Episode 708 | Outsourcing Marketing, Competitive Markets, and More Listener Questions (with Derrick Reimer)

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Entrepreneurship, Management, Business, Marketing

4.9 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In episode 708, Rob Walling and Derrick Reimer tackle listener questions about building development skills vs. business skills and strategies for entering competitive markets. They also chat about building on top of AI services, addressing the risks of platform dependency and the importance of managing infrastructure costs. Episode Sponsor: Is your outsourced development team dropping the ball? Maybe you’ve worked with a team that just couldn't grasp your vision and needed constant oversight because they weren’t thinking strategically. Or maybe you ended up wasting hours micromanaging, often needing to jump on late-night calls across massive time zone differences to get alignment. And in the end, they delivered a sluggish app with a frustrating UI that didn’t come close to the solution you had envisioned. If any of that sounds familiar, you need to reach out to our sponsor - DevSquad. DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin America. Your elite squad will include between 2 to 6 Full Stack Developers, a technical product manager, plus experts in product strategy, UI/UX design, DevOps, and QA - all working together to make your SaaS Product a success. You can ramp up an entire product team fast, in your timezone, and at rates 75% cheaper than a comparable US-based team. And with DevSquad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts. Get the committed, responsive development team that your business deserves. Visit DevSquad.com/startups and get 10% off the first three months of your engagement. Topics we cover: 02:38 - Should you build technical skills or business skills? 11:41- Entering a competitive market 21:14 - Building a valuable analytics dashboard tool 29:29 - When should a solo founder hire for marketing roles? 36:29 - The rare skillset of a full-stack marketer 38:18 - Implications of building on openAI and scaling infrastructure costs Links from the Show: Register for MicroConf US in Atlanta, April 2024 Rob Walling | X Derrick Reimer | X Derrick Reimer SavvyCal Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling Devin AI If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

Transcript

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0:00.0	Going from an idea sketched on the back of a napkin to a robust, stable product requires
0:05.8	a wide range of skills.
0:07.7	You can spend ages looking for a one in a million developer who can do it all, or you
0:11.5	can quickly ramp up an entire product team to help you build and launch your product with
0:16.0	our sponsor, DevSquad.
0:18.0	DevSquad provides an entire development team packed with top talent from Latin
0:22.1	America. Your elite squad will include from two to six full-stack developers, a technical product
0:27.5	manager, plus experts in product strategy, UIUX design, DevOps, and QA, all working together to
0:34.7	make your SaaS product a success. You can ramp up an entire product team fast in your time zone, and it rates 75% cheaper than a comparable U.S.-based team.
0:45.0	And with DevS. Squad, you pay month to month with no long-term contracts.
0:49.0	Take the hassle out of assembling and managing a sprawling team of freelancers and work with a group that's ready to hit the ground running. Visit devsquad.com slash startups and get 10% off your engagement. That's
1:00.3	devsquad.com slash startups. Welcome back to another episode of Startups for the rest of us.
1:07.7	I'm Rob Walling and this week I'm joined by fan favorite Derek Rimer as we
1:12.2	answer your questions. Questions from listeners just like you with topics ranging from whether
1:17.9	you should build technical or business skills as a founder, how to bootstrap in a competitive
1:23.2	market, whether you can outsource marketing, and how to think about SaaS pricing when you
1:29.1	have a variability to your cost structure. Before we dive into that, I want to let you know
1:35.2	it's your last chance to get tickets to MicroConf Atlanta. The event is April 21st through
1:40.9	the 23rd. Speakers include Rand Fishkin from Spark Toro, Asia Arrangeo from Demand
1:46.9	Maven, Stephen Steers, myself, and Dr. Sherry Walling. It's going to be hosted and emceed
1:53.0	by me and Leanna Patch of Punchline Copy. I'm also going to be doing a fireside chat with Ben Chessnut,
1:59.6	the co-founder of MailChimp. He does not do very many public appearances, and so I'm also going to be doing a fireside chat with Ben Chesnut, the co-founder of MailChimp.
	...

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