This is the archive of Bootstrapped.fm. A seminal Bootstrapper-oriented podcast started in 2013 by Ian Landsman and Andrey Butov. The first iteration ran for 104 episodes. In 2019, Steve McLeod took over for another 139 episodes. We've set this podcast to release order so you can experience it as it was initially presented.
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March 19, 2013Episode 143 min
#1: Bootstrapped and Profitable
In this episode, 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. 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.
March 25, 2013Episode 257 min
#2: Lollipop Sticks
In this episode, 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.
March 31, 2013Episode 31 hr 28 min
#3: Pivoting all over the place
In this episode, 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
April 10, 2013Episode 41 hr 21 min
#4: The customer is seldom right
In this episode, 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
April 17, 2013Episode 51 hr 38 min
#5: Let’s all go to the movies!
In this episode, Ian and Andrey talk about a gauntlet of client work, consulting, competitors, talking about your product early, stock options and bonuses, a little bit on wall street programming, hiring, contributing to open source, life after programming, and movies! Links: Bitsplitting Podcast – episode 2, with Erika Hall of Mule Design Studio . Shipping an Empty Box – Andrey’s blog post about supporting large companies. Helpspot – Ian’s product. Snappy – Ian’s newest product. Uberdeck – Andrey’s upcoming product. Snappy on Dribble Bill Cosby, “Himself” – full stand-up special Code Rush – full documentary Jamie Zawinski Viola web browser Eric Sink – wrote the browser that eventually became Internet Explorer DNA Lounge – nightclub owned by Jamie Zawinski DNA Pizza – pizza joint owned by Jamie Zawinski The Living Room in NYC Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee – Seinfeld’s online show Startup.com – full movie 12 Weeks with Geeks – full movie Pirates of Silicon Valley – full movie Triumph of the Nerds, Part I , Part II , Part III – full documentary in 3 parts. Good Eats Bill Nye the Science Guy John Carmack’s QuakeCon 2012 Keynote – full video Swamp Loggers Wall Street Scarface The Godfather The Matrix Mad Men Breaking Bad Grand Theft Auto Scarface video game Euro Truck Simulator Game Dev Story , an iPhone game where you run a game software company Whites Black Books DeviantArt PasteVault – Ian’s open source project. Laravel Kudos – Ian’s open source blog engine TurnJS – Javascript library Packery – Javascript library Tipped – Javascript component Highcharts – Javascript library id source code Dave Winer
April 23, 2013Episode 61 hr 32 min
#6: Authorize This
In this episode, Ian and Andrey discuss screen real estate, hiring a part time developer, Apple II parts, a segment which went way too long on Authorize.net, funding open source projects and code naming. See Andrey’s setup Divvy – Mac windows manager Antair part time developer position – 20-30 hours a month Hacker News – Hacker New Popular Twitter stream Vienna RSS – Andrey’s choice for a Mac desktop RSS reader Dave Winer discusses the concept of a River of News – (audio) Temperature in David Letterman’s studio is 58 degrees ( ref ) Apple II store – This is awesome Wall-E Description of Andrey’s first app – sadly no actual zip provided Authorize.net – (please use Stripe or other modern solutions) Merchant Accounts Stripe Brian Kernighan’s “Advanced Programming Techniques” PasteVault.com – expiring text/passwords Gittip Info on Shareware , for you kids OpenJDK – open source Java Go to UberDeck and sign up for the beta Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
April 30, 2013Episode 71 hr 9 min
#7: Just wasting my time!
In this episode, Ian and Andrey discuss the Apple app store release process, making video games for a living, people and companies that “get it”, fonts for web development, trademarks and names, Helvetica – Documentary about the typeface (and design, in general). Indie Game the Movie – Documentary that follows several indie game developers. What Now podcast – Gavin’s and Andrey’s podcast about making mobile apps for a living. Typography.com – the site Andrey was referring to when he mentioned “ typeface.com ” in the episode. Google Fonts Typekit Snappy Focus Lab – The design team behind Snappy. Bloomberg by Bloomberg PasteVault WordPress open source terms of service and privacy policy . Tom Pitegoff – Ian’s (Userscape’s) corporate lawyer. Patrick McKenzie Lean Startup Uberdeck Antair Snippets TechZing podcast Tim Ferriss
May 7, 2013Episode 81 hr 17 min
#8: Bizarro Week
In this episode, Ian and Andrey discuss sweet games, SaaS downtime, UserScape Bizarro Week, Brooklyn, Microconf and more. Bioshock Infinite – Andrey says this is one of the great games of all times with perhaps the best ending of all time Heavy Rain – Another great game Rainbow Six – Classic The Secret of Monkey Island – I assume you’ve all heard of and played this Supervisor – A process control system DB Tenancy Information EngineHosting – Private resource clusters for your big app needs Review of Google Play on Nook Google 20% time explained Fogcreek remote work position Park Slope, Brooklyn Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn Setting up an office for a software company – Details on Andrey’s office setup for Antair Microconf – Ian will eventually make it to this conference Summary of Jason Cohen Microconf 2013 talk Microconf take away summary Jason Cohen: Bootstrapped CPC rule of thumb: MRR/25 – Interesting article on how to determine what you should be willing to bid for your cost per click ads
May 22, 2013Episode 91 hr 20 min
#9: Uberdeck
In this episode, which Ian and Andrey discuss Uberdeck, system administration, pricing strategies, news coverage for startups, Jeff Atwood, Trello, and Snappy. Uberdeck – Andrey’s latest project Alwin Hoogerdijk (collectorz.com) – on email marketing Campaign Monitor – email campaign service DNS Made Easy – DNS service Amazon Route 53 – DNS service Linode – hosting for Uberdeck Trello – project management Coding Horror – Jeff Atwood’s blog Amazon SQS – hosted message queue service EngineHosting – hosting for Snappy Snappy – Ian’s latest product PG Experts – PostgreSQL expert services BugSnag – real-time bug intelligence AsyncHttp – HTTP library for Android James Smith – creator of BugSnag and AsyncHttp for Android. Discourse – Jeff Atwood’s forum software Eric Sink – on the business of software
June 5, 2013Episode 101 hr 18 min
#10: Gymboree
We go over the launch of Snappy, the Laravel 4 release, taking care of kids and kid gym options, Bootstrap conferences, app metrics and Infoproducts! Snappy goes live Eric Sink on pricing Laravel 4 – THE PHP framework Laravel three docs DNL Omnimedia Cogeian The Little Gym Gymboree Imitation Gruel – Andrey referenced this, check it out JDate BaconBizConf – Original announcement Bidsketch Dribbble Focus Lab SmoothMouse Beach Haven, NJ Kissmetrics Mixpanel – recommended So You Want To Be a Wall Street Programmer Authority by Nathan Barry
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