John Reynolds and Kevin Marshall host Dads with Startups podcast where they discuss balancing family with bootstrapping their software as a service businesses.
John Reynolds & Kevin Marshall
John and Kevin talk about using their delicate hands to work on their homes or yards. They also discuss tax planning, and different ways to structure your business. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John and Kevin get real by confronting their values. Are they really putting family first? What do they need to be doing differently to make sure they abide by their family-first values? John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John and Kevin recap what's been on their mind for the past few weeks. John has had some vacations and has been traveling a lot for conferences. Kevin is so close to finally releasing his customer-demanded quiz feature. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses. After John regains his internet, he discusses what makes for good swag at conferences John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John discusses his upcoming vacation to Mexico for some needed R&R, despite rainy forecasts, while Kevin dreams of the day he will be able to do the same. Kevin discusses his anxiety about not deploying a recent to Owwlish and John provides reassurance on how common this is in SAAS. John discusses his upcoming conference schedule and his hopes to gain more customers through this important marketing funnel. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
Kevin and John discuss the state of AI. Kevin discusses prioritizing feature requests as he talked to users. John shares some of his quarterly rocks and goals for Q3. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John and Kevin discuss inbound leads and SEO. John has seen an influx in inbound leads without doing any SEO work, and Kevin shares his process for creating content. They also discuss developer pipelines and deployment. ------ John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John's family is continuing to deal with sick kids and constant sports. He also gave himself a raise, which his wife is thrilled about. Kevin had quite the scare when his domain was flagged for phishing. He's been working on integrations with 3rd party website providers, and self-serve signup has been going well. Keven is thinking about dropping his freemium plan. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John is wayyy stressed out and behind on work. He needs to figure out how to manage his time better and improve his focus. Kevin suggested "snake oil" juice - hey, it's the results we care about, right? Kevin had a good run updating his web app and fixing annoying bugs. He's trying to figure out which app stores he can get into and is having challenges with that. He also discusses conversion funnels and customer onboarding. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John shares his takeaways from Microconf Growth, Kevin shares his methods for content creation. They both discuss customer interviews and customer feedback. Things mentioned: - April Dunford's Book: Obviously Awesome - MicroConf Growth '22 John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
Kevin and John share recent vacations: Tennis and Disneyland. John shares recent hiring developments, also his Wordpress site was hacked so he switched to Webflow. Kevin has launched self-serve signups and is working on building out a partnership with Webflow for his courseware plugin. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
Kevin has been having a lot of success with demos. Self signup is not quite ready but he's getting close. John is still hiring, and swamped in the meantime. They both talk about hosting communities or masterminds for their users. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John is still spending all his time hiring. Kevin is dealing with feature requests from early users. They discuss how to prioritize tasks. John suggests using the Eisenhower effort vs impact matrix for choosing what kinds of features to build. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John and Kevin recap Christmas with their families. John went Christmas shopping and accidentally bought a couple mountain bikes. Kevin is working toward launching self-serve sign ups, and building relationships with partners and affiliates. They discuss payments and hiring. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John reports on his first TinySeed retreat. Kevin talks about marketing efforts for his new product Owlish. Also, John has poor internet from where he's broadcasting - sorry! John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
Kevin and John talk about selling/buying homes, customer service, and customer satisfaction surveys. They discuss handling customer feedback and how it motivates them. They also discuss the NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey, as well as the product-market fit survey. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses. Mentioned: https://delighted.com/ https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit
In this episode John announces that his company Civic Review has joined the TinySeed accelerator program. Kevin and John discuss the differences between bootstrapping a company and raising VC money. Kevin has been experimenting with pricing for his Wordpress plugins. Also, both founders are buying or selling houses - so that's fun :) John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
Kevin shares goals and inspirations that have come out of his conference in Mexico. John is facing a new challenge of bringing the business into Canada. They discuss how to manage other hobbies when you have young families and running a business. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John talks about redefining his new customer processes, and Kevin talks about his goals for optimizing his website. Then they both share their experiences with budgeting - both personal and professional. It's easy to be motivated to budget when times are tough, but hard when things are fine and dandy. John talks about the importance of forecasting - especially when revenue is not consistent month-to-month. John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses.
John and Kevin are a couple of Dads who are figuring out how to be both successful business owners as well as successful fathers and spouses. In this episode, we discuss how important customer development is to any dad-founder ready to start a SAAS or any other type of entrepreneurial endeavor.
John and Kevin talk about life before becoming entrepreneurs. How they decided to start. Kevin talks about quitting the corporate gig. John talks about finding a path through freelancing.