Arvid Kahl
Empowering founders with kindness. Building in Public. Sold my SaaS FeedbackPanda for life-changing $ in 2019, now sharing my journey & what I learned.
Appears in 379 Episodes
377 — Virality is Poisonous
The most insidious consequence of chasing virality isn't that it makes you look foolish; it's that you're actively poisoning your precious audience.Here's what "playin...
376: Justin Moore — Becoming a Sponsor Magnet
Justin Moore (@justinmooretfam) knows a thing or two about sponsors. He's responsible for dozens of episodes of this very podcast to be sponsored! And what he taught m...
375: Mute those “Dings”
When notifications prevent you from focusing on your actual work, you know you're in trouble. Here's how I approach the balance between keeping an eye on the critical ...
374: Indie Hacking Databases at Scale
Databases are hard. Making the right choices early and keeping things running smoothly even when budget pressures and customer requests start piling on — that's the ha...
373: Delete Your Backlog
Sometimes, less is more. Here's how I pruned my feature backlog from 120 to 15 items.I'll share my decision-making framework; every single rule comes with examples. Ti...
372: Indie Hacking & the Singularity
One day, we'll all meld our minds into one, sharing our thoughts like the Borg on Star Trek.But before that, we have a few things to get done. And for us founders, tha...
371: Brian Sierakowski — Mastering Product Communication
Brian Sierakowski (@bsierakowski) has been busy over the last year: he started working on ChangeBot and TRMNL, and both projects are taking off.If you ever wondered wh...
370: Building Systems That Work While You Don't
This week, I was super sick — to the point where all I could do was rest in bed.The businesses needed to keep running, though. And fortunately, I set them up to do jus...
369: Expect-AI-tions
Expectations around AI tooling are changing, and software founders will be the first to either provide what people want — or perish.This episode is sponsored by Paddle...
368: Johannes Jäschke — From Hypnosis Innovation to Business Exit
Johannes Jäschke is a pioneer in the intersection of technology and mental health. From a college seminar to the forefront of digital well-being, Johannes developed Hy...
367: The Biggest Opportunity of 2025
Now that we're starting a new year, let's look ahead at the opportunities and challenges facing the software business world in 2025.This episode is sponsored by Paddle...
366: Omar Zenhom — Crafting Success Without a Tech Background
Omar Zenhom (@TheOmarZenhom) is one of those few amazing founders who just can't stop giving back to their entrepreneurial peers, no matter how much success they might...
365: Arvid's Year in Review: 2024
A new business. Raising money. Bootstrapping. Lifting. And then some.My 2024 was a year of progress, changes, and taking a few more risks than usual.Here's my 2024 yea...
364: Breaking my Own Rules
Sometimes, you have to pivot. And that's harder than it seems: old assumptions are deeply ingrained, new frontiers look scary.But right now, Podscan needs this. And to...
363: Ben Rometsch — From Side Projects to Industry Giants
Ben Rometsch (@dabeeeenster.bsky.social), the founder of Flagsmith, created a bootstrapped SaaS success story. Feature flags are transforming software deployment by de...
362: Startup Opportunities in Podcasting
The podcasting industry is full of business opportunities. I see them every day, either as a podcaster, a listener, or someone running a SaaS in this industry. So here...
361: Pierre de Wulf — Bootstrapping ScrapingBee to Millions
Pierre de Wulf (@PierreDeWulf), the founder of Scraping Bee, transformed himself from a frustrated developer into a SaaS success story. Here's what you'll learn from t...
360: Product-Market Fit & Time-to-First-Value
Imagine standing at a crossroads, juggling countless possibilities yet needing to choose just one path.That's what most early-stage founders struggle with. And for me,...
359: Connor Turland: Pioneering the Future of Bookkeeping with Ceedar.ai
Connor Turland (@Entrecurious) is the prototypical software entrepreneur. He found a niche from a "prior life" and is now building an AI bookkeeping SaaS.Now, many fou...
358: Love Is For Those Who Love the Work
AI was supposed to do our chores while we write prose and compose symphonies. Why is it composing our music and writing our books now, while WE do the chores?As softwa...
357: (Free) Trial & Error
Today, I’ll dive into the difference between a trial user and a trial abuser and what you can do to invite the former and prevent the latter.This episode is sponsored ...
356: James Phoenix — Mastering Code & AI for the Modern Developer
Coding with AI changes everything. It changes how we design, test, and improve our software projects. Today, I’m talking to generative AI expert James Phoenix.He’s wri...
355: The Age of the Gatekeeper Is Over
YouTube is both the best and the worst source of information — because we can watch it all, but no one will tell us what's REALLY worth watching.Here's how the gatekee...
354: The Art of Productive Procrastination
The problem with having no boss is that there's no one to stop you from procrastinating.I'm challenged by this daily, and I have found a few ways to stay accountable. ...
353: Podscan’s Dream Customer (Acquisition) Strategy
I want new prospects to receive the maximum possible value the moment they register for Podscan, so I treat them as customers before they even come to the page for the...
352: Running Lean at Scale
Yesterday, I shrunk the size of my production database from four terabytes to just under one terabyte.Something interesting happened last weekend that made me realize ...
351: From Overload to Opportunity
When a Podscan user got a bit "too general" with their keywords, all of a sudden, my email provider stopped sending emails.Whoops.Let's talk user error and founder for...
350: Building Your Castle in Someone Else's Kingdom
SaaS founders are simultaneously tenants and landlords, renting the tools we need while offering our own services for subscription. It's a world where true ownership s...
349: Navigating Constraints as a Bootstrapper
Bootstrapping is all about dealing with constraints: no money, the day job, lack of experience, and having no distribution. If you want to know how I tackle the restri...
348: Observability in Software Businesses
“I didn’t see it coming.” I had to admit that to myself a few times recently.Over the last couple of weeks, I've been experiencing several issues with Podscan that onl...