The SaaS Playbook

> If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book? Presumably those multi-million dollar companies sold for multiple million dollars.

I don't know the guy, or anything about this book, but on the Kickstarter page it says that he's already "written the book, sourced the manufacturer, and gotten the prototypes", and it will be available later in 2023 anyway. Kickstarter seems to be a way to pre-sell the hard cover version (and generate a bit more hype).

> If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book?

Kickstarter is a way to do pre-sales and marketing. IMO, the hardest part of any business is finding distribution. You should use every channel you can, Kickstarter included.

I agree that the copy on the page has a ton of puffery in it, though. I find that offputting, personally, but I can imagine it sells. (And, despite my personal dislike, it might still be worth $30.)

> I decided to launch my third book on Kickstarter for 3 reasons:

> TO OFFER REWARDS: I fit everything I could into these 200 pages, but many people told me it would be helpful to get my thoughts on their unique problems. So I decided to do reward tiers — and though I could have coded that into my website, why not just use a tool that already figured it out?

> TO MAKE A MORE BEAUTIFUL BOOK (THAT ONLY BACKERS GET): Hardcovers, as you might have noticed, are expensive. With Kickstarter pre-orders, we’ll get a sense of how many to make — and you’ll get a satisfying reading experience.

> TO EXPAND MY REACH: Kickstarter is a social network, and one I really haven’t explored before (apart from the 300+ incredibly nerdy board games and D&D projects I’ve backed. True story.) I want to grow my audience with this launch.

Rob is the founder of the microconf community:

https://microconf.com/

It's a community of people who are excited about bootstrapping businesses (they don't close the door on funding and prefer the term "mainly bootstrapped")

It's a fantastic community of people. Most of the advice that Rob and others in the community give out is similar to mainstream startup thought but with a more VC-skeptical take.

These businesses look a little different and they usually aren't building the next Facebook or Google. The community tends to focus on B2B SaaS.

If you just stumble upon something like this you're right to be skeptical. Definitely the tech boom has lead to peak "hustler culture" as you put it, and you can't really take anything you read on the internet at face value. That said, Rob Walling has a strong track record and reputation that merits consideration if you're interested in bootstrapped B2B SaaS. I think most of your questions are better addressed by reading some of Rob's prolific output over the last decade+ and judging for yourself, but this one I'll bite on:

> Why without VC? Outside capital injection is important for most businesses, and it doesn't make sense to avoid it on principle

VC money comes with certain growth expectations attached. They make their money on the outsized wins, and they will push you as a founder to make big, possibly ill-advised bets in pursuit of those moonshots. Generally they want you to 100x their investment or die trying. Whereas from the founders perspective, a much wider range of scenarios could be desirable. Obviously this depends a lot on the company and what capital is needed, but that is the space that Rob is working in, and he does put his money where is mouth is via TinySeed.

> If he's a successful entrepreneur, why does he need $20k to kickstart a book?

It's because Kickstarter has nothing to do with raising money - its a distribution platform. He's getting distribution.

> Why without VC? Outside capital injection is important for most businesses, and it doesn't make sense to avoid it on principle

A tiny fraction of businesses that are started are suitable for VCs. Most businesses aren't unicorns and serve markets that don't make sense for typical VC scale investing. Furthermore, there is a lot of advice for people on the VC track, there isn't a lot for folks who want to bootstrap or mostly bootstrap their Sass. Many people would rather not make all the tradeoffs VC money requires. This is where Rob offers a lot of good advice. This is basically Rob's niche (although he encourages people to go VC if that's what is needed).

> This feels just like those "self help" and "how to succeed at business" books that have no substance whatsoever; how is this any different?

Rob has been giving tactical advice for over 15 years on Start-Ups for the Rest of Us (almost 500 episodes I think?). It is one of the few podcasts I've found with consistently actionable advice for founders. He also runs TinySeed (an accelerator for bootstrapped or mostly bootstrapped startups), so he sees numerous founders succeed and fail. His perspective is pretty unique.

> At first glance, it seems like the classic saying: those who can, do; those who can't, teach. The stock pickers on CNBC are on CNBC precisely because they can't pick stocks; if they could, they'd be making millions at a hedge fund.

Walling has had many successful exits including a multi-million dollar payday, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

> He just feels so incredibly self-centered, like he has all the answers. It feels like an outgrowth of the hustler culture and I don't like it.

Based on your comments, it feels to me like you're not at all familiar with his work. He is one of the few people who I have found to truly just wants to help folks succeed, and provide battle tested advice about how to get there. You could not be further from the truth regarding hustle culture. He talks a lot about how he lived the four-hour workweek with a "Lifestyle Business" and the types of businesses that can get you there (if that's your goal). Considering what he's accomplished, there is remarkably little ego in Rob to my mind. It feels very much like you read some copy, had a visceral reaction for some reason, and made a bunch of assumptions based on that initial reaction.

> Hi, I’m Rob Walling. I’m a serial entrepreneur who’s built a handful of multimillion-dollar companies, including Drip, MicroConf, and TinySeed.

> Before The SaaS Playbook, I wrote two best-selling books about startups: Start Small, Stay Small, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together.

The author's credentials are there. I have personally used Drip and read Start Small, Stay Small

> Rob Walling is a serial entrepreneur who has built a few multimillion-dollar companies, including Drip, MicroConf, and TinySeed.

> He’s the host of Startups for the Rest of Us and has written two best-selling books about startups: Start Small, Stay Small, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping your Sh*t Together. Through his books, podcasts, conferences, and essays, he has helped tens of thousands of startup founders.

https://saasplaybook.com/

I haven't listened to his podcast in quite awhile, but I always appreciated his content and it never felt scammy like most of those grind culture marketing influencers you'll find littered all over twitter.

Rob Walling is solid and has a great reputation among SaaS founders, particularly those who choose to self-fund their companies rather than go the VC route.

He's been running a great event for bootstrapped founders called MicroConf. It's legit.

If you look at the endorsements for the book (Peldi, Derek Sivers, Patrick Campbell, Courtland Allen...) you'll see that they're as real as it gets.

Jason Cohen wrote the foreword for the book. (He founded WPEngine, one of the largest Wordpress hosting companies, with more than 1,000 employees, and before that SmartBear which got acquired for around $2 billion.)

If you're curious, you can also check out Startups For The Rest of Us, where he's been releasing new episodes for more than 10 years. I think that's one of the best ways to get a feel for whether he's someone you'd want to learn from.

Do you have the SponsorBlock extension installed by chance? It cut down on a lot of clickbait for me personally.

He regurgitates the same old lean startup BS that was doing the rounds in the early 2010s, namely that you should "validate" your idea by creating a landing page that harvests email addresses and possibly even credit card details.