the business had proven itself. I wasn't gonna go down the route of building up savings and then jumping into building a product.

Speaker 2:

That that scares me when I hear people do that. And she is very good at sort of, you know, accepting that maybe I do wanna go off and work on the business sometimes, or a lot of the time as it was, and also letting me know when it was too much and so. But I don't know Yeah. Exactly how accurate that was. So I'm sure there's been quite a lot of sacrifice there.

Speaker 2:

I'll try to

Justin:

make sure that children were awake. Right now. Let's see.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I guess I say the the thing is I never did it when the children were more awake. So Mhmm.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. It's just it is there. It's good to talk about it because there is a cost that doesn't get talked about. And even if you're doing it when the kids are sleeping or you're waking up super early, and to be honest, even now, like, I'm just and maybe this is just a a characteristic of mine that I can't turn off, but I'm just always thinking.

Speaker 2:

Yes. I have a

Justin:

And it's it's difficult to like, I'm terrible during vacations and holidays and stuff. I just I don't know what to do with myself. It's it's like I just can't stop thinking. And if there's not a pressing business thing to think about, then I get myself involved in some Twitter drama just to, you know, to be engaged.

Speaker 2:

I was gonna say, my I think my best thinking time is a Saturday morning when both the children are eating their cereal, watching their tablets, wife's having a lay in, and I'm just sat Yeah. Having a cup of tea. And, like, for some reason, that's, like, top quality business thinking tone when it really shouldn't be, but that's that's when I should definitely have a notepad in front of me.

Justin:

Well and and it makes sense because sometimes just relaxing even a bit Mhmm. Like, letting your brain just kind of cycle down even just a bit gives you that space to it's like as soon as I go snowboarding and as soon as I hit the chairlift

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Justin:

It's like all of a sudden I'm having tons and tons of ideas and thoughts and, you know, like I write so many potential tweets and blog posts and stuff when I'm on the chairlift. I'm just, like, thinking about stuff. And Hate that. Because I just

Speaker 2:

wanna, like, race back to the computer and start, start implementing.

Justin:

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And maybe it's good to sometimes have those moments of downtime. Well, we know it's good to have moments of downtime, where you let ideas simmer for a little bit

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Justin:

And you can't act on them right away. But yeah. I I the just going back to that idea of there being a cost Mhmm. To that. Like, actually, this would be a good question for you.

Justin:

How how well have you been sleeping?

Speaker 2:

I have always slept really well. So,

Justin:

that trouble, like, staying up at night thinking about the business?

Speaker 2:

There's been times when things have gone slightly wrong in the business, like, you know, 3rd party providers have gone down or there's issues with that. And that's been very stressful and hard to, you know, possibly sleep. But, generally, I've always been pretty good at sleeping. Yeah. So I can't help with that, unfortunately.

Justin:

Yeah. You're you're you're built for this because that's often the thing that people notice when they start a business is that all of a sudden, they used to be great sleepers. Yeah. But now, it's like they can't get to sleep because they're up thinking about the business. Mhmm.

Justin:

And it just it will fill all of your cycles. Like, any available cycles you have, during the day or sometimes at night, it that's part of the cost, I think, is when you're an employee, it's just a lot easier to unplug and Yeah. Be like, okay. Well, that's the boss's problem. I'm not gonna worry about it.

Speaker 2:

So I think I've actually got a bit better on this in the last couple of months. Because after I went full time, I continued to slam from morning till dusk any available time on the business because I

Justin:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because the revenue wasn't where it needed to be. So, like, there was there was still stress associated with that. And sort of as you get nearer to that sort of double number, things have been getting more relaxed, and I have just been allowing myself to go out in the garage and work on my car and give myself, like, the permission not to think about the business. And I can actually go out there and come back and have not thought about the business once. And it's it's

Justin:

it's nice. You've you've got a good outlet for that. I've I've noticed you posting photos of that old car. It's like an old Austin Mini or something?

Speaker 2:

It yes. It's not that old, I guess. It's, it's 27 years old, the car. So, Okay. I wish I had a sixties one, but they're really, really expensive.

Speaker 2:

So Yeah. Got a more recent one. And, yeah, it needs completely rebuilding. So that's my project now for the next 2 to 3 years, I imagine.

Justin:

Yeah. And do do you think partly, like, hitting that that 5 figure revenue number per month, is that what allows you to relax a little bit?

Speaker 2:

Yes. I guess I could be slightly more comfortable with that because, obviously, there's still expenses, and I'm still not as well off as I was with Snapshooter and a job. But I

Justin:

don't know.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of like a bit of permission to just zone out.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one thing I think even when Transistor started paying me, I think, $5,000 a month, which wasn't enough to pay for all of my family's expenses. But at that moment, I relaxed a lot. And

Speaker 2:

You can hear it in your podcast. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. Quite quite the exact point.

Justin:

Yeah. A lot of people said that they could hear it in my voice. And even my dad, he came and visited and said, man, I haven't you haven't seen this relaxed in a while. I would start, like, spending more time at the coffee shop, more time going for walks. It just didn't feel like I needed to hustle.

Justin:

Yeah. And I think the hustle is actually it'd be interesting to hear what you think about this because there's this weird, tension where, you know, certainly sometimes and in certain businesses, hustling more delivers, like, accelerates your growth. But in my experience, a lot of our growth is is, disconnected from the effort we put in. You know what I mean? Like, the the market actually carries has carried a lot of our growth.

Justin:

But at the same time, it is connected. It it's it's tricky too.

Speaker 2:

Like a lagging thing as well. You can see the kind of

Justin:

Yeah. Like, even though I feel like my personal brand and my Twitter presence and my blog and my newsletter doesn't actually provide that much of Transistor's growth. At the same time, I'm like, but I can't, like, give it up because I I know that it contributes something, and I'm not entirely sure what chunk that gives. And so it's kind of like, you know, the old advertising.

Speaker 2:

Because it's, like, actually getting good attribution towards what you're doing. And then you listen to WP Engine with the talk about how he's puts $10 into advertising, and he gets $15 back. And you're like, I have not got that anywhere. Like, there's no chuck money in. It's so you know, it is I'm just hoping I'm chipping away at the right things and pushing the needle forward in the right ways.

Speaker 2:

And Yeah. To measure that and to know whether what is, like, the right amount to put in. So for example, a customer today invited me to a Facebook group that they're in for a whole bunch of, like, WordPress sites. And I have a quick search through, and the guy's been promoting me for the last 6 months. And, like, how like, that's totally until he mentioned that to me today, there's no way you could put any attribution on where these customers are coming from and why suddenly I've got an influx of these people.

Speaker 2:

And Mhmm. How do you how do you measure that? And how do you know like, I don't know. I'm not actually entirely sure what my point is. It's just it's very loose in terms of

Justin:

Yes. But this is why I I love surfing as a metaphor for entrepreneurship because so much of it is just being in the water. Yes. It's like, well, how come you caught that wave? Or how come you noticed that thing?

Justin:

Or how come you got invited to that surf spot? In this case, you got invited to that Facebook group. And it's like, well, I just I'm in the water. And if if and this is why I also worry about, like, disengaging. I don't wanna disengage too much.

Justin:

I don't wanna get too comfortable because I wanna be in the water. I wanna be available for those opportunities where someone says, hey. Come to this Facebook group. And then I go in there and I search and notice he's been recommending me. Like, those yeah.

Justin:

Those are the moments. And and I would also say, like, about WP Engine, like, there's very few SaaS companies that I know right now that have any sort of, I shouldn't say very few, but a lot of my friends who have SaaS companies do not have a advertising flywheel, the way that he described it in that talk. And, you know, like, anecdotally, it's just it's harder to to get those going now because AdWords are so competitive. There's a lot of well funded, either venture backed startups or enterprise companies who are willing to spend tons and tons of money. And so it's just harder for bootstrapped companies to kind of play in that field and, yeah, invest 10,000 and get 15,000 back.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't have the cash flow.

Justin:

Yeah. But, I mean, if you found it's still worth experimenting because if you found, you know, a way of like, one thing I'm experimenting with right now is giving, I'm gonna give away 10 free microphones to people who sign up for any annual plan. Mhmm. So even though the like, our starter annual plan is only 190. And in some cases, depending on, like, if I'm shipping these to Canadians or Europeans

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Justin:

It costs me, like, a $120 to, you know, buy it and ship it to them. Mhmm. But I have this sense that it's an interesting experiment because it might I'm we're still making profit on

Speaker 2:

it. Mhmm.

Justin:

And, you know, we pay our affiliates 25% of revenue ongoing. And so this might be a way of maybe, like, when you give customers something, LTV increases by 2 or 3 times. Well Yes. If that's true, then that it's worth making that investment, you know, even though it's like, I don't know how we'd do it at scale. But it's an interesting experiment because if it does end up being a flywheel where we can see, oh, everybody in this cohort, their their, LTV is 2 or 3 times higher than this is worth doing.

Justin:

Right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You can abandon the microphone.

Justin:

I I wish I could. I have even thought about, like, oh, I wonder if I should just get these manufactured, but that's a that would be sound tech and audit like, that I think it's business. Yeah. Amazon has one. Amazon has an Amazon basics microphone that they sell.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

But I'm not quite at that scale.

Speaker 2:

No. No. No. It's an interesting idea. I thought I could send that to people over the mugs and t shirts

Justin:

and stuff. I mean, even bugs though is a worthwhile experiment. There is this this, psychological phenomena

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Justin:

Which is when people when you give somebody a gift, they are just more endeared to you. Yeah. Right?

Speaker 2:

Are you a favor back?

Justin:

Yeah. They feel like they owe you a favor back. I think this is out of, the persuasion book. Right?

Speaker 2:

I I

Justin:

have not. Read that yet?

Speaker 2:

I have not. No.

Justin:

It's a good read. Influence, the psych the psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini. Yeah. Worth it's worth reading it.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Justin:

But yeah. I think even I mean, this is why companies send out swag. This is why. Even, you know, like this coffee shop I go to, the owner has instructed his staff to welcome me by name every time I come in. It's like a big, like, hey.

Justin:

It's Justin. He's here. And they are completely manipulating me emotionally. Yes. Right?

Justin:

Like, who who doesn't like going to the local pub and having Yeah. The the bartender know your name and already know your drink and for you to be kind of treated as a big deal?

Speaker 2:

How bad would you feel if they spotted you going into an overing coffee shop? Heating cheating on them.

Justin:

They do actually. Because I I I'm all sometimes I go to other places and they've I've been caught for sure. But, I mean, I I've spent so much money there that they they know where my allegiance is. So I think bootstrappers, especially, can leverage that. Like, you can, build a relationship and a rapport with each of your customers.

Justin:

You can give them, additional help. You can, you know, when you're sending them emails, you can include, lines that let them know that you know who they are and that you just like you said, like, it's very unlikely that I'm going to switch coffee shops because there's just so much built up, not just goodwill, but

Speaker 2:

Loyalty and

Justin:

Loyalty. Like, I just I even if they were being malicious, which they're not, but even if they were being malicious, it would be hard to switch because human beings are just primed for that kind of we want acceptance and connection and to feel significant. And

Speaker 2:

next question

Justin:

is do

Speaker 2:

you wait until the coffee shop is full before you go in, so everyone knows how well

Justin:

I should appreciate it. I mean, I do like that too.

Jason:

It's it's just We're not

Speaker 2:

gonna go in if it's empty. It's it's pointless.

Justin:

But but and there's a there's a SaaS equivalent to this, which is when you use your channels to highlight customers, when you do case studies on them

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

When you retweet them, when you like, all of that stuff makes people feel special and, is one way I think bootstrappers can care for customers. Has there been a particular channel? And I realize you probably don't wanna say too much, but particular channel or, you know, way that people are finding you?

Speaker 2:

It's primarily through search, but word-of-mouth has actually become I started doing sort of a little survey when people join using Refiner, and I can't recommend their product enough because it's so easy to set up, and asking sort of like an onboarding survey. And, like, the number of people who say word-of-mouth is crazy.

Justin:

Interesting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And it's like, maybe I need to work on a way of sort of making that easier to to to promote. But, that would that is a significant channel along with sort of the other really common ones.

Justin:

Interesting. You know, one way we're using Rewardful so Rewardful, manages all of our affiliate campaigns, but I also got them to set up a 0% affiliate campaign. Mhmm. And, when we were using that is, to track other kinds of invites. So there's some of our customers that don't wanna become affiliates, but I say, hey, you know, like, use this code when you refer us.

Justin:

And every month, I'm gonna choose a winner and send them a prize. Yeah. And I I think you and others could do something like that, which is, you know, gen you can even have them sign up under a 0% campaign or use their API and automatically generate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I didn't actually have much luck with the, like, the pure affiliate program. I didn't, didn't really bring many people in. And the people I did bring in were kind of people who were setting up businesses anyway. So,

Justin:

like

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. But I think to encourage your customers

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

To refer you, that might be

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Justin:

Another way of using something like that, giving them a referral link they can use. And that would certainly allow you to like, then you would see, woah. This one guy is I'm we're getting tons of referrals from him, and then you reach out and he's like, oh, yeah. I have a Facebook group. And and I think sometimes, like, just recognizing that especially if your product is good, people want to share it.

Justin:

And I think people do want the, acknowledgement. Like, yeah. I'm sharing you on social media.

Speaker 2:

Like it goes, isn't it? Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. I think it helps them feel good. Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Like, spread a bit of goodwill. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. And the the ability to, you know, say you can do things like contests or prizes or giveaways or whatever. Yep. And it that that may or may not incentivize people. A lot of folks will just share it regardless.

Justin:

But, I think having a line like, hey, here's a referral link. Be sure to use it so we can thank you, is a fine line that a lot of people would probably use.

Speaker 2:

I'll write that down, but I'll listen to this later.

Justin:

Yeah. We're we're recording. I might use that exact line, actually.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Justin:

Do you feel like you are now in the comfortable stage of your SaaS? Or do you feel like now you've just kinda hit what you were making when you're employed? Like, I'm it seems like people get to a number where they get very comfortable. Do you feel like you're there or you're approaching it or that's the next goal?

Speaker 2:

More comfortable. In an analogy form, I would describe myself as no longer sprinting and sort of bedding in for the long marathon

Justin:

Got it. Of

Speaker 2:

yeah. That's where I would see myself. So I know there's still a hell of a lot of work to sort of churn out. I'm really that's sort of especially with, like, the Christmas coming up soon. So, like, this week for me is a bit of a sort of wrap it up week because, the schools close at the end of the week, and I'm sort of really just my mind is on next year already.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And just what the plan is there, getting things in place, getting I mean, I don't have any meetings I've got, like, up for the beginning of January already. But, yeah, it feels like next year will be getting a good pace going and just continually.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. So you're you're you're feeling like next year is gonna be, well, you

Speaker 2:

know, I hope to double again. That's the

Justin:

Yeah. That's the hope. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yeah.

Justin:

I mean, it's hard talking about money because so many people are in a different, stage of life. Right?

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Justin:

And, but one thing I have thought about is, you know, for a long time, I was just trying to create a business that was just allowing me to survive. Like, it pays my family's bills, but like, I'm not paying off any debt. I'm not saving any money. I'm not investing anything. I'm just like, this is just enough to pay our family's bills.

Speaker 2:

Mhmm.

Justin:

And I'm assuming you feel like you're there now, pretty much?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I mean, it could be better in terms of sort of, investing in the pension, which I stopped doing when I went full time and stuff like that. So

Justin:

Mhmm.

Speaker 2:

I'm planning to sort of spend on, sort of services and consultants in areas that are gonna help grow the business and potentially delaying the saving just a little bit longer. Yeah. The goal of end of 2021 would definitely be to be reinstating and sort of making up the loss. But, yes, in terms of sort of finance, it's still tight. And, I'm just I think it's difficult in terms of knowing whether investing a little more now is gonna be a better reward or whether I should just, you know, start saving or I don't know.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I I can completely identify with that. It's it's that building stage is so tricky.

Justin:

Like, going from 0 to 1 isn't very difficult. Like, no product to something that at least some people want is difficult in of itself. But then, like, going from 1 to 2, which is like actually getting some form of traction where this thing gets up to 10 ks MRR or whatever. That's like the next step for most folks. And then beyond that, in most economies in the world, whether you're single or you have a family, like, beyond that, that's where it's like, okay.

Justin:

Like, this thing is pretty much working, but it's still not quite better than having a job. It is in one sense. Like, yes, when I was only making $5,000 a month from Transistor, I was happier. I had more free time. I was, you know, you know, I'd take days off and go snowboarding.

Justin:

Like, I had the freedom part and the lifestyle part, which is important. But my debate online with some people lately has been, like, it can't just be the lifestyle part. Like, you can't just, like, be treading water financially and then be like, okay. I'm good. Now I'm just gonna go, you know, live on the beach and have a great life because to to have kind of a long lasting life lifestyle change, you need the money.

Justin:

You need financial margin. And it can't be enough to just be, like, scraping by or the way I I I described treading water for a lot of my entrepreneur entrepreneurial journey was, like, some days my head is way above water, and some days I'm underwater. And that feeling of just being like, woah. Like, this month I made $20. It's amazing.

Justin:

But then, like, 3 months later, it's like, oh, crap. You know, I didn't make any money this month. This is a disaster. Like, I I don't and all through that, I had a pretty good lifestyle in the sense that I could, you know, again, go snowboarding or go to the beach or whatever. But it wasn't until there was really sustainable revenue and good margins, like enough margin for me to Yeah.

Justin:

I was

Speaker 2:

gonna say definitely margin. Yeah. I mean, if you just imagine going up and down every month, you'd rather make sure that the dips weren't going

Justin:

under Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yourself sort of nicely. Yeah. That's where I am at the moment where we don't have margins. I'm you know, I've, you know, I've come to accept and I'm comfortable at the moment with that. But, you know, long term, that's not a sort of sustainable thing to be doing.

Speaker 2:

Mhmm. And, like, yes, it could take a 5 year sacrifice of doing that, but, you know, otherwise, you know, you should have stayed in a job where they were paying your pension contributions and, you know, you're sorted in life. Because at the moment now, if I was to retire, I have nothing. I mean, obviously, I have assets in the business. But

Justin:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I guess that's what you end up with at this stage is you only have the asset of the business. You haven't been able to liquidate anything. So

Justin:

Yeah. I mean and that is the advantage is that I mean, it's not true in all cases. Some people own things that are worthless. But when you're an employee, you don't really have any ownership. And, so this at least allows you to build something.

Justin:

And when you're a consultant or a freelancer, you don't really have ownership. You don't have a salable asset, really. But with software, at least in this at least right now, in our context right now, there are there's somebody that would want to buy it. And whether that's, you know, 1.5 times annual recurring revenue or 2.5 or 10 times or whatever, we had a competitor that was purchased, I'm pretty sure, for 14 times annual recurring

Speaker 2:

revenue. Times.

Justin:

Yep. Wow. You get those when you get a big company, and they're buying for all sorts of other reasons, including signaling, including just like, you know, like, it's a big radio company and they need to get into the podcast market. And so it's like, okay. Well, we gotta make this move.

Justin:

And, yeah, they'll pay. It

Speaker 2:

just depends what their actual monthly recurring revenue was for how how much of a jackpot that was for them. But yeah.

Justin:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And Are they still around after that acquisition, or has it all dissolved away in many of these?

Justin:

It'll be interesting actually to see what happens. My guess is that yeah. I don't I don't know if if they'll get they'll continue to be run. Like, corporate finance and corporate acquisition finance does not make a lot of sense to me. But some of these companies are so big that they can they can, you know, roll the dice and go, well, 2828,000,000.

Justin:

Like, as an acquisition, 28,000,000 is not that much to them, which blows my mind. But

Speaker 2:

So it's interesting that the founders of that and how they're you know, whether it's they've got some whether they just got straight cash or there's, like, an earn out because of, you know, the dynamics of whether the company just ends up disappearing after 1 year. Yeah. No no one gets their earn outs and Yep. Yes. Interesting space.

Justin:

It it's totally totally interesting.

Speaker 2:

Make you an offer? This is why, aren't they?

Justin:

They didn't make us an offer. No. We did get another offer, from a company that was way more I think they were hoping to get us for, you know, 2 times annual recurring revenue or whatever at the time. Mhmm. And we were just like, no.

Justin:

Like, that doesn't make sense. And and I'm super glad we didn't. I mean, it it just did not make any sense. It would've at the time, you know, it wouldn't have been enough to and since then, like, we've yeah, we've probably made enough cat like, well, we haven't realized all that cash yet, but the run rate is enough that it was like, we'll make that in just in cash flow. Right?

Speaker 2:

Since I I had I've had 2 conversations with FE International in the past, Probably in the end of 2019. The beginning of 2019, I talked to them and they gave me a price, and I I sort of I'm denied. And then, unsolicited, they gave me an offer at the beginning of this year.

Justin:

Oh, really?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I kind of you know, they kind of Mhmm. They're keen. You're on you're in the CRM system.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And, they gave me a price and, see, I I said no. But it's interesting now looking at sort of where I am now. That would have been a terrible decision. Yeah.

Justin:

I mean, if you're growing, it's almost if you're growing at any kind of I mean, especially you, you doubled MRR. So Mhmm. It it think about that, like, from a numbers point of view. So let's just, like, make the numbers really small. So let's say you were at a 1,000 MRR, and they give they so that's times 12.

Justin:

That's 12,000, you know, annual run rate. And they say, well, we'll give you 1.5 times or even 2 times. So that's 22 $24,000. They're saying, we'll buy this off you for 24,000. But then if you grow by a 100%, and now you're at $2,000 $2,000 a month, you've already realized that purchase price in annual recurring revenue.

Justin:

Right? Right?

Jason:

Yes.

Justin:

Because they were they would have bought it you for 24,000, but now your annual recurring run rate is 24,000.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You sort of knocked the yield numbers off, don't you, if you're growing.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. So I I think if you're growing at any sort of rate, it doesn't make sense unless what they're offering you is bigger. And, I mean, FE International, I don't think they do deals that are that or that many deals that are, you know, 5 x revenue or higher. Like, it just doesn't happen.

Justin:

So yeah. Usually, better to to stay the course if you can. The other thing I don't like about it, Simon, is it feels like there's a little bit of praying, like, not praying to God, but praying on pray. You know, praying on people who are are a little bit desperate, like bootstrappers when they're building something. And you're freaking out because you're like, like, it's just not quite enough yet, and I just really need some cash.

Justin:

The kids need braces. That pressure, it feels like sometimes, that's being preyed upon by both investors and acquirers. Because, yeah, you can you can buy a business for way cheaper, at the early stage even if they're growing. Because they haven't yet hit scale where, you know, if you're at $5,000 MRR a month, it's like, like, I just need more money. Like, you know, the families Yes.

Justin:

Got needs. And Mhmm. It's easy to give issue

Speaker 2:

in that business. It's not completely passive, and you need to be

Justin:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

In 2 places at the same time. And yeah. Yeah. This that's where something like a course works quite well for people when

Justin:

Yeah. If you can

Speaker 2:

do require that. Yeah. If you can. Yeah.

Justin:

The the problem with the course is that I mean, businesses like this in general, but a course is the culmination of years of expertise and audience building and network building. And it kind of all culminates in this one sale. And you also have to correctly anticipate demand, right? Because putting in that much effort for something like that is only worth it if you get, you know, a mass of customers buying it. And I feel like Yeah.

Justin:

With, like, marketing

Speaker 2:

I shouldn't comment. I don't know the space at all. So

Justin:

Well, no. I think it can be like, I mean, like, for Adam Wathan, releasing, refactoring to collections ended up being a great idea because

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Justin:

It made enough sales that he could then he had optionality. He could kind of do what he needed to do. But I think it's a hard one to kind of like shoehorn when you're like, oh, I could really use some start up capital right now. They're they're just

Speaker 2:

always been the thing when I thought about those offers was there was no I didn't ever have at the time. I still don't like plan b. Like, the the second startup that I feel is gonna be better. Mhmm. So I have what what do I do with that money?

Speaker 2:

Like, I wouldn't have I don't have something to directly invest it into. So

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. I think it would I

Speaker 2:

don't like that. I I was very risk averse. Yeah. To to go into the boat of, okay, well, now I've got, you know, $200,000 to pump into this next business idea and give myself a 2 year on or a year on way. Like, I don't I don't know.

Speaker 2:

And that's especially with no proof of idea. And even now if I sold, what on earth would I do with my time?

Justin:

Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, that's the

Speaker 2:

I feel lost. I've been, like, sold my identity.

Justin:

Well yeah. And and it would have to be enough money that

Speaker 2:

It's not it's not enough money to just check out.

Justin:

If someone gave either of us $10,000,000, I think we would take it, and we would be fine. We we would we would figure out what to do. Right? You'd buy you'd buy that 19 sixties mini. You'd be working on that.

Justin:

You'd be, you know, around for the kids. You'd still be working on little projects, but there would be no pressure for them to succeed commercially. Right? No. But if if

Speaker 2:

some resolution if you're listening, I will take that 10,000,000 pound offer. You know my email.

Justin:

We just this show just has so many listeners with $10,000,000 burning in their pocket, and they're just waiting for the opportunity.

Speaker 2:

Heard it doubled this year, and it's gonna double next year.

Justin:

That's true. Get in now. Get in at the ground floor, people. Yeah. So I'm wondering what who who are your competitors, by the way?

Justin:

I'm I'm looking Snap Shooter alternatives. I'm seeing, there's some other folks in the space. Mhmm. Are there some big, like, big movers that you could steal market share away from? Is that kind of one growth opportunity?

Speaker 2:

Thinking about this. There's so I'm trying to think of the way to describe it. So some of the companies who are bigger in the backup space are very, very enterprising.

Justin:

Mhmm. Like, it's

Speaker 2:

so in this kind of small to medium size business, which is kind of where I'm at, There's not that many competitors. There's one who just recently increased their prices, which that's like perfect Twitter opportunity Yeah. To do some aggressive marketing, which has worked. It's worked. That definitely worked.

Justin:

Really?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I got phone calls and everything, meetings, and customers moved over and all sorts. So it's that was that was worth it. It was nice getting, like, a support request saying, we agree, and we'd like to have a meeting.

Justin:

Perfect. Did you did you then write a alternative to page for that competitor?

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yeah. We have an alternative to that ranks quite well when you search for competitor alternative. So

Justin:

Perfect.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's difficult with the other people because it's it's kind of a different solution when you go more to the enterprise. I it's kind of where the part of the business is stair stepping towards. So maybe in the future, I'll be better in sort of battling that. But, yeah, that's that's a that's a hard question.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of people who I would say, are taking heavy inspiration from what I'm doing at the moment.

Justin:

So you're you're starting to get some some, copycats?

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's that's maybe one of the things that sort of spurred me on at the end of last year. Maybe one of the best things that ever happened.

Justin:

Really? The copycats? Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about that.

Justin:

So, like, what happened? It just made you feel like I'm gonna show these guys or

Speaker 2:

went I was like, that that is what kept me up at night, to be honest. And if you're listening, I'll

Justin:

go off your dick.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if we should just cut that out. And yes. So it was difficult. There were a few sort of there were some bad practices. It wasn't they didn't just set up in the same the shop next door.

Speaker 2:

They, you know, performed things that were shady. So Yeah. So it wasn't that sort of definitely got me angry.

Justin:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But did you find that anger motivating? Eventually, yes. So after after the cool down Yeah. It was a case of let's pick up the pace and, sort of the business doesn't look the same as it did when that happened. Unfortunately, it seems like he lags 6 months behind.

Speaker 2:

So if I release something, it's then poof, in the market 6 months later. So Yeah.

Justin:

Let's talk Let let's talk about this because this is something that we experienced with Transistor 2. So we have competitors like this too. And specifically one that came after us and has every right to be in the market. But, definitely seemed like some things they copy from us, you know, 6 months later or whatever. And this is just capitalism.

Justin:

Right? Like, this is what you have to deal with. They're not stealing any intellectual property. Now if they were like we have another we have another company that is just getting into the market, and their employees are continuously signing up for Transistor accounts under their personal emails. And we're talking to a lawyer about that because in that case, those employees are signing user agreements.

Speaker 2:

Yep. I have the same thing. This guy signs up. He tries the product.

Justin:

Yep. You

Speaker 2:

know, like, did you not read the terms? It's very sort of clear in there.

Justin:

Yep. Not You can't misrepresent yourself, basically. Right? And, anyway, so so we have to think about how we're gonna how we're going to fight this. And really, in my mind, the way to fight this is brand Is investing in brand because that's one place where they can't where where we can create a a significant moat.

Justin:

Right? What do you think about stuff like that? Do you think there's opportunity for you there?

Speaker 2:

This is definitely the term that's been coming up a lot with mote and trying to do. So in sums, a few things have happened in in terms of trying to strengthen that. I formed, so in the new year, an official partnership with a large, hosting provider is coming out. So that's a pretty defensible moat there. The other thing is sort of some of the plans for marketing next year are, sort of I'm allocating an entire sort of year's worth of running against that.

Speaker 2:

So I feel that that's a pretty good mote that's gonna stop, you know, then indie hackers not gonna or maybe they will, but, you know, potentially keep up with that sort of pace of content and stuff like that is gonna be hard for someone to do. Mhmm. And, yeah, I am doing a lot of that's the first the first meeting next year is talking with a copywriter to sort of really get my message across because I'm I don't feel I'm very good at it. But, and when I talk to customers, like, that's what they're telling me. Like, they they saw me on there, and that's one of the reasons they went.

Speaker 2:

So Yes. You can't copy me.

Justin:

Yes. Exactly. And to be honest, another mote, defensible mote, is the longer you last, the longer you stay alive, the the more like, if it took you up until now to get invited to that Facebook group and to meet all those people and to have that channel happen to you, Those things happen with the when time elapses. Like, part of just being in the water for a longer period of time is can be an advantage. There's a flip side where sometimes you get too comfortable or too, you know, whatever.

Justin:

But Yes. The longer you last, the more that's a moat as well. And, Yeah. I'm cheering for you, man. I hope you I hope you last a long time.

Speaker 2:

Well, that that's my plan is to keep swimming. Good. You can you can try and catch up, but I'm not gonna stop. So

Justin:

There you go, folks. Definitely, if you need backups, go check out SnapShooter dot io. And if you're a customer, the the best gift you could give Simon is a review, a testimonial, a tweet, those those kind of activities mean the world to me as an indie software developer. And so if you've used, Snap Shooter, go on Capterra or whatever and leave a review. That you can do that today, and, that would have a significant impact on Simon's business.

Justin:

Anything else people should note, Simon?

Speaker 2:

We have a lot more backup offerings than the last time I was on here.

Justin:

So if people are interested in that Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:

We now got sort of the native WordPress backup, the Laravel backups. You know? We're adding more and more. So

Justin:

Look at this.

Speaker 2:

They They they come in as people ask. So

Justin:

DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Lightsail, Exoscale, Het I haven't even heard of some of these. You do databases now too and applications, Laravel, WordPress, Ghost. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Ghost. Yeah.

Justin:

Impressive. Adding

Speaker 2:

more as people ask, so and, that was a big part of this year, and the big push was to build an an engine, a new backup engine into the core of Snapshot that allows us to easily add new ones. So

Justin:

Well, beauty. That's awesome. Cool. Thank you very much. Yeah.

Justin:

Thanks, Simon. Alright. Let's close things out with some shout outs to our Patreon supporters. Thanks to everyone. Take It EV podcast, Ethan Gunderson, Diogo, Chris Willow, Mason Hensley, Boria Solaire, Ward Sandler, Eric Lima, James Sours, Travis Fisher, Matt Buckley, Russell Brown, Evandro Sassy, Pradjuma Schenbacher, Noah Pral, Robert Simplicio, Colin Gray, Josh Smith, Ivankirkovic, Shane Smith, Austin Loveless, Simon Bennett.

Justin:

Hey, Simon. And Michael Sitver, Paul Jarvis, and Jack Ellis, Dan Buda, Darby Frey, Samori Augusto, Dave Young Brad from Canada, Sammy Schuichert, Mike Walker, Adam Duvander, Dave Junta, and Kyle Fox from get rewardful.com. Thanks for listening. Have a great holiday. We'll see you soon.