Inspired by John’s real-life annual physical, this episode explores what it means to give your SaaS app its own annual checkup. What should you audit regularly to keep your app healthy?
The guys cover:
• 🩺 Auditing automated onboarding and transactional emails
• 🧪 Building a Customer Health Index to proactively reduce churn
• 📉 How and when to talk to customers—without annoying them
• 📬 Rethinking drip campaigns and newsletters so they actually get read
• 🛠️ Revisiting your content, SEO metadata, accessibility, and dependencies
• 💵 Why your pricing probably needs a tune-up
It’s packed with tactical insights and spicy opinions, like:
“If you reply to an email I claim is from me—it better come to me.”
“Most teams don’t need more email. They need better email.”
“Documentation, accessibility, and alt text… yep, we forget those too.”
This one will leave you with a solid checklist for improving your product, process, and communication in the year ahead.
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What if you could focus only on what truly moves the needle?
John and Kris dig into Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell and explore how founders can delegate smarter, systemize better, and scale faster.
Key Takeaways:
“You don’t hire to grow your business. You hire to buy back your time.”
This episode is for founders drowning in tasks, solopreneurs hitting a ceiling, and anyone looking to escape the endless work treadmill.
Challenge: Can you delegate one task this week? Let us know!
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How does a growing SaaS company keep track of important knowledge? From server setups to customer success playbooks, every company builds a wealth of internal information—but too often, that knowledge is scattered, siloed, or locked away in someone’s head.
In this episode, John, Kris, and Garrett explore how to document and share company knowledge effectively. They discuss real-world challenges, like merging Rails apps and ensuring critical infrastructure knowledge isn’t lost, as well as how to balance text-based documentation with video walkthroughs.
Takeaways:
Key Quotes:
"If you document nothing, the only knowledge management system you have is luck."
"Slack is great for quick answers but terrible for long-term knowledge storage."
"Your team should always know where to look before they have to ask."
"Documentation is a moving target."
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Celebrating tech wins in a way that resonates with customers can be tricky—so how should SaaS companies do it? John, Kris, and Garrett break down how they approach communicating improvements, from backend optimizations to feature rollouts. They debate whether customers care about upgrades like Rails 6 and share ideas on writing updates that connect with both technical and non-technical users.
The conversation then shifts to hiring—how to evaluate developers, why trade-offs are crucial in the interview process, and the unique challenges of hiring remote vs. local talent. John shares insights from his GitHub hiring experience, Kris talks about building teams for different projects, and Garrett explores the psychology behind finding people who truly align with company culture.
The episode wraps up with wins of the week, including major Fireside updates, basketball coaching victories, and a heated discussion about Notre Dame football.
"If you don't celebrate, it can feel like nothing is happening—even when big things are."
"Customers don't care about Rails upgrades, they care about how fast and smooth their experience is."
"Hiring is as much about culture fit as it is about technical ability."
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This episode tackles the highs and lows of Black Friday marketing and its relevance to SaaS businesses like Fireside. John, Kris, and Garrett discuss how customer-centric timing could outperform traditional holiday discounts, with ideas ranging from New Year podcasting pushes to conference-aligned offers.
The trio also delves into the backend challenges of modernizing software, balancing Rails upgrades with visible customer improvements, and finding psychological triggers to help customers start and sustain new initiatives. They share insights on turning performance boosts into happy customers and why community-building could hold the key to podcasting success.
“What if instead of discounts, we focused on lowering the risk for customers to try podcasting?” - Garrett
“You don't have to go crazy and work a ton. You can you can achieve great success by turning a few levers. But sometimes it just takes a lot of work to figure out what those levers are.” - John
"I'm just thinking about swag, but that's a discussion from another day." - Kris
"I feel like that's the thing with SaaS in general. I'm sure some people have gone viral, new product just hit the sweet spot, nailed it, they knew exactly what they're doing, had a bunch of experience. But, on the other hand, every other SaaS app I've been involved in, it is nothing but just slow and steady constant improvements that are customer centric. And eventually at some point you've removed enough of the friction in onboarding, registration, daily usage, whatever it is, you know, either it combats churn a little bit or it increases registrations. And then, you look back three years later and you're like, it got there. But without that immediate reward all the time, it's definitely challenging to keep the faith." - Garrett
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The art of prioritization takes center stage in Episode #3 of “Standing in the Fire.” John, Kris, and Garrett explore how they balance the demands of running multiple SaaS companies, tackling technical debt, strategizing marketing efforts, and avoiding burnout. From Rails upgrades to marketing plans and hard-stop productivity hacks, this conversation reveals how founders navigate the chaos to move their businesses forward. Tune in for relatable stories, practical tips, and a touch of humor about the realities of entrepreneurship.
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The Standing in the Fire crew — John Nunemaker, Garrett Dimon, and Kristopher Priemer — returns with Episode #2, where they discuss:
Whether you’re a podcaster or just curious about the behind-the-scenes of building a SaaS app, this episode offers insights into problem-solving, customer experience, and the future of podcasting.
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Welcome to the first episode of Standing in the Fire, where John Nunemaker, Garrett Dimon, and Kristopher Priemer share their journey as the new owners of Fireside.fm. This podcast isn’t just about running a SaaS business—it’s about living the Fireside experience as podcast hosts and users.
In this episode, we:
Introduce the team and their backgrounds in software, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
Explore the challenges and excitement of owning and improving a podcast hosting platform.
Discuss the importance of drinking your own champagne (aka eating your own dog food) and connecting with customers.
Share our vision for Fireside.fm, from better analytics to fostering a podcaster community.
Join us as we navigate the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, building great software, and helping podcasters thrive.
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