Rogue Startups
215 episodes - English - Latest episode: 18 days ago - ★★★★★ - 19 ratingsOn Rogue Startups we share the journey of startup founders as they're growing their businesses. We feature experts in the fields of sales, marketing, and product development to hear how they're growth hacking their productized services and SaaS products. If you're on the journey of an entrepreneur then tune and hear how we're tackling some of the same obstacles you may be facing, and how we're winning in the game of business. Listeners of Startups for the Rest of Us, My First Million, Mixergy, and Bootstrapped Web will love checking out our show.
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Episodes
RS307: Doing Less and Doing It Better
April 10, 2024 07:00 - 18 minutes - 45.6 MBLearning valuable lessons on your journey to success can take a while. Today, Craig shares his insights on this topic as it correlates to Castos and to his goal of creating 200 episodes in 2024. (Spoiler alert: things are going well for him.) Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to say no to something. ... Read more
RS306: YouTube Growth Secrets w/ Aaron Francis
April 03, 2024 10:00 - 42 minutes - 98.3 MBMaking it big on any social media platform can be an arduous journey. You have to worry about your equipment. What looks good? What content is interesting right now? How do I get people to find me? YouTube has its own brand of problems too. How long do you make videos? What should the thumbnail ... Read more
RS305: Validating SaaS In An Enormous Market w/ Christopher Gimmer
March 27, 2024 10:00 - 40 minutes - 40.9 MBIs there such a thing as the perfect SaaS business? How are you creating your opportunities? Are you focusing on your end goal for your business? Today, Craig is joined by Christopher Gimmer from Snappa and Good Metrics. Chris talks about his path, which led him to founding multiple businesses and a successful exit. He ... Read more
RS304: What Is Google Doing?! (w/ Spencer Haws)
March 20, 2024 10:00 - 45 minutes - 43.8 MBThe world of SEO is changing at a rapid pace because of AI. How can we keep up? Can you still find, generate, and publish unique content online? The answer is yes. Google says that around 20% of online searches every day are ones they’ve never seen before. Here to talk about all that is ... Read more
RS303: After The Desert
March 14, 2024 10:00 - 13 minutes - 31 MBIn this solo episode, Craig talks through a recent mindset shift in the business. Going from Zero to One you need to put out so many fires, and do so many things, and then in the growth phase you’re constantly trying new approaches, channels, messages, and levers. Here in the post-growth, calm phase, Craig’s found ... Read more
RS302: Beyond Content Marketing with Doug Cunnington
February 19, 2024 20:00 - 53 minutes - 52.2 MBDoug Cunnington is an affiliate marketing, SEO, AI, and content marketing expert. Today, Craig and Doug chat about their experiences as founders and with web content, in hopes that they can learn from each other and pass along some tidbits of info to listeners. AI-generated content is everywhere these days. The content marketing industry is ... Read more
RS301: Why Brands Grow with Marc Thomas
January 31, 2024 10:00 - 47 minutes - 42.5 MBOne of the biggest lessons Marc Thomas learned about creating engaging content was the importance of bringing in bits of his personality. Today, Craig talks with Marc Thomas about how he has made a name for himself in the world of content and brand growth. Marc emphasizes what some of us forgot: B2B content has ... Read more
RS300: What’s Killing Google, and Exiting The Startup Phase
January 19, 2024 07:00 - 22 minutes - 26.1 MBIt’s the 300th episode of Rogue Startups, and it’s all about personal updates and professional improvements. Craig talks about where Rogue Startups started and what the future holds for this podcast and podcasting in general. What mediums will everyone gravitate toward this year? Who will win in this cage match between Google, YouTube, AI, SEO, ... Read more
RS299: YouTube Scripting Done Right with George Blackman
January 12, 2024 07:00 - 49 minutes - 115 MBGeorge Blackman joins Craig in this installment of the Rogue Startups YouTube series. They chat about scripting episodes and what you can do to prepare yourself for making successful videos. George has had years of experience working with successful YouTubers who have had millions of views on their videos, in part because of George’s scripts. ... Read more
RS298: 3 Steps To Move Your YouTube Channel To The Next Level with Trent Haire
December 25, 2023 07:00 - 42 minutes - 98.5 MBTrent Haire drops some serious knowledge as he chats with Craig today about the three things that you can do to move your YouTube channel to the next level. Trent has years of experience and has worked with some major YouTubers by helping them go from little to no viewer and subscribers to thousands and ... Read more
RS297: YouTube Channel Teardown with Josh Howard
December 18, 2023 07:00 - 45 minutes - 105 MBToday’s episode is all about YouTube SEO. Craig is joined by Josh Howard, YouTube expert. Josh shares his knowledge about how to rank your video #1, and how to be successful in constructing a dynamic script and structure for your channel and individual videos. He also shows this information in action by analyzing Castos’ YouTube ... Read more
RS296: Creating Great YouTube Hooks with Jake Thomas [YouTube Series]
December 11, 2023 08:00 - 48 minutes - 111 MBToday Craig chats with Jake Thomas from Creator Hooks about what SaaS owners and entrepreneurs can do to catch the eye of possible customers and viewers on YouTube. Jake started his journey to Creator Hooks when he landed his dream job as a marketing manager at a fishing company. There, he learned the most important ... Read more
RS295: SaaS Sales Masterclass with Matt Wolach
December 04, 2023 08:00 - 37 minutes - 87.3 MBMatt Wolach is a genius at closing. Today, Craig gets the opportunity to pick Matt’s brain. They chat about why most people don’t close deals and what they can do to fix that. They wax poetic about outbound leads. How do you generate them? Where does it work best? Not to mention, they also talk ... Read more
RS294: The Reality Of B2B SaaS Marketing w/ Corey Haines
November 27, 2023 07:00 - 47 minutes - 110 MBOn today’s episode, Craig chats with Corey Haines, founder of Conversion Factory. They chat about what it’s really like to be a B2B SaaS owner including how to handle marketing, if it’s necessary to learn the ins and outs of development, and how client work can kick you in the butt so you can stay ... Read more
RS293: The Risk Of Your Brand w/ Ed Freyfogle
November 17, 2023 07:00 - 39 minutes - 90.3 MBCraig and Ed chat about all things bootstrapping, personal branding, social media, and growth trajectory. They also do a bit of catching up. Ed provides a unique perspective on these topics in addition to trying to convince Craig to move back to Europe. Ed is the co-founder of OpenCage which provides a geocoding API (which ... Read more
RS292: Only the Most Important Things
November 03, 2023 19:00 - 11 minutes - 27.1 MBWork smarter on things that really matter instead of working harder on things that make no difference. Today Craig talks about what he has learned about prioritizing, focusing, and honing in on tasks that really mean something. Between his professional experiences and input from his business coach, he’s learned that there isn’t a magic fix-all ... Read more
RS291: Hacking Customer Research with Asia Orangio
October 30, 2023 17:14 - 57 minutes - 133 MBOn today’s episode of Rogue Startups, Craig chats with Asia Orangio from DemandMaven about customer research, marketing essentials, and how to stand out from your competitors. Asia also talks about what DemandMaven can do for their customers and how she gets value from Castos. Not to mention, the importance of clarity, dedication, and discipline. Asia ... Read more
RS290: Sharing The Journey
October 20, 2023 19:00 - 18 minutes - 44.2 MBCraig chats about the difficulties of starting a journey (or continuing a journey) by yourself. Whether it’s business or if it’s a creative endeavor (like a podcast), going at it alone can be hard. How do you motivate yourself? How do you get out of a creative block? How do you convince yourself that you ... Read more
RS289: Where Branding Goes Wrong with Ruben Gamez
September 07, 2023 10:00 - 43 minutes - 99.9 MBOn this episode of Rogue Startups, Craig chats with Ruben Gamez, the founder of Bidsketch and SignWell. Ruben shares his opinions and tips about various marketing strategies, branding, and growth. In addition to talking about the podcasting industry and Castos, Craig and Ruben also dive into how to proactively find deals and connect with customers. ... Read more
RS288: Pointing The Finger
August 31, 2023 12:38 - 7 minutes - 16.8 MBAs founders I think too often we celebrate only the wins in the business, but we don’t take a critical look at how we could actually be the thing holding our business back from prospering. I’ve had a big breakthrough in this realm lately where I’m being open to the concept that I could be ... Read more
RS287: Stepping Back As CEO with Meryl Johnston
August 24, 2023 10:00 - 51 minutes - 120 MBToday Craig chats with Meryl Johnston, founder of BeanNinjas and host of a new podcast The Lifestyle Accountant Show, the podcast that helps today’s accounting firm leaders build successful businesses while living healthy, happy lives. Being able to work less but still watch your company thrive and grow is the goal for many entrepreneurs out ... Read more
RS286: Building A Media Brand
August 17, 2023 19:00 - 13 minutes - 32.4 MBIn this solo episode of Rogue Startups, Craig gives listeners an update on his business, the future of the podcast, as well as his thoughts on how to successfully build a media brand. What is your goal when you post on social media? How do you earn the respect and trust of your audience? Do ... Read more
RS285: Podcasting vs Youtube & Founder-Led Marketing with Rob Walling
August 10, 2023 10:00 - 44 minutes - 103 MBToday, Craig chats with frequent guest Rob Walling, entrepreneur and podcaster extraordinaire, about marketing and branding when it comes to SaaS businesses and podcasting. They also talk about utilizing YouTube as a platform for growing your audience. After writing a book, Rob has professional insight when it comes to writing for different mediums: long-form books, ... Read more
RS284: Next Level Marketing with Colin Gray
August 03, 2023 07:00 - 48 minutes - 114 MBToday Craig chats with podcaster and speaker Colin Gray about podcast marketing, community opportunities, and branding. Craig and Colin share their unique perspectives on the business of podcasting based on their years of experience as podcast hosts, CEOs of successful podcasting companies, and their passion for helping fledgling podcasters make their mark. Besides discussing their ... Read more
Rebooting…
July 26, 2023 16:28 - 10 minutes - 15 MBIn the 8.5 years of Rogue Startups and the 280+ episodes, Dave Rodenbaugh has joined me (Craig) in chronicling our journey as founders and building our businesses. In that time, Dave has grown 2 WordPress plugins, sold those businesses, acquired a SaaS business called Recapture, grown it to go full time and quit his consulting ... Read more
RS283: Team Retreat, Personal Branding, and The Long-Term View
July 20, 2023 19:00 - 21 minutes - 48.5 MBIn this solo episode, Craig reflects back on his journey as Castos turns six years old. He also looks into the possibilities and the future of podcasting and entrepreneurship. What do the next two years look like for Castos? What’s it look like when your business is in its awkward teen years? How do you ... Read more
RS282: AI, Transitioning From Founder-Led Sales, and Productized Services with Joel Klettke
June 05, 2023 13:00 - 43 minutes - 100 MBIn this episode of the Rogue Startups Podcast, Craig talks with Joel Klettke, the founder of Case Study Buddy. They cover everything from AI to full-time employees versus part-time contractors, to productized services. How do you get in the right brain space in order to delegate, trust, and effectively hire people to work alongside you ... Read more
RS281: The State Of SaaS Marketing
May 29, 2023 13:00 - 37 minutes - 85.7 MBSaaS marketing is a difficult world to navigate. How do you evaluate growth in your business? We all know that niching down is important, but how do you know where to focus your efforts? Time spent on trial and error is only effective if you can make an educated decision based on data, but how ... Read more
RS280: Productivity Mindset Best Practices
May 08, 2023 21:00 - 37 minutes - 37.9 MBIs there such a thing as focusing too much on churn? How is your company utilizing AI? What are your favorite productivity hacks? Dave summarizes his takeaways from his tenth MicroConf. Craig recommends “The 5AM Club” by Robin Sharma to the masses. They also discuss conferences and team retreats they will be attending and holding ... Read more
RS279: Processing Brutal Feedback, and Hiring An AE
April 13, 2023 21:00 - 35 minutes - 80.4 MBHow do you define helpful feedback? What sort of customer opinions should you brush off? Dave shares his experiences with some brutal feedback and how he is using it to better customer experience with Recapture. What makes a good virtual assistant versus a great virtual assistant? Craig talks about the executive assistant he hired (through ... Read more
RS278: Switching Cost
March 30, 2023 19:00 - 40 minutes - 92.6 MBDave talks about the complications that arise behind writing long-form web content. He also gives us updates on Recapture and talks about Patrick Campbell’s latest tweet thread on running a business during a recession. Craig poses a question about the increasing cost of Hubspot and the possibility of switching costs. Is Hubspot worth it? They ... Read more
RS277: Getting Value From Conferences
March 16, 2023 09:00 - 29 minutes - 66.4 MBDave and Craig dive into the concept of hiring above and below, creating focus days, and evaluating the value of industry conferences. What kinds of benefits do you get from attending industry conferences? How do you buy back your time? Any tips on how Craig should find his first DnD group? We’d love to hear ... Read more
RS276: Scaled Outreach, Done Right with Farzad Rashidi
March 09, 2023 10:01 - 38 minutes - 87.4 MBToday, Craig chats with Farzad Rashidi about outreach, marketing, partner recruitment, and what Responda can do for your business. Farzad also talks about how to utilize cold outreach in a productive and effective way. It isn’t always about the tools, but how you use them. Farzad started on his outreach guru journey working as a ... Read more
RS275: When And How We Delegate
February 24, 2023 10:00 - 37 minutes - 85 MBIn this episode of Rogue Startups, the focus is on BigSnow takeaways and reflections including prioritizing, delegating, and focusing on important tasks. How do these things differ for small businesses versus big businesses? What is the difference between the EOS role chart versus Dan Sullivan/Dan Martell’s A-B-C task prioritization? Which roles should be outsourced and ... Read more
RS274: Chat GPT, The Economy, and New Realities
February 02, 2023 11:00 - 35 minutes - 80.7 MBChatGPT seems to be on the tips of everyone’s tongues these days, so today we’re talking about what it means for social media, web content, and the podcasting industry. Not to mention, Dave just can’t quit Twitter and Craig tries to develop his personal brand. They chat about the current state of the economy, title ... Read more
RS273: Relentless Focus
January 12, 2023 11:00 - 34 minutes - 79.7 MBIt’s a new year which means that businesses all over are going through the OKR process and the annual planning phase for EOS. In this episode, Dave and Craig talk about how the processes are different for them this year. How do you say no to everything except what you need to do? How do ... Read more
RS272: A Few Year-End Reflections
January 05, 2023 12:00 - 47 minutes - 109 MBIt’s the beginning of 2023, which means it’s time to reflect on what we learned from last year. Craig shares his hot take on the recession and Gumroad. Dave compares this recession to the previous ones they have lived through. They analyze trends from Q4 and look forward to what 2023 could bring. Not to ... Read more
RS271: Long time, no podcast
December 08, 2022 11:35 - 44 minutes - 101 MBWhat is going on with these VC companies? How do you weed out the riff-raff when you offer free trials? Are you a SaaS owner and have you done an audit on your expenditures? Has it really been a couple of months since our last update? Dave and Craig are back with company updates and industry ... Read more
RS270: How ecommerce aggregators are winning the SaaS game
September 22, 2022 10:00 - 33 minutes - 26.3 MBDave flies solo today, talking with Jim Breese of AppHub.com, an ecommerce app aggregator. Jim discusses the business model of aggregation in the ecommerce space, and together, Dave and Jim riff on some email marketing tactics that are uncommonly effective (and still underused by 95% of all SaaS and ecommerce marketers according to Dave). Do ... Read more
RS269: Been a while…updates and positioning
August 11, 2022 11:00 - 46 minutes - 42.9 MBWho are you? Who is your company? Who does your company serve? Positioning is important for a number of reasons. It gives you and your company a sense of purpose and direction. But finding your niche isn’t as easy as it may seem. Dave and Craig are back! Today they’re talking about all of the ... Read more
RS268: Lessons Learned Hiring Standout Developers
June 02, 2022 10:00 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MBWhat is the difference between a CEO’s mindset and an operator’s mindset? What are lessons you’ve learned about hiring good developers? How do you do a technical evaluation for possible developers? As Dave nears his one-year reunion as a full-time entrepreneur with Recapture, he shares some of the lessons and realizations he had learned in ... Read more
RS267: Hazards of Growing a SaaS from Scratch
May 19, 2022 10:00 - 42 minutes - 39.1 MBHow do you take your SaaS idea and turn it into a successful business? How do you build a SaaS business from scratch? In this episode of Rogue Startups, Dave is chatting with email marketing guru, Chase Dimond. Today, he joins Dave to talk about his new platform, EmailUp. EmailUp is Canva for email. He ... Read more
RS266: MicroConf 2022 Recap
April 28, 2022 10:00 - 26 minutes - 24.2 MBDid you attend MicroConf 2022? What is it like to go to a convention after the pandemic? On today’s episode of Rogue Startups, Dave and Craig break down their experiences at MicroConf 2022. After a few years of attending the conference, their priorities and perspectives have changed when it comes to what they’re looking for ... Read more
RS265: The Customer Interview Trap
April 02, 2022 16:27 - 29 minutes - 66.9 MBIn this episode, after a hiatus that was waay too long, Craig and Dave talk about Dave’s recent experience with customer interviews. There’s always a balance between taking customers’ input into your product process and having that founder level intuition to drive the product (and business) forward. Craig gives updates on his bigger picture goals ... Read more
RS264: From Freelancer to Founder: Chase Clymer’s Journey to Successful Shopify Agency Owner
January 20, 2022 11:00 - 31 minutes - 29.1 MBToday Dave chats with Chase Clymer about Chase’s journey from being in a band to running Electric Eye, a successful Shopify strategic consulting agency. In addition to role clarification, Chase discovered a lot about himself when he transitioned from freelancer to the head of his own agency. Chase talks about his struggles, his mistakes, and ... Read more
RS263: New Years Planning
January 13, 2022 11:00 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBWhat do you look for when you’re searching for a developer? Which is more stressful: building a new house or moving to a different country? Are you working on the business or in the business? Dave and Craig are back after a holiday hiatus. Between Dave’s household being bombarded with sickness and Craig moving back ... Read more
RS262: QA and Moving
December 09, 2021 12:00 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBDave and Craig talk about cold calling, AWS outages, steady growth during the winter, and the hiring-process struggle bus. What are your thoughts about living overseas? What are your thoughts on full-time QA people? Do you have any tips on finding gems on Upwork? Do you agree that the half-life of your marketing strategy is ... Read more
RS261: Optimizing Speed vs. Quality
November 11, 2021 17:35 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBHow does quality control testing work in e-commerce? In the podcasting world and with abandoned cart recovery, it can be a hassle for smaller companies. In this episode of the Rogue Startups podcast, Dave and Craig talk about what they do to overcome the challenge of optimizing quality versus releasing updates and features in a ... Read more
RS260: 13 Truths about SaaS
October 28, 2021 11:00 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBHow do you define execution? What are you doing differently than your competitors? Do you think growth stacks and compounds? On today’s episode of Rogue Startups, Dave and Craig are going over Asia Orangio’s essay, “13 Brutal truths about growth I wish every SaaS founder knew.” They go over a few highlights that stuck out ... Read more
RS258: Crafting a better Product Process with Craig Zingerline
October 21, 2021 17:16 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBHow do you play product offense? In the decision-making process, how can you tell the differences between elective decisions and core features? Customer retention. Customer experience. Team priorities. Everything is affected by the product process. Today, host Craig Hewitt is talking with Craig Zingerline about the product process, which is a process both Craigs feel ... Read more