The Bootstrapped Founder
Arvid Kahl
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434: Follow Your Passion (But Not Like That)
"Follow your passion" consistently ranks as the most frustrating advice entrepreneurs receive. Today I'm breaking down why this well-meaning guidance...
433: The 1% Improvement Myth
The "improve 1% every day" mantra sounds inspiring until you realize it mostly gets people tweaking button colors and reorganizing task managers. Real...
432: Don't Give Up... Your Assumptions
The entrepreneurial world loves telling founders to "never give up"—but what if that advice is slowly killing your business? In this episode, I unpack...
431: Many Heads, Not Many Hats: The Founder's Identity Crisis
We joke about founders wearing many hats, but that metaphor misses the point. It's not about swapping accessories—it's about growing entirely new head...
430: The Case Against Vendor Lock-In: Why Easy Exit Means Better Retention
There's something strange about founders who built their entire business on open source software and open standards, then turn around and say you shou...
429: The Dead Internet Theory: Are We Building Machines That Only Talk to Other Machines?
I spotted a LinkedIn post the other day—obviously AI-generated—with dozens of enthusiastic comments underneath. Every single one also written by AI. B...
428: Marketing for Founders Who Hate Marketing
Most technical founders I know understand marketing matters—they just hate doing it. They'd rather spend their time building features than fumbling th...
427: Vibe Coding Won't Kill SaaS
The "vibe coding will kill SaaS" narrative is everywhere right now, and I think it's completely wrong. Yes, anyone can spin up a Lovable or Bolt.new p...
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,...
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