Bootstrapped

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey cover a host of issues, including an apology of sorts to Patrick McKenzie, a discussion on if in fact the customer is always right, how you support .99 cent apps, non-mistakes from Ian's past, VC funding and an extremely important tax tip! Links: Appointment Reminder - by Patrick McKenzie Patrick McKenzie Interview Podcast with Patrick & Amy Hoy Freckle Shutting down Charm - Interesting look at shutting down a SaaS app before it launches History of “the customer is always right” What Now Podcast - Andrey’s other podcast Retro Dreamer Automattic Hosting - Wordpress hosting Spiderweb Games - RPG games (not $.99!) Ian’s ChatSpot Live non-mistake - Glad I didn’t build it, but still like the logo by Mike Rohde Creating a Business Logo - history of UserScape & HelpSpot logo’s Mixergy Paul Singh Interview Spryfox Rob Walling Stackoverflow initial VC funding Startup.com Movie Stardock Figure53 Atlassian financing Section 199 Domestic Production Tax Credit - this is awesome, talk to your accountant today! Handling B2B Transactions DNL - Ian’s Brother & cousins web consultancy Jason Cohen on consultancy math Business of Software conference - Go, it’s awesome

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about not being able to remember anything that happened before today, Ian's rules for the practical entrepreneur, having so many products that you can't list them all, entering a fragmented market, preferring B2B, The Pivot, Andrey not having any kind of strategy for choosing which products to make, damned phones, when selling to a business is not really selling to a business, clear and simple revenue model, bridging the internet world with the real world, not using your own products, doing support, how recent the 90's were, dealing with criticism, competitors who are clearly doing it wrong, Steve Jobs being brilliant at what he does, customers not caring about which technology you use, being the perfect developer for your own company, bootstrapping a company when you have kids, the sense of being continuously rushed, BioIsChanged.com, DAS Keyboard, and customer-hosted vs. SaaS. Links: Ian's 4 Rules for the Practical Entrepreneur $10,000 - Ian's sale numbers from the early days of selling Helpspot. A partial list of Andrey's products - including the early ones like Printer Friendly, Chinchilla, and Asteroid Jane. Uberdeck - Andrey's upcoming product. Pixelmator, and Acorn - Photoshop competitors on the Mac. Pivoting, as a company strategy. Authorize.NET, Stripe, and Square - payment processing. Hubspot - marketing Seamless Web - online food ordering. Patrick McKenzie's Appointment Reminder Let's Take This Offline - Joel Spolsky quits blogging. Dave Winer - interviews here and here. Steve Jobs Insult Response Ian choosing a development stack for Helpspot. John Carmack Eric Barnes, and his talk. Ethan - Andrey's son. Tyler - Ian's first child. 37signals on interruptions Jim Gaffigan (comedian) BioIsChanged.com DAS Keyboard OpenSourceHelpdeskList.com Amy Hoy's TwiStory Fogcreek's FogBugz Snappy - Ian's latest product. GitHub's enterprise version  

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about software version numbers, SaaS apps, hiring, modern web application development, server hosting, what to do with old servers, monitors and hard drives, doing what it takes to fund your business, Andrey's psychological state, physical world products vs software. Links: Eric Barnes - Laracon 2013 talk Laravel - The awesome PHP framework CodeIgniter BackBone - JS front end framework Coffeescript - A little language that compiles to JavaScript LESS - The only way to write CSS EngineHosting - Sweet VPS based hosting solution Linode - Linux VPS provider Hard drive station - Find a use for those old hard drives Are You Serious About Starting a Business - Ian's blog post on selling his car to fund UserScape Creating a Business Logo - Ian's blog post on creating the UserScape and HelpSpot logo's Impostor Syndrome - A psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments Antair Spam Filter - Andrey's spam filter product Interview with Jason Cohen - talks about tons of useful things including cancellations we reference in the podcast QLab - Live show controls for OSX FogBugz - Bug tracking The Business of Software Forums - Joel Spolsky forum site where a lot of us got our start Lollipop Sticks - Andrey on physical products Swamp Loggers Snappy - Ian's latest product. Uberdeck - the product Andrey is currently working on.  

Two software companies, Userscape, founded in 2004, and Antair, founded in 2005. Both companies, bootstrapped and profitable. Join Ian and Andrey, the founders, as they share their experiences in running their companies. Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about running a web-app company vs. running a mobile-app company, having one large product vs. many smaller products, starting out by making products 'because you can', instead of products that have a market, SaaS and recurring revenue, Enron email and spam filters, how the iPhone almost brought down Andrey's company, planning vs. falling into it, being late to the SaaS party, installable software and support, B2B vs. B2C, and things that seemed exciting in the first year of running a software company, but are a chore to do 9 years later.