Builders Gonna Build - podcast cover

Builders Gonna Build

Metacastmetacast.app
Interviews with people who build awesome products. Hosted by Metacast co-founders Ilya Bezdelev and Arnab Deka.

Episodes

Moment: Ditching unlimited pricing for a B2B SaaS (ep. 9)

Ben Curtis from Honeybadger discusses the challenges and ultimate success of switching from an unlimited pricing model to usage-based pricing. He highlights the initial anxieties and revenue dips, but also emphasizes the long-term benefits of fair pricing and sustainable growth. The episode details the importance of understanding customer usage patterns and the courage to make necessary changes.

Apr 14, 20254 min

Moment: It took us two years before we switched to our business full-time with Honeybadger co-founder Ben Curtis (ep. 9)

Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood discuss the pivotal moment they decided to transition to working on their SaaS app, Honeybadger, full-time. They share their struggles and decisions around leaving their stable jobs, the financial gap they faced, and how freelancing helped them bootstrap their way to full-time salaries. The conversation highlights the challenges and rewards of focusing entirely on their growing business.

Mar 25, 20252 min

Moment: How we got first customers for our SaaS with Honeybadger co-founders (ep. 9)

Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood, co-founders of Honeybadger, recount their journey to acquiring their first customers for their SaaS app and error monitoring service. They discuss leveraging personal connections for initial testing, utilizing a pre-existing mailing list for early adopters, and focusing on consistent, steady growth. Their primary goal was to reach $40,000 in monthly revenue, rather than fixating on customer numbers.

Mar 22, 20253 min

9. Bootstrapping a SaaS for 13 years | Honeybadger co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood

Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood, co-founders of Honeybadger, share their journey of bootstrapping their app monitoring platform, discussing the origins, growth, and challenges they faced. They delve into the evolution of their co-founder relationships, handling a co-founder's departure, and maintaining a calm company culture while building a successful business. The episode provides valuable insights and practical advice for entrepreneurs navigating the early stages of their ventures.

Mar 19, 202543 minSeason 1Ep. 9

8. Growing your LinkedIn and newsletter audience | John Crickett

John Crickett is the creator of Coding Challenges, a newsletter for engineers that has over 54k subscribers. John’s LinkedIn profile grew from 3k to 150k+ followers in a year. In this episode, we dive into the process and mindset that allowed John’s following to grow so quickly. Do you love audio podcasts? Try Metacast podcast app at metacast.app . Join our Reddit community at r/metacastapp . Segments [00:58] Introduction [03:18] Spending a million Euros and a year on an MVP [05:54] Coding Chall...

May 09, 202454 minSeason 2Ep. 1

7. Jason Fried on building products, calm companies and the Jeff Bezos investment

Jason Fried is a co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp and HEY. Together with his business partner David Hannemeier Hanson, Jason co-authored seminal entrepreneurship books Rework, Remote, and It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work. This episode was originally published on the Metacast podcast, episode 28 in July 2023. Do you love audio podcasts? Try Metacast podcast app at metacast.app . Join our Reddit community at r/metacastapp . Segments [03:17] Introduction of Jason and ...

Apr 24, 20241 hr 16 minSeason 1Ep. 7

6. Creating a niche of your own | Corey Quinn, The Duckbill Group

Corey Quinn is the Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group and a big celebrity at the AWS circles well known for his sense of humor and unrelenting focus on making some good fun of the cloud providers. In our interview, we are learning Corey’s background, how The Duckbill Group got started, and how he runs the media side of his business. As usual, we talked about bootstrapping and running consulting services while building a product. This episode was originally published on the Metacast podc...

Apr 10, 20241 hr 15 minSeason 1Ep. 6

5. Don't do agile, be agile | Co-author of Agile Manifesto and Pragmatic Programmer | Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas, co-author of The Pragmatic Programmer and Agile Manifesto, on the true spirit of being agile (vs. "doing agile"), mistakes engineering teams make, and common practices of successful teams. Do you love audio podcasts? Try Metacast podcast app at metacast.app . Join our Reddit community at r/metacastapp . Segments [10:29] The genesis of The Pragmatic Programmer [11:41] People don't know what they want, importance of feedback loops [22:17] Doing Agile vs. being agile [26:36] Practices ...

Mar 13, 202459 minSeason 1Ep. 5

4. Henry T. Kirk, entrepreneur, ex-engineer at Google & Amazon

For 10 years, Henry built mobile apps at Google and Amazon. Now he is a partner at a software development agency studio.init() . Henry shares his thoughts on using cross-platform frameworks vs. native languages, argues that Apple’s 30% cut of the in-app purchases is acceptable, and tells us how Google layoffs became a blessing in disguise. Do you love audio podcasts? Try Metacast podcast app at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://metacast.app⁠⁠⁠⁠ . Join our Reddit community at ⁠⁠⁠r/metacastapp⁠⁠⁠ . Segments [01:31] Int...

Feb 28, 20241 hrSeason 1Ep. 4

3. Dennis E. Taylor, author of best-selling sci-fi series Bobiverse

Dennis E. Taylor built software for 35 years before trying himself as a sci-fi author. His first novel Outland earned him some “Starbucks money” on Amazon, but his second book We Are Legion made him a best-selling author. Dennis retired as an engineer and became a full-time writer. In this episode, we talked about the parallels between writing software and writing books, Dennis’s process of coming up with ideas and turning them into reality, working with agents, and writing audio-first books. Se...

Feb 14, 202449 minSeason 1Ep. 3

2. Justin Frankel, creator of Winamp and Reaper

Justin shares how he created Winamp and sold it to AOL at age 20 and tells us about his current project, digital audio workstation (DAW) Reaper. Segments [03:16] The genesis of Winamp [11:07] Winamp whips the llama's ass [14:06] Nullsoft [16:27] Winamp as a platform [23:16] The business side of Winamp [24:11] What was it like to work at AOL? [27:06] Why Justin doesn't use streaming services [30:03] Justin's website [32:06] Why Justin created Reaper [35:48] Shipping v1 of Reaper [37:02] Reaper is...

Jan 31, 202455 minSeason 1Ep. 2

1. Christian Selig, creator of Apollo Reddit app and Pixel Pals

Christian tells a story of how Apollo got started, grew and eventually had to shut down following Reddit's API pricing decision. Segments [00:46] Introduction of Christian [01:58] How Christian got into app development [03:36] Internship at Apple [06:38] The origin of the name for Apollo [07:49] Launching v1 of Apollo [13:12] Pricing the app [17:46] Apollo t-shirts and custom app icons [21:38] Adding notifications and being rejected by Apple [26:15] Initial reception of Apollo and building a com...

Jan 30, 20241 hrSeason 1Ep. 1