I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society,.
Almost went bankrupt
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A lot of people don't know this about me, but in the early 2000s, I owned a snowboard shop in Alberta called the Real Deal. It almost bankrupted me. I just published a video where I tell the whole story: It describes how I emerged from that failure and was (eventually) able to bootstrap a successful SaaS company. It took a few steps to get there! If you're on your own indie SaaS journey and want a sense of what my path looked like, I think you'll dig it this video. (It also has a bunch of my old clips and photos that I think you'll enjoy). Also, publishing this video marks the relaunch of my YouTube channel. It would mean a lot to me if you could watch it and leave a comment! Cheers, PS: I got a lot of responses from my last email about that revenue-based analytics tool. If you'd like to participate in their paid beta, you can apply here.
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Justin Jackson's SaaS marketing experiments
In 2024, I'm sharing marketing and growth tips for SaaS founders
I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society,.
The problem with marketing metrics is that most of them are meaningless: How much traffic did we get last month? How many TikTok views? How many clicks did we get from our FB ads? How many YouTube views? What was our email's open rate? Founders spend thousands of dollars on marketing activities that produce clicks, traffic, views, and opens – 99% of which don't matter. In marketing, the only question that matters is, "Which of our efforts are bringing in revenue?" Matt Paulson, founder of...
First, thanks to everyone for the incredible response to my Calm Companies essay. It's my most shared essay of the year, and I saw it appear in multiple email newsletters and briefly on the Hacker News homepage! This week I want to try to distill some advice I've been giving to aspirational founders. View this newsletter online Iterating towards success My friend Nathan Barry is one of the youngest successful entrepreneurs I know: he founded ConvertKit, which now has $40 million in annual...
It's been hard to watch the recent layoffs in the tech industry. Seeing so many good people being let go has been heartbreaking. Getting laid off doesn’t just rattle your career; it shakes the very foundation of your life. I've seen friends lose their jobs and go into an existential tailspin. It's not uncommon for them to blame themselves and to feel immense guilt and shame. The experience is especially hard on parents whose families depend on them for income. You can read this newsletter on...