29. The SaaS Subscription Pandemic

In this episode, we cover the topic we wanted to cover for the last few weeks but always ran out of time. It’s the topic of SaaS subscriptions. As a business that doesn’t yet make any revenue, we pay quite a bit in subscription fees because these days everything is a subscription. Apparently, soon we’ll be paying a subscription to heat our butts in cars — Arnab tells a story of a car manufacturer that will ship cars with all the hardware, but will disable “premium” features unless you pay a monthly fee. In this episode, we introduce our lovely Chief Dog Officer who often inserts a few soundbites into our podcast. Sometimes he takes a bite too. He’s a star employee and we love him. We covered a few other topics like how producing TikTok worthy content changes who you are and the crab emoji at Google that can be funny but also passive aggressive. Chapters 00:38 - First annual Metacast all-hands 02:33 - Creating TikTok worthy content 05:58 - Active listening strikes back 08:05 - In-person recording setup 10:03 - Introducing our CDO, Chief Dog Officer 10:52 - Crab emoji at Google 12:09 - Reflection on the Jason Fried episode 15:45 - User research studies for our app 20:58 - The original name for our company 22:56 - The SaaS Subscriptions Pandemic 33:55 - Google vs. Amazon culture 👉 Full show notes with links: https://www.metacastpodcast.com/p/029-saas-subscription-pandemic 👉 Our book about starting a podcast: https://book.metacastpodcast.com/l/pragmatic-podcaster 👉 Metacast merch: https://merch.metacastpodcast.com We’re always happy to hear back from our listeners, so don’t hesitate to drop us a note at [email protected]. Subscribe to our newsletter where we announce new episodes, publish key takeaways, and ramble about interesting stuff at https://www.metacastpodcast.com. Show notes Podcasts The Google Graveyard on Rework Are Bootstrapped Startups Less Valuable Than Venture-Funded Startups? on Startup Therapy Gear Shure SM58 Software SquadCast Canva Riverside Descript Final Cut Pro Adobe Premiere iZotope RX Calendly Articles BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month 👉 Full show notes with links: https://www.metacastpodcast.com/p/029-saas-subscription-pandemic Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: [email protected] Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn