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listen · Startups for the rest of us

Advice and information aimed at your level from the longest-running bootstrapped SaaS podcast.

Rob Walling, MicroConf’s co-founder, has hosted Startups For The Rest Of Us since 2010. If you haven't launched yet, your biggest risk isn't failing, it's spending months building something nobody wants. Everything gets easier if you can choose an idea worth your time, figure out whether anyone will actually pay, and find your first handful of customers before you've written much code.

Selected episodes of SFTROU we think you should listen to:

→ 15M+ downloads.

→ 800+ episodes.

Hosted by Rob Walling since 2010

How to Generate Startup Ideas (Plus 8 Ideas You Can Steal)

with Justin Vincent · December 2022 · 38:31

2/20/200 Validation

Rob Walling · March 2024 · 31:47

How to Find Your Early Customer Profile (ECP)

with Maja Voje · May 2025 · 30:15

Browse all episodes

watch · MicroConf + robwalling YouTube

Conference talks and interviews for pre-revenue founders

@MicroConf

Our newer channel posting recordings from recent events. At your stage, the most useful ones are the advanced tracks, scaling-stage talks, and founder interviews.

@RobWalling

Rob's personal channel. Skews earlier-stage tactical, but his deep-dives on pricing, hiring, and exit-stage thinking apply at any scale.

Every MicroConf talk we've recorded is on YouTube, plus interviews and content from Rob's channel. These three are where we'd send a founder at your stage first:

SaaS Growth Stalled? A 3-Month Plan to Get Momentum Back

The Psychology of Building and Selling a SaaS: 5 Lessons Exits Teach Founders

How to Bootstrap and Sell a SaaS: 10 Lessons from WebinarNinja Founder Omar Zenhom

Subscribe to @MicroConf →

Subscribe to @RobWalling →

find your peers · microconf private community

Network and problem-solve with current bootstrapped and indie founders

Every MicroConf conference recording, private Connect-only events, local meetups, and a multi-topic forum. All hosted on Circle.

The questions you're working through (whether this idea is worth committing to, how to get strangers to tell you the truth about it, where to find your first ten customers, whether to keep your job a little longer or jump now) are the ones that feel obvious until you're actually staring at them alone. The most valuable conversations are with the founders who've just answered them.

MicroConf Connect is our private community of bootstrapped SaaS founders, including a growing group of pre-revenue builders working through validation and launch.

All applications are hand-vetted by the MicroConf team.

$49

/month, or $499/year

Join MicroConf Connect →

“I’ve gotten more actionable advice in Connect than I ever expected — it’s like having a mastermind group on demand.”

— Josh, SaaS founder & Launchpad alum

Come together  · MicroConf flagship conferences

2.5 days in-person with bootstrapped and indie founders across the spectrum

MicroConf events are intentionally small, limited to a few hundred bootstrapped founders, no enterprise sales reps, no VCs hunting for deals. With over 32% of our attendees at MicroConf US at $1M+ ARR and above, the flagship conferences are one of the best place to grow your network of active and successful indie founders.

upcoming:
September 21-23, 2026

MicroConf Europe 2026: Reykjavik, Iceland

Tickets on sale now

See all upcoming events

Exit Data  · State of indie SaaS report

What does running a real bootstrapped business actually look like?

Every year we survey hundreds of bootstrapped founders about revenue, team size, churn, growth rate, and what's working. If you're pre-revenue, the State of Indie SaaS reports are the clearest picture you'll find of what you're actually working toward with no founder-influencer cherry-picking.

50.7%

of independent SaaS founders run their company solo. A co-founder isn't a prerequisite for starting.

2024 State of Indie SaaS, p.9 — Number of founders at the company

27.6%

of founders run no paid advertising at all. SEO and word of mouth tie as the highest-impact channels (65% each).

2024 State of Indie SaaS, pp.38–39 — Marketing

63%

of founder teams are fully non-technical, up from 11.8% in 2022. You can start without being a developer.

2024 State of Indie SaaS, p.13 — Founders who consider themselves developers

17.7%

of founders are under $1,000 MRR (the single largest group). The bottom rung is the most crowded one.

2024 State of Indie SaaS, p.34 — Monthly Recurring Revenue

Every figure here comes from founders already generating revenue as the survey didn't sample pre-revenue builders, so read these as the stage just ahead of you. Data collected late 2023; refresh when the next report is released.

Read the full report

Already in the network?

Many founders at your stage are already in Connect, in a mastermind, or in SaaS Institute. If that's you, this is the page to bookmark for everything else — the books, the podcast back-catalog, upcoming events, and the M&A partner.

Want to see our other pages for other revenue levels? Choose below:

$1M+ ARR

$0-10K ARR

($83.333+ MRR)

($0-833 MRR)

$10K-100K ARR

$100K-1M ARR

($833-8,333 MRR)

($8,333-83,333 MRR)

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