Rob Walling

Quotes are word for word from the source.

• Handling data deletion

  “I think that's a realistic approach the people should evaluate because in complex systems, you don't delete stuff.”

  Our noteRob suggests anonymizing data instead of deleting it to maintain system integrity.

• Percentage based pricing

  “I think the percentage based on how much they spend, it's very logical, I'm curious to see what customers think of that. I guess it all depends on what the percentage is.”

  Our noteRob weighs the pros and cons of charging a percentage of a customer's spend or savings.

• Validate with prospects

  “I think talking to either existing customers or prospects is going to be your next step to basically say, "We're going to do it based on a percentage and it's going to be quarterly only or it's going to be annual only. Do you want to sign up?”

  Our noteRob advises a founder to test a new pricing model by directly asking potential customers to sign up.

• Customer development surveys

  “I called it a customer development survey, it essentially asked what their biggest pain points are, what they were hoping Drip is going to solve for them, now anyone who responded to that instantly becomes a much more interested party”

  Our noteRob describes using surveys to identify the most engaged and relevant potential customers from a large email list.

• Early riser habit

  “I've started getting up every day at 6:30 in the morning. I didn't even know that like 6:30 existed because I am totally a scrape myself out of bed at 8:30 or 9 type person.”

  Our noteRob shares his transition from a night owl to an early riser to improve productivity.

• Hiring help

  “That was like the best decision ever. I feel like it's been definitely less than half the work for me.”

  Our noteRob talks about the impact of hiring a conference coordinator for MicroConf.

• Defining the product

  “It's just like I explained, email automation is basically a stripped down version of an infusion soft or maybe an office autopilot. And so we broke down on that feature and it changes the direction of Drip a little bit.”

  Our noteRob describes adding behavioral automation features to Drip.

• The differentiation test

  “if you get that question how are you different from X, if you get that over and over, then you're not doing a great job as a marketer.”

  Our noteRob reflects on the importance of obvious product differentiation.

• Event planning strategy

  “If you run events, you learn where to put things. You learn where to put different people in different topics. And certainly, leading was something that's either high level or tactical.”

  Our noteRob explains the intentionality behind scheduling speakers and topics at a conference.

• Early adopter flexibility

  “I asked them questions about their plans, and they are just like, "Oh, we'll totally work with you." I mean they were basically talking about trying to do a custom thing for me”

  Our noteRob shares how early-stage founders are often willing to go above and beyond for their first users.

• Optimal face-to-face cadence

  “But we are not managing them as teammates, as employees versus an actual team that's working together in a startup. What's your take on optimum cadence, face-to-face?”

  Our noteRob asks about the ideal frequency for in-person meetings for remote teams versus accelerator cohorts.

• Timing the pivot

  “Early stage founders are often faced with this dilemma. When is the right time to move on from an idea and how do you know when that's the right direction?”

  Our noteRob introduces the common struggle of knowing when to abandon a startup idea.

• Reality of being a founder

  “Sometimes you have to pivot your idea. Sometimes you lose a co-founder. Sometimes it takes a while to find a problem worth solving. That's being a founder.”

  Our noteRob reflects on the difficult and non-linear journey of a founder finding product-market fit.

• Freelancer availability

  “hire someone who is basically a full-time VA or a full-time freelancer so that they do have flexibility of schedule and they're not just working in the weekends and the evenings.”

  Our noteRob suggests hiring freelancers who treat their work as a full-time commitment.

• Measurable Goal Setting

  “I think a better goal would have been to launch your book, because then it's very measurable. And maybe even launch your book in the first six months or something, first six months of the year, because you achieved that.”

  Our noteRob explains why vague habits are harder to track than specific milestones like a book launch.

• Quantifying Growth

  “it doesn't sound like that much more, but when you actually look at how many more trials and how many more conversions we need throughout the year, just how many more people we need to use it, it's a substantial amount.”

  Our noteRob breaks down what a 2.5X growth target actually means in terms of daily operations.

• Support burden

  “The problem with that is once you've done that, now you kind of owe them something. They've paid for a year, and you're stuck to supporting them, and you really haven't made much money.”

  Our noteRob explains why low-paying customers can be a trap for small teams.

• Competitive advantage

  “Unless you have a major differentiator, that's where I would look for - is the competitive advantage you have is that, since it's open source, I imagine you have some type of user base.”

  Our noteRob advises a listener on how to find a unique angle against large competitors.

• Paid Beta Testing

  “I don't believe betas should be free. I think beta testing is you're building it. You're doing unit testing. Then you do integration testing with everything together.”

  Our noteRob explains why he believes founders should charge for their product even during the beta phase.

• Value of annual plans

  “One of the big benefits of annual plans, especially when you're starting out is you're tight on cash. To get someone to pay for 12 months of service in advance, even with a discount, that cash is invaluable.”

  Our noteRob discusses how annual plans help with cash flow for early-stage startups.

• Marketing vs Building

  “building the product was the easy part. Marketing was the real challenge. Although I did set up a landing page to collect e-mails, in my rush to actually launch MicroMaximus the pre-launch landing page was only available for a few weeks”

  Our noteKarl Falconer reflects on the difficulty of marketing compared to the ease of software development.

• Relinquishing control

  “giving up the marketing website was a tough choice. Not even a choice. I knew it had to happen. It was inevitability. It was just when it was going to happen.”

  Our noteRob talks about the difficulty of letting go of the marketing responsibilities he used to handle personally.

• Learning from demos

  “And people who are interested in a demo, then at least you can have a conversation with them. You could see what kind of volume you're getting. And you can have conversations with them both because it's easier to sell things that way and you'll be able to figure out how best to explain it.”

  Our noteRob explains the dual benefit of demos for sales and messaging research.

• Frictionless cancellation process

  “I actually remove the required field when someone's cancelling, because when someone wants to cancel, they really want to click and be done; and they tend to get frustrated if they have to do stuff”

  Our noteRob discusses why he avoids forcing customers to fill out forms during the cancellation process.

• Gaming business model

  “Gaming is another, like another animal all together and almost none of what we say applies to gaming because gaming is a hit-based business.”

  Our noteRob explains why general SaaS marketing advice often fails to apply to the mobile gaming industry.

• Prioritize customer feedback

  “I would even err on the side of looking for customers rather than just talking about it with other founders.”

  Our noteRob advises founders to seek validation from potential buyers rather than just peers.

• Hiring for freedom

  “I just think that hiring a VA or hiring someone to handle the stuff that you're doing day to day, it has to be your first step.”

  Our noteRob advises a founder who is afraid to take a vacation because of support demands.

• Autonomous software value

  “People don't want to pull it out because it's autonomous, in essence.”

  Our noteRob notes that software that acts on its own is harder to replace.

• Payback period

  “Typically, I see folks wanting to keep their customer acquisition costs between two and four months of what they're going to get back from that customer.”

  Our noteRob discusses the ideal payback period for non-funded companies to manage cash flow.

• Iterative Production Process

  “I made sure to focus on getting one video right before I worked on the others. Once I was really happy with the first version, then, and only then, I went back and did the next three.”

  Our noteRob describes his workflow for creating multiple videos efficiently.