The Bootstrapped Founder
Arvid Kahl
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426: How Your Data Model Shapes Your Product
Jack Ellis recently shared that storing page views and custom events in separate database tables was his biggest mistake at Fathom Analytics. That got...
425: AI Best Practices for Bootstrappers (That Actually Save You Money)
AI systems change constantly. Models get deprecated, APIs shift, and what works today might fail tomorrow. Instead of trying to keep up with everythin...
424: I Never Really Loved Coding (And Only AI Made Me Realize It)
After 20+ years as a software developer, AI coding assistants revealed a shocking truth: I never actually loved coding—I loved what code could accompl...
423: The Marketer's Hierarchy of Needs: A Framework for Understanding Customer Intelligence
What if your customers can't care about your advanced features because you haven't satisfied their basic needs first? Just like humans need food befor...
422: The Things Your Customers Don't Care About
When you build a software business as a founder, you have a dream. Building. Features. APIs. UIs.But how much of that is JUST a dream, and what REALLY...
421: Why You Should Never Start a Software Business
The brutal truth about SaaS nobody tells you.Here’s the thing: I’m about to share all the reasons why you should never, ever start a software business...
420: AI for the Code-Writing Purist: How to Use AI Without Surrendering Your Keyboard
I know you're out there. The developer who watches their colleagues enthusiastically embrace Claude Code and Cursor, having AI write entire feature se...
419: The Missing Piece in Your Validation Strategy
A lot of early-stage founders have understood—mostly because more and more people are talking about their early-stage strategies—that you need to vali...
418: Why AI-Generated Code Hurts Your Exit
We're living through a fascinating moment in software development. AI coding tools can build features faster than ever before. They can scan entire co...
417: The Best Tech Stack in the Age of AI
A couple of years ago, I tweeted that “the best tech stack is the one you already know.” To this day, this is one of my most resonating tweets. People...
416: The Ownership Paradox: What Do You Really Control in Your Software Business?
As I'm building yet another software service business after having built and sold one back in 2019, I keep wrestling with a fundamental question that...
415: Handling Multiple ICPs as a Solo Founder
This is something I've been wrestling with at Podscan, and I know many of you face the same challenge: you're building a product that could serve two,...
414: The Pure Amateur is Vanishing: Why Everyone's a Performer Now
I was recently reading an article about The Great British Baking Show - or Bake Off, as we fans of this fun TV competition call it. It was written by...
413: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Moat
You know that moment when you realize the ground has shifted beneath your feet? I had one of those moments recently. I was watching an AI agent build...
412: The $0.20/Day AI System That Converts Trial Users Into Paying Customers
It took me a long while to realize this: AI isn't just something like a chatbot for my customers. AI can work behind the scenes to facilitate getting...
411: The Currents of a Founder
I was reading Brandon Sanderson's latest novel, Wind and Truth, when I came across a sentence that stopped me cold: "A stronger current makes for stro...
410: Building for the Age of AI Consumers
I think we're at the precipice of a pretty significant change in how we build software products. Obviously, the recent ascent of vibe coding and all t...
409: James Phoenix — Claude Code Masterclass
James Phoenix is an expert in agentic coding, particularly Claude code, a tool that I have been using to great effect over the last couple months. I c...
408: The Podscan Ideas Vault: Engineering as Marketing
Today I'll be talking about a successful marketing project within my software business that turned out to be so successful that it spawned a business...
407: Nick Groeneveld — Exploring AI's Impact on Modern Design
Nick Groeneveld is a designer and User Experience expert who has been a valued collaborator on Podscan, my own software product. Nick works as a freel...
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