The Behind-the-Scenes Mess Now Facing the VC Industry
There's a fairly linear relationship between what's going on in the stock market and what's going on in the world of venture capital and private tech investing. When tech stocks plunge and the IPO window closes, then that hits valuations -- everything from late stage companies to those earlier in their trajectory. But there's more than just a declining stock market that's bedeviling the VC world right now. Numerous excesses from the boom of the last decade, including an influx of new money into the VC space, now have to be worked out. On this episode, we speak with Tyler Tringas, founder of the Calm Fund, about the excesses that now need to be paid back.
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#152 – Picking the Right Market to Get Started In with Justin Jackson and Tyler Tringas
Transistor.fm founder Justin Jackson (@mijustin) goes head-to-head with Earnest Capital investor Tyler Tringas (@tylertringas) on the topic of picking the right market. The decisions you make when you're just getting started on a project carry the most weight and might affect your life for years to come. How big of a market should you target? How important of a problem should you solve? What does Justin mean when advises working on a "main dish" instead of a "side dish?" And how do a serial founder's views on this topic differ from an investor's?
Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/152-tyler-tringas-and-justin-jackson
#131 – Funding for Indie Hackers with Tyler Tringas of Earnest Capital
Tyler Tringas (@tylertringas) may not look like Tarzan, but that hasn't stopped him from expertly swinging from vine to vine. Since we last spoke in episode 10, Tyler transitioned from founder to investor, sold his SaaS business, and is helping to spearhead a whole new approach to funding indie hacker businesses. In this episode, Tyler and I discuss the existing VC model and why it doesn't work for bootstrappers, a new funding model that bootstrappers should all be paying attention to, and why he's betting that "90% of startups fail" should no longer be the accepted wisdom.
Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/131-tyler-tringas-of-earnest-capital
One Person SaaS Business: Side Project to $40K MRR and Sold
Tyler Tringas was $50,000 in credit card debt after his venture-backed startup failed. All he had left was a one person SaaS business making $1,000 a month from store locators priced at $5 each. In this episode, Tyler reveals how he grew StoreMapper to over $40,000 MRR, sold it for "level up" money, and used the experience to launch Earnest Capital - a fund for bootstrappers.
Tyler built his one person SaaS business MVP on a single 30-hour flight and had five paying customers within 24 hours of landing. His niche SaaS strategy: latch onto a fast-growing platform like Shopify, prioritize retention over acquisition, and use just-in-time feature delivery to avoid wasting limited time as a micro SaaS solo founder.
He never ran paid advertising across the entire five-year history of StoreMapper. Growth came from Shopify App Store listings, forum engagement, and intercepting freelance gigs on Upwork by pitching his one person SaaS business as a cheaper alternative to custom development.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 Validate a one person SaaS business by spotting repeated client requests: Three freelance clients asked Tyler for store locator functionality within two weeks - pattern recognition was stronger validation than any survey.
🚀 Latch onto a fast-growing platform for niche SaaS distribution: Tyler listed StoreMapper as the only store locator in the Shopify App Store, giving him a free and steady stream of customers without paid advertising.
📉 Prioritize retention over acquisition during the side-project phase: High retention meant small trickles of new signups still compounded into meaningful MRR growth for his one person SaaS business.
🛠️ Use just-in-time feature delivery to protect limited founder time: Tyler manually emailed receipts from Gmail for two months rather than building automation - only building features when absolutely necessary.
💰 Start cheap to get traction, then raise prices later: StoreMapper launched at $5/month. With 100+ happy customers, Tyler had leverage and data to raise prices substantially for his micro SaaS product.
Chapters
Introduction
Tyler's motivational quote - Hemingway
What is Earnest Capital
The StoreMapper story begins
How Tyler came up with the one person SaaS business idea
Building the MVP on a 30-hour flight
Five paying customers within 24 hours
What is micro SaaS
How much StoreMapper sold for
$40K MRR and five years to the exit
Running StoreMapper as a side project with minimal time
Getting the first 100 customers through Shopify
No paid advertising - ever
Focusing on retention during the side-project phase
Just-in-time feature delivery
Raising prices and growth strategies
Deciding when to hire vs do it yourself
Lessons from selling StoreMapper
How Earnest Capital works
Lightning round
Wrap up and where to find Tyler
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/207
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
#012 – Traveling, Learning to Code, and Bootstrapping to $25k/mo with Tyler Tringas of Storemapper
Tyler Tringas talks about the difference between good and bad ideas, launching new products in days not months, finding your first customers one at a time, hiring effectively, and more.