Jonathan Siegel is a buddy of mine who lives in Tokyo. I can’t decide whether I’m more floored by the fact that he runs five businesses at once or has eight kids. He recently wrote a book The San Francisco Fallacy, mostly to share his experience with running software businesses for the last two decades with folks who might be getting a wee bit too much of their advice from Techcrunch. I think this makes an interesting companion interview to the last one we did (~6 months ago) with Thomas Smale, who runs the firm which helped me sell both of my businesses. Jonathan is an operator but he’s also a buyer of businesses, as opposed to me (an operator who recently sold businesses) or Thomas (a broker of them). [Patrick notes: As always, the below transcript occasionally has my thoughts inserted in this format.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: Why folks with successful businesses sometimes sell them (and how this creates opportunity for buyers) Why to make good decisions as a businessperson so that you can make “bad” decisions as a coder/artist/etc How to run five businesses at once (spoiler: put people in charge of the day-to-day work) How two entrepreneurs have found their goals changing over the course of their careers Running A Business Portfolio with Jonathan Siegel Patrick McKenzie: Hideho everybody. My name is Patrick McKenzie, better known as patio11 on the Internets, and I’m here today in Tokyo with my friend, Jonathan Siegel, who also lives in Tokyo. Jonathan is a multi-time entrepreneur, but I’ll let him give his self-introduction. Jonathan Siegel: Thank you, Patrick. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’d say my background is easiest to understand if you really think about me as a techie. I grew up loving anything that had a battery or I could plug it in the wall. I took apart everything, tried to put it all back together, and it rarely worked. I remember when I was 12, got my first computer. It was a 286 12 MHz. Took it apart, put it back together, and it actually worked. That’s back when you had the big cards in the computer with the hundred little ICs on the green silicon chips. Then after that, I got fascinated, and just did everything else that I possibly could... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/05/10/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-14-running-a-business-portfolio-with-jonathan-siegel/

I sold Bingo Card Creator, the business I’m probably best known for, through FEI last year. Thomas Smale, the principal of that brokerage, is now a buddy of mine, and he agreed to chat with me a bit about what goes into buying and selling online businesses. I think it is of particular interest to those of you with SaaS businesses already, but it might also be interesting for those of you who might found one eventually, as you can make early decisions (like e.g. technology stack) which built improved saleability into the business from day one. I’ve previously written about the BCC acquisition here. Note that this interview doesn’t go into much depth about that acquisition per se, partially because that isn’t a new topic for me and partially because I’m NDAed with regards to specifics. [Patrick notes: As always, the below transcript occasionally has my thoughts inserted in this format.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: Why SaaS businesses (and others with recurring revenue) receive a valuation premium Why you should use a broker to sell a business How to start getting a business ready for sale months before the process formally starts How to ease the acquisition process, both for the buyer and the seller Selling Online Businesses With Thomas Smale Patrick McKenzie: Hideho everybody. My name is Patrick McKenzie, better known as Patio11 on the Internets. I’m here for the 13th episode of the Kalzumeus Podcast with my friend Thomas Smale, who runs FEI. It’s a brokerage for online businesses, which I used last year to sell Bingo Card Creator. Thomas Smale: Hi, Patrick. Thanks so much for having me on. Patrick: Thomas, last year, you helped me sell Bingo Card Creator, which was the first business that I had been running from about 2006 through 2015 selling bingo cards over the Internet to elementary school teachers. Do you guys do a lot of work with SaaS companies? Thomas: In the last 12 months, just to put it in perspective, we did about 80 deals, and this year, we’re on track to do around 100 deals. At the moment, around a third of our business is in the SaaS or software space. It’s not all we do, but it is quite a big focus internally. Patrick: Just out of curiosity, what... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/08/26/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-13-selling-online-businesses-with-thomas-smale/

Several years ago I wrote a blog post on salary negotiation for engineers. This probably created more value than anything else I’ve ever written — I have a folder in Gmail with thank-you messages from people, and my running total is something north of $2.3 million in added salary per year, mostly in $15k to $25k chunks. A buddy of mine, Josh Doody, has decided to thoroughly own this area, and published a book (Amazon link) on the topic. I rather enjoyed the book, and thought I would have him on the podcast to talk about the topic in more detail. [Patrick notes: As always, the below transcript occasionally has my thoughts inserted in this format.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: How to avoid the “What is your desired salary?” question How to trade off across multiple axes when doing a salary negotiation (salary, vacation days, equity, etc) How to get raises after being hired A brief announcement: Keith Perhac and I have parted ways with regards to the podcast, amicably, largely due to scheduling issues. Both he and I have been quite busy with business and life, and we’ve moved to different countries, so we’ll be running our podcasts independently in the future. We’re still great friends and will probably appear on each others’ programs occasionally. Salary Negotiation with Josh Doody Patrick McKenzie: Hideho everybody. My name is Patrick McKenzie, but I’m known as Patio11 on the Internet. This is the 12th episode of the Kalzumeus Podcast. Things are going to be changing a little bit. Keith Perhac and I have been co-hosting this podcast for the last couple of years, but we’ve moved in different directions in our personal and professional lives. Both of us have young daughters. We’re now living in different countries. It’s difficult for us to make the time to do this on a weekly basis as you might notice because we’ve only done 12 episodes in something like four years now. We’re going to be podcasting independently. We’ll probably still be guests on each other’s programs in the future as is now, I guess, just the “me” podcast for the moment. I’ll have a variety of guests on. Today, I’ve brought Josh Doody. John is a buddy of mine. We came up in the MicroConf community... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-12-salary-negotiation-with-josh-doody/

Keith and I are joined by special guest Jay Winder, CEO of MakeLeaps, in this 11th episode of the podcast.  We talk a bit about doing business in Japan, raising money vs. bootstrapping as a SaaS company, how AngelList is going to eat the world, and the usual eclectic mix of topics. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: Why you should negotiate from a position of strength and abundance. How to raise a round of funding through AngelList while not being in Silicon Valley. Why AngelList Syndicates are the future of seed stage fundraising. How to manage relations with investors when you have lots of them. How running a bootstrapped SaaS company is different than one which has raised early investment rounds. How the SaaS market is different in Japan. A bit about Jason’s new project, Sales for Geeks. A brief announcement: Keith and his co-founded Rachel launched a new product recently called Segmetrics.  It’s Baremetrics, for InfusionSoft — gives you actionable, one-look insight into which of your InfusionSoft segments (e.g. traffic sources) are producing results for your business.  If that sounds relevant, make with the clicky-clicky. Podcast: Customer Onboarding MP3 Download (~60 minutes, ~59.3 MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Bootstrapping vs. Raising Money Patrick McKenzie:  Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 11th episode of the Kalzumeus podcast. I’m Patrick McKenzie, here with my noted co‑host, Keith Perhac and our good friend, Jay Winder as CEO of MakeLeaps here in Tokyo. Keith Perhac:  I’m Keith. Welcome to the 11th episode. I can’t believe that we got this out, literally one week after our last episode. Patrick:  This is downright scary. Keith:  This is scary. Patrick:  It’s almost like we have an actual podcast. Keith:  I don’t think so. All right. Cool. Welcome, Jay. Jay Winder:  Thank you. Hello. I appreciate the welcome. I was looking at you guys doing a podcast behind a thick Plexiglas window and I think, “Geez, that looks really warm and cozy inside that little podcast igloo”, so thank you very much for inviting me in. It’s a pleasure to be here. Patrick:  We’re happy to have you from... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/02/26/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-11-bootstrapping-vs-raising-money/

Keith and I are back with the 10th episode of the podcast.  This time we’re talking about our wives and kids, how much they mean to us (lots!), and how we try to fit being good husbands/fathers around our mutual desire to keep growing the businesses. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: What Keith has been up to with Summit Evergreen and what Patrick has been up to with Appointment Reminder. How having children changed how we run our businesses. How delegating tasks is key to making sure we can spend appropriate amounts of time/brainsweat on being good husbands and fathers, as opposed to optimizing Nginx config files. How Japan’s poor systematic answers to the question of work/life balance decreases the birth rate here.  (Who said this podcast wasn’t educational?) Podcast: Putting the “Family” in Family Business MP3 Download (~53 minutes, ~50 MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Putting the “Family” in Family Business Patrick McKenzie:  Hi, everybody. Welcome to ‑‑ what is this? ‑‑ the 10th episode of the Kalzumeus Podcast. I’m Patrick McKenzie, better known as patio11 on the Internet. I’m here with my buddy, Keith. Keith Perhac:  Hi, this is Keith. We are on the 10th episode, three and a half years in the making. Probably the slowest podcast ever. I know every time we say we’re going to make these a little bit faster and do this a little more regularly. Hopefully, in this new year, 2015, we’ll actually get that done. Here’s knocking on wood. Patrick:  Knocking on wood. I think we ship products and children about as quickly as we ship podcasts. Keith:  [laughs] Patrick:  In fact, I think that’s almost literally true. [crosstalk] Patrick:  This segues nicely the topic for today. We’re going to be talking about what it’s like to run a business as two guys who are very committed to being family men. Not just to grinding away and burning the midnight oil and the work stuff, as we might have done in our younger and stupider years. Keith:  [laughs] I don’t know. I still do that on occasion, but having a family has definitely changed it. Patrick:  Yeah, so we are going... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/01/15/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-10-putting-the-family-in-family-business/

Samuel Hulick, one of the guys I trust most with regards to SaaS user onboarding, joined us for this episode of the podcast.  I met Sam first when he was writing a book on the topic.  The best evidence I can give you for the proposition “Sam knows more than the vast majority of people about user onboarding experiences” is the fact that he’s written up 25+ of them publicly (e.g. Basecamp’s) and that the writeups are of very high caliber.  Check them out sometime. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: What mistakes SaaS companies frequently make with regards to user onboarding. How to start preparing users for success pre-signup, using site copy and appropriate expectation setting in marketing. How SaaS companies often botch product tours, and how you can make yours serve the user rather than serving the product team. How to use lifecycle emails to make customers more successful. How organizational issues at SaaS companies often directly cause problems in the artifacts given to customers, and how you can avoid this. Podcast: Customer Onboarding MP3 Download (~75 minutes, ~110MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Customer Onboarding Patrick McKenzie:  Hideho, everybody. This is Patrick McKenzie, here with the ninth episode of the Kalzumeus Podcast. Our guest today is Samuel Hulick, who is behind useronboard.com. My usual co‑host, Keith, couldn’t make it today. I moved down to Tokyo recently [Patrick notes: And will talk about that more some other day.], so it’s a bit of logistical nightmare getting everybody together, but hopefully that’ll work out itself over the next couple episodes. Anyhow, it’s great to have you here, Sam. Samuel Hulick:  It is wonderful to be here. Patrick:  I think today we’re just going to talk a little bit about what you’ve noticed in your experiences as a consultant/author on the topic of user onboarding, what software companies typically do well, do poorly, how they can improve on it. Also, on a meta-level, I’d like to ask about your experiences of building up the reputation as an expert in this emerging field of dev‑related... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/10/15/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-9-customer-onboarding-with-samuel-hulick/

I recently met Steli Efti, founder of Close.io, in Palo Alto, and did a podcast episode with him.  Transcript and links below as per the usual. Sidenote: I listen to a lot of podcasts and have been using Marco Arment’s Overcast app recently to do so.  It was the best $5 I ever spent.  Give it a whirl. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: Why engineers speak a different language than sales people. How we can get over our reluctance to do sales to sell more software (without selling our souls). Tactics for getting over the pain of rejection when doing sales calls (and sales generally). How to qualify prospects so you don’t waste time pursuing deals which you’d never, ever close and can instead concentrate on the deals which your personal attention will cause to close quickly. Why Steli shuttered a multi-million dollar consultancy to focus on Close.io’s SaaS product. If You Want To Listen To It MP3 Download (~80 minutes, ~54MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: High Touch Software Sales Patrick McKenzie: Hi, everybody. I’m Patrick McKenzie and this is the — I don’t even know what this is – episode of the Kalzumeus podcast. Thanks for staying with us. Keith, unfortunately, can’t make today. He and his wife and daughters are having fun back in Japan, but I am here in sunny Palo Alto, California with a buddy of mine who founded a company. We’ll talk you a little bit about the story later, but he founded a company, which these days, it’s Close.io, a YC funded company. Meet Steli. Steli: Hey, guys. I’m super excited and honored to be on the podcast, a big fan of it. Patrick: Steli, can you tell us a little bit about your background? I’m more from the engineering side of the house and you are… not. Steli: I’m originally from Greece, born and raised in Germany. I’m basically a high school dropout that has no credentials whatsoever, completely unemployable, and never had a real job in... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/07/24/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-8-high-touch-software-sales-with-steli-efti/

Keith and I recorded a new episode of the podcast last year, but we didn’t get around to releasing it. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: How to pick a small, self-contained product, which is good to cut your teeth on as a dev-turned-entrepreneur. How Keith extracted Summit Evergreen out of his consulting work (improving infoproduct businesses). How to use concierge onboarding to increase conversions and decrease churn of SaaS businesses. That it is possible to build a very successful consultancy without being quote-unquote Internet famous. How to use Standard Operating Procedures documents to have employees do repetitive tasks without needing to actually automate them, while you’re still exploring for the best procedure for completing those repetitive tasks. If You Want To Listen To It MP3 Download (~115 minutes, ~85MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Launching New Products Keith Perhac: We’re started. Patrick McKenzie: Hello everybody and welcome to…What is this? The eighth episode of the Kalzumeus Podcast. [Patrick notes: There was an episode #7 in recording sequence, but due to some issues, we haven’t gotten it ready yet.  It will retroactively become the 8th episode.] Keith: Indeed it is. Patrick: I’m Patrick McKenzie here again with my co‑host, Keith Perhac. Keith: Hello, again. CreditCard.js: A Nice Product, Both For Customers And The Founder Patrick: Let’s see, we’ve got a fun day planned ahead of us. First thing we’re going to be talking about is Creditcard.js and that’s in eponymous creditcardjs.com. Keith: That’s because that came out today, I believe, on Hacker News, which will be about two weeks from when we actually get this up. [laughs]  [Patrick notes: Actually recorded 8+ months ago.  Sorry — life happened.] Patrick: Predictably, just to give you folks an idea of what it is, it’s well executed CSS, JavaScript and HTML which does the standard static credit card form. But it does it well, such that when you start typing in a credit card number with a four, it knows that it’s a VISA and it does error correction and does the Luhn checking in real-time without having to submit it to your servers. This is like every credit card form that you’ve... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/06/19/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-7-launching-new-products/

Happily, there are many ways to productize your relationships with customers or your expertise as a consultant. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: Why vegetarians do not give great advice on pricing hotdogs, and Hacker News comments about the inadviability of selling information very rarely come from people with actual budget to buy information Why having multiple packaging options (for example, at an X / 2X / 5X ratio) increases total revenue from products Why you don’t have to be “Internet famous” to build an audience via teaching, and perhaps use that to sell things down the road If You Want To Listen To It MP3 Download (~90 minutes, ~82MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Teaching As Marketing Patrick McKenzie:  Hi to everybody. This is Patrick McKenzie, perhaps better known as better known as Patio11 on the Internets. Welcome to the, I think, seventh edition of the Kalzumeus podcast. [Patrick notes: 6th!] I’m joined here by special guest Nathan Barry, author of “Authority,” founder of ConvertKit, and a guy who has a few other things in his expanding product empire. [Patrick notes: If you sell software, information, or consulting services, take a look at ConvertKit.  I started using it recently for one of my businesses.  It bakes a lot of acquired smarts into an email marketing workflow tool.] Nathan Barry:  Thanks for having me. Patrick:  Thanks very much for being here. I think we’re probably going to be talking about info products today, primarily. Let’s ask the obvious question first. Do you like the term “info product”? Nathan:  I think it’s a little degrading. I tend to just refer them as courses or books. “Info product” always brings up the scammy Internet marketer. Patrick:  Right. The whole “make money online” niche. Nathan:  Right, exactly. I just try to write things and teach things that provide value. “Info product” doesn’t demonstrate that very well. Patrick:  That’s something I totally agree with. I try to call mine “productized consulting” because the book was like a consulting engagement except delivered with less of my hours of unique attention attached to each delivery. I think you were also a consultant before you... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/08/27/kalzumeus-podcast-episode-6/

Keith Perhac and I are back with the 5th epsiode of the Kalzumeus podcast. Keith and I both have experience working as consultants in software development and online marketing.  People often ask us how to transition away from the feast-or-famine nature of freelancing, where you do very well when you’re delivering engagements and getting them paid quickly, and then do very poorly when work dries up or you have invoice collection issues.  One way to improve on this is building recurring revenue for your consultancy, via products.  A lot of folks think that the only way to do this is spinning a SaaS out of your consultancy.  While I have an abiding love for SaaS, building SaaS businesses takes a metric truckload of time and largely is not a good option if you have e.g. a personal burn rate of $6,000 which you need to cover next month. Happily, there are many ways to productize your relationships with customers or your expertise as a consultant. [Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: Why I wound down my consulting business recently, even though it was pretty successful How to sell consulting clients retainer agreements, long term support contracts, and software licenses to become less dependent on revenue from new engagements How “productized consulting” (it’s like infoproducts, except with a less obnoxious name) can make tapering down consulting viable for people who need predictable revenue Examples of non-software products that technically-oriented folks could be creating How Keith and I have applied content marketing (God, another word I hate) and effective use of email to sell these sorts of products Our advice on pricing/packaging, and a few pointers at successful implementations of it to copy liberally be inspired by If You Want To Listen To It MP3 Download (~75 minutes, ~68MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Quitting Consulting Via Productization Patrick McKenzie:  Hideho everybody and thanks for tuning into, what is this, the fifth episode of the Kalzumeus Podcast. I’m Patrick McKenzie, better known as Patio11 on the Internets and I’m here with my co‑host Keith Perhac. Keith Perhac:  Hi, I’m Keith Perhac, not known on the Internet. Patrick:  Yeah, it’s been an absurd amount... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/07/17/kalzumeus-podcast-5-quitting-consulting-via-productization/

Matt Wensing from Stormpulse (disclaimer: I’m an investor, long story below) generously took some time off of managing the nation’s severe weather risks to appear on our podcast.  (Keith Perhac couldn’t be with us when we taped this, as he was celebrating the birth of his second daughter.)  It’s been about six months since our last episode but I think this probably makes up for it, as it’s a cracker of an episode. I apologize in advance for my audio quality — I was calling internationally from an iPhone.  If you’re an audiophile, we have a transcript below, as per the usual.  As always, the transcript includes notes from me [Patrick notes: called out like this.] What you’ll learn in this podcast: The long arc of Stormpulse’s transition from a bootstrapped freemium weather site to being one of the four links on Obama’s dashboard Why Stormpulse had a difficult time raising funding early, and how they eventually overcame this Some actionable tips on how you can avoid Valley pathologies if raising is in your future How to think about pricing and selling a critical B2B application, and how to move from scalable low-touch sales to high-touch Big Freaking Enterprise sales If You Want To Listen To It MP3 Download (~96 minutes, ~88MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Growing Stormpulse From Humble Beginnings To The White House And Beyond Patrick McKenzie:  Hi, this is Patrick McKenzie for the the Kalzumeus Podcast. Keith Perhac can’t be with us today, because he’s celebrating the birth of his second daughter. I’m here with Matt Wensing, who’s the founder and CEO of Stormpulse. Matt Wensing:  Hey, how you doing, Patrick? Patrick:  I’m doing great, Matt. Thank you so much for taking the time to have a podcast with us today. I was just looking back at Hacker News today, because I gave it up for Lent, but now that I’m back and can check [on the thread we met on], I realized I have known you for exactly 1,300 days. Matt:  [laughs] Patrick:  You had your first HN post of Stormpulse about three years ago or so, give or take, and it was a like, “Rate my brief elevator pitch,” and... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/08/kalzumeus-podcast-4-stormpulse-matt-wensing/

Keith Perhac and I recorded our 3rd podcast episode with special guest Brennan Dunn.  Listen to it (or read the transcript) for: why you should increase your freelancing rate how to discuss your value with your clients such that they’re happy to pay your increased rates how to scale to a multi-employee consultancy, without being bankrupted by poorly timed receivables three stories from successful consultants on three very different trajectories in their businesses how you can use drip email to sell more product (and consulting gigs, too) a bit about the business of selling info-products: pricing anchors, marketing tactics, list building, and more If You Want To Listen To It MP3 Download (~90 minutes, ~211 MB) : Right-click here and click Save As. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Running a Consulting Business, With Brennan Dunn Patrick McKenzie:  Hi everybody. My name is Patrick McKenzie, perhaps better known as patio11 on the Internet. This is the, I think, third episode of the Kalzumeus podcast, with my buddy, Keith Perhac. Keith Perhac:  Hello. Patrick:  And our special guest, Brennan Dunn, of Planscope and “Double Your Freelancing Rate.” Keith:  Woo! Brennan Dunn:  Hey there. Keith:  That was our live studio audience. Last time, we had a theme song. But I don’t know. Do we have a theme song this time as well? Patrick:  I think we are totally theme‑song‑less. Keith:  OK. Patrick:  This is still a third‑rate podcast. So, Brennan, recently you had a product launch. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that, and we’ll segue into the discussion about it. Brennan:  Absolutely. So, for the last few months, I’m been thinking about putting together an info product, specifically one that is targeting, really, a passion point of mine, which is freelancers who undercharge for their services. It’s something that really came from my own experience. For way too many years, I charged dramatically less than what I was worth, and only recently have I fixed that. And since I’ve fixed that, not only has my income gone up, but the caliber of client that I work with has gone up also. And I really wanted to just not only spill the beans as to how I got there but also back it with pricing research that... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/10/10/kalzumeus-podcast-3-growing-consulting-practices-with-brennan-dunn/

NYT bestselling author Ramit Sethi and I continued our earlier discussion about getting your first consulting client by addressing a common pain point for freelancers/consultants, particularly those just starting out: how do you price your offering? If you want me to tell you “You’re a Rails developer?  $100 an hour if in Iowa, $150 an hour if in SOMA, best of luck” you’re in the wrong place, because you should have learned in our previous installment that you need to present yourself as someone solving business problems rather than as a mere technologist. Instead, we’re going to go beyond the tactics and talk about the psychology of customers (and consultants) that poison cheap relationships, why we typically underprice to begin with, how to walk up your rate in such a way that your customers continue to perceive outsized value from your services, and more. When we recorded this, our agenda was to talk primarily about freelancing/consulting rates, but both Ramit and I have run product businesses for many years, so we couldn’t resist tossing in a bit about pricing for e.g. SaaS companies and info-products as well. (Want to hear even more about this topic?  There’s a podcast coming up next week with Keith Perhac and Brennan Dunn, where we talk about how we transitioned our three very different freelancing/consulting businesses from where they were when we were young and stupid to three different models which work out fairly well for different reasons.  Subscribe to the podcast to hear it when the audio engineer gets done with the editing.) If You Want To Listen To It MP3 download (~40 minutes, ~35 MB): Right click to save. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Ramit Sethi and Patrick McKenzie On Why Your Customers Would Be Happier If You Charged More [Patrick notes: I have annotated the transcript heavily with my remarks, in this format.] Patrick McKenzie:  Hey everybody, my name is Patrick McKenzie, perhaps better known as patio11 on the Internets. I’m a small software entrepreneur who has run a series of software as a service businesses for the last six years. Concurrent... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-mckenzie-on-why-your-customers-would-be-happier-if-you-charged-more/

Patrick notes: Hiya long-time blog readers.  Last year I wrote two articles on career advice for young engineers, largely informed by conversations with a buddy of mine, Ramit Sethi. Over the last twelve months, I have tagged every message in Gmail I’ve gotten from someone who applied the advice in those articles to effect in their careers.  Sample comments: “Your advice made me $20,000 in two minutes.”, “Your advice made me $35k”, etc etc.  The running total is at about $280,000 (a year!), which makes those two articles probably my highest ROI ever from just writing blog posts.  (n.b. If this were the whole of my business I’d need to have a quick heart-to-heart with myself about obvious inefficiencies in that monetization model but, luckily, the business does well enough to cross-subsidize the blog.) Ramit offered to do a series of interviews about freelancing/consulting, which I know is of interest to many of you, so I naturally took him up on the offer.  (Though I think much of what we talked about applies just as well to the software business, to be honest.) If you weren’t already aware: I don’t talk about it on my blog that often, but I do high-end consulting,  typically for improving the engineered marketing of software companies.  Ramit is a NYT best-selling author who makes a living teaching people how to do this sort of thing better.  Ramit is extraordinarily credible on this topic — in addition to his take on most things jiving with mine, I have word-for-word stolen some suggestions from him for e.g. client proposals, to the mutual benefit of my clients (they took the engagement) and myself (they paid $$$ for the engagement). This is the first in a series of three interviews — the other two will be out later.  Want to make sure you don’t miss them?  Either subscribe to the podcast (details below) or to my email list. If You Want To Listen To It MP3 download (~50 minutes, ~120 MB): Right click to save. Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store. [powerpress] Transcript: Ramit and Patrick on Acquiring Your First Customer [Patrick notes: Shoutout to CastingWords for this transcription, which I paid $75 for.   I always use them for transcription and then make a hand-pass to... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/17/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-mckenzie-on-getting-your-first-consulting-client/

Keith and I recorded the second podcast, this time with special guest Amy Hoy. (If you missed the first podcast, see here.) We’re still searching for a format which really works for us, so this is a work in progress. Please share your thoughts with us on what you like/don’t like about it. This podcast was recorded two months ago, largely because Keith and I got too busy to do the editing and post it. We’ll outsource more of that in the future. Of particular note: the 30×500 class that Amy talks about is already started, so if you’re interested in it, sign up for her email announcement (link waaay down on that page) for when it opens the next time. Major topics for this podcast included: why businesses are not price sensitive and how to price SaaS directed at them how bootstrapping product businesses with a side of consulting worked out the psychology of happiness Download Links Podcast link (MP3, 23 MB, approximately 80 minutes.) Subscribe in iTunes &tc: The feed https://www.kalzumeus.com/feed/atom/ technically includes all posts on this blog, but if you put it into iTunes or your iDevice, it will slurp in only the audio posts. (Have a more finnicky client than iTunes? Try https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed/ instead.) Transcript Patrick: Okey-dokey. You guys want to get started on the formal talking to people aside from the three of us thing? Amy: Yeah. Keith: Alright. Sounds good. OK, so we do the intro music [mimics intro music]. We don’t have intro music. Patrick: We don’t have intro music. [laughter] Patrick: This is a third-rate podcast. Keith: Welcome back to the Kalzumeus podcast and… Patrick: This is episode two with… Keith: Episode two, well, 2.5, because we actually recorded an episode two and then trashed it because it sucked. Patrick: Yeah. This is uh… Keith: Two alpha? Two Beta. Patrick: Two Beta. It was an MVP of a podcast and then we shot it in the head because it was not accomplishing customer goals or anything. Keith: Exactly. Patrick: And we are joined today by special guest Amy Hoy. Keith: Hello Amy. Amy: Hello. Keith: For our people, you want to do the introduction, Patrick? Patrick: Oh, introduction, yeah. I’m Patrick McKenzie, better known as Pattio11 on the Internet and… Keith: I’m Keith Perhac, not at all known on the... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/05/18/kalzumeus-podcast-ep-2-with-amy-hoy-pricing-products-and-passion/

Hiya guys.  My good friend Keith and I decided to do something a little different and tried recording a podcast.  We’re still rather new at this, so it took for form of a freewheeling conversation.  Major topics included: the experience of working at large and small tech companies in Japan the Japanese web application market career advice for programmers don’t call yourself a programmer us trying to sell you on starting A/B testing conversion optimization stories, including actionable tips which have actually worked for people a wee bit of generic geekery. The podcast weighs in at about 79 minutes long. Podcasts take a metric truckload of work to put together.  If you like it, please, say so.  If folks have interest in it, we’ll do it again.  If not, well, one more data point as to what the market wants. Podcast Link (M4A.  Click to play, right click to download.  The play feature may not work quite right in Chrome.  Feel free to put this on your iDevice.  (You may find this URL helpful: https://www.kalzumeus.com/feed/atom/ That technically includes all the posts on the blog, but iTunes and similar software will automatically pluck out the audio ones.) Podcast Link (MP3, for Chrome. Click to play, right click to download.)   Transcript (Because We Love You) Patrick McKenzie:   Hi, everybody. I’m Patrick McKenzie, better known as patio11 on the Internets.  This is my buddy Keith. Keith:  Hi, I’m Keith Perhac. I live next to Patrick’s and I’m pretty much unknown on the Internets. Patrick:  So when we tell people we’re right next to each other, we’re right next to each other in Ogaki, Japan. How the heck did we end up here? Keith:  Long, long story. So I’ve been here for nine years, you’ve been here for eight, pretty much. And we came here on the JET program. I was working as an English teacher, you were working at Softopia, which is apparently our prefecture’s gift to web development and iPhone development right now. Patrick:  Yeah, the prefectural technology incubator. Keith:  That was an interesting little incubator because it’s been losing money for the last seven years. And then when the iPhone came out, all of the iPhone developers and everything moved in there because rent is cheap. And suddenly the incubator is making tons and tons of money thanks to iPhone apps. Patrick:  Yeah.... For the full transcript see https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/12/01/inaugural-kalzumeus-podcast-japan-startups-ab-testing-and-more/