5 ms·

The SaaS Playbook

60 points by password4321 4y ago

waselighis 4y ago
Anybody willing to fill us in, give us some context? While this raises so many red flags in my mind, I have no idea who Rob Walling is or what his reputation is like, so I prefer to reserve judgment until I know more.
- hbcondo714 4y ago
  > Hi, I’m Rob Walling. I’m a serial entrepreneur who’s built a handful of multimillion-dollar companies, including Drip, MicroConf, and TinySeed. > Before The SaaS Playbook, I wrote two best-selling books about startups: Start Small, Stay Small, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together. The author's credentials are there. I have personally used Drip and read Start Small, Stay Small
  - ianhawes 4y ago
    FWIW Drip was acquired by LeadPages in 2015, who in turn rebranded themselves as Drip. From what I’ve heard the sales was in the $3-$5M range. LeadPages had a much larger engineering team and was able to scale up Drip.
- ashconnor 4y ago
  > Rob Walling is a serial entrepreneur who has built a few multimillion-dollar companies, including Drip, MicroConf, and TinySeed. > He’s the host of Startups for the Rest of Us and has written two best-selling books about startups: Start Small, Stay Small, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together. Through his books, podcasts, conferences, and essays, he has helped tens of thousands of startup founders. https://saasplaybook.com/ https://saasplaybook.com/
- viggity 4y ago
  I haven't listened to his podcast in quite awhile, but I always appreciated his content and it never felt scammy like most of those grind culture marketing influencers you'll find littered all over twitter.
  - waselighis 4y ago
    Thanks, this is more what I was looking for. Far too often, the story of "successful entrepreneur" is "had rich parents, received large inheritance." Typing his name into Google isn't going to answer the question if he's the real deal or not.
  - i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago
    It’s a shame, then, that this has scammy written all over it. Never heard of the bloke but if this is legit then he needs to fire whoever produced this writeup.
- omwow 4y ago
  Rob Walling is solid and has a great reputation among SaaS founders, particularly those who choose to self-fund their companies rather than go the VC route. He's been running a great event for bootstrapped founders called MicroConf. It's legit. If you look at the endorsements for the book (Peldi, Derek Sivers, Patrick Campbell, Courtland Allen...) you'll see that they're as real as it gets. Jason Cohen wrote the foreword for the book. (He founded WPEngine, one of the largest Wordpress hosting companies, with more than 1,000 employees, and before that SmartBear which got acquired for around $2 billion.) If you're curious, you can also check out Startups For The Rest of Us, where he's been releasing new episodes for more than 10 years. I think that's one of the best ways to get a feel for whether he's someone you'd want to learn from.
thenerdhead 4y ago
This guy writes good stuff. He wrote start small, stay small. A book that still sticks with me a decade later. Also quite some big names in the SaaS arena that aren’t just marketing BS. I’m in for a copy, thanks for sharing.
moneywoes 4y ago
Not a fan of his YouTube persona, very clickbaity and misleading
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Do you have the SponsorBlock extension installed by chance? It cut down on a lot of clickbait for me personally.
- steve_taylor 4y ago
  He regurgitates the same old lean startup BS that was doing the rounds in the early 2010s, namely that you should "validate" your idea by creating a landing page that harvests email addresses and possibly even credit card details.
e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
This raises more questions than answers: - If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Presumably those multi-million dollar companies sold for multiple million dollars. - Why without VC? Outside capital injection is important for most businesses, and it doesn't make sense to avoid it on principle - This feels just like those "self help" and "how to succeed at business" books that have no substance whatsoever; how is this any different? At first glance, it seems like the classic saying: those who can, do; those who can't, teach. The stock pickers on CNBC are on CNBC precisely because they can't pick stocks; if they could, they'd be making millions at a hedge fund. > The biggest risk of this project? You don’t back it — and instead of spending $30 for a proven playbook to growth, you spend the next five or 10 years struggling to figure it all out for yourself He just feels so incredibly self-centered, like he has all the answers. It feels like an outgrowth of the hustler culture and I don't like it.
- selcuka 4y ago
  > If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Presumably those multi-million dollar companies sold for multiple million dollars. I don't know the guy, or anything about this book, but on the Kickstarter page it says that he's already "written the book, sourced the manufacturer, and gotten the prototypes", and it will be available later in 2023 anyway. Kickstarter seems to be a way to pre-sell the hard cover version (and generate a bit more hype).
- cldellow 4y ago
  > If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Kickstarter is a way to do pre-sales and marketing. IMO, the hardest part of any business is finding distribution. You should use every channel you can, Kickstarter included. I agree that the copy on the page has a ton of puffery in it, though. I find that offputting, personally, but I can imagine it sells. (And, despite my personal dislike, it might still be worth $30.)
- adamfeldman 4y ago
  > I decided to launch my third book on Kickstarter for 3 reasons: > TO OFFER REWARDS: I fit everything I could into these 200 pages, but many people told me it would be helpful to get my thoughts on their unique problems. So I decided to do reward tiers — and though I could have coded that into my website, why not just use a tool that already figured it out? > TO MAKE A MORE BEAUTIFUL BOOK (THAT ONLY BACKERS GET): Hardcovers, as you might have noticed, are expensive. With Kickstarter pre-orders, we’ll get a sense of how many to make — and you’ll get a satisfying reading experience. > TO EXPAND MY REACH: Kickstarter is a social network, and one I really haven’t explored before (apart from the 300+ incredibly nerdy board games and D&D projects I’ve backed. True story.) I want to grow my audience with this launch.
hardwaresofton 4y ago
Shameless plug but if you’re looking for a SaaS idea to use this playbook on… I write a newsletter called Unvalidated Ideas[0] that is about what it sounds like it’s about. Just hit the 50th edition which means 150 ideas sent out (in the paid letter)! [0]: https://unvalidatedideas.com https://unvalidatedideas.com

60 points by password4321 4y ago

Anybody willing to fill us in, give us some context? While this raises so many red flags in my mind, I have no idea who Rob Walling is or what his reputation is like, so I prefer to reserve judgment until I know more.

hbcondo714 4y ago
> Hi, I’m Rob Walling. I’m a serial entrepreneur who’s built a handful of multimillion-dollar companies, including Drip, MicroConf, and TinySeed. > Before The SaaS Playbook, I wrote two best-selling books about startups: Start Small, Stay Small, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together. The author's credentials are there. I have personally used Drip and read Start Small, Stay Small
- ianhawes 4y ago
  FWIW Drip was acquired by LeadPages in 2015, who in turn rebranded themselves as Drip. From what I’ve heard the sales was in the $3-$5M range. LeadPages had a much larger engineering team and was able to scale up Drip.
ashconnor 4y ago
> Rob Walling is a serial entrepreneur who has built a few multimillion-dollar companies, including Drip, MicroConf, and TinySeed. > He’s the host of Startups for the Rest of Us and has written two best-selling books about startups: Start Small, Stay Small, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together. Through his books, podcasts, conferences, and essays, he has helped tens of thousands of startup founders. https://saasplaybook.com/ https://saasplaybook.com/
viggity 4y ago
I haven't listened to his podcast in quite awhile, but I always appreciated his content and it never felt scammy like most of those grind culture marketing influencers you'll find littered all over twitter.
- waselighis 4y ago
  Thanks, this is more what I was looking for. Far too often, the story of "successful entrepreneur" is "had rich parents, received large inheritance." Typing his name into Google isn't going to answer the question if he's the real deal or not.
- i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago
  It’s a shame, then, that this has scammy written all over it. Never heard of the bloke but if this is legit then he needs to fire whoever produced this writeup.
omwow 4y ago
Rob Walling is solid and has a great reputation among SaaS founders, particularly those who choose to self-fund their companies rather than go the VC route. He's been running a great event for bootstrapped founders called MicroConf. It's legit. If you look at the endorsements for the book (Peldi, Derek Sivers, Patrick Campbell, Courtland Allen...) you'll see that they're as real as it gets. Jason Cohen wrote the foreword for the book. (He founded WPEngine, one of the largest Wordpress hosting companies, with more than 1,000 employees, and before that SmartBear which got acquired for around $2 billion.) If you're curious, you can also check out Startups For The Rest of Us, where he's been releasing new episodes for more than 10 years. I think that's one of the best ways to get a feel for whether he's someone you'd want to learn from.

thenerdhead 4y ago

This guy writes good stuff. He wrote start small, stay small. A book that still sticks with me a decade later. Also quite some big names in the SaaS arena that aren’t just marketing BS. I’m in for a copy, thanks for sharing.

moneywoes 4y ago

Not a fan of his YouTube persona, very clickbaity and misleading

satvikpendem 4y ago
Do you have the SponsorBlock extension installed by chance? It cut down on a lot of clickbait for me personally.
steve_taylor 4y ago
He regurgitates the same old lean startup BS that was doing the rounds in the early 2010s, namely that you should "validate" your idea by creating a landing page that harvests email addresses and possibly even credit card details.

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago

This raises more questions than answers: - If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Presumably those multi-million dollar companies sold for multiple million dollars. - Why without VC? Outside capital injection is important for most businesses, and it doesn't make sense to avoid it on principle - This feels just like those "self help" and "how to succeed at business" books that have no substance whatsoever; how is this any different? At first glance, it seems like the classic saying: those who can, do; those who can't, teach. The stock pickers on CNBC are on CNBC precisely because they can't pick stocks; if they could, they'd be making millions at a hedge fund. > The biggest risk of this project? You don’t back it — and instead of spending $30 for a proven playbook to growth, you spend the next five or 10 years struggling to figure it all out for yourself He just feels so incredibly self-centered, like he has all the answers. It feels like an outgrowth of the hustler culture and I don't like it.

selcuka 4y ago
> If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Presumably those multi-million dollar companies sold for multiple million dollars. I don't know the guy, or anything about this book, but on the Kickstarter page it says that he's already "written the book, sourced the manufacturer, and gotten the prototypes", and it will be available later in 2023 anyway. Kickstarter seems to be a way to pre-sell the hard cover version (and generate a bit more hype).
cldellow 4y ago
> If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Kickstarter is a way to do pre-sales and marketing. IMO, the hardest part of any business is finding distribution. You should use every channel you can, Kickstarter included. I agree that the copy on the page has a ton of puffery in it, though. I find that offputting, personally, but I can imagine it sells. (And, despite my personal dislike, it might still be worth $30.)
adamfeldman 4y ago
> I decided to launch my third book on Kickstarter for 3 reasons: > TO OFFER REWARDS: I fit everything I could into these 200 pages, but many people told me it would be helpful to get my thoughts on their unique problems. So I decided to do reward tiers — and though I could have coded that into my website, why not just use a tool that already figured it out? > TO MAKE A MORE BEAUTIFUL BOOK (THAT ONLY BACKERS GET): Hardcovers, as you might have noticed, are expensive. With Kickstarter pre-orders, we’ll get a sense of how many to make — and you’ll get a satisfying reading experience. > TO EXPAND MY REACH: Kickstarter is a social network, and one I really haven’t explored before (apart from the 300+ incredibly nerdy board games and D&D projects I’ve backed. True story.) I want to grow my audience with this launch.

hardwaresofton 4y ago

Shameless plug but if you’re looking for a SaaS idea to use this playbook on… I write a newsletter called Unvalidated Ideas[0] that is about what it sounds like it’s about. Just hit the 50th edition which means 150 ideas sent out (in the paid letter)! [0]: https://unvalidatedideas.com https://unvalidatedideas.com