The Rocketship Podcast
By Matt Goldman, Michael Sacca, Joelle Steiniger
To listen to an audio podcast, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to download and subscribe to podcasts.
Description
20 minute interviews with successful startup founders about the early days of their business and the activities that helped them succeed at key points along the way. Follow us on twitter: Michael Sacca - @michaelsacca Joelle Steiniger - @joellesteiniger Matt Goldman - @sdmattg
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Test Early, Test Often: The Power of Qualitative Data | Leslie Bradshaw, Managing Partner at Made by Many NY, talks about how they capture and use both qualitative and quantitative data to make key product decisions, like what features to build. She talks about finding insights in behavioral patterns, and usin | 10/16/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
2 |
How to Methodically Build a Growth Machine | Brian Balfour, VP of Growth at HubSpot and author of the Coelevate blog, talks with us in-depth about his process for building a growth machine. He walks us through each step of their experiments and how they determine what to focus on. He talks about the | 10/14/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
3 |
Developing Stronger, Smarter Startup Communities | We attended Tech Cocktail's Celebrate Conference in Downtown Las Vegas and put together an absolutely killer episode with the very best highlights of the event. The overarching theme is all about building strong startup communities. We talk to a couple ke | 10/9/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
4 |
Three Principles of Success From a Killer Self-Funded Company | Jeff Berg, Founder and Developer at Planning Center, talks about how he's grown his self-funded company to over 30 employees and over 3 million users across their suite of apps. He shares his 3 principles for success with us, and how he's able to maintain | 10/7/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
5 |
Attracting Top Quality Talent in the Early Stages | Rob Mallery, VP of Talent at Originate, talks with us about attracting top-notch technical and creative talent. He describes how his company is attempting to disrupt the investment space by investing talent rather than money, and how they’ve created a p | 10/2/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
6 |
How to Pull Off 12 (Well Executed) Startups in 12 Months | Pieter Levels, Founder of Levels.io, talks about how he’s building 12 startups in 12 months. Not only do we cover how he’s able to pull that off (and to with awesome quality), but he has really interesting reasons why he’s approaching startups this | 9/30/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
7 |
How to Increase Activation Through Awesome Onboarding | Gordon Wintrob, Co-Founder of StackLead, talks about their unique approach to onboarding and activation. He walks us through their flow and shares the effectiveness of different techniques. He also shares some of the learnings that came out of YCombinator | 9/25/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
8 |
How to Screw Up a Google Acquisition | Jason Roberts, serial entrepreneur, one of the first developers at Uber and host of the TechZing podcast shares some great stories about his experiences on both sides of the funding table. He also talks about how he screwed up a potential Google acquisiti | 9/23/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
9 |
Retargeting Tactics That Unlocked $40,000 in Revenue | Scott Nixon, Co-Founder and CTO of Happy Herbivore, talks about the incredible growth he and his wife have seen over the past few years. He dives deep into the strategies and benefits of retargeting, and shares some staggering numbers. If you haven’t ex | 9/18/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
10 |
Physical Goods vs. Software: The Key Differences That Will Change Your Strategy | Kosta Gara , Founder & CEO of Vionic, talks about the differences between a traditional consumer-product environment (like cosmetics or energy drinks) versus a B2B software company. We cover everything from product development to sales, marketing and grow | 9/16/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
11 |
What Investors Really Look For in Founders | Navid Alipour, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Analytics Ventures, talks with us about the changing landscape of investment, and how the emergence of syndicates opens up a whole new world of investment opportunities for the average joe. He also talks a | 9/11/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
12 |
Lessons Learned From a $25 Million Dollar Acquisition | Brad Flora, Founder and CEO of Perfect Audience, talks about the recent acquisition of his company. He shares the ups and downs of the entire process, the unexpected points along the way, and how things have changed post-sale. | 9/9/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
13 |
How to Go Beyond Simple Execution and Go After a Huge Opportunity | Josh Long, designer, writer, and creator of many awesome products, talks with us about his balance between multiple projects and income streams, and his passion for learning through all his different projects. He also shares both his excitement and concer | 9/4/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
14 |
Things You Never Considered About Enterprise Sales | David Warren, Founder and CEO of LIA, talks with us about his endeavors in the enterprise sales space. He shares some amazingly intuitive advice and some great stories. | 9/2/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
15 |
How GitHub Scaled Past Dunbar's Number Without Losing Their Culture | Zach Holman, one of the first engineers at GitHub talks about how their culture and process have changed as they’ve grown from about 10 employees to over 250, (about 2/3 or which are remote). He details which bits of process were necessary and helped th | 8/28/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
16 |
Getting Past Your Biases to Unlock Unimaginable Growth Channels | Gabriel Weinberg, founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo, talks about his guide to building sustainable and lasting traction throughout the lifetime of a business, and how you can be testing traction channels even before you launch. He also shared his story behind | 8/26/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
17 |
When to Stop Focusing on Building an Audience and Start Pounding the Pavement | Rob Walling, Founder of Drip, Co-Host of Startups for the Rest of Us, and Co-Creator of MicroConf, talks all about how they’ve used their podcast and conference to build an incredibly loyal audience, and how that has affected his product at various stag | 8/21/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
18 |
How to Make, Test, and Iterate on Marketing Assumptions | Manuel Weiss, Co-Founder and CMO of Codeship, shares how they apply the scientific method to everything they do, particularly in their marketing pipeline. He shares examples of experiments and how they iterate over time until they’ve optimized an assump | 8/19/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
19 |
When to Stop “Powering Through” and Pivot | Lee Jacobson, CEO of Apmetrix, talked with us about getting past the “power through it” mentality and opening yourself up to pivoting. By trusting in and listing to the data you collect you can follow various paths to revenue. He also talked about the | 8/14/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
20 |
Why You Should Forget Pre-Defined Product Categories | Ryan Singer, Product Manager at Basecamp, talked with us about stripping away pre-defined product categories and focusing on the niche you’re filling and the problem you’re solving. He shares lessons learned with Basecamp, as well as how they use Jobs | 8/12/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
21 |
How to Raise Money Outside of San Francisco | Cat Noone, Co-Founder of Liberio, talks with us about their journey raising a seed round in Berlin. She shares strategies they’ve discovered in building their pitch deck, meetings with VCs, and the thought behind raising money in the first place. | 8/7/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
22 |
How to Find Unique Growth Channels Beyond Content | Sean Ellis, Founder and CEO of Qualaroo and GrowthHackers talks about how he massively increased growth at Qualaroo just by changing up their pricing model. He also talks about his motivations behind creating and growing the community at GrowthHackers.com | 8/5/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
23 |
Time Management Tips to Make Your Team Insanely Productive | Owais Peer, Co-Founder of Global App Testing, talks about his unique productivity hacks he uses with his entire team. We also discuss his bottom up approach to management and how they use the Pomodoro technique to measure just about everything on their t | 7/31/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
24 |
Attracting Enterprise Customers Through Inbound Leads | Brian Zeurcher, Founder and CEO of Seen, talks about the challenges of building a SaaS app for large-scale brands to help promote their social marketing channels through powerful influencers and brand advocates. | 7/29/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
25 |
Bulletproof Sales Techniques That Scale | Melanie Gordon, Co-Founder and CEO of TapHunter, shares the cold-calling and sales techniques they’ve used to scale to profitability within a year of taking a seed round of funding. She also talks about the challenges of selling a SaaS product to non-te | 7/24/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
26 |
Buffer's Secret to Killer Customer Service and Strategic Hiring | Carolyn Kopprasch, Chief Happiness Officer at Buffer, talks with us about how they’ve kept up quality as they’ve grown their support team, and the unconventional ways they’ve scaled. She also shared super actionable tips on how they use HelpScout to | 7/22/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
27 |
How to Identify a Pain Worth Solving and Turn It Into a Profitable Business | Robert Williams, Founder of LetsWorkshop.com, talks about how he focused on solving a huge pain point that he personally experienced, and grew it into a super successful startup. He shares his learnings from the 30x500 course and how he’s been able to g | 7/17/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
28 |
The Ultra-Creative Viral Hooks Boomerang Used to Scale | Alex Moore, Founder and CEO of Boomerang, talks with us about viral tactics he used to grow a product that most people didn’t want others to know they were using. He also shares a hilarious story of how he got his first investor, Dave McClure. | 7/15/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
29 |
What Investors Consider When Deciding To Invest In You | Elliot Schneier, COO of Fundable, talks with us about the key factors that investors look for when deciding to invest in you. He shared incredibly thorough insights on topics ranging from idea to traction to funding. He also talked with us about their str | 7/10/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
30 |
Christine Lu Speaks Out About Startup Founder Depression | Christine Lu, Co-Founder and CEO of Affinity China speaks out about mental health and founder depression. She not only shares her own personal story, but her perspective on why depression is so prominent among startup founders. | 7/8/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
31 |
How To Get Featured in VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and More | Conrad Egusa, former Venture Beat writer and founder of Publicize, shares his incredibly effective process for getting press in big publications. None of it requires hiring a pr firm, having existing relationships with journalists, or any other myths you | 7/3/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
32 |
Getting Over the Fear of Starting a Business | Garrett Dimon, founder of Sifter, talks about some of the silliest excuses people make to not start their own company (including his own). He also shares the unexpected benefits that came down the line from running his own business. | 7/1/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
33 |
Marketing Your Products through Event Planning | Nick O’Neill, Founder of Startup Stats, talks with us about event planning. He shares his process for deciding what kind of event to plan, lining up speakers and ticket sales. There’s an amazing amount of similarities to launching a product. | 6/26/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
34 |
Vertical Marketing Strategies and Designing a Company Culture | Jesse Mecham and Taylor Brown of You Need a Budget share their strategies for taking a product with broad appeal and segmenting it down to market to different verticals. They also talk about being deliberate in their hiring process and company culture, es | 6/24/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
35 |
“Fundstrapping” Your Way to Profitability | Colin Nederkoorn, Founder and CEO of Customer.io, talks about the tactics he used to build early traction and how they converted that traction to an unconventional round of funding that rocketed them to profitability. | 6/19/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
36 |
Raising outside of San Fran and Leveraging The Right Mix of Advisors | Scot Chisholm, Co-Founder and CEO of StayClassy, talks with us about his unusual route to raising 1.5 million seed funding over the course of 2 years and how mentors and advisors helped them grow into one of the biggest non-profit donation platforms in th | 6/17/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
37 |
Creative Funding Strategies For Early Growth | Paul Farnell, Co-Founder and CEO of Litmus, talks about their early growth and how they were able to reach profitability without ever raising “traditional” rounds of funding. He shares the creative ways they funded themselves, including selling pre-or | 6/12/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
38 |
Sales Tactics That Actually Work | Ben Sardella, sales guru and co-founder of Datanyze, talks about specific sales tactics like personalized emails, social media outreach and more. He shares his “6-touch-point process” and digs into the mistakes he sees companies make over and over aga | 6/10/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
39 |
How to Fundraise without Venture Capital | Nick Francis, co-founder and CEO of Help Scout, brings a unique, middle-ground, perspective on funding and growth. He also talks about how going through TechStars Boston had a huge impact on their trajectory. | 6/5/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
40 |
Sales Tactics Aimed at Tripling Revenue | Aaron Ross, best-selling author of Predictable Revenue, talks with us about how he build an outbound sales program at Salesforce that increased recurring revenues by over 100 million dollars. We talked all about his tips and tricks for cold-calling and ho | 6/3/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
41 |
The Power of Authenticity | David Sherry, Founder of Death to the Stock Photo, talks about the importance of authenticity. He shared his techniques for keeping high-touch engagement at the forefront of all their community-building efforts and how they’re able to grow their list by | 5/29/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
42 |
Streamlined Planning for Small Teams | Nathan Gilmore, Co-Founder of TeamGantt, shares how they bootstrapped their way to thousands of monthly customers. He also talked to Michael about how this team at Brandisty could benefit from something like Gantt vs. other methodologies. | 5/27/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
43 |
Marketing to Developers and Releasing Free Tools for Lead Generation | John Sheehan, Co-Founder and CEO of Runscope talks about how to market to developers. He shares how they've both aqcuired and built an arsenal of free tools, and how those tools have become the primary source of qualified lead generation for Runscope. | 5/22/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
44 |
How to Setup a Painless Content Production Processes | Mark Roberge, Chief Revenue Officer of HubSpot, talks about really easy ways to turn your company into a content machine and drive more inbound leads. He also dives deep into HubSpot’s sales process and the metrics-driven approach that worked so well fo | 5/20/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
45 |
Growth, Pricing, and the Realities of Funding | Jason Cohen, Founder and CTO of WP Engine, talks about why you shouldn’t be afraid to make ambitious changes to your strategy or pricing, and what those enhancements may look like. He also talks about the differences between raising money to grow your c | 5/15/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
46 |
The Importance of Getting Sh*t Done vs. Striving For Perfection | Drew Strojny, former NFL player and Founder of The Theme Foundry and Memberful, talks about how Memberful was built internally out of necessity and later opened to the public. He also talks about how to stay positive and hungry, despite moving slower than | 5/13/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
47 |
Product Philosophy: JTBD & Minimum Marketable Features | Thomas Schranz, Co-Founder & CEO of Blossom.io talks about how he thinks differently about product management. He doesn’t blindly follow standard agile practices - he picks the right tool for the job and avoids unnecessary process. He also talked with u | 5/8/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
48 |
Fundraising, Metrics, and Phenomenal Twitter Rants | Danielle Morrill, Co-Founder and CEO of Mattermark, talks all about funding - when companies should consider seeking it, and the metrics you should be monitoring to know if/when the time is right. She also shares some incredible lessons learned along the | 5/6/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
49 |
Early-Stage Growth Tactics and Finding Your Focus | Hiten Shah, Founder of CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics, talked about the pros and cons of funding vs. self-funding, and the impact each can have on your focus and early-stage strategy. Hiten also talked about mistakes he sees early-stage companies making time an | 5/1/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
50 |
Leaving the Valley to Start Up in Berlin | Cat Noone, Co-Founder and lead designer for Liberio, talks with us about leaving San Francisco to start a startup in Berlin. She shares some really interesting stories about the experience, both from the social perspective as well as the fundraising side. | 4/29/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
51 |
Relationship Building, The Art of Sales, and Balinese Gurus | Perri Blake Gorman, Founder of Archive.ly and one of the Co-Founders of Unroll.me, talks about how she went from being a head-hunter on Wall Street to a solo, non-technical startup founder. She also shares her process for creating meaningful relationships | 4/24/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
52 |
The Rollercoaster Journey of Wistia | Brendan Schwartz, Co-Founder and CTO of Wistia, shares some hilarious stories about his journey going from bootstrapped to raising a round of funding, to not making sale for months after raising that money. He touches on early product pivots, sales, pric | 4/22/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
53 |
How to Write Content That Resonates with Your Target Audience | Andrew Torba, co-founder and CEO of Kuhcoon, tells us about how he’s been able to grow a large audience just by writing on Medium, and what it is about his content that really resonates with people. He also talks about how he uses his own product to sel | 4/17/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
54 |
Building (and Balancing) Multiple Revenue Streams | Steve Young, host of Mobile App Chat, talks with us about leaving his cush job in the Bay Area to build his own revenue streams through iOS applications, podcast sponsors, and a membership site. He shares how he booked his first sponsor before hitting via | 4/15/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
55 |
Market Disruption and Getting Your First Customer | In this episode we talked with Brant Cooper, author of The Lean Entrepreneur. He talks about the common misconceptions around the Lean Startup and how to use early customer interviews to discover the emotional connection that people can have with your pro | 4/10/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
56 |
Taking a B2B Approach to a Marketplace App | Today we talked with Yashar Ahmadpour, founder of CrowdClock. He talks about his B2B style approach to what’s really a marketplace app, and how he's leveraging partnerships like never before. He also opens up with us about what drives him as an entrepre | 4/8/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
57 |
From 0 to 100,000 Users | Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, talks about the marketing and integrations they did in the early stages to grow their product, and about the transition that he’s making from being Creative Director of the company to more of a public speaking role. | 4/3/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
58 |
Quitting a 6-Figure Job to Bootstrap a Startup | TK, founder of ToutApp, talks about leaving his six figure job to pursue his startup dream, and how he kept trying to build the wrong product— even when the right one was staring him in the face. He also talks about the long, slow road of SaaS, and his | 4/1/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
59 |
Creating "Wow" Moments and the Impact on Engagement | We talked with Moritz Plassnig, co-founder and CEO of Codeship. He talked about how their passion for education, teaching through video and blog posts, is baked into who they are as a company. He also touched on how creating a “wow” factor for people | 3/27/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
60 |
Leveraging Content Marketing Materials (Even at Scale) | Today we talked with Gregory Ciotti, the man behind Help Scout’s inbound marketing. He breaks down his process for producing his unique, research-backed content, and he also talks about the recent decision to pull down the email wall to all their guides | 3/25/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
61 |
How to Get Content Published in the Majors | In this episode we talked with Mark Fidelman, Forbes columnist and founder of Raynforest. He shared some incredible tips for how to get content published and your company promoted in big publications like Forbes. They’re techniques that anyone can use. | 3/20/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
62 |
An Eye-Opening New Take on Email Lists | Brennan Dunn, founder of PlanScope, author of Double Your Freelancing Rate and a number of other books and courses, talks with us about how he uses one "list" to market all of his products. Among other benefits, this leaves the door open to sell any numbe | 3/18/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
63 |
Taking on New Ventures and Establishing a New Life Balance | Adii, founder of WooThemes and Public Beta talked with us about launching a completely new venture from scratch and some of the controversial techniques he used when validating his idea. He also opened up with us about creating a more sustainable work/lif | 3/13/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
64 |
How to Use Lean Branding to Find Product Market Fit | In this episode, Jeremiah Gardner, author of The Lean Brand, shares his techniques for helping companies get to the root of what they're really about (not just what they're selling). He talks about how having the right conversations in the beginning is hu | 3/11/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
65 |
The Unexpected Power of "Tool Marketing" | Mikael Cho, founder of Ooomf, talks with us about how they've used "tool marketing" (aka built a few simple, free tools) to help solve problems for their target audience and build a bridge to their main service. His unique approach has paid off big time. | 3/6/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
66 |
The Failures that Led to the Success of WP Curve | Dan Norris, founder of Informly and WP Curve talks about mistakes he's made in the past, and how he and his partner have learned to "fail fast" and pay closer attention to behavior than verbal feedback. | 3/4/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
67 |
The Power of Integrating Your SaaS With Other Apps | Ruben Gamez, founder of Bidsketch, shares how he was able to leverage integrations with other apps into promotional opportunities that skyrocketed Bidsketch’s early growth. | 2/27/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
68 |
3 Simple Rules For Early-Stage Email Lists | In this episode Chris Hexton, founder of Vero, talks about how he was able to grow Vero over the past 18 months. He also shares his 3 simple tips for anyone who's just starting out building their list and not sure how to begin with email marketing. | 2/25/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
69 |
The David & Goliath Story of BuySellAds | Todd Garland, founder of BuySellAds talked with us about how you don't need to be the first to market, and about how old fashioned hustle and personal touch still pay off in a big way. | 2/4/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
70 |
Growing an Audience from 0 to 3,000 in Less than 2 Months | Samuel Hulick, curator of UserOnboard.com shared how he was able to grow his audience from 0 to over 3000 in less than 2 months, just by creating his own brand of unique content. | 2/4/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
|
71 |
How Product Hunt was Launched in Less than 1 Week | Ryan shares how he and his partner, Nathan Bashaw, realased the smallest possible version of their product, Product Hunt, in less than a week. You'll also learn his secrets for getting content published on sites like Pando Daily and Fast Company. | 1/25/14 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 71 Items |
Customer Reviews
Founder / Engineer
Can’t say enough about this podcast. Well thought out questions, guests who are making things happen and enough lessons to fill an Evernote notebook. Excited for more to come. Highly recommend for any founders, entrepreneurs, hackers and marketers.
Awesome entrepreneurial stories
I’m a big fan of these type of interviews. It’s fun to hear how entrepreneurs get started and how they build their business.
Disclosure: I was featured on episode 1.
Yes! A San Diego tech based podcast!
I've been waiting for something like this for a long time now! San Diego is on the rise as a tech startup city and this is precisely what it needs! Tune in and listen to awesome founders talking and learn a thing or two.
Listeners also subscribed to
- Product Hunt
- Product Hunt
- View In iTunes
- Kalzumeus Software » podcasts
- Patrick McKenzie and Keith Perhac
- View In iTunes
- Chasing Product
- Christopher Hawkins
- View In iTunes
- Successful Users
- Samuel Hulick & Robert Graham
- View In iTunes