Rogue Startups
219 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 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
RS162: Finding Stability
February 18, 2019 16:19 - 38 minutes - 25.7 MBToday Dave and Craig catch up after Dave was out at Big Snow Tiny Conf west last week at what is now his annual mastermind retreat. They also talk through how to find mental stability on this rollercoaster that is a startup. What things we (and you) do to help cope with the wins and […]
RS161: Optimizing Freemium with Ed Freyfogle
February 07, 2019 08:15 - 34 minutes - 47.9 MBOn today’s episode, Craig speaks with his guest Ed Freyfogle about freemium software and services. Ed is a developer and Co-Founder of OpenCage Data. Today, he explains the day-to-day challenges of running a business and why freemium is an important facet of OpenCage’s success. Topics: Geocoding services and why it’s important to be able to […]
RS160: Getting through the Desert
January 31, 2019 09:55 - 33 minutes - 22.1 MBToday Dave and Craig talk about the difficulties of finding product/market fit in a business. The ‘desert’ in business is that time where you’ve ventured out to try something new, have an inkling of where it might lead, but still have a long way to go before you realize that vision. Thanks to Jordan Gal […]
RS159: Integration Marketing in Practice with Courtenay Farquharson
January 21, 2019 09:13 - 38 minutes - 53.1 MBThis week Craig has on the show a special guest, Courtenay Farquharson from Parserr. Courtenay is a fellow bootstrapped founder who has grown Parserr (an email parsing and processing SaaS app) from zero to well into the 5 figures MRR largely through integrations in popular marketplaces like Zapier, Microsoft Flow, and other B2B connectivity platforms. […]
RS158: Better Dunning, and Changing Prices the Right Way
January 14, 2019 12:00 - 46 minutes - 37.6 MBToday Dave and Craig catch up about a few new developments in their businesses, discuss how they do pre-dunning and deal with failed payments. First up is dunning and dealing with failed payments. Question for you the audience, how do you deal with failed payments after your customers have gone through something like a Stunning […]
RS157: Scaling LinkedIn Outreach with James Kennedy
January 07, 2019 13:23 - 46 minutes - 37.1 MBToday Dave and Craig sit down with James Kennedy to talk LinkedIn outreach. As opposed to the overly saturated cold email outreach many consultants, productized services, and agencies have seen tremendous results by using LinkedIn to find highly qualified leads for their business. In this episode James talks through the process he follows, tools he […]
RS156: How 2018 is Shaping Our 2019
December 24, 2018 11:00 - 47 minutes - 38 MBInstead of the typical “2018 Review and 2019 Goals” Dave and I decided to mix things up a bit here with our end of the year episode. 2018 overall was a great year for us both, but as we gained more experience, and a few bruises along the way, it’s taught us what’s really important […]
RS155: The Product Market Fit Engine
December 17, 2018 10:27 - 52 minutes - 41.6 MBToday Dave and Craig are talking through a session from Business of Software 2018 entitled “The Product Market Fit Engine” by Rahul Vohra, CEO of Superhuman. As the title suggests Rahul has created a predictable and repeatable process around creating (and improving) the degree of product market fit for SaaS products. Maybe the best part […]
RS154: Facebook Ads Teardown with Mojca Mars
December 10, 2018 10:29 - 48 minutes - 44.2 MBToday Dave and Craig are welcomed by Mojca Mars from Super Spicy Media to talk all about Facebook advertising. This is not some esoteric episode with theoretical advice for you. Here we talk through real life examples from Craig’s actual currently running Facebook ads for Castos. Mojca has some great insights for us all in […]
RS153: Lessons Learned from Black Friday and Cyber Monday
December 03, 2018 12:00 - 34 minutes - 32.5 MBToday Dave and Craig talk about their experiences, and those of others who have shared some awesome data, about the performance of this years Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. While it’s important to talk not just about the deals, revenue, and conversion rates the underlying “WHY” of these promotions is important. What are you […]
RS152: What We’ve Learned From Our Failed Startup Ideas
November 26, 2018 10:23 - 57 minutes - 54.4 MBToday Dave and Craig take a hard look at some of their previous failures to try and determine what it was about those once beautiful ideas that had so much potential that ultimately doomed them to failure. The theme for most of these is “no audience, no traffic, no value proposition, no business”, but the […]
RS151: 15 Things We’ve Learned This Year
November 19, 2018 13:18 - 48 minutes - 46.2 MBThis week ahead of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season Craig and Dave look back at 2018 a bit and the 15 things they’ve learned throughout the year about their businesses. Many of these were positive lessons, but some were tougher “learning opportunities” from which we’re stronger now, and hope we can […]
RS150: Avoiding Feature Creep in your SaaS App
November 12, 2018 12:47 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MBToday Dave and Craig are talking about how to avoid feature creep and maintain the core purpose and user experience that your application was originally set to have. Inspired by a tweet from previous guest on the show and host of the Bootstrapped Web podast, Brian Casel, it’s nice to talk not about the places […]
RS149: 6 Questions That Will Drive Your Business Forward (Part Deux)
November 05, 2018 10:50 - 39 minutes - 37.5 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig continue their discussion of the 6 Questions that will Drive Your Business Forward. These are intentionally thought provoking and we hope that they will spur some discussion with your teams as to how you can run your business better and set yourself up for growth. The questions we ask […]
RS148: 6 Questions That Will Drive Your Business Forward (Part 1)
October 29, 2018 13:26 - 50 minutes - 48.9 MBThis week Dave and Craig catch up after a brief break for traveling and conferences. In this episode, they catch up about a few new developments in their own businesses. Craig spent the last week at SaaStock in Dublin, which is a great SaaS specific conference with almost 3,000 attendees. Dave has been working through […]
RS147: What a 6-figure Monthly Marketing Budget Looks Like
October 11, 2018 12:32 - 29 minutes - 29 MBToday Dave and Craig talk through a recent Buffer article that lays out exactly how they spend the $93,000 marketing budget, each MONTH. The lessons here are many. How a company the size of Buffer, currently doing $1.5 Million per month, allocates their resources, and maybe more importantly what they don’t spend money on. Buffer […]
RS146: 10 Failed Startup Stories
September 20, 2018 13:32 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MBToday Dave and Craig talk through a recent thread from Hacker News on a few of (the many) reasons that startups can fail. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18011332
RS145: CoFounders and Outside Funding
September 14, 2018 13:34 - 41 minutes - 37.6 MBToday Dave and Craig talk through things to take into consideration when adding any type of outside resources to your business. Either taking a cofounder to compliment your existing skill set or taking outside funding will certainly move your business along faster, but each come with their own unique set of considerations. Are your goals […]
RS144: The 6 Steps to Nailing your SaaS Trial
September 06, 2018 09:41 - 36 minutes - 34.1 MBToday Dave and Craig walk through the 6 steps to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your SaaS trials. From a great blog post on 500 Startups from the team at Autopilot lays out a great framework you can use to evaluate how you’re currently structuring your SaaS trials, and where you can […]
RS143: Resurrecting Zombie Customers
August 22, 2018 09:57 - 48 minutes - 43.8 MBToday Dave and Craig talk about Zombie customers in Saas. Specifically, how to identify those customers who are not active, how to deal with payments for customers who are not active (and not getting value from your tool), and how to go about encouraging those customers to re-engage so that they will get value from […]
RS142: Freemium vs. Free Trial
August 16, 2018 09:00 - 36 minutes - 34.5 MBToday Dave and Craig talk about the merits of Freemium as an acquisition channel versus just offering a free trial for your SaaS app. Resources ProfitWell article on Freemium vs. Free Trial Phantombuster
RS141: The Four Key Aspects to Nailing Product Positioning
August 09, 2018 13:51 - 42 minutes - 40.8 MBToday Dave and Craig are digging into one aspect of Product/Market fit that is often overlooked, and very well may be the more difficult aspect of that equation. Positioning is the key element to make your product stand out, talk to the right audience, and increase user adoption….but is REALLY tough to get right. In this Grow […]
RS140: Product Visionary vs. Product Leader
August 02, 2018 10:00 - 31 minutes - 30 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig are catching up with some updates after a few weeks off, and digging into the differences between being a product leader vs. product visionary. With summer in full swing Dave has been traveling with the family a bit and is already gearing up for the Black Friday holiday rush […]
RS139: Winning Customer Success with Val Geisler
July 19, 2018 10:00 - 58 minutes - 55.1 MBToday Craig is chatting with onboarding specialist and all around marketing pro Val Geisler. Val was the first marketing hire at ConvertKit a few years ago, and after building up their systems and processes for really scaling marketing is now focusing on providing onboarding and customer discovery for B2C SaaS and eCommerce businesses. In this […]
RS138: Automating Medium Touch Sales
July 05, 2018 08:01 - 37 minutes - 36.2 MBToday Dave and Craig are talking all about marketing and things that they’re both doing to drive more eyeballs to their businesses. Dave is in the midst of some product development efforts that ought to bring a unique angle for Recapture as things are getting into the holiday season for the eCommerce world. Having learned […]
RS137: Entrepreneurial Families
June 21, 2018 09:36 - 42 minutes - 40.3 MBToday Dave and Craig talk about raising kids and living in entrepreneurial families. As our lifestyles allow us a lot of flexibility to moreso “live life on our own terms” it also poses a bit of responsibility to teach our children about things that they might otherwise take for granted. For instance if your children […]
RS136: Nailing Demo Calls
June 14, 2018 11:48 - 48 minutes - 45.6 MBToday Dave and Craig are talking all about selling, and in particular selling on demo calls. If you have a more advanced app, or one with a higher price point, chances are good that you’ll need to conduct demo calls with potential customers in order to close those sales. These are great opportunities for you […]
RS135: Reflecting on Success with Rob Walling
May 31, 2018 08:52 - 41 minutes - 38.2 MBToday Dave and Craig have on Rob Walling from Startups For The Rest Of Us podcast. Rob is probably no stranger to many of our listeners (as it was a major inspiration for this show in the first place), but much has changed in Rob’s life personally and professionally in the past few years. In […]
RS134: Deep Work, Demos, and Magento Acquisition
May 25, 2018 08:40 - 43 minutes - 40.3 MBThis week Dave and Craig catch up on a few new developments in their businesses, and talk about the recent announcment of the acquisition of Magento by Adobe. Dave is just getting back into the swing of things after 3 weeks of conferences and freelancing work. Finding it a bit tough to get into that […]
RS133: Conference Recaps and SaaS Growth
May 17, 2018 08:12 - 51 minutes - 48.3 MBToday Dave and Craig catch up after Dave has been gone for back to back weeks at conferences. These times to get together with our peers and others in our industries are invaluable to those of us working remotely. First Dave hit up his 8th MicroConf where he got some great insights and inspiration. Then […]
RS132: Value Driven Customer Support with Kyle Brown from WPSaaS.net
May 11, 2018 08:00 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBToday we’re talking all about support. And not just any support, but support that actually drives the top (and bottom) line of your business. Kyle Brown is our guest today from wpsaas.net and he’s talking with Dave and Craig all about what it takes to build a winning support team in your business. Far too […]
RS131: Unconventional SaaS Growth Opportunities with Ed Freyfogle
May 03, 2018 09:22 - 57 minutes - 55.3 MBThis week Dave is off at MicroConf and I’ve brought on to the show serial SaaS founder Ed Freyfogle. Ed previously ran a multi-million dollar SaaS business out of the UK in the real estate industry and after selling it a few years ago has moved into OpenCage Geocoding, which is run with a smaller […]
RS130: Recapture in Shopify and Finding Synergies Across Different Businesses
April 26, 2018 08:38 - 42 minutes - 40.6 MBIt’s time for celebration. Dave has recently received approval from Shopify for their Recapture plugin app. This brings exposure to the biggest, fastest growing eCommerce platform online. If you have a minute please go check out the Recapture App on Shopify and leave a 5-start review. Dave and Craig answer a listener question from Paul […]
RS129: Humility, Hiring, Trailer Hitches and being “That Guy Who Buys SaaS Apps”: Secrets of JD Graffam’s Success
April 19, 2018 15:15 - 51 minutes - 44 MBJD Graffam owns several startups all focused on design and technology. His main business is Simple Focus, which is a web design company that focuses on user experience. Today, JD chats with Dave and Craig about his businesses, what makes an acquisition appealing, and why humility is so important to success. Topics: Simple Focus’ customer […]
RS128: GDPRmageddon
April 12, 2018 11:30 - 40 minutes - 39 MBThis week Dave and Craig catch up about everyone’s new favorite subject: GDPR. In our respective businesses Dave is awaiting approval of his Shopify app for Recapture. After a few submissions he’s hoping this will be the one where the app is approved and available in the store…which will create a huge new growth lever […]
RS127: Freemium, Founders taking Vacation, and Customer Interviews
April 05, 2018 07:00 - 48 minutes - 45.3 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig are catching up on their businesses, and asking a couple of listener questions. Dave has been working on getting Recapture into the Shopify store so that they can extend its functionality out past just Magento stores. This approval should be coming soon so they can start competing in a […]
RS126: Growth On Autopilot with Marcus Taylor of Venture Harbour
March 22, 2018 09:00 - 44 minutes - 61 MBOn this installment of Rogue Startups, Craig gets the chance to speak with Marcus Taylor, founder of Venture Harbour. Venture Harbour is a unique business in that it does not provide a service or product, but rather exists to build ventures. Marcus started Venture Harbour, because he didn’t like having a boss and wanted to […]
RS125: Knowing Your Pricing Value Metrics with Patrick Campbell
March 15, 2018 09:20 - 50 minutes - 44.7 MBIn this episode we talk with Patrick Campbell (@patticus), founder of Price Intelligently and ProfitWell. Patrick is widely regarded as THE Go-To authority when it comes to helping businesses with their pricing. The old “Just Charge More” is fun in jest, but you really need to think about aligning the three axes of product value, […]
RS124: The Dangers of Imitating Your Competitors
March 01, 2018 15:28 - 43 minutes - 41.9 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig continue their updates from the previous episode and specifically talk about how comparing yourself to, and creating by imitating your competitors can be a danger. We’re all taught to niche down into a super tight focus within our target market, but there are some dangers there. When you niche […]
RS123: Updates, Conferences, and New Businesses
February 21, 2018 08:10 - 51 minutes - 49.3 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig catch up about their businesses after a few weeks of some awesome interviews. Dave is just getting back from Big Snow Tiny Conf West after a great few days of skiing, mastermind talks, and hanging out with a dozen other awesome entrepreneurs. They had great snow (a few inches […]
RS122: Rethinking How You Test Your SaaS App with Andrew Culver
February 08, 2018 12:54 - 53 minutes - 53.6 MBToday Craig is joined by fellow bootstrapped founder Andrew Culver. Andrew was previously the founder of ChurnBuster, and has since gone on to have several really interesting opportunities in the tech and startup world, and most recently has founded a SaaS development tool called BulletTrain. As anyone who’s built a SaaS app knows there are […]
RS121: Dealing with Uncertainty with Dr. Sherry Walling
February 01, 2018 11:00 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig are talking with clinical psychologist Dr. Sherry Walling. Sherry has been prominent in the bootstrapped startup world particularly in the past few years as her (allegedly) better half, Rob, has a popular podcast in the space and is the cofounder of Microconf. Today Dave, Craig, and Sherry talk all […]
RS120: The Cold Hard Truth about Cold Email with Damian Thompson of LeadFuze
January 25, 2018 12:00 - 53 minutes - 73 MBThis week Dave and Craig are joined by Damian Thompson of LeadFuze, a B2B lead generation platform. In this episode Damian shares how LeadFuze has adapted a bit of a contrarian approach to selling, which has come as a result of extensive testing, and in many cases throwing out the assumptions that we might have […]
RS119: Owner Compensation and GDPR Compliance
January 18, 2018 13:09 - 36 minutes - 34.7 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig catch up on the latest developments in their business in the first few weeks of the year, but also address a few questions that are top of mind for them both these days. We also chat through a listener question sent in by Duncan Murtagh of Vetter talking about owner […]
RS118: The 4 Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself
January 03, 2018 12:19 - 33 minutes - 31.4 MBIn this first episode of 2018 Dave and Craig are doing some introspection looking back a bit at last year, what worked and what didn’t, and how to optimize both work AND business here in 2018. There was a great tweet by Adrian Rosebrock of PyImageSearch last week that posed 4 questions: 1. What went […]
RS117: How 2017 Killed Our Playbook
December 28, 2017 07:51 - 41 minutes - 39.6 MBIn this episode Dave and Craig take some time here at the end of 2017 to reflect about how some marketing approaches have changed dramatically this year. Specifically we ask Is starting a blog in 2018 right for your business? What marketing channels can you start and evaluate quickly to get make sure it’s getting […]
RS116: Cashing Out with Phil Derksen
December 20, 2017 11:36 - 47 minutes - 45.4 MBIn this episode Craig and Dave are joined by their friend and bootstrapped founder colleague Phil Derksen. Phil, Dave, and Craig talk about the recent sale of Phil’s Simple Calendar WordPress plugin to Sure Swift Capital, and how that sale has changed his focus, priorities, and business model. There is much to consider when it […]
RS115: 2017 Review, and Looking Ahead To 2018
December 13, 2017 11:00 - 53 minutes - 50.8 MBThis week Dave and Craig talk through their performance in 2017 and look ahead a bit to 2018. These periods of self reflection are always a good, although sometimes challenging, exercise. In this episode Craig and Dave celebrate some of the wins they both had in 2017, but also where they came up a bit […]
RS114: Rising Above the Noise
December 06, 2017 10:00 - 47 minutes - 44.7 MBThis week Dave and Craig are talking through the recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday blitz of emails, and the resulting noise that it’s created for us both as consumers and as business owners participating in this space. For Dave it was a win for Recapture as the app handled the workload of the holiday […]
RS113: Venture Funding – When and How to take on Investment with David Rosenthal
November 29, 2017 10:00 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MBToday’s guest is David Rosenthal, one of the hosts of the “Acquired” podcast and an early stage Venture Capitalist. We discuss startups who use outside funding and how this positively or negatively affects a business. David started as an Associate at Madrona Venture Group in 2010 and rose through the ranks of the company. While […]