Out of Beta: Recent Episodes
Matt Wensing & Peter Suhm
Follow our journey as we build and launch two startups. Hosted by Matt Wensing, founder of Summit, and Peter Suhm, founder of Reform.
In this episode, Matt and Peter share an update on Summit and Reform with the listeners. They also share what the future plans are for the podcast. Is this the last episode?
Matt feels the effects of going truly viral on Twitter and now half the internet thinks he is a Twitter 10x engineer (and half think he is a comedian). Peter’s Tailwind gig comes to a close so he’s thinking about what’s next with Reform. This episode also brings the current Out of Beta season to an end, as Matt and Peter take a short break. They’ll be back.
Sponsor - Recast
Thank you to this month’s sponsor, Recast, a tool that helps podcasters turn long form video and audio content into short clips for social media, like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Import your podcast episode and select the part of the transcript you’d like to use, then, Recast will generate your clip for you.
Recast are offering something special for listeners of the show. They will make five free snippets of your podcast to the first three people that respond to the pinned Tweet of the Out of Beta Twitter account.
Show Notes Sponsor - DebugBear: Monitor site speed and Core Web Vitals
DebugBear continuously checks how long it takes to load your website and monitors the Core Web Vitals metrics that Google uses as a ranking factor. Test your website for free to get an in-depth analysis with recommendations to make your website faster.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Peter finds he has 4 million test rows in his database and needs to do something about them without breaking everything, while he still tries to nail down how to position Reform. Who exactly is Reform for and how does he communicate that? Matt is bringing a series of bets to a close and making some important changes, such as a move away from usage-based pricing.
Sponsor - Recast
Thank you to this month’s sponsor, Recast, a tool that helps podcasters turn long form video and audio content into short clips for social media, like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Import your podcast episode and select the part of the transcript you’d like to use, then, Recast will generate your clip for you.
Recast are offering something special for listeners of the show. They will make five free snippets of your podcast to the first three people that respond to the pinned Tweet of the Out of Beta Twitter account.
Show Notes Sponsor - DebugBear: Monitor site speed and Core Web Vitals
DebugBear continuously checks how long it takes to load your website and monitors the Core Web Vitals metrics that Google uses as a ranking factor. Test your website for free to get an in-depth analysis with recommendations to make your website faster.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Daniel Zarick’s “Working In Bets” article
Peter reflects on the new integration with Less Annoying CRM, how a potential new Reform website would look like and his plans to double down on SEO. Matt is also seeing how SEO is having a positive effect on his rankings for Summit, while he figures out some more use cases for the calculators. Matt rounds off talking about his potentially controversial opinion on why startups of all sizes should have boards.
Sponsor - Recast
Thank you to this month’s sponsor, Recast, a tool that helps podcasters turn long form video and audio content into short clips for social media, like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Import your podcast episode and select the part of the transcript you’d like to use, then, Recast will generate your clip for you.
Recast are offering something special for listeners of the show. They will make five free snippets of your podcast to the first three people that respond to the pinned Tweet of the Out of Beta Twitter account.
Show Notes Sponsor - DebugBear: Monitor site speed and Core Web Vitals
DebugBear continuously checks how long it takes to load your website and monitors the Core Web Vitals metrics that Google uses as a ranking factor. Test your website for free to get an in-depth analysis with recommendations to make your website faster.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Peter has been away in the States, and quite liked his co-founder Bjorn taking care of support. Matt, meanwhile, has not been feeling much of a spark this week but brainstormed some new ideas for distribution.
Sponsor - Recast
Thank you to this month’s sponsor, Recast, a tool that helps podcasters turn long form video and audio content into short clips for social media, like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Import your podcast episode and select the part of the transcript you’d like to use, then, Recast will generate your clip for you.
Recast are offering something special for listeners of the show. They will make five free snippets of your podcast to the first three people that respond to the pinned Tweet on the Out of Beta Twitter account.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Embarque - Reform's SEO Agency
Matt’s Summit Chrome extension is live, meaning you can now get a calculator in just a click, and so he’s exploring new calculators to use with it. Peter is still sick but is working through it by getting deep into customer research, figuring out the best customers for Reform. Both Matt and Peter have horizontal products, so they discuss how this both helps and hinders them
Sponsor
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Matt’s Chrome extension
After a brief break, Matt and Peter are back with the maker manager format. Matt’s been building more calculators for Summit while kicking up the gears for sales and marketing. Peter’s founder hiking retreat was a success and he is now instrategic thinking mode. What’s next for Reform?
Sponsor
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Caleb's Notes On Work where he talks about Peter's headless video
- Bob Moesta's Circuit Breaker podcast
This week, Peter is sick, but shows up to record the pod and talk Reform integrations, including one upcoming with Less Annoying CRM. Not being at 100% highlights why having a good cofounder can make a big difference. Matt is in the final stages of getting his Summit Chrome extension live, so is figuring out how he gets distribution for the app, which will include a Summit Free Calculator marketplace.
Sponsor
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Listen to the Eduflow story here:
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- The Unbundling of Zapier article
- Startup to Last episode
This week, Matt is working like a mad scientist to build a Chrome extension that will essentially eliminate onboarding for new Summit calculator users. Peter is running on low sleep, which is causing a bit of a creative bottleneck for Reform. He wants to keep the momentum after Reform's recent marketing wins and is sponsoring three newsletters in one week.
Sponsor
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
This is the third part of three, where we tell the story about Eduflow. It's a crazy startup story with many unexpected twists and turns. If you like startups, you'll enjoy this one.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Matt has recently been focusing on top of funnel traffic for Summit and his free example calculators have been doing that very job. He’s on the look out for more ideas (like the FIRE calculator). Peter is trying to figure out how to fix Reform’s growth plateau. It seems launching a few new features and a discounted annual deal has got things moving in the right direction.
Sponsor
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
It’s been a big launch week for Matt and Peter. Matt launched the new version of Summit with its new positioning, along with a different approach to their pricing model (goodbye unlimited freemium, hello usage-based). Peter has also been busy with Reform, shipping a host of new features that should take the product to the next level. Saving progress, CRM integrations and more means Reform can compete with the incumbents, while maintaining the minimalist aesthetic.
Sponsor
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Links
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Acquired.fm Amazon episode
- Project Kamp YouTube
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Matt and the Summit team have soft launched the new Summit website and the reception has been very positive. Besides getting ready for the big launch, Matt has been busy slinging calculators over the Summit counter. Peter is busy with his two jobs (running the Tailwind CSS job board and running Reform), but him and Bjørn are continuing to build on the momentum they've felt recently.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter is firing on all cylinders while also being aware that he's working more than is sustainable long term. Matt continues to find good traction for Summit's new calculator positioning when sharing the product publicly.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
This is the first part of three, where we tell the story about Eduflow. It's a crazy startup story with many unexpected twists and turns. If you like startups, you'll enjoy this one.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Matt is starting to find serious traction with Summit's new positioning as a low-code tool to build calculators for sales and marketing teams. Peter and Bjørn are having long phone calls brainstorming what's next for Reform.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Adam Wathan's tweet about being the best
- Des Traynor on the 20VC podcast
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
In this episode, Matt and Peter gets really into the weeds after reading Jason Cohen's latest essay The practical application of "Rocks, Pebbles, Sand".
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- The practical application of "Rocks, Pebbles, Sand"
- Part 1 of our interview with the founder of Eduflow
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
The weather is hot in Texas and Denmark, but that's no excuse not to work on your positioning! In this episode, Matt and Peter dive into a relatively technical discussion about serverless and headless, with the purpose of fine tuning the Summit positioning.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
This is the first part of three where we tell the story about Eduflow. It's a crazy startup story with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. If you like startups, you'll enjoy this one.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter's got some big personal news this week that he just shared with his investors and ... Twitter! He's helping the Tailwind CSS team launch a job board for Tailwind CSS related jobs. Him and Matt discuss this move and how it will affect Reform.
Matt and the Summit team have soft launched their big push into letting Summit modellers publish public apps based on their models. The new Summit marketing website is almost caught up to all the big product changes that have shipped lately.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Eduflow (build internal courses for your company)! Eduflow makes it really easy to build out courses and training material for your employees, customers, and other collaborators. It's a great way to onboard a new team member or train your sales team etc. Listeners of Out of Beta get 50% off Eduflow Pro for one year, by going to Eduflow.com/outofbeta.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Matt and the Summit team are close to the release date for all the stuff they've been working on with public-facing Summit apps. To show how powerful the new Summit is, Pieter built a proof-of-concept no-code app in Bubble that is powered by a Summit simulation underneath (see links below for tweet).
Covid finally caught up to Peter last week, but he managed to launch Reform's ConvertKit integration before finally giving in to the disease. Him and Bjørn are working on the templates section of Reform.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Tweet of Summit's Bubble prototype
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Matt is back from France and Peter is back from Scotland. They are both eager to get back to work. Reform has soft-launched their ConvertKit integration and are planning to announce it very soon. Summit is getting closer to general admission where users will be able to launch public-facing apps and calculators on top of their Summit models.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Feature Upvote (Product feedback and upvoting tool)! Overwhelmed with too much customer feedback coming from too many channels? Centralize your feedback in one online board. Users add and upvote feedback directly. Get 20% off Feature Upvote here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Before heading off on vacation, Matt and Peter recorded a marathon Q/A session answering all the questions they got from the listeners on Twitter. In this episode, you'll hear their answers to:
- How to avoid overcomplicating a product early on?
- Has it become hard to start a SaaS?
- How to think about marketing and growth early on
- And more!
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Feature Upvote (Product feedback and upvoting tool)! Overwhelmed with too much customer feedback coming from too many channels? Centralize your feedback in one online board. Users add and upvote feedback directly. Get 20% off Feature Upvote here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Before heading off on vacation, Matt and Peter recorded a marathon Q/A session answering all the questions they got from the listeners on Twitter. In this episode, you'll hear their answers to:
- What they would do differently if they were starting over
- What they would do if they traded places
- How their families view them running a startup
- And more!
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Feature Upvote (Product feedback and upvoting tool)! Overwhelmed with too much customer feedback coming from too many channels? Centralize your feedback in one online board. Users add and upvote feedback directly. Get 20% off Feature Upvote here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter launched Reform Free on Product Hunt and became the number two product of the day. A result that is better than he expected! However, the launch has left him exhausted.
Matt is working through how all the latest Summit updates have impacted the positioning of the product. This obviously has a big impact on the new Summit website which is coming soon.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Feature Upvote (Product feedback and upvoting tool)! Overwhelmed with too much customer feedback coming from too many channels? Centralise your feedback in one online board. Users add and upvote feedback directly. Get 20% off Feature Upvote here.
This is a special episode with our sponsor this month, Feature Upvote. In this episode, Matt and Peter are tackling some questions and challenges that Steve, the founder of Feature Upvote, are facing in his bootstrapped business.
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Feature Upvote (Product feedback and upvoting tool)! Overwhelmed with too much customer feedback coming from too many channels? Centralise your feedback in one online board. Users add and upvote feedback directly. Get 20% off Feature Upvote here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter is optimistic about the early results of his SEO efforts and Reform's free plan, which has started to contribute a meaningful amount of traffic to Reform's website.
Matt has had a busy period on the personal front, but the Summit team has been making some solid progress on the product while Matt has been occupied with graduation ceremonies, family visits etc.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Whimsical (Docs, Flowcharts, Wireframes, Mind Maps, & Projects)! Get started for free. Sign up in seconds and start creating in Whimsical -- no credit card required. Create a free Whimsical account here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter is back from London where he went to MicroConf Local and attended the IndieBeers meet-up. Though the largest Reform customer recently churned, Peter has some optimistic news about Reform's churn. On the marketing front, Peter is working on SEO and an upcoming Product Hunt launch, while Bjørn is building a ConvertKit integration for Reform.
Matt recently shared Summit's new presentation mode on Twitter, which made Summit "click" for several people - including Peter. By remixing some of the existing elements of Summit, the preview mode will soon allow Summit users to create apps on the platform that can be consumed by other end users - and they won't even have to know what Summit is.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Whimsical (Docs, Flowcharts, Wireframes, Mind Maps, & Projects)! Get started for free. Sign up in seconds and start creating in Whimsical -- no credit card required. Create a free Whimsical account here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
After getting slightly derailed by a home construction project, Matt is back in gear working on getting Summit ready for general access. Him and the Summit team has been on a shipping spree and Matt has noticed that more and more "founder-level" conversations are happening within the company without his direct involvement.
Peter is excited about May's SaaS metrics for Reform. He's heads down with marketing and thinking about Jobs-to-be-Done and features that could bring Reform further into the no-code / internal tools space.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Peter's "SEO in a crowded market" post on Swipe Files (requires a membership)
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Whimsical (Docs, Flowcharts, Wireframes, Mind Maps, & Projects)! Get started for free. Sign up in seconds and start creating in Whimsical -- no credit card required. Create a free Whimsical account here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Matt and Ryan have been working on their investor update, including their new positioning for Summit. A seemingly simple question from one of his investors got Matt thinking more about the big picture of Summit's launch and go-to-market strategy.
Things are going better for Peter. Trials are slightly up, and he's enjoying his daily routine. He and Bjørn are almost ready to release their highly requested tagging feature for Reform.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Whimsical (Docs, Flowcharts, Wireframes, Mind Maps, & Projects)! Get started for free. Sign up in seconds and start creating in Whimsical -- no credit card required. Create a free Whimsical account here.
This is the full version of Matt and Peter's conversation about Whimsical. Snippets from this episode will be published in our regular episodes.
Thank you to this month's sponsor, Whimsical (Docs, Flowcharts, Wireframes, Mind Maps, & Projects)! Get started for free. Sign up in seconds and start creating in Whimsical -- no credit card required. Create a free Whimsical account here.
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter has had a rough week with illness, broken Redis servers, and a toddler starting daycare. He and Bjørn finally were able to say "Bye, Redis" and rely on a simpler, more stable setup for the Reform queue infrastructure. On the business front, Peter is heads down with marketing where he's working on SEO and an upcoming ConvertKit integration.
Matt and the Summit team are taking some time to rethink how the new positioning for Summit is reflected in the product. They are working on a new big release where Summit will have its own version control tooling that opens up a lot of new opportunities for its users.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, SnapShooter (an awesome backup service)! Listeners get 50% off for 6 months when signing up with the coupon code "outofbeta".
Thank you to our Show Notes sponsors:
Mailman: Make your inbox, truly yours.
Mailman allows you to control who can send you emails, and at what hours. Tame your inbox with Mailman - check out Mailman (and get 30% off the first year on annual plans).
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter is considering starting a newsletter so he invited Louis Nicholls, founder of Sparkloop, on the show to share his knowledge about starting and growing newsletters. Louis previously ran "Sales for Founders" and today he is starting and growing Sparkloop, a tool that helps newsletter authors grow via word of mouth.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Louis on Twitter
- Sparkloop
- Sales for Founders podcast feed
- Send & Grow by Sparkloop
Thank you to this month's sponsor, SnapShooter (an awesome backup service)! Listeners get 50% off for 6 months when signing up with the coupon code "outofbeta". Patio11's two threads about Snapshooter.
Thank you to our Show Notes sponsors:
Mailman: Make your inbox, truly yours.
Mailman allows you to control who can send you emails, and at what hours. Tame your inbox with Mailman - check out Mailman (and get 30% off the first year on annual plans).
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Peter is tired after a long night and day with a sick toddler and after announcing Reform's new Free plan and new pricing. He shares how the announcement went with the listeners. He also shares an akwkard bug that one of his Reform customers ran into. With Free out the door, he's ready to double down on marketing for the next couple of months.
Matt has had a big breakthrough with the positioning for Summit and everything is starting to click. The new positioning sets the tone for the new Summit marketing site and the product roadmap ahead. One of the big features that him and the team are working on is versioning of Summit models which ties into some of the most requested features in the product. Matt also shares how he's thinking about using integrations to position Summit in the market.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Thank you to this month's sponsor, SnapShooter (an awesome backup service)! Listeners get 50% off for 6 months when signing up with the coupon code "outofbeta".
Thank you to our Show Notes sponsors:
Mailman: Make your inbox, truly yours.
Mailman allows you to control who can send you emails, and at what hours. Tame your inbox with Mailman - check out Mailman (and get 30% off the first year on annual plans).
Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch.
Sorry for the poor audio quality in this episode - Peter is working on a new mic setup 🙏
Peter has been listening back to old Out of Beta episodes, to hear his original thoughts around launching Reform. Check the links below to find those episodes. Peter and the family finally made it to Oslo and are back again after a great trip. He's now gearing up to announce Reform's new Free product this Thursday. Finally, he's got some thoughts on a friend's SaaS pricing that he wanted to shared with Matt and the listeners.
Matt is back after spending the weekend in Minneapolis with a lot of other folks from the indie/TinySeed/MicroConf community. He's now working with an agency to nail Summit's new marketing website and he's enjoying the process of outsourcing this project.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
- Big News OoB episode, Branch post-morten
- New Horizons OoB episode, Peter starts talking about Reform
- Pushing Boulders podcast
Thank you to this month's sponsor, SnapShooter (an awesome backup service)! Listeners get 50% off for 6 months when signing up with the coupon code mentioned in the episode.
Thank you to our Show Notes sponsors:
Mailman: Make your inbox, truly yours.
Mailman allows you to control who can send you emails, and at what hours. Tame your inbox with Mailman - check out Mailman (and get 30% off the first year on annual plans).
In this episode, Matt shares some big bets he's planning on making for Summit, including hiring an agency to design and build a marketing website for the product. Peter soft launched Reform's freemium product and new pricing, but it wasn't all smooth sailing.
Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Out of Beta on Twitter
- Summit - Matt's startup
- Reform - Peter's startup
Matt is back from a ski trip in Colorado, which inspired him to model an entire ski resort in Summit. Peter shares some of the work he's been doing on the podcast and gets it on the record that he's about to make a big bet with Reform.
Matt and Peter share some of the behind-the-scenes planning of the next iteration of Out of Beta. Peter updates Matt on the current status of Reform's upcoming freemium version and Matt is about to launch the ability to write formulas based on Summit's simulation output.
With team members taking more and more off of his plate, Matt is able to spend more time on high-level thinking, such as the mission of Summit. Meanwhile, Peter is planning to roll out a free plan for Reform.
Peter is wrestling with two big problems at Reform: The stability (or lack thereof) of their hosting provider and how to dramatically increase the top-of-funnel. Matt is recruiting founders to build startups on top of Summit, using the Summit API as a modeling layer.
Matt and Peter update the listeners on how things are going with Summit and Reform. Reform had its second-best month of trials, and Summit is adding engineering capacity behind the Summit API. Peter also shares his idea for an updated version of Reform's pricing, and Matt has an idea for how to put the "Re" in Reform.
Peter has found his groove at the new coworking space and is working on marketing for Reform. Meanwhile, Matt is working on some big changes to the Summit frontend that will give users more powerful query and charting capabilities.
Common advice for bootstrapped or indie founders is to carve out a niche of the market. But is that always the right advice?
Matt is riding a local high at Summit where he just onboarded his new engineering teammate, Pieter. At Reform, Peter is trying to find out where the next stream of customers will be coming from.
Vote for Reform in the Product Hunt Golde Kitty Awards: https://www.producthunt.com/golden-kitty-awards-2021/no-code
Matt and Peter are mentally already in 2022 as they're tying up all their loose ends from 2021.
Matt and Peter share a quick update from their lives and businesses and ponder the next phase of Out of Beta.
Matt shares his 15-month roadmap for Summit, including some big infrastructure changes he has in mind for Q4. Meanwhile, Peter is thinking through the tradeoffs of losing short-term momentum by focusing on long-term scalability for Reform.
Matt wants to let other people build apps and calculators on top of Summit. Peter is heads down thinking about growth.
Matt and the Summit team just pushed out a big update to improve user activation. Peter is struggling to find time to think strategic about the business with all the noise of a successful Product Hunt launch and life in general.
- Summit
- Reform
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Peter is sharing his experience of being number one on Product Hunt with Reform, before heading off for a short personal retreat in his cabin. Matt is doubling down on activation for Summit, while he plans out the next phase of the business.
Peter has sold two of his products, WP Pusher and Branch, to focus 100% on Reform. Matt is mapping out the first few personas for Summit, as he thinks about growth.
Matt is in planning mode pondering what the next steps for Summit are. Peter is continuing to feel momentum with Reform, even though the road to profitability still feels long.
Matt and Peter are both feeling some momentum with their new products. The two have a conversation about upcoming plans for product and marketing, and how they think about what's core in their products.
Matt and Peter both had big launches in the past week - Matt launched templates and a few other Summit updates and Peter launched Reform, which is now out of early access.
This episode begins with a quick 101 for new listeners of the show. Peter is still working on launching Reform and Matt is almost ready to start charging for the new Summit.
While Matt and Peter completely forgot to acknowledge it on the episode, this one marks the 100th episode of Out of Beta. Tune in for a regular updates episode, maker/manager style.
Matt and Peter are back on the mics to update listeners on their two early access products, Summit and Reform. Matt considers all the ways to educate new Summit users, while Peter develops his product prioritization practice.
Referenced in the show: Inspiring with a Product Vision by Netflix Director of Product, Ebi Atawodi
Matt is dropping Loom videos on Twitter and his followers are starting to really grok what he's building with the new Summit. Peter is excited about a new customer he brought on and is getting ready to launch Reform.
Is launching always just around the corner? Development on Reform continues, as Peter and Bjørn win a new customer for a brand new use-case: customer onboarding. Matt and the Summit team make steady progress and shorten their list of must-haves. The two discuss pricing and feature prioritization.
Matt has a new way of describing Summit as the product keeps evolving. Peter is noticing some differences between Branch and Reform that are making him optimistic about the future.
Matt has been sharing screenshots of the new Summit on Twitter and the reactions have him optimistic about the new product. Peter is tired and wanting to launch Reform to more customers - yesterday.
Matt and Peter are joined by their mastermind buddy, Derrick Reimer of SavvyCal. Matt is working on Summit's SEL language, Derrick just shipped an Outlook integration for SavvyCal, and Peter is trying to balance customer development with shipping product.
Matt and the team are grinding out the work on the new version of Summit. Peter and Bjørn are dangerously close to publishing the first live Reform form.
While Matt is gone skiing in Colorado, Peter gives an update on his and Bjørn's progress with Reform.
Both Team Summit and Team Reform are in full-on build mode. While Peter is overwhelmed with Branch and WP Pusher support, Matt is excited about the new version of Summit that he and the team are working on.
Peter shares how the announcement of his new project Reform went, while Matt has been busy in his newfound role as a product designer at Summit.
Peter reveals what he and Bjørn are working on, without sharing all the details (next week!). Matt and his team are designing the next version of Summit.
Matt and Peter are back after an unscheduled break. Matt has started building out Summit's team and Peter has some big news about the future of Branch.
Matt lucks into a new developer, Giles, to work on Summit Event Language (SEL), while Peter gives some much-needed TLC to his old workhorse, WP Pusher.
Matt is back on the mic and he's got some tips to share about getting back into gear after being unplugged.
Peter is riding solo this week, giving an update on his efforts to double down on a more specific customer segment for Branch.
While Matt is moving into his Texas McMansion, Peter brings on Derrick Reimer of SavvyCal and Drip fame to do a good old updates episode.
- Derrick on Twitter
- SavvyCal
Matt reveals the culmination of his seed round fundraising efforts, and his plans for Summit in 2021.
Matt and Peter wrap up 2020 with final updates episode. Peter and Bjørn push a major update to Branch and place WP Engine into focus. Matt pauses his efforts on Summit after reaching his finish line.
Matt announces the Summit Challenge and several new features. Peter focuses on sales in order to find a high concentration of early adopters for Branch.
Peter zooms in on his most successful customers, while Matt reflects on Stripe's latest platform announcements.
Matt reflects on a recent expansion revenue event, while Peter worries that he got the pricing wrong for Branch.
Peter is riding solo this week and shares an update on his recent customer development conversations.
To clarify the Branch roadmap, Peter interviews WordPress agencies to better understand their workflows. Matt stretches to focus on process over results while onboarding larger businesses. The two discuss pricing on a flywheel.
- SaaS Podcast Awards
Peter asks himself why growing Branch continues to be so hard. Matt is working on cohort analysis and accounting integrations for Summit.
What does it take to build a rapidly-growing business at the intersection of media, technology, and data? Matt interviews Craig Fuller, founder & CEO of FreightWaves, the “Bloomberg of freight”, headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
As year-end goals loom larger, Matt and Peter discuss the trade-offs between investing in building, marketing, and selling their products.
Matt talks with Chris Savage, CEO & Co-founder of Wistia about how the video marketing powerhouse works. From the importance and nature of their earliest hires, to the way the product has had to meet the needs of multiple stakeholders, to the reasons we are all putting more of our trust into long-form content.
Peter discovers a new product frontier for Branch that expands its value and positioning beyond deployment. Matt works on a way to import recurring expenses into Summit.
Peter and Bjørn experience a breakthrough developing Branch as Peter puts his Q4 customer acquisition plans in motion. Matt pauses to consider the path forward with Summit.
Peter responds to feedback on his Q4 plan. Is it unrealistic, or misunderstood? Matt and team improve their development operations to support a new release.
Peter reviews his go-to-market tests for Q4 and makes a product decision. Matt views his work, and the future of Summit, through the lenses of process and responsibility.
- The Flywheel Company - prior episode of Out of Beta discussing the early version of Matt's process diagram
Peter rejoins the podcast as his paternity leave winds down. Matt invests in product improvements for Summit, and shares his reasons for joining Indie.vc’s scout program. Both founders share the metrics that will measure their success for the rest of the year.
Matt sits down with Patrick Campbell, CEO ProfitWell, to deconstruct how the business operates. From team composition to customer acquisition, revenue generation, upsells, margins, and expansion, here's everything you've always wanted to know about how one of the most successful bootstrapped SaaS businesses works.
Matt and Peter ponder the future of the podcast, and the remainder of 2020 for Summit and Branch. Matt wrestles with positioning. Peter selects a handful of customer acquisition channels to test in Q4.
- Intercom on Product: The Intersection of Company and Product Strategy
Matt updates Summit's onboarding to fix the blank slate and move users closer to the free tier threshold. Peter studies traction channels and prepares to grow Branch.
- Tweet: "State the pain you’re solving in 6 words or less."
With Summit signing up its 10th paid customer and Branch slowly finding product-user fit, both Matt and Peter are thinking about their next big bets. Matt prepares to develop the Summit language, while Peter considers a future hire to scale the education of Branch’s users.
As Summit and Branch begin to work, Matt and Peter must remain focused on their next objectives.
While Matt is enjoying fly fishing and white water rafting in Colorado, Peter records with Simon Bennett from Snapshooter. It turns out Branch and Snapshooter has quite a few things in common.
- Simon on Twitter
- Snapshooter
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Branch
- Summit
Peter figures out how to conquer Branch's activation problems. Meanwhile, Matt squashes bugs after the successful release of Summit 2.0.
Matt builds Excel-like charts into Summit and shares feedback from his earliest users. Peter is confident that activation is the zero in the Branch equation, but why?
With Matt almost ready to ship Summit v2, and Peter back from vacation, the duo reflects on what makes starting up so very difficult.
Peter reflects on the costs and risks of his go-to-market strategy. Meanwhile, Matt prepares to turn the ignition switch on Summit 2.0.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit Data Feeds on Loom (Video)
Peter's consistent efforts with potential partners begins to pay off, or so he thinks. Summit v2 draws closer to release, raising excitement - and anxiety, for Matt.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit 2 - Short Demo Video (Loom)
Matt stares down the final stretch of the Summit rewrite. Branch’s go-to-market strategy begins to bear fruit for Peter.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Peter takes a deep breath and Matt's code Just Works. The two discuss the startup grind, getting to critical mass, and infusing delight into product development.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm On Twitter
- Mastery and delight in “How To Train Your Dragon”
Brief updates on Summit and Branch.
Our hearts are with those suffering under police brutality and racism in the U.S. and around the world. #BlackLivesMatter
A couple of ways to get involved and support change:
- Minnesota Freedom Fund - cash bail relief for pretrial freedom.
- The Innocence Project - putting an end to wrongful convictions.
Peter builds trust with two hosts ready to distribute Branch. Matt's inner manager ekes out a partnership call while his maker begins the descent from peak effort. The two discuss the dangers of distributing a weak product.
- Insight by a16z Partner Alex Rampell
- Branch
- Summit
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- "Rewrite!" by DHH (Business of Software 2015)
- Summit
- Branch
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Matt ventures ever-deeper into the forest of rebuilding Summit; a friendly voice challenges the purpose of his quest. Peter celebrates the successful release of Branch's teams feature, opening the doors to his ideal customers.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt nears the completion of the first half of the Summit frontend rebuild. Elsewhere, Peter has abandoned Scotland to hunker down with family in Denmark for a new life chapter. Matt and Peter answer a listener question about the timing and application of freemium.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit
- Branch
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Why $9/mo is Better than Freemium by Jane Portman
- The 7 Types of Freemium by Lincoln Murphy
- The Penny Gap by Josh Kopelman (OG)
- The Penny Gap Revisited by First Round Capital
- The State of Freemium: Reducing CAC by Patrick Campbell
- A Primer on the Whole Product Model by Ravi Kumar
Peter wins the TinySeed #failwhale prize of the day, and COVID-19 continues to affect sales. Matt completes his first week of rebuilding the Summit frontend and wins back an active user.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Peter updates Branch's pricing model based on feedback from his ideal customers. How should he prioritize his time between so many active threads? After his cool-down week, Matt leaps into the fire of a front-end rebuild for Summit using Vue, GraphQL and Tailwind.
Articles referenced in this episode:
- "The Value Metric" by Patrick Campbell
- "Netflix and the Conservation of Attractive Profits" by Ben Thompson
- "It's Time to Build" by Marc Andreessen
Tools referenced in this episode:
- Tailwind UI
- GraphQL
- Hasura.io
The hosts on Twitter:
- Matt Wensing
- Peter Suhm
And their startups:
- Summit
- Branch
After a quiet Easter week, Peter’s ready to work on team access for Branch. Meanwhile, Matt survives an intense week for Summit, shipping a major improvement to its trendcasting engine and updating investors on business progress.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Peter shapes Branch for agencies, preparing to add access for teams, while cultivating partnerships with hosting companies. Matt stares down a week of deadlines and deliverables for Summit, including premium tier pricing analysis.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
After a productive mastermind, Peter and Matt share their goals and plans for the second quarter of 2020.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Branch
- Summit
Peter is ready to get Branch out into the world, even as life in Scotland is on lockdown. Matt returns to work with a roadmap for the rest of the year, and key prospects on the cusp of conversion.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Peter returns to Scotland ahead of Denmark’s border closures. Matt’s family gets cozy at home as schools shutter in Texas. How are they keeping momentum—and perspective?
NOTE: Matt chose the wrong mic for this recording—cave-like audio is the result.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Matt rebounds with a productive week focused on power users of, and new investors in, Summit. Peter ponders the best way to ask for value in exchange for Branch's product partnerships.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Hire a CFO by Jeff Jordan
- Product-User Fit Comes Before Product-Market Fit by Peter Lauten and David Ulevitch
- Mike Maples: Living in the Future, The Knowledge Project Ep. #77 by Shane Parrish
A week of meetings pushes Matt's inner maker to the edge, eager to start a new week. Peter christens Branch's repositioning with a complete marketing site refresh.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Branch
- Summit
- "Investing in Summit" by Ed Freyfogle
Engagement with Summit lifts Matt’s spirits—and aspirations. Peter and Bjørn enter a new phase of Branch’s development, positioning it for long-term success.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit
- Branch
With fundraising behind them, Matt and Peter shift their makers back into gear. One of Summit's early adopters shares their requirements for becoming a customer. Meanwhile, Branch is primed for a major new release to ease and accelerate adoption.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit
- Branch
Peter lassos a new Branch investor, casting doubt on his co-host's neutrality. Branch product development hits high gear. Matt rides a new wave of interest in debt as he begins designing a financial product for sustainable startups.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Debt is Coming to Silicon Valley by Alex Danco
- Is Debt Coming to Tech? by Ali Hamed
The Tuple co-founder takes a break from twitter to join Matt and Peter. Maker-manager updates and a mostly-friendly round of cross-examination ensue.
- Ben Orenstein on Twitter
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Tuple
- Summit
- Branch
Matt has been tweeting in riddles lately and Peter demands a clarification from him. In between his busy tweeting, he's also been able to release the first version of his Stripe integration. Peter is onboarding Branch's employee #1, despite the flu.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Recent investor conversations and product progress help Matt push through, while Peter prepares to co-work in Spain with his first developer hire. The two discuss a pragmatic approach to fundraising.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Branch
- Summit
- "Recruiting and Hiring a Bad-Ass Team" by Mikey Trafton
Matt's December included the acquisition of his first company, Riskpulse. What was it like? And what does this mean for Summit?
- "How We Bootstrapped a Weather Startup" (Medium)
- "Bootstrapping Stormpulse, Part II" (Medium)
- "Buyout gives Austin startup Riskpulse nearly $23M, big backers like DHL" (Austin Business Journal)
- Matt Wensing (Twitter)
- Peter Suhm (Twitter)
Matt and Peter share their goals for the first 90 days of 2020, and how their purpose for starting up runs deeper than their visions for Summit or Branch.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Plausible Hugeness by Matt Wensing
A medley of our best startup advice from the past 29 episodes of Out of Beta.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
As the New Year approaches, Peter tests his ability to recruit talent for Branch. How should early stage companies approach delegation and hiring? And why does Peter think 2020 will be the year of freemium for bootstrappers?
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
The bell of a self-service cash register rings as the fog over Branch lifts. Could this be it? Meanwhile, after eight months of product and customer development, Matt's ready to place a larger bet on Summit.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Starting Greatness - Mike Maples Jr’s podcast
Why aren’t more people adopting Branch the way Peter imagined, and why was it so much easier to find traction for WP Pusher? Matt and Peter sail into the Bermuda Triangle of product/market-fit and find no easy answers.
- Spotify on MVPs
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
Peter takes a day to reflect on his challenges with Branch and returns with plans for delighting his early adopters. Matt stares down his shortening runway, sparking a discussion about freedom, optionality, and the trappings of monetizing too soon.
- Purple Cow by Seth Godin
- Acquired podcast
- Product/Market-Fit podcast episode on Acquired
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit
- Branch
Matt digs into Stripe and Plaid after a setback with Bench. Peter discovers the importance of Branch's namesake: Branch is for branches! Matt explains how he offers fair prices to early adopters, sparking a discussion on segmentation.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Branch
- Summit
Peter's public release of Branch creates inbound interest from hosting providers, requiring him to upgrade his approach to business development. Matt breaks ground on accounting integrations, while allowing himself to experiment with a new mode for Summit.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit
- Branch
Matt and Peter review the 7 days since the launches of Branch and Summit to decide where to focus next. Peter upgrades Branch's onboarding flow, while Matt measures the number of users at each stage of activation. Matt describes his desire for a shared vocabulary for strategy at Summit.
On the web:
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit
- Branch
Matt's Summit Strategy Must-Reads:
- Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder
- Value Proposition Design by Alex Osterwalder
- Platform Revolution by Parker, Alstyne, and Choudary
- Delivering Profitable Value by Michael J. Lanning
- Aggregation Theory by Ben Thompson
- What is a Flywheel by Eric Jorgenson
- What are Advantage Flywheels by Max Olson
Matt and Peter reflect on their quiet, tandem launches, which required Matt to navigate a rebrand and domain change. Peter looks ahead to a heads-down, travel-free November, while Matt plans his premium offerings.
- Matt Wensing on Twitter
- Peter Suhm on Twitter
- Summit on Twitter
- Summit - Financial Planning Software as a Service
- Branch - Continuous Integration for WordPress
In this almost-live episode of Out of Beta, Matt and Peter recap a conversation about flywheels and business strategy that they had in the hotel bar of Dubrovnik Palace. Why are they doing certain things in their businesses while ignoring others? Where are the leverage points that make their flywheels go faster? On Matt's transatlantic flight, he mapped out all of the business processes within SimSaaS, calling it "The Flywheel Company". Peter wonders if this is the modern-day version of the E-Myth.
- Flywheel Effect: Why Positive Feedback Loops are a Meta-Competitive Advantage
- Advantage Flywheels
- Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
- The Flywheel: An Operating System For My Life
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt and Peter are in Dubrovnik, Croatia, for the 2nd TinySeed retreat and MicroConf Europe. On a rooftop overlooking the Adriatic Sea, they share their key takeaways from the retreat masterminds and give their weekly update on Branch and SimSaaS.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Peter has had a disruptive week of road trips through the Highlands, with evenings of fine Scottish whiskies. A few thousand miles to the west, Matt is binge-coding day and night. Where have the mature versions of themselves gone? Also between them and launch: 8 days of travel to Croatia for the 2nd TinySeed retreat and MicroConf Europe.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Peter has turned his Q4 objectives and key results (OKRs) into a financial forecast and growth plan in SimSaaS. He’ll need to at least 5x his number of signups in the coming quarter. Meanwhile Matt receives an uncomfortable message from Rob Walling himself while on air.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt and Peter dive deep into their decisions to offer free plans for SimSaaS and Branch. Peter discusses their strategy session, and his formulation of his Q4 goals as objectives and key results (OKR’s), focusing on the acquisition and activation of new users.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Peter’s freaking out—how can he really nail down what's working and what's not? Could a freemium model for Branch be the answer? Matt has joined Capital Factory for the second time, marking the end of his pre-seed fundraising for SimSaaS. Matt commits to send out invites to SimSaaS while Peter prepares for the launch of a hosting partner integration.
- Peter on Twitter
- Matt on Twitter
What starting up gets tough, what keeps you confident? Matt and Peter lay out the assumptions that support the opportunities behind Branch and SimSaaS. The two review their progress and look ahead to September.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Conversation:
- Peter's employment creates extra hurdles for landing a flat.
- Commentary on "The Art of Product" 100th episode.
- Reading and sending acquisition signals.
- Branch's 1st hosting company integration (Pantheon) is live.
- Peter adjusts expectations for his developer intern.
- Processes and focus within early stage startups.
- How tools have made company-starting cheaper, more efficient.
- Russell Panella gifts the simsaas.com domain to Matt.
External links:
- Stripe Atlas
- TinySeed
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- What's the purpose of the podcast? How much should be shared? What shouldn't?
- Matt hires himself to do more product development.
- Going faster by reducing cognitive load.
- Matt hires an expert to define communication processes.
- Matt weighs the potential of freemium.
- Peter revises his company updates.
- Peter doubles down on hosting platforms as go-to-market partners.
-
Peter and Matt consider the benefits of a dedicated tool for maker mode. (ex. Clubhouse)
-
Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Matt and Peter mull over the "Out of Beta" name.
- Peter recalls arriving in Minnesota and life as a funded startup. ;)
- TinySeed founders got some high-quality time together.
- The clarifying nature of goals.
- Peter met with a new business partner while in Minneapolis.
- Peter is delighted with a remix of Branch.
- Matt missed the retreat, stayed heads-down on product.
- SimSaaS has a brand new, very short screencast.
- Matt found a new groove gliding between product and sales.
- Matt hired a "personal coding trainer" to help him get into flow much faster.
Related Links:
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- SimSaaS
- Branch
- Peter's vacation skills are put to the test as his excitement with Branch bubbles over.
- Matt's maker efforts are exceeding his expectations after being busy as a manager last week.
- Peter shares his thinking around the nature of a Branch trial and Matt likes it!
- Matt's been invited to speak at the 2019 Business of Software conference.
- Matt shares some of his thoughts on being a second time founder.
NOTE: Peter's audio is not great in this episode (it sounds like he's speaking into a pillow...), but it'll be better next week, when he's not recording from a tiny bedroom!
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
- Brianne Kimmel's request for podcasts
With Matt back from the Canadian Rockies, he and Peter have a lot to talk about. The two share their weekly updates. Matt has been deep in Manager mode with sales meetings. Meanwhile, Peter is starting to onboard a new batch of people onto Branch. Matt also shares some enterprise sales wisdom, based on experience at his previous company, and Peter is making his own olives.
Out of Beta also has a release schedule now and new episodes will go out every Wednesday.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt is still on the road, so Peter invites a guest on the show: Benedikt Deicke, the co-founder of FemtoConf and Userlist. Peter and Benedikt share their weekly updates and talk about Peter's recent experience with setting up Userlist. Peter is excited and Benedikt is hoping he won't be disappointed.
- Peter on Twitter
- Matt on Twitter
- Benedikt on Twitter
- Userlist
- FemtoConf
Matt is off to Yellowstone and Peter shares his updates from the past week of conferences and code refactoring.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt and Peter discuss an article from Intercom about product development and update listeners on their progress for the week (working on SimSaaS and Branch).
Link to article: https://www.intercom.com/blog/great-product-managers-dont-spend-time-on-solutions/
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt and Peter discuss the ways they're asking for money from their early adopters and update listeners on their progress for the week (working on SimSaaS and Branch). Peter's headed to Berlin for WordCamp 2019.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter
Matt and Peter introduce themselves, how they met, and their startups (SimSaaS & Branch), which are are both part of the TinySeed 2019 remote accelerator program.
- Matt on Twitter
- Peter on Twitter