The Indie Dads Podcast

The Bronies are back talking to discuss all sorts of updates, including their views on the differences between when an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) is good enough versus when an MLP (M̶y̶ ̶L̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶P̶o̶n̶y̶  Minimal Lovable Product) is required for launch. --Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_SuperSimpleCRM is @SuperSimpleCRM--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

After a four month break, Malcolm and Bryan are back and excited to be working together again!In this episode, we talk about what led to the unexpected break and how things are better now. We discuss how important it is to have the right type of motivation and the risks of changing jobs while working on indie projects.Super Simple CRM is still their our focus, and we discuss what we'll be working on next and what sort of timeline to expect for getting our first users on board.Finally, if you've missed the corny dad jokes, don't worry! The jokes are back and as bad as ever. Thanks for sticking around through the ups and downs! We keep things real and share it all -- even when (especially when) times are tough.

Bryan and Malcolm catch up on the progress they've made over the past few weeks, and why it's been a little quieter than usual on the podcast.Bryan got back from Disneyland and is making progress on Contacts in Super Simple CRM.Malcolm got back from being sick (not as fun as Disneyland), and is getting back up to speed after starting a new job.--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_SuperSimpleCRM is @SuperSimpleCRM--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.Episode is LivePublished: Apr. 18, 2022 @ 5PM EditUnpublishAdd a TranscriptGet episode better indexed by search engines.Add Chapter MarkersListeners can tap through & see what’s coming up.Visual Soundbite AvailableSquare Soundbite - 0:30Great for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.Download SoundbiteDelete this Soundbite and create a new one.Share Episode OnFacebookTwitterLinkedInMore Options

It's been a few weeks, but we're back!Tune in to hear our updates on Super Simple CRM and what's kept us away from the podcast over the past few weeks.--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_SuperSimpleCRM is @SuperSimpleCRM--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Malcolm and Bryan discuss just how much time and effort they should put toward marketing before they really start building.--Mentioned in this episode:Super Simple CRM--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

We're now publishing weekly updates!In the first official week of working on Super Simple CRM together, Bryan and Malcolm talk about their progress toward a Marketing-First approach at building a software product. They've got their blog set up (a scrappy headless Wordpress solution) and a plan for keeping leads warm with regular email updates.The past week has been a challenge for Malcolm with government-controlled load shedding in place, so he hasn't been able to do as much as he had hoped.  He shares some of those challenges and frustrations, and what he's doing to try to work with what he is able to control.Bryan has been on a productivity spree, pushing out a bunch of marketing-related infrastructure in preparation for kicking off their SEO long-game plans. He knows this may not last, so he's doing what he can while he's feeling good.--Mentioned in this episode:Super Simple CRMhttps://www.supersimplecrm.com--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

We have some exciting changes to share in this episode, so we'll leave the summary short and sweet (how's that for a teaser?)--Mentioned in this episode:Super Simple CRMhttps://www.supersimplecrm.com--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

Malcolm recently got back from his 20th wedding anniversary trip with just him and his wife, talks about how fun that was, and why he recommends doing it more often.Bryan talks about his new project, starting a new job (and ending the sabbatical), and what's next!--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Malcolm and Bryan discuss some big changes from the past couple of weeks.Malcolm just returned from a fun but exhausting family vacation, where he had to fight off food-stealing monkeys while playing golf off the top of a water slide (or something close to that). Bryan shares some big changes in his partnership and what he'll be focusing on over the next two weeks before he returns to work, full-time.Let us know what you think and what we should do more of in the future!--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

On this episode, Aaron Francis joins us to talk about way more topics than we could ever fit in one title. Aaron is a family man and father of twins, while also working full-time and building a startup on the side. He shares the lessons he's learned along the way, and how he balances everything without constantly burning out or negatively affecting his family life.Aaron (https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis) is the co-founder of Hammerstone (https://hammerstone.dev), where he and his co-founders Colleen and Sean are building an interesting company with a business model you don't hear about as often: Selling a self-hosted package for an annual subscription. Aaron talks about how and why he started Hammerstone, why he's not content to just work a 9-5 forever, how Hammerstone plans to market to fellow developers, how he grew his Twitter audience by 400% in one year, and a ton more.Give it a listen and let us know who we should have on next!--Mentioned in this episode:Book: In Praise of Slowness: https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Slowness-Challenging-Cult-Speed-ebook/dp/B0024CF0CK/Hammerstone: https://hammerstone.devThe Dad Joke Database: https://dadabase.co by Nick Berry (https://twitter.com/nicholosberry) with thanks to Chris Lentz for pointing it out (https://twitter.com/ATLChris/status/1478889874291843072)--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Malcolm and Bryan talk about how they spent their family time over Christmas and New Years, and about their plans for starting out the new year.Malcolm shares his strategy for how he gets going again after taking a break and losing momentum. Bryan talks about why he didn't share the real reason he hasn't signed a partnership agreement yet, when Malcolm pressed him about it last episode.--Mentioned in this episode:https://freelanceryachtclub.com--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

Episode 10 already? 🎉 What a fun year it's been!In this episode, Malcolm and Bryan talk about their experience in when you should focus on acquisition (getting new customers) versus retention (keeping the ones you have), and how it depends on other things like how high-touch your sales process is, what your acquisition and distribution channels are, and when to switch focus to one or the other.Bryan and Malcolm also give a little peek into 2022 and what their goals for the new year will be.If you're a fan of the Indie Dads podcast, please help us get the word out so we can reach more people just like you. Tweet it, share it, and help spread it!--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

Bryan and Malcom discuss how to market as a full-time parent and part-time indie maker. When time and money are scarce, it boils down to finding the right long-term priorities and patiently chipping away at them.--Mentioned in this episode: The BizBox newsletter at https://www.getrevue.co/profile/bixbox--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

Could it be true? Two software engineers, both trying to do some actual marketing? Holy smokes this is harder than it sounds!Bryan shares his experience so far with Google Ads and all the gotchas he has to watch out for. Malcolm shares his plans for the next two weeks and they discuss different strategies for getting in front of the right eyeballs when you're just starting out.--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Bryan and Malcolm provide updates on their products and share their learnings and thoughts on the ups and downs that comes with being a startup founder/entrepreneur, how that affects you and your family, and how to separate work/startup life from family time.Malcolm wrapped up his first 2-week (bug) sprint, despite his power being shut off often due to load shedding (rolling blackouts). For the next two weeks, he'll be focusing on product features, before starting a marketing sprint in mid-November.Bryan has officially partnered up on the startup he was test driving, and is excited to tackle some of the challenges that come with trying to turn a Productized Service into a SaaS (over time).--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Bryan and Malcolm discuss updates to their projects, what to look for to avoid burnout, and what they do when they feel it coming on.--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

Malcolm spent the last week with his kids and family while they were on school break, and talks about how he manages how much time he spends on his side project versus family time. He also shipped a big update with some great UX improvements, getting him closer to where he wants to be with Remotime as a product.Bryan just got back from a vacation with his family in the Bahamas and managed to get along without taking a laptop with him. He talks about how taking a complete break from technology does wonders for family and even project focus. He'll be spending the next 2-3 weeks building a prototype for a potential partnership with an old friend.--Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Bryan and Malcolm talk about the risks and benefits of finding a co-founder. We also go over progress on our projects over the past two weeks, and Bryan's takeaways from MicroConf.Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Bryan and Malcolm share their product updates, how they manage their time as parents and Indie founders, how to prioritize marketing efforts versus building, and managing stress and burn-out.This episode's updates:Malcolm sat down with his Indie accountability partner and teased out some bugs that he quickly knocked out. He also experimented with sharing updates and asking for feedback on Reddit. Malcolm talks about how he will be focusing on finding new ways to get his product in front of more eyeballs via Reddit, including spending more time participating in communities and looking for ways to help and build a reputation there.Bryan launched https://minimal.blog in just 3 weeks, meeting his aggressive goal. He then quickly turned around and introduced a free plan (and shares his lessons learned as part of that). As a blogging platform, he'll be playing the long game in terms of marketing, so he's looking for his next project while he works on Minimal part-time.This week's Indie Parent spotlight is Danny from Boston. Check out his projects at https://www.bettermorningreading.com and https://gamifyhq.comIf you'd like to be featured on a future episode, shoot us an email or message us on Twitter and tell us about you, your family, and your projects.Follow us on Twitter for more updates:Bryan is @PocketBryanMalcolm is @InquisitorJaxIndieDads is @IndieDads_--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.

In this episode, Malcolm and Bryan dive deeper into how they got started on each of their projects, and how they've been able to balance family priorities at the same time.For Malcolm, it began with a big idea that he ultimately realized he would need to scale way back in order to not burn out while working a full-time job, supporting and spending time with his family, and still trying to put in a few hours each night. He ultimately tabled his original idea and began working on a problem that would scratch his own itch: simple time keeping and invoicing for freelancers like him.For Bryan, he began with an ambitious vision for how he wanted to stand out in the crowded "freelancer tools" market, but quickly realized he was biting off more than he could chew (even while working full-time on his project). He has now decided to launch his side project -- which involves his passion for writing -- while continuing to gather data on his main idea.This episode is a little longer than future episodes will be, because we wanted to lay the groundwork for future episodes, but we're excited to continue sharing our journey!--Mentioned in this episode:Arvid Kahl's The Bootstrapped Founder podcast, episode 2: Problem Validation: Making Sure You’re Talking To The Right People"You can't assume that anything stored in a service you don't pay for will persist." - @paulgBook References:The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you - linkMarketing for Developers: Build, launch, and get your first 100 customers - linkMalcolm's Twitter: @InquisitorJaxBryan's Twitter: @PocketBryanBryan's Project: Coming soon! Keep an eye on Twitter.Malcolm's Project: RemotimeIf you're a current or aspiring SaaS founder, you can subscribe to Bryan's SaaS Founder Gems Newsletter.--About this podcast:We're Bryan and Malcolm, a couple of dads sharing our journey about bootstrapping our indie businesses while still prioritizing our young families.Our goal is financial and location independence, but not at the expense of our families, our kids' happiness, or our relationships.That doesn't mean we won't work hard and hustle in order to get things off the ground, but our priorities will always be family-first.We believe that you can bootstrap a successful SaaS, Freelance, or Indie business while still enjoying the family life. We're here to share our learnings as we build our businesses from scratch.