Episode 500

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Entrepreneurship, Management, Business, Marketing

4.9 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is a big milestone episode for Startups for the Rest of Us. Episode 500. Since the very first episode nearly a decade ago we've had more than 10 million downloads, answered more than 1,500 listener questions, and shared more than 292 hours of startup content. Over the years, this podcast has developed a particular lens through which we view building and growing startups. We've focused on: Maintaining freedom, purpose, and relationships throughout the journey Diving deep into topics relating to building and growing startups, using an ambitious yet sane approach. Thinking in years, not months Not talking about the typical Silicon Valley startups (where fundraising is a goal in and of itself) Building real companies with real customers who pay us real money Not sacrificing our health or our relationships As we look to 1,000 episodes and beyond, we decided to highlight the stories from the community as they share how the past 500 episodes have made an impact on their path to starting and growing successful (and sane) startups. The cache of stories, lessons, real heartfelt moments are what really keep me coming back to Startups for the Rest of Us and why I recommend it to so many people. It's not just one particular episode or one particular lesson, it's the complete story arc of Rob, Mike, the team, and what they've built. It's an exciting time to be a small part of this journey. — Matt Medeiros Building a self-funded startup on the internet doesn't have to be complicated. We're making a thing, we're solving a problem. We're selling our solution to customers. Rinse and repeat. The more attempts at doing that, the more that we're going to learn and the more mistakes that we'll make, the more wins that we'll have. — Brian Casel What we discuss 2:26 - Launching MicroConf from the podcast 4:11 - The many types of episodes we've tried 7:18 - Why we think the show has worked 9:49 - How you can support the show 11:22 - Ian and Dan (Tropical MBA podcast) on the importance of the stairstep approach 13:33 - Ben Orenstein (Art of Product podcast) on the value of consistency 14:13 - Matt Medeiros (Matt Report podcast) says this podcast is the startup single source of truth 16:42 - Brian and Benedikt (Slow & Steady podcast) on small continuous progress over time 19:50 - Adrian Rosebrock (Listener) 20:16 - Jordan Gal (Bootstrapped Web podcast) speaks to the importance of perseverance 21:57 - Andy Baldacci (Effective Founder podcast) shares his experience with the stairstep approach 26:48 - Brian Casel (Bootstrapped Web podcast) on knowing there are "others just like me" 28:52 - Matt & Peter (Out of Beta podcast) on how they feel connected to the community 32:58 - Alvin (listener) loves the actionable, specific, and realistic feedback 34:58 - Shawn DeWolfe (Shawn DeWolfe Consulting) on how entrepreneurship feels attainable because of the podcast Links from the show: What is a Micropreneur | Episode 1 MicroConf The Stairstep Approach to Bootstrapping | robwalling.com...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this week's episode of Startups for the Rest of us. I'm your host, Rob Walling. This is
0:04.2	episode 500. On this show, we have a particular lens through which we view building and growing
0:10.1	startups. We dive deep into topics relating to building and growing startups using an ambitious
0:15.2	yet a sane approach. We're not willing to sacrifice our health or our relationships. And we think in
0:20.7	terms of years, not months. On startups for the rest of us, we're not talking to sacrifice our health or our relationships. And we think in terms of years, not months.
0:22.2	On startups for the rest of us, we're not talking about the typical Silicon Valley startups
0:25.5	where fundraising is a goal in itself and where people build slide decks instead of building
0:30.7	businesses.
0:31.4	We want to build real companies with real customers who pay us real money.
0:36.1	And the things we've espoused for the past 499 episodes
0:39.1	are things like freedom, purpose, and relationship. I could obviously go deeper into all those
0:44.0	topics, but really that's a pretty good summary of what startups for the rest of us is all about.
0:48.3	That's the lens through which we view startups. It's fascinating to be recording this episode.
0:53.7	Our first episode was March 30th of 2010,
0:56.7	which is just more than a decade ago. And it's honestly hard for me to even wrap my head around
1:02.4	500 episodes, more than 10 million downloads. And the journey that I've traveled and that
1:09.6	Mike Tabor traveled, Mike was my co-host through the first
1:12.4	448 episodes, for me, when we started this podcast, I hadn't written my book. We hadn't started
1:19.2	microconf. I owned a small portfolio of products that made me about 120, $150,000 a year and basically
1:26.3	provided me with a full-time income and I barely
1:28.7	worked at the time I was trying to do the four-hour work week and I had about 10 months where I
1:32.9	worked about 10 to 12 hours a week and we had our second son and I really enjoyed spending time
	...

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