164: Damon Chen — Building a $400k/year SaaS
The Bootstrapped Founder
11/16/22
•60m
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Today, I am talking to Damon Chen, the founder behind Testimonial.to, a social proof tool that has recently reached $400.000 in annual recurring revenue. Now that’s extremely impressive, particularly considering that Damon got it there all by himself.
So, let’s just ask him how this family man accomplished such growth while living in one of the most expensive places you could build a business in. Here’s Damon Chen.
LonelyDev is a community that I built to solve my own problem. 1:01
Lonely Dev turned into IndieLog. 4:09
How to get out of a full-time job to start a business. 12:55
Why you need to be healthy and whole to be able to build a good business. 19:33
Why you need to add video reviews to your landing page. 26:31
Video and authenticity 31:30
There is a point where you reach saturation and you need help. 36:20
What is your exit plan for your business? 42:27
The importance of having a good exit strategy. 47:18
The importance of having a community to support bootstrappers. 51:16
This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire.
Here's the blog post for this episode.
You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.
Previous Episode
163: When Should You Go from Side-Project to Full-Time?
November 11, 2022
•13m
Earlier this week, I talked to Michele Hansen of Geocodio on The Bootstrapped Founder Podcast. Michele co-founded the business with her husband and ran it as a side project for several years. Now, that's a long time to wait before you commit full-time to a project. We also learned during our conversation that there are many ways of determining when the right time is to make that leap: for me, it was reaching a specific revenue figure, and for Michele, it was something else entirely.
So let's explore this critical step today. When should you go from side-project to full-time? What are the significant catalysts that speed up this process?
- When Should You Go from Side-Project to Full-Time?
- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course
- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurship
This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire.
Next Episode
165: Why You Shouldn’t Sell Your Business
November 18, 2022
•14m
I was talking to Damon Chen, who built Testimonial.to to $400.000 in ARR this week, and at one point, he mentioned that he isn’t looking into selling his business just yet. Maybe even never.
That got me thinking.
While we all want to build sellable businesses, is there such a thing as selling too early? How can we determine when that phase ends and when it’s time to get acquired? Should we even do that, ever?
Let’s look into why we might want to hold on to our business even when acquirers come knocking.
And by the way, if you’re just starting out on your founder journey and you think that this would be a nice champagne problem to have, don’t underestimate having these things figured out in advance.
- Why You Shouldn’t Sell Your Business
- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course
- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurship
This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire.
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