Speakers

jason
Jason Cohen
A Smart Bear & WP Engine
Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business Summary »
See bio »
 

Jason Cohen is the founder of four companies including Smart Bear and currently WPEngine. He took Smart Bear from start to multiple millions in profit, without debt or VC, then sold it for cash. He's also a mentor at Capital Factory (like Y-Combinator in Austin) and an angel investor.

Starting a business is hard enough. The last thing you need to do is set up a foundation that works against you. A better approach is to take stock of your natural advantages, disadvantages, goals and needs, and "back in" to what that has to mean about your business model, pricing, market, product, approach, advertising, etc...

erica
Erica Douglass
Whoosh Traffic
Finding Customers Who Are 100x More Valuable Without 100x the Effort
See bio »
 

After selling her first business at 26 for $1.1M Erica started Whoosh Traffic, an SEO keyword and rank tracking tool.

a

b

ben
Ben Yoskovitz
InstigatorBlog.com & Lean Analytics
Lean Analytics: How to Focus on What Matters
See bio »
 

Ben Yoskovitz is the author of Lean Analytics from O'Reilly Publishing, blogger at instigator blog and VP of Product at GoInstant. He's also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously he founded and sold Standout Jobs.

As a software developer turned entrepreneur I’ve learned most things the hard way. Years of trial and error have unearthed a laundry list of false assumptions, missed expectations and times when “best practices” were not the right approach to a problem. Using stories from my experience I will share lessons I’ve learned over the past several years, each of which has had a profound impact on my ability to run my company.

hiten
Hiten Shah
CrazyEgg & KISSmetrics
Killer Content Marketing
See bio »
 

Hiten Shah is a serial entrepreneur who loves to help other entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes he has made in the past like wasting $1 million on a failed web hosting business. He started 3 successful Internet companies starting with a marketing consultancy, ACS. Then he went on to start Crazy Egg, a tool to help people visualize the user experience on their websites and most recently he is the CEO and Co-founder of KISSmetrics.

Over the last 9 years Hiten has started 3 successful Internet related companies, a consulting company, a bootstrapped software as a service business and a venture backed company. He has also failed more times than he can count. In this talk, he will share his lessons learned during this entrepreneurial journey.

dave
Dave Collins
Software Promotions
SEO Demystified: Practical Techniques That Produce Astonishing Results
See bio »
 

Dave Collins has spoken at conferences in the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom. He has delivered over 70 presentations at more than 30 different events, conferences, webinars, online classes, networking events, an accelerator program for startups and more. His reputation is based on his wide range of experience, and willingness to share good, useful information. Either that or his receding hairline, dislike of the word "awesome" and the ever-expanding bags under his eyes. If you're not dazzled by everything that Dave says, it's probably down to jet lag.

Most AdWords accounts are wasting money and opportunity with the advertiser never realising it. Dave Collins has been working with Google AdWords for almost twelve years, and has been responsible for millions of dollars in ad spend for hundreds of companies from all over the world. Dave estimates that approximately 99.6% of the AdWords accounts that he's seen are wasting money and/or opportunities. Dave's presentation will focus on raising awareness and providing you with the tactics and techniques you need to turn AdWords into an incredibly profitable machine.

josh kaufman
Josh Kaufman
Author, The Personal MBA
Shut Up and Take My Money: How to Find Business Ideas Customers Want
Summary »
See bio »
 

Josh Kaufman is the author of the #1 international bestseller The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, and is currently one of the top 50 business authors in the world. His widely-acclaimed Personal MBA recommended reading list has been downloaded over 2.5 million times by readers worldwide.

Want to avoid wasting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars pursuing the wrong business idea? Three simple checklists can help you keep your time, money, and sanity. We'll discuss how to deconstruct new business ideas, cherry-pick the most promising markets, and maximize the probability your new venture will be profitable.

joanna
Joanna Wiebe
Copy Hackers
Copywriting that Converts: How to Sell Without Selling Your Soul
See bio »
 

For nearly a decade, Joanna has helped small businesses and ginormous companies write higher-converting web copy. She increase sign-ups / opt-ins, paid conversions & upgrades through her game changing copy.

Having a day job doesn't have to be an insurmountable barrier to running a successful software business. Patrick walks you through development and marketing methods to make most effective use of your spare time, allowing you to get your business up and running and begin learning from it. Some of the techniques include making MVPs, low-touch sales processes, and ways to improve your development process so you spend less time firefighting and more time moving forward.

patrick
Patrick McKenzie
Bingo Card Creator
Building Things To Help Sell The Things You Build
See bio »
 

Patrick McKenzie used to be a Japanese salaryman. Concurrent with this, he founded a small software business, Bingo Card Creator, which eventually turned his day job into a poorly paying quirky hobby. Since quitting, he has launched his second software business, Appointment Reminder, and is happy as a clam.

Having a day job doesn't have to be an insurmountable barrier to running a successful software business. Patrick walks you through development and marketing methods to make most effective use of your spare time, allowing you to get your business up and running and begin learning from it. Some of the techniques include making MVPs, low-touch sales processes, and ways to improve your development process so you spend less time firefighting and more time moving forward.

mike
Mike Taber
SingleFounder.com
How to Sell Anything to Anyone
See bio »
 

Mike runs Moon River Software and Moon River Consulting, two companies he started as a way to bypass the corporate ladder and avoid what would otherwise be a lot of corporate red tape.

TBD

rob
Rob Walling
SoftwareByRob.com & Start Small, Stay Small
How to 10x in 15 months
See bio »
 

Rob Walling has been starting companies for most of his life and is author of the book Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup. His blog, Software By Rob, is a top 20 startup blog and is read by about 20,000 web entrepreneurs each month. It covers startup marketing and software entrepreneurship.

As a software developer turned entrepreneur I’ve learned most things the hard way. Years of trial and error have unearthed a laundry list of false assumptions, missed expectations and times when “best practices” were not the right approach to a problem. Using stories from my experience I will share lessons I’ve learned over the past several years, each of which has had a profound impact on my ability to run my company.

Attendee Talks

Zero to $5,000/month. Lessons learned bootstrapping a SaaS app in public.
by Nathan Barry

How a Non-Technical Founder Built a 6 Figure Saas App Using Only Free Public Data Sources
by Brecht Palombo

Building Your Own Community of Customers
by Brennan Dunn

Dude. Marketing is not your thing.
by Jody Burgess

Don't Burn-up in the Launch: Staying Emotionally and Relationally Healthy While Launching Your Startup
by Sherry Walling, Ph.D.

Getting your first 989 Customers
by Josh Ledgard

Bootstrapping an App Business
by Patrick Thompson

Tax Planning for SaaS
by Cameron Keng, CPA, JD, EA