Ship fast(er) with what matters.
Nobody cares about your code.
It’s Mac - and it’s nice to be here.
Here’s what’s in store:
🎬️ Behind the scenes
💡 1 Insight
🧠 1 piece of inspiration
🙈 In case you missed it
💁 How I can help
🎬️ Behind the scenes
➼ We quietly opened up SaaS Pulse to early users who want to try it free and provide feedback. If you have a SaaS using Stripe, check it out and let me know your thoughts.
➼ I’ve been reaching out to everyone on the waiting list for SaaS Pulse, and drumming up conversations.
➼ Had another inspiring mastermind call, going over each person’s unique challenges - generally around scaling, but also focus and productivity.
➼ Had a couple of consulting calls helping people find their focus. It’s amazing how much it helps people to know that finding focus is such a common problem. There are many options and paths for the inspired entrepreneur - which is a great problem, however it makes deciding and committing to any one of them challenging.
➼ Read How to Take Smart Notes, Smart Brevity, working my way through Feel Good Productivity, and taking my time with Rick Rubin’s book, as I enjoy reading a little at a time of this one, and pondering each bit.
💡 Insight
In about 2007 I started building my applications with Ruby on Rails.
Building many apps a year with it, I quickly realized that most apps have many of the same requirements and that building these out was time-consuming.
Things like:
Registration/Login
User management
Transactional emails
Billing
Background job processors
Contact/help
And behind the scenes, there were development and production configurations that only needed slight tweaks for each new app.
So I saved an instance of the code with just those core components, and then each time I had a new idea, I could have the foundational pieces live in minutes.
Years later when I started my freelance/consulting business specializing in building SaaS MVPs, my clients were blown away at how fast they felt progress from day one, because even just deploying my boilerplate made it feel like things were coming to life.
While my boilerplate has morphed over time, I to this day take the same approach. I use the same framework and never debate about what language or database to use.
Meanwhile, as I hear people debating over the best coding language to use for their next project, I can't help but feel their energy is being spent in the wrong place.
Coding languages and frameworks rarely matter - at least in the context of building a bootstrapped business.
99% of the time the best language to use is the one you're most comfortable with.
Ruby on Rails may not be the cool kid on the block anymore, but I've never had a customer know or care what's under the hood. I'm fast as hell with it, it does what I need it to do, and that's what counts.
When you want to focus on what matters:
Use what you're most comfortable with. It'll reduce friction, and you'll move faster
Use a boilerplate like ShipFa.st
You can then focus on solving your customer's highest-value problem
Ship, and talk to customers the whole way
Then, reply and send me the link to what you shipped.
🧠 Inspiration
Here are 50 realizations that changed my life as an entrepreneur:
1. Startup valuation is literally a made up number
2. It's impossible to work with people who don’t answer texts within 24h
3. The internet can be your lottery ticket or your prison sentence
4. If Abercrombie… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
🙈 In case you missed it
💁 When you’re ready, here’s how I can help
1:1 Coaching via chat: For just $99/mo you can connect with me privately in Discord and get help from me along the way, whether it’s about brainstorming ideas, figuring out if you’re on the right track, determining your next steps, going to market, or scaling. The price goes up by $50 for every 5 people that subscribe.
1:1 Clarity call: Wherever you are on your bootstrapping journey, chances are I've been there. I know the struggles and challenges and am here to help through a 1:1 clarity call.
Aware: If you’re looking to step up your audience-building game on LinkedIn, this is a great time to invest in your audience growth.
Tools and resources: A complete list of the tools and resources I use to run my business, and some books that have helped me along the way.
Last but not least, get a free product promotion: Refer this newsletter to 3 people, and I’ll mention your product in an upcoming newsletter to my thousands of readers.
The easiest way to do that?
Copy and paste your unique ‘share’ URL below, and post a nice tweet about this newsletter with that link. 😀
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Have a great weekend!
Mac
P.P.S. Reply and introduce yourself if you haven’t already.