Summary: <p>Today’s episode features guest Justin Jackson, who is building a new podcasting startup called, Transistor.fm, and runs MegaMaker training and books for SaaS and indie software companies. He’s discovering that it’s a lot of work to build something. </p> <p>Derrick and Ben know how he feels. For Derrick, it’s been a fun week in the land of Level. He’s been working on his new landing page and landing new sign-ups for the pre-launch list. Ben has pre-sold $700 worth of Tuple accounts and raised $500 worth of verbal “Yeses.” Contact Ben if you want to be a part of Tuple. They share their ups and downs, fears and triumphs!</p> <p><strong>Today’s Topics Include:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Should I learn more programming? More design? Acquire skills to connect the two</li> <li>It’s easier to build something after building relationships; a personal approach makes you stand out</li> <li>Can connection with core audience become a scalable competitive advantage?</li> <li>Ways to tell your story and generate followers before you have product info available</li> <li>Get your product into the hands of potential users</li> <li>Propensity that you know all the answers, but bury your ego and ask for help</li> <li>Deciding how much to charge, pricing structure</li> <li>You can get people to sign up and get them to pay for it, but can you get them to use it and keep using it?</li> <li>Invest in something that offers a virtuous cycle of revenue back to your company</li> <li>Demonstrate value of existing content; making money and conversions from specific campaigns and activities </li> <li>Fears and feelings when people are not using a product</li> <li>Hire customer support people to reach out to customers and generate revenue</li> <li>Trend is automated software companies, but the most successful companies emphasize a human service component</li> <li>Pair programming always bubbles to the surface</li> </ul> <p><strong>Links and resources:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.derrickreimer.com/" rel="nofollow">Derrick Reimer Website</a><br> <a href="https://twitter.com/derrickreimer" rel="nofollow">Derrick Reimer on Twitter</a><br> <a href="http://www.benorenstein.com/" rel="nofollow">Ben Orenstein Website</a><br> <a href="https://twitter.com/r00k" rel="nofollow">Ben Orenstein on Twitter</a><br> <a href="https://justinjackson.ca/" rel="nofollow">Justin Jackson</a><br> <a href="https://twitter.com/mijustin?lang=en" rel="nofollow">Justin Jackson on Twitter</a><br> <a href="https://level.app/" rel="nofollow">Level</a><br> <a href="https://saas.transistor.fm/" rel="nofollow">Build Your Saas podcast</a><br> <a href="https://transistor.fm/" rel="nofollow">Transistor.fm</a><br> <a href="https://www.microconf.com/" rel="nofollow">MicroConf</a><br> <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonfried" rel="nofollow">Jason Fried</a><br> <a href="https://www.sethgodin.com/" rel="nofollow">Seth Godin</a><br> <a href="https://rightmessage.com/" rel="nofollow">RightMessage</a><br> <a href="https://microconf.gen.co/justin-mares" rel="nofollow">How We’ve Taken FOMO 20k to 80k by Justin Mares</a></p>
