This is our last episode. Thanks to everyone who has listened and supported us over the last couple years. We're going to miss you ?Topics in this episode: Rick accepted a new job. What does that mean for LegUp Health? Rick finished migrating his help site to Webflow. Rick notified his free users that the free service is shutting down. Tyler talks about compounding and what it means for thinking about the future. We discuss how it might be harder to start a company these days because there are so many success stories that are hard to live up to. We discuss Datafetcher.com as a nice no-code tool. We discuss the build vs. buy tradeoffs. 

Startup to Last

The final episode

Topics this week: Rick is canceling his CRM subscription. Tyler is considering where his newsletter fits into his overall plan. Based on our conversation last week, Rick has new clarity around the future of LegUp Health. Tyler explains how LACRM came up with their long-term product roadmap. Rick is going through continuing education. We discuss some touchy feely things related to the passage of time. 

Sustainability starts with planning

Topics from this episode: Less Annoying CRM is back to remote-first because of the new wave of the virus. LACRM had a new developer start this week. Rick is thinking about how to simplify his business. Specifically, what can he cut? We discuss what it means to be a calm company. Or is that even the goal? 

What to cut and what to keep

Topics from this episode: Tyler hit 2,000 Twitter followers, and we discuss how Twitter is a hits-based business which doesn't suit Tyler's strengths. Rick gives an update on his personal website and newsletter optimization efforts. Rick reached the first page on an important search term. Less Annoying CRM is tweaking the format of help articles to appeal more the the easily distractible internet user. Rick has finished his javascript course. Tyler discusses the LACRM product roadmap. 

Home runs vs. consistency

Topics this week: Tyler had fun with a once-per-year football bet, and Rick had to put in a full day of dad duty. Tyler is considering taking the ShiftNudge design course to get better at design. He also purchased a license to Tailwind UI so he can copy from better designers. LACRM is tweaking it's policy that everyone at the company must do an hour or support each week. Rick reflects on the value he gets from both writing and reading personal newsletters. LACRM is tweaking it's policy around employee conversation, partially based on a conversation we had on this podcast a couple weeks ago. Tyler's Mixergy interview is live. Now that Rick has a sense of what is and isn't working at his business, he wants to simplify which will mean cutting some current complexity away. 

Throwing things at the wall to see what sticks

Topics this week: Rick launched LegUpBenefits.com. We discuss Rick's new no-code tool: Outseta. Less Annoying CRM has a new developer starting next month. Tyler has refined his approach to writing internal documentation, and Rick makes a fantastic analogy. Tyler's co-founder/brother will be in town next week. Rick wants to keep practicing coding so his skills don't deteriorate. Rick is taking a break from podcasts. Tyler wants Rick's help to teach the coding fellows about no-code use cases. We discuss Rick's notes on Anything You Want which leads to a conversation about whether startup utopias are real. 

The thing about utopias is that they're not real

Topics this week: Rick took some time off, but is wondering if he earned it. Tyler wrote five blog posts in one day, and wonders if this should be the new approach to blogging. Rick decided to wait for Memberstack updates before taking on a coding project he was planning. Rick is using Outseta for his next technical project to diversify away from Memberstack. He plans to have the done in the next week. Rick is still waiting to decide how to handle the API vendor that closed down his account. Tyler is diving into design and is interested in improving his skills. Tyler has found a couple promising use cases for his new iPad which he mostly hates. The big topic for this week: What are ways a company can fairly share profits with employees? Specifically, is it better to pay current employees more, or hire more people to spread the wealth around. 

Sharing profit with employees

Topics in this episode: Tyler was interviewed to be on Mixergy, but didn't think he did a great job. Rick is adjusting his routine now that he has a kid to take care of. Rick enrolled in a new javascript course to hone his skills. Tyler's previous positive results converting website visitors to his newsletter have turned to failure. No one is signing up. Tyler attended Less Annoying CRM's first leadership team meeting. Tyler had his first person finish building a website based on his online course. Tyler (geez, enough with updates from Tyler, right?) is thinking through putting a limitation on LACRM. Tyler (seriously, stop) took a day to help his dad with a new project. Rick had a big coding win and finished two projects... ...just in time for one of his API vendors to close down his account, so the projects don't really work anymore. We discuss how Rick should respond. 

When platform risk goes wrong

Topics this week: Tyler has a new iPad and doesn't know what it's good for. Rick has added a client through word of mouth, and we discuss how churn and word of mouth are constantly battling with one another. Rick has resolved a major issue one of his clients had with their dental insurance. Crisis averted. Tyler has been working on the wrong things, and is trying to correct that. We discuss Less Annoying CRM's new leadership team. Rick is applying his new javascript skills to his Airtable data. Tyler is writing blog posts in a new way: First write the tweet storm, then write the blog post. We discuss Earnest Capital's rebranding to Calm Company Fund. 

When churn and word of mouth cancel each other out

 Tyler has a new mic. Tyler is in the middle of the final round of interviews for his new dev hire, and he's starting to plan onboarding. We discuss whether to put a new LACRM content project on the main lessannoyingcrm.com domain, or a separate mini-site. Rick finished taking his javascript course. Rick's dad is in town, and he's taking a bit of time off work. We discuss a trick for getting people to complete online courses. We reflect on what we've learned after recording 100 episodes of this podcast. 

What we've learned about podcasting after 100 episodes

Topics covered this week: We selfishly discuss larger themes we've covered on the podcast which might make for good topics on the Indie Hackers podcast. Tyler's newsletter signups have increased since changing the call-to-action. Rick lost another LegUp Health client due to unavoidable churn. Tyler has a content idea centered around CRM pricing. Tyler wants to do engineering as marketing but doesn't have any good ideas. Rick is almost done learning javascript. Rick has his first coding projects lined up. We discuss the new Stripe payment links. We revisit last week's topic because a listener called in with a new thought on the topic. 

Content marketing: Putting all our eggs in one basket

Topics this week: Tyler asks Rick how he configured the call-to-action for his newsletter on his blog. Tyler is adding a curated list of links to his newsletter. Tyler overcame writers block and wrote his first support-focused blog post. Rick is curious what a highly-compensated support rep might look like at LegUp Health. Rick started paying for Notion. Tyler gives a shout-out to SavvyCal. We take a listener question about how to reach customers who don't have online communities. 

What does a $100k/year support person look like?

Topics in this episode: Apparently online courses have a very low completion rate, but maybe that's ok? Rick is learning more about javascript and has a few questions. Rick is taking a vacation where he'll fully unplug. Tyler gives some learnings from the recent enterprise deal that LACRM closed. Tyler has the interview process figured out for LACRM's next hire. 

Can a course business succeed even if no one finishes them?

This week, we answer a few listener questions about how to make your first hire.

Making your first hire

Topics this week: Rick crossed 200 subscribers for his personal newsletter. Rick gives an update on some recent milestones related to this podcast. Rick has been doing Wes Bos's beginner javascript course and is learning a lot. Tyler is on vacation, and is mostly just taking it easy. We discuss Notion's new API. Rick seriously sprained his ankle. Rick is dealing with a customer who is disappointed. 

When customer expectations aren't met

Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.