The Bootstrapped Founder

Arvid: 00:00

Hey, it's Arvid and this is the Bootstrap Founder. I was reading Brandon Sanderson's latest novel, Wind and Truth, when I came across a sentence that stopped me cold. The sentence was a stronger current makes for stronger fish. And I thought wow that is it. That's exactly what entrepreneurship is.

Arvid: 00:24

We're constantly finding these currents that either help us they facilitate what we want to accomplish businesses we want to build, the lives we want to create, or they oppose us to try to sweep us into more dangerous waters. These currents change all the time. They vary in strength and that depends on where you are in your journey and I guess they're mostly invisible until we learn to actually feel them. And somebody on Twitter asked me what my top three currents were after I shared this thought and this quote and it turned out to be quite a revealing exercise going through this trying to assess what I'm exposed to, what I'm dealing with, and how I'm navigating these forces. So let me share with you today what I've encountered and discovered about the currents that are pulling at me as I'm building PodScan.

Arvid: 01:10

The biggest current that I felt over the last year and a half as I've been building the software business is the rapidly changing technological landscape. As a software entrepreneur I think we're just permanently exposed to new technologies here and there's always something that you might want to learn, always something that could give you an edge if you figure it out or leave you behind if you don't. And when I was a salaried software engineer back in the day, it was so much easier to get really good at the craft of engineering. All day long I was dealing with that one particular tech stack and was optimizing my approach to it, understanding it better, implementing everything that needed to be built in that stack. But now as a founder there's this fleeting nature of projects and the volatility of early stage software businesses that means pivoting from one stack to another is actually quite easy and it's not just easy it's often necessary And speaking of navigating new technologies and finding the right tools for growth, if you're an app business and you're seeking growth channels and strategies beyond traditional app stores, paddle.com is sponsoring today's episode.

Arvid: 02:16

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Arvid: 02:42

Now back to those technological rapids that we all face. Think about it. When you're building a business, you might need something like time series data or some kind of vector database that may not be as established as a technology but is perfect for building with new tech, particularly embeddings, vector stores, the AI stuff like RAGs and all of that. You might need to learn a whole new language for communicating with your database and new ways of interacting with data that prior to this you probably wouldn't have cared about. Like a graph connection between data, you didn't care.

Arvid: 03:15

You would have just used a regular old database and a regular old approach to building software. But that's not happening anymore. And I think the fact that we are looking at all these other things, that prevents mastery. That is a big big problem when you're constantly incentivized to switch tech, to learn new tech, to implement new technology into your business immediately when it appears because you need to stay on top of what the early adopter crowd is interested in because that's who you're building for and they want new tech, ways of dealing with tech, new ways of presenting data, new ways of accumulating data. It makes it very hard to become really good at any one thing.

Arvid: 03:51

And this is particularly hard when you're in the early stages of building a business. You're not only exposed to all the potential fancy technology, and I don't just mean software stacks. I mean things like AI agentic coding, byte coding, things that build software for you, just new things. But you just don't know about all of these things you don't know what this technology is really like what the nuance is how exactly it works and how you can use it in an optimized high efficiency way. So how do I resist this personally?

Arvid: 04:19

By choosing really solid fundamentals for my own business adventures. Always have been doing this. When I recently built the Podscan Ideas Vault which is a layer of software that started on top of Podscan's webhook API that constantly extracts all kinds of business ideas from hundreds of podcasts all over the world, I needed to build a new data storage system for that. And there I was thinking, what am I going to use? And I kind of fell back into I'm just going to go with what I know.

Arvid: 04:48

I'm gonna go open up a PostgresQL database. It's gonna be maybe a Redis cache, and that's it. I'm not gonna go into document based databases. That could have been something because there's a lot of JSON data or even like a dedicated vector storage because there will be embeddings. I'm going to choose Postgres because it kind of has this built in.

Arvid: 05:06

You can handle JSON while in Postgres. You have pgvector, which is a vector storage that you can do these vector calculations in. But in the end, it's always going to be a relational database. And that's something that I have like twenty years of experience with at this point. And it was a pretty good choice because it allowed me to just build the thing that I wanted to build and not feel compelled to yet again learn a new thing, like constantly learning new things all the time just because we're trying to build this extra 5% efficiency is really not worth it.

Arvid: 05:35

So my recommendation here, and this is very personal, but that's how I've been doing it, just go with technology that hasn't changed based on hype. That isn't just there because people are hyping it up. You should be making this choice based on the effect and longevity of a piece of technology. If it's been around, if it's been safe, then it's also a safe choice to make. If you're a Rails developer and you want to build a new business and you think you might try something else, just default to Rails.

Arvid: 06:04

Please just use what you know. And even though you could go into PHP, use Laravel or go into JavaScript, use Next. Js or whatever, have fancy new automated complicated build systems that are super weird. It's all great. It's all wonderful.

Arvid: 06:16

It's great that this stuff exists, but could well be a thing if you wanted to use it, but you don't have to choose this technology because it's there and because everybody else is kind of using it. You should choose the one that you already understand that helps you build the thing you want to build. And this makes it easier, particularly if you look at how AI coding is such a normal thing for most people now. Even though people don't always use agentic tools, they will use autocomplete. That's always been a thing, guess, IntelliSense and all that kind of stuff.

Arvid: 06:43

But knowing if an autocomplete suggestion is good, if it's something that is going to benefit your project or break it, well, that is only possible if you have an understanding of the underlying framework and system. For that, you should always go with the thing you know because if you try to auto complete and prompt your way to a stable piece of software you have to kind of rely on the AI's understanding of stability and that might not be what you need. And if you don't know anything about coding, if you're just going to start learning the technology, learning to code while building a business well then going with a widely adopted and widely popular system like Laravel, PHP or Ruby on Rails probably is a good idea. The reverse Linde effect is real for all kinds of new technology technology that hasn't been around for a while that's rather new has a high risk of not sticking around for longer because the Linde effect its inverse says that if a technology has been around for a long time it will likely stick around for equally as long for many reasons right The inverse of it means if it's rather new then it's volatile.

Arvid: 07:47

You might run into software that just stops working after a while because it just didn't get the traction people thought it needed particularly in the Vibe coding universe. This is probably gonna happen. I think we saw it with what was it? Windsurf that got acquired and then all kinds of weird things happened. Now that's not necessarily exactly Vibe coding.

Arvid: 08:06

It's just AI assisted coding. But tools like Lovable and Bolt, they are fighting it out. There is an arena and only a couple of those are going to remain so if you have a project on any of these you better understand how to self host this or get it hosted somewhere else as a backup. These things are really new and they might be gone in a year from now. Now that's current number one.

Arvid: 08:28

Technology is weird. It's pretty much what it is. Technology is fast. I can't stop it and it happens to me so I have to deal with it. The second current that I feel for myself is both a blessing and a curse.

Arvid: 08:39

Software engineering is being heavily commoditized. It's so much easier to build software now, so much faster to create working monetizable prototypes and clones of stuff. And this has been a boon to the indie hacker community. Solar founders can start small niche businesses like never before, like get them into a point where the prototype can be monetized very early. But here's the undertow to this.

Arvid: 09:04

It's just as easy for anybody working at a larger company with deeper pockets to build the same thing using the same technology. Your idea can be copied, be duplicated and just out executed by somebody with more time or resources. The red flags in B2B software building are still there. People in those companies, they need clearance for projects, they need to write specs and build integrations or whatever, but the barrier to entry to even get started with this has dropped dramatically. We see this in acquisitions too.

Arvid: 09:34

Like acquisitions of software businesses, they just take much longer in due diligence because for most companies it's buy or build where in the past it's just been do I buy or do I not buy. Now they can for the same amount of money likely build a similarly well designed piece of software. At least they think so. And that impacts prices, that impacts negotiations. So that is a real thing.

Arvid: 09:57

It's all being commoditized. This makes bootstrapping a software business less of a solid defensive mode than it used to be in the past unless and this is crucial unless you build distribution and a public brand around it you're gonna have a problem. And that leads me to my third current quite directly the ever growing need for attention in this increasingly crowded ocean. Now that's a current that both pulls me along and holds me back depending on where I look. The biggest problem for any founder is distribution at this point because execution is easy and idea is kind of easy too.

Arvid: 10:36

You can have AI get you very far with both of these. It is hard to find actual human customers for your projects though if you don't have the marketing dollars to just spend on paid advertising or influencer marketing. Once you have that kind of money, that's great, that works, right? It really works. But you get solid leads from spending money.

Arvid: 10:57

That's the rule. And if you don't have that money you kind of have to do it organically. You have to build a brand in public, share your business journey in public, attract people. And building in public is still the cheapest way of getting attention on yourself and your business, finding those first couple customers, finding partnerships and evangelists, all that kind of stuff. But it is marketing and that's where the strongest tension is for me.

Arvid: 11:19

I want to stay authentically myself as a founder. Want I to communicate very authentically what my journey is as I build my businesses in public. But I also know that every single post I make has a marketing angle. So let me share how this attention currently plays out in my daily routine. Every day before my newsletter goes out, the Podscan Ideas newsletter, I share one or two ideas from it with commentary on Twitter.

Arvid: 11:44

And I've been doing this for the last couple of weeks. If you follow me on Twitter, you've probably seen it. I want people to know that first off there is a newsletter that might be interesting to them and this is what they might get and it's a marketing activity to share what the newsletter does every day. I'm quite aware of this. So it feels performative on occasion to post about this.

Arvid: 12:04

Every day at eight a. My newsletter goes out and then I check, okay, what's in there? What's interesting? What could I say about this? And as much as I actually like to see all these ideas and during the day I just check it out because I'm curious, I want to get some kind of insight into what's being talked about in the world, that reaching out on Twitter, that's self marketing.

Arvid: 12:21

So being a creator on social media will try to remain an authentic human being. That is a current that sometimes pulls me towards my goals and sometimes perceivedly away from them. Right? It's hard to do marketing and stay authentic, and it's hard to stay authentic and do marketing if you're not capable of kind of unifying these two. And another current that I feel very strongly here, particularly in our community of founders online, is being a consumer of social media.

Arvid: 12:48

I suffer a hard time maintaining a firm grasp on my own journey when everybody else's journey just seems to be flashing much more brightly around me. Social media is highly selective and people share the good stuff, they rarely share the bad stuff so what we see is kind of this echo chamber of positivity not necessarily toxic positivity but it's selective positivity. People share oh my MRR went up that's wonderful you get a screenshot and you know the graph goes to the top right here's that and look at this this is how I did it I don't really see too many people sharing when their MRR goes down and with the screenshot that comes from that. People do that occasionally but it's like a what is a nine to one relationship right? I don't really get to see them that often because people don't share them so what we do see is that everybody or mostly everybody is doing well and you just don't get to see the struggles because they're not posted And my own reality where every day the MRR graph goes up and down as well like there's always some movement either way it's a fiftyfifty chance well that's not represented in the social network around me and if it's not represented I cannot perceive it accurately and if I can perceive it accurately my own journey is colored by a distortion.

Arvid: 14:02

And it doesn't even have to be envy or jealousy for this to affect you. It's like Plato's cave. We're looking at shadows on the wall. What we see are mirrors, silhouettes on the wall, and the reality is something behind us that we don't necessarily get to see because we only get to see the wall. And quite literally, the Facebook wall and the Twitter feed.

Arvid: 14:20

Right? It's very selective. This kind of discrepancy is a strong current that I feel can often motivate me because I see other people doing well and I think I can do that too, I want to get there too, what do I need to do? And then I do it, but it can be disheartening in moments of doubt and moments of perceived failure lack of success it's a strong feeling when it seems like everybody else is doing so well. Final current that I found and this is particularly hard is the pull of work life balance.

Arvid: 14:50

I try not to spend all day working. I've been focusing more on balancing my own mental stability which I derive from being with friends, family, from reading, from having hobbies, playing with my dog, yet combining the lack of technological stability with the pressure of social media presence, well that makes me want to go and spend more time to reach my goals and less time away from work, which is also a goal but one that isn't as directly perceived as like sitting in front of a computer. So when I don't work, there's always a nagging thought: you could be spending time working. Even though it wouldn't be necessarily productive or even helpful, might be distracting just working for the sake of working, but we all understand now that you don't measure the quality of a software engineer by lines of code that they have written. You measure by features implemented, bugs fixed, efficiency gains, maybe SalesMate with the product.

Arvid: 15:39

You don't measure output, you measure impact. Yet there's still this output centric mindset and I suffer from this too this current that says more time working equals better results or maybe equals a higher chance at better results. It's kind of how we massage it into our brains even though we know that too much work is actually detrimental and that's the current that I'm trying to swim against. So it's just hard, right? After twenty five years of sitting in front of a computer it's just so easy to fall into the same routine, check things, try to improve things a little.

Arvid: 16:11

It's really hard to step outside and not do that. Your currents are probably going to look a little bit different from mine. There might be overlap and you might have the same ones but feel pulled in a different direction. You might view these forces maybe more benevolently or more malevolently but here's what I think is important about all of this it's just realizing that these currents actually exist because they're often internally validated but they're mostly external forces that are acting upon you. People will share their MRR graphs and stories with or without you, it doesn't matter.

Arvid: 16:45

Rapid developments in AI and frameworks, that's not your fault. The fact that this causes more competition, also not your fault. The fact that you picked an industry that now sees for some reason many people trying to build in it that is also not your fault. These are external forces but we make them internal when we allow them to sweep us away without even knowing that we're moving. The important part is to understand that these currents exist to make them visible to make them present so that we can recognize them as currents and not as our own failings.

Arvid: 17:15

We shouldn't despair when we get pulled in a direction a little bit too much. That's just what entrepreneurship is. You're constantly torn from one side to the other and you have to make different strokes to stay swimming where you want to be. So a stronger current does make for a stronger fish by the virtue of you reacting to it but only if you know that you're swimming. Only if you're aware of the water that you're in.

Arvid: 17:38

So once you recognize the currents, can choose swim against them, swim with them, or maybe find the calm eddies where you can rest and reassess, kind of take yourself out of it. You don't have to constantly follow all tech. You don't have to always try to work more or less. You can just like set guidelines and act on them for a bit and just see what happens. The currents will always be there.

Arvid: 17:59

They change with the tides of technology, market forces, social dynamics, but awareness about them, that's your compass. And deliberate action, that's your stroke, your swim stroke. So take a moment and feel the currents pulling at you, maybe name them so you understand them better, then decide how you want to navigate them. Because in the end, you're not just trying to survive these waters, you're trying to get somewhere or you're trying to build something meaningful. And knowing the currents is the first step to charting your course.

Arvid: 18:28

Thanks so much for listening to the Boots of Founder. Find me on Twitter at avidkah, a r v I d k a h l. If you wanna know what everyone's saying about your brand on over 3,800,000 podcasts, podscan.fmtracks mentions in near real time with a powerful API that turns podcast podcast conversations into actionable data. And if you're hunting for your next business idea, get them delivered fresh from the podcast world at ideas.podscan.fm where an AI extracts the best startup opportunities from five hundred plus hours of expert conversations every day. Share this with anyone who needs to stay ahead of the conversation.

Arvid: 19:03

Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful