
<Image
  publicId="external-references/50-most-powerful-startups-in-charlotte/cover"
  alt="Screenshot: 50 Most powerful startups in Charlotte article by Axios Charlotte"
/>

I was cofounder and CEO of [smpl](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/smpl-llc), a SaaS startup helping independent-scale coworking operators automate their business. We were featured in a 2017 Article by Axios Charlotte (then called **The Charlotte Agenda**) as one of the most powerful (lol) startups in town. Pretty cool!


50 Most Powerful startups in Charlotte


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  publicId="newsletters/learning-is-an-infinite-game/cover"
  alt="Learning is an infinite game"
/>

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Learning is an infinite game. You can't win or lose, you can only keep playing. As a founder and a builder, you will regularly find yourself needing to quickly and efficiently learn new skills.

I graduated from UConn in 2009 with dual engineering degrees: one in Computer Science, and one in Mechanical Engineering. The first field of study was a no-brainer: since my first days of high school, I loved writing code and building software. Studying Mechanical Engineering was more of a misguided whimsy - my dad had a long career as a mechanical engineer, and thanks to him I developed a love for classic american cars. I studied mechanical engineering thinking I might want to get a job in the automotive industry.

Fast forward 14 years (my god!), and I've never worked a day as a mechanical engineer... until last week.

At [Craftwork](https://craftwork.com), we recently signed on to a project that has us painting the same type of door many, many times. The doors are made of metal, and we'll be painting them with a spray gun. However, we can't get paint the latch mechanism, so we need to mask it off. We could do this by hand, but it would take a long time.

We have... hundreds of these doors to paint. Maybe thousands. Each with the same latch mechanism that needs to be masked off, and then unmasked after painting.

Enter 3D Printing.

It's the _perfect_ tool for this job. We can design a simple mask in CAD, and then print it out. We can print as many as we need, and adjust the design as needed.

The only problem? It's been, uh, 14 years since I've done any 3D modeling, and I've never done _any_ 3D printing.

In the span of about 10 days, I went from knowing nothing about 3D printing to having a working prototype of a mask that we can use to paint these doors. I quickly researched a number of critical topics, including:

- which 3D printer to buy
- the latest in 3D modeling software
- how to design for 3D printing
- the difference between various 3D printing materials

...all while working on a number of other projects, and in addition to the complexity of the actual problem we're trying to solve (painting these doors).

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/learning-is-an-infinite-game/onshape"
  alt="Screenshot from CAD software Onshape"
  caption="I used a tool called OnShape to design the mask. It's a fully browser-based tool. Insane!"
/>

This is not to say that I'm a particularly gifted engineer, or a brilliant 3D-print...ist. Instead, I think the important nugget here is something that I've learned over the years: **learning is a skill**, and as a founder, you need to be good at it.

Here are some tips that I've picked up over the years that have helped me learn new skills quickly and efficiently:

## 1. Learn from the best resources you have access to

You don't need to reinvent the wheel. There are people out there who have already done what you're trying to do, and they've probably written about it.

When I was learning about 3D printing, I found a number of great resources that helped me get up to speed quickly. From previous passing interests in 3D printing, I knew of a few youtube channels that ended up being super helpful. Thanks to my schooling, I also have a cadre of _actual_ mechanical engineers who I can rely on for advice (shout out to Sean, James, Andy, & Mike - y'all are the true MVPs here). I consulted my dad, who spent 40+ years doing CAD and mechanical engineering. I read tech reviews, and I read the documentation for [the 3D printer I ended up buying](https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/x1-carbon-combo).

My point is this: you don't need to go it alone. Find the best resources you have access to, and learn from them.

## 2. Learn by doing, and act quickly

I'm a big believer in learning by doing. I've found that I learn best when I'm working on a project that I care about, and I'm learning the skills I need to complete that project.

While researching for my project, there were many opportunities along the way to take what I was learning and _use_ it to make progress on my project. I could have spent more time researching, but time spent researching is time not spent building.

## 3. Learn from your mistakes

You're going to make a lot of mistonks -- and every one you learn from makes your understanding of the world around you that much more accurate.

I iterated on the design for our painting mask 5 times before I got it right. In 3D Printing, that means I'd spend some time modeling the mask, and then wait a few hours for it to print out. I'd then test it, and see what worked and what didn't. I'd then go back to the drawing board, and make changes to the design.

<Image
  publicId="newsletters/learning-is-an-infinite-game/prototypes"
  alt="A series of 5 prototypes for the mask on my desk"
  caption="I iterated on the design for our painting mask 5 times before I got it right."
/>

One thing that struck me during this process is how similar modeling & printing are to debugging software. The main difference is that debugging software is virtually _instant_ gratification - you can make a change, and see the results immediately. With 3D printing, I'd have to wait hours to see the results of my changes. It requires more patience, and a deliberate approach to getting things right.

In the end, it's looking like this project is going to be a success. These 3D printed masks will do the trick for this project, and the skills and techniques I've learned will be useful for future projects, whether directly or indirectly.

Perhaps most importantly, this was another mega-deep dive into something new, and I'm better for it. I'm also deeply grateful to my wife, who saw me disappear into my office for hours at a time, and put up with me staring into the middle distance as I thought through the next steps in the process. She's a saint.

tl;dr: learning is a skill, and as a founder, you need to be good at it. Part of building something new is taking decisive action quickly, and learning _quickly_ from experts in the field. Take what you learn, turn it into applied science, and iterate quickly. You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

**Now, it's your turn** - have you found yourself going down the rabbit hole for something new recently? I wanna hear about it! Hit reply and let me know what you're learning about, and how it's going.

---

## More filament extruded from my brain

(It's a 3D printing joke. I'll stop.)

- 🎙️ In the latest APIs You Won't Hate podcast, I [caught up with Danny Sheridan from Fern](https://apisyouwonthate.com/podcast/catching-up-with-danny-sheridan-from-fern/) to talk about the incredible tooling they're building for generating API clients and documentation from OpenAPI specs.
- 📰 [Craftwork was featured by Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2023/11/17/craftwork-out-to-modernize-home-services-market-scores-6-million-seed-round/), and I still can't believe it. I'm so proud of the team we've built, and the work we're doing to make home services better for everyone. What a journey so far - and we're just getting started.




Learning is an infinite game


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  publicId="/newsletters/strategies-for-your-product-waitlist/cover"
  alt="You've got a waitlist for your product. Now what?"
/>

# So you've got a waitlist for your idea. Now what?

You've done it—you've drummed up interest in your product and now have a waitlist. But what's next? How do you translate this initial momentum into sustainable growth? If you're an indiehacker, startup founder, or aspiring product builder, this guide is for you. We'll explore two strategies, tailored to whether you've started building your product, or are still in the ideation phase.

## If you Haven't Built the Thing Yet

### Put Up a Landing Page

If you haven't yet started building your product, start by putting up a landing page. Here, share every feature idea openly to gauge interest and collect feedback. The goal here is to socialize your idea, and validate it with a real audience before you start building.

### Determine Your Commitment Threshold

Decide on a financial commitment threshold that would validate the product idea for you. This is the amount of money you'd need to see pledged before you're convinced it's worth building. This _probably_ shouldn't be enough to pay all your bills, but it should be enough to show you (and others) that this is a valuable product, and that you're not wasting your time by building it.

### Set a High Price Point

Don't be shy—set a high price point for your product. Bear in mind, this may be the _maximum_ you'll ever charge for this product. It should seem outlandishly high - most first-time founders under-price their offerings dramatically. Don't kneecap your business' potential by setting a low price and hoping you'll get a high volume of signups. Unless you've got a huge audience, you probably won't.

In your early days, you'll use the psychology of behavioral economics to drive sales by offering steep discounts for short periods of time. Start with a high price point, and then offer discounts to early adopters.

### Offer Discounts for Early Adopters

To incentivize sign-ups, offer a significant discount to the first batch of customers. For example, if you're planning to launch a video course, you might set the price at $499. A discounted price of $99 for learners who sign up before the course is ready will create a sense of urgency and encourage people to commit, and will also put money in your pocket to help you build the course.

If you're building a SaaS, you might offer a lifetime discount to early adopters. For example, if you're planning to charge $99/month for your product, you might offer a lifetime discount of 50% to the first 100 customers. This will help you build a base of early adopters who will be invested in your product and will help you spread the word.

### Create a Sense of Urgency

Set a deadline for the discount and stick to it. This will create a sense of urgency and encourage people to sign up. You can also offer a limited number of discounted spots to create a sense of scarcity. This will also effectively time-box your waitlist, so you can move on to the next phase of your product.

### Be Transparent About Sign-ups

Openly share how many people have signed up and adjust the discount as you get more sign-ups. This creates a sense of urgency and shows that people are committing. It also helps you gauge interest and decide whether to continue building your product. If you don't get enough sign-ups, congrats! You've just saved yourself hundreds of hours of potentially-wasted time. At this point you can either pivot your idea based on feedback you've received so far, or refund any money you've collected and move on to the next idea.

### Caveats

- **Open Sharing:** You'll have to be comfortable sharing your ideas openly. I've [written about this before](https://mikebifulco.com/newsletter/how-to-know-when-to-publish-your-work) - keeping your-thing secret until launch is almost always a death sentence. You'll get better feedback, and you'll build a better product if you share your ideas early and often.

### Benefits of this approach

- **No Initial Build Required:** Gauge interest before committing resources.
- **A/B Testing:** You can put up several landing pages for different ideas.
- **Feedback Loop:** Collect invaluable feedback before investing time and effort.
- **Sales Skill:** Sharpen your skills in selling an idea.
- **Networking:** Expand your professional network.

### Risks with this approach

- **Refunds:** It's possible that this strategy may not result in enough signups to continue building your product at this point. You may choose to pivot, and change the idea You'll need to refund money for ideas you decide not to pursue.
- **Pricing Strategy:** Setting the correct commitment threshold can be tricky. Too low, and you may not get enough signups. Too high, and you may not get any signups at all. For my friends building SaaS products, tools like [Stigg](https://www.stigg.io/) are invaluable for helping you experiment with pricing strategies.

<br />

## If You've Already Started Building the Thing

### Embrace your Early Adopters

Do you already have a working prototype? Amazing! Put it in people's hands. Seriously - get real people using your product ASAP. This can be a scary hurdle to get over, but if you're open to it, you will get tremendous feedback from your earliest users.

Your primary aim should be to create early adopters who not only love your product but also how you're building it. The story of your product can be just as important as the product itself for these early adopters. They'll be your biggest advocates, and will help you spread the word.

With this approach, you're setting the expectation that your product is actively being built (you _are_ building it, right?). This means that you'll need to be responsive to feedback, and you'll need to be transparent about your roadmap. You'll also need to be comfortable with the fact that your product will be changing rapidly, and that you'll be making mistakes along the way. This is a good thing! You'll be able to iterate quickly, and you'll be able to build a product that your customers love.

### Choose an Early Cohort

From your waitlist, select an early cohort of users who you think will be most beneficial for your product. This could be based on their background, their willingness to provide feedback, or their ability to spread the word. You can also use this opportunity to test your pricing strategy. For example, you might offer a lifetime discount to the first 100 users who sign up.

If your waitlist is small, you may choose to let everyone in at once. If you have a large waitlist, you may choose to let people in gradually. This will help you manage the feedback loop from onboarding, and to create a sense of excitement for people who are still waiting to get in.

As you rapidly update your product and release new features, give access to more people from your waitlist. This will help you manage the feedback loop from onboarding, and to create a sense of excitement for people who are still waiting to get in. Open up registrations completely once people are able to onboard without any intervention from you or your team.

### Share What You're Building

Share your progress early and often, through whatever public channels make the most sense for you. This could be a YouTube video, a blog post, or a social media thread.

Use product updates as a way to show your current users that you're listening to their feedback, and that you're actively working to improve the product. This will help you build a community of early adopters who are invested in your success. This will also serve as product marketing for people who haven't yet signed up. Be loud and proud about what you're building, and share updates wherever your voice will be heard.

## The Ultimate Goal: Gain Traction

1. **Stoke the Fire.** In the early days, losing momentum is your biggest enemy. Gaining traction should inspire you to build more and at a faster pace.

2. **Create Inertia**. An engaged audience should feel they have access to something special. Encourage them to talk about your product and be responsive to their feedback. The buzz around your product will help you gain traction.

3. **Get Paid** Don't wait too long to monetize. Even asking for a nominal one-time fee from early adopters can validate your business model and make it easier to scale. Every person using your product knows that you need to make money to keep building it. Every single one of them. Don't be afraid to ask for financial commitments.

### Benefits with this approach

- **Feedback Loop:** Get invaluable feedback from real users, which will force you to keep building
- **Sales Skill:** Sharpen your skills in selling a product by building a muscle for marketing and developer relations. If you can't convince early adopters to use product, you won't be able to sell it to anyone else.
- **Networking:** Even if your product doesn't take off, you'll have grown the network of people who are invested in your success. This can be invaluable for your next project.

### Risks with this approach

- **Time Commitment:** Building software takes time. You'll need to be comfortable with the fact that your product will be changing rapidly, and that you'll be making mistakes along the way.
- **Building too slowly:** If you're not releasing updates, you'll lose momentum with your audience. Even if your product has known bugs, it's better to release early and often than to wait until it's perfect. Your early adopters will be forgiving, and will be excited to see your product improve over time.

## Your waitlist is just the beginning

Having a waitlist is a promising start, but it's what you do next that counts. Whether you're still ideating or have a ready product, these strategies can help you capitalize on your early traction and build a sustainable business. Remember, the ultimate goal is to gain traction, so keep building, engaging with your audience, and don't shy away from asking for financial commitments.

Your waitlist could be the first step in a long and successful journey.

---

## Tools for Building a product with Your Waitlist

- [Ghost](https://ghost.org/) - A fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. Ghost gives you a blog and a newsletter all at once, and offers a great integration with Stripe for collecting subscription payments.
- [Stigg](https://stigg.io) - A tool for experimenting with pricing strategies. Stigg helps you find the right price for your product by decoupling pricing logic from your product code. This allows you to experiment with different pricing strategies without having to redeploy your product.
- [Reddit](https://reddit.com) is truly handy for doing research on niche communities, embedding yourself with your target market, and asking for feedback. Many product builders use it to find their first customers - there's more than just an infinite stream of memes for you on Reddit.

---

## Resources and reading for this stage

- [30x500 Academy](https://30x500.com/academy/) is a cohort-based class from Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman for building products using an approach similar to what I outlined above. Many of their students have gone on to build successful product businesses, and they have a wealth of resources for indiehackers and startup founders.
- 📖 I've recommended [The Embedded Entrepreneur](https://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Entrepreneur-Build-Audience-Driven-Business/dp/3982195764/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1695125716&sr=8-1&_encoding=UTF8&=irreverentm04-20&=ur2&=87d35637d191e4c0225f9e8c9b8b2ea2&=1789&=9325) before - it's a fantastic book from Arvid Kahl about building a business around specific and deep interests. I can't recommend it enough.

---

## From me this week

- 🎙️ My interview for [Software Engineering Daily with Charlie Gerard](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2023/09/19/catching-up-with-charlie-gerard/) went live this morning! Charlie and I worked together at Stripe. She's an incredible creative technologist, and I had a blast talking to her about her latest projects. If you're in the midst of a career pivot, and looking for inspiration, this one is for you!
- 📰 [The Bun is out of the Oven](https://apisyouwonthate.com/newsletter/the-bun-is-out-of-the-oven/) is our latest newsletter at APIs You Won't Hate. It's all about the new JavaScript runtime that's been all over tech news recently.

<small>

_Note: Cover image photo by [Samuel Regan-Asante](https://unsplash.com/@fkaregan?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/Qx62cSNzxRU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)_

</small>


Do this with Your Product Waitlist: A Guide for Indiehackers and Startup Founders


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  publicId="newsletters/building-a-startup-in-2023-90-day-report/cover"
  alt="The first 90 days: Building a startup in 2023 as a technical cofounder"
/>

I've been working on a new startup.

Last week, we (re)launched [Craftwork.com](https://craftwork.com), with a fresh design aesthetic and what I think is a really wonderful brand. We're building a tech-enabled home painting service, which is already making the process of getting your home painted easier and more delightful for our customers.

We also published a press release written by my friend and co-founder Tim Griffin, Craftwork's CEO. You can read that here: [Introducing Craftwork](https://craftwork.com/articles/introduction).

I've written about building products and companies in the past few years as part of my work at Stripe and Google, and on my own site - but this is the first time I've been a technical co-founder since when we launched smpl in 2016. A lot has changed since then.

---

**A note for non-technical readers:** this post is going to be pretty tech-heavy. I'm going to talk about a lot of tools and technologies that I use to build products. If you're not a developer, you might not find this interesting. Rest assured I'll be writing about more of the design/business/philosophical side of things in the future.

Thanks for being here - I love y'all!

---

Launching a startup in 2023 - here's what feels different this time around:

## The bar for design and branding is higher than ever

I've always been a big believer in the importance of design and branding. I worked as a UXer for years, and even earned (most of) a Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction to deepen my understanding of design. I've written about it endlessly ([see articles tagged with #design on my site](https://mikebifulco.com/tags/design).

In 2023, investing time and effort (and, let's be honest - money) into design and branding is fundamental to building a successful company. Whether we consciously realize it or not, it is easier to trust _something new_ if it looks and feels cohesive and professional. At Craftwork, we're asking customers to let us into their homes, and to trust us with their most valuable asset. Our brand and design language helps us build this critical trust with our customers.

## Automation and tooling are the real 10x engineer

I _love_ automating things. There's nothing better than writing a script that saves time for you and your teammates, and buys peace of mind. It's been astonishing to see how much better the tools for automation have gotten in the past few years.

Critically, there's been enough time for _all_ of the automation tools to see competitors arise. This forces companies building tools to be innovative, and to keep raising the bar with their products. Here's a few choices I've found myself with:

- For **dependency audits**: [Dependabot](https://mikebifulco.com/posts/i-have-to-tell-you-about-dependabot) is still going strong, and has competition in [Mend Renovate](https://www.mend.io/renovate/), which works on both GitHub and GitLab, and offers a different configuration experience.
- For **no-code, event-driven automation**: [IFTTT](https://ifttt.com/) is the OG, but continues to become more consumer-focused. [Zapier](https://zapier.com/) has arisen as a popular choice, but I've found myself exploring other options like [Make](https://www.make.com/en), [Trigger.dev](https://trigger.dev/) and [n8n](https://n8n.io/).

## A focus on Developer Experience (DX) is a competitive advantage

There's not a single engineer on this planet who wants to work on a product that sucks to maintain. We all want to work on products that are easy to understand, easy to enhance, and easy to deploy. This is something that has gotten steadily better since I've been in the industry, but it's still a huge differentiator for companies that get it right.

Happily, many companies building devtools have done a fantastic job of turning the eye of UX research toward devs - seeing engineers as users, and building products that are delightful to build with. What's more, most of these companies are _incredibly_ friendly to startups, offering generous free tiers and discounts to help companies get off the ground.

### A quick note about AWS

Somehow, AWS has wrestled its way into place as the de facto standard for cloud-based infrastructure for many dev teams - my people, it is _heartbreakingly difficult_ to use at all, and requires continual education and effort to use correctly and securely while staying up to date. The AWS dashboard is a hellscape of UX dark patterns, and the documentation is a labyrinth.

I think many teams turn to AWS because it appears to be dirt cheap - but the cost of maintaining a team that can use it effectively is _astronomical_. I'm not saying you should never use AWS - but I am saying that you should think _very carefully_ about whether you need to use it, and whether you can save long term costs by using something else (you almost certainly can).

Here's a few examples of tools that have made life better for me at Craftwork:

- For **git-driven deployments (CD)** - [Vercel](https://vercel.com) and [Netlify](https://netlify.com) are both fantastic. I use both across the sites I maintain, and they're both great. We're using Vercel for Craftwork, and .

- For **payments**, [Stripe](https://stripe.com/) is still unbeatable when it comes to DX. The mountain of features that have been added in the past few years make it _so much easier_ to build a robust payments system that can handle the complexities of the real world. Even still, there are companies building APIs _on top of Stripe_ that make life that much easier for certain use cases.

- For **analytics**, [Google Analytics](https://analytics.google.com) is still the standard, but has had to pivot hard in the past year or so to avoid legal consequences due to privacy laws being passed in the EU. For a great alternative that is privacy-focused, I use [Fathom](https://usefathom.com/ref/DPSSYB) on all my personal projects). Recently [Plausible](https://plausible.io/) has popped up as another option.

- The world of devx for **databases** has been absolutely buck-wild. At smpl, we used [Firebase](https://firebase.google.com/) because it was so damn easy to deal with - but it was a _nightmare_ to migrate away from when we needed to. [Supabase](https://supabase.io/) has emerged as a great alternative based on PostgreSQL, and I've been really loving [Planetscale](https://planetscale.com/)'s DX for branching databases.

- Even **database schema management** has gone through a renaissance. [Prisma](https://www.prisma.io/) has become the standard for a variety of use cases, and recently [Drizzle ORM](https://github.com/drizzle-team/drizzle-orm) has popped up as a fantastic alternative if you're building with TypeScript.

## Frameworks for everyone

Finally - web frameworks/meta-frameworks for building web apps have gotten _so much better_. This is another place where competition has been a _great_ thing for the industry. I've been using [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/) for a few years now, and it's been making life better and better. Even still , there's plenty of competition just in the JavaScript world: [SvelteKit](https://kit.svelte.dev/) and [Astro](https://astro.build/blog/introducing-astro/) are incredible, [Angular](https://angular.io/) has been releasing industry-leading features, and [SolidJS](https://www.solidjs.com/) is an extremely promising newcomer.

Even if you don't love JavaScript - [Laravel](https://laravel.com/) is keeping the PHP world humming, and [Ruby on Rails](https://rubyonrails.org/) gives Ruby devs insane productivity. [Django](https://www.djangoproject.com/) is still the standard for Python devs, and if you're building web apps with .net, [Blazor](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor) exists.

There are even incredible meta-frameworks - we've been building Craftwork with an offshoot of an offshoot - [create-t3-app](https://create.t3.gg/) is a full stack TypeScript framework built on top of Next.js, Prisma, and tRPC. Because we'll likely be building a react-native app eventually, we're using an Open Source "fork" of create-t3-app called [create-t3-turbo](https://github.com/t3-oss/create-t3-turbo) to build individual apps and services in a monorepo. It's been _incredible_ to work with, and has made it easy to build a robust, scalable app with a small team.

---

## A conclusion with a twist

All of these things -- every single thing I've mentioned above -- helps to create a better environment to get things done. It's easier than ever to build a product, but for any team, the thing that will separate good from great is _how_ you do it. Focusing on communication, accessibility, inclusivity, and growth are not to be overlooked.

The tools we use are important, but **the people we work with, _how_ we work with them, and the lives we build around our companies are far more important for longevity, and for living a great life.**

I sat down to write this newsletter thinking I'd throw out a few quick bullet points about how the world of devtools has changed in the past few years. I didn't expect to write a 2000 word essay, but here we are.

I hope this has been helpful to you, and I hope you'll take a look at some of the tools I've mentioned here. If you have any questions, feel free to [drop me a line on Mastodon](https://hachyderm.io/@irreverentmike).


#founder: 4 posts tagged

Learning is an infinite game

Do this with Your Product Waitlist: A Guide for Indiehackers and Startup Founders

The first 90 days as a technical cofounder - building a startup in 2023

50 Most Powerful startups in Charlotte