How to build a dev tool with zero marketing with Sergiy Korolov @Mailtrap

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #10 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Sergiy Korolov, co-founder of Railsware and the brain behind Mailtrap.From accidentally launching one of the most popular developer tools with zero marketing budget, to running the company with an all-engineer team — Sergiy's journey is packed with lessons most founders learn the hard way.In this episode: → How Mailtrap grew to hundreds of thousands of users before charging a cent → The "product studio" model Railsware uses to co-found new companies → Why bootstrapping forces better decisions than VC money → The hard truth about vibe coding and AI's real impact on engineering teams → How to hire when you don't know enough to assess the role → Why your biggest job as CEO is to stop having sleepless nights----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & Product Overview0:27 — Background & Early Days of Railsware3:51 — Building Product Studio Culture6:58 — Creating Mailtrap - From Tool to Platform14:10 — Developing Product Taste & Skills Matrix19:25 — Hiring Strategy & Team Building27:22 — Dogfooding & Product Development Process35:24 — AI Integration in Products & Engineering44:16 — Wins, Lessons & The Calendly Story48:26 — Founder Hacks & Work-Life BalanceSergiy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/Railaware - https://railsware.com/Mailtrap - https://mailtrap.io/Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796