In episode 661, Rob Walling chats with Mike Perham, the founder of Sidekiq, who is a solo founder doing millions in revenue as a one-person business.

If this isn’t unique enough, Sidekiq originally started as an open-source project before he later monetized it by selling features that aren't available in the core product. You'll also hear how it took him ten years to become "an overnight success" because of all the things Mike tried before launching Sidekiq.

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Topics we cover:

2:51 - Sidekiq’s unique business model
5:24 - Running a multimillion-dollar software company with no employees
6:41 - How did Mike get here?
8:23 - Mike’s approach to monetizing Sidekiq
12:58- The 10-year overnight success story
14:13 - Did Mike ever have any doubts about this not working?
16:54- Mike’s thoughts around building on top of the Ruby ecosystem
19:26 - Why doesn't Mike hire any employees?
23:31- Mike’s approach to competitors
26:08 - Mike’s response to open-source purists on Hacker News

Links from the Show:

Mike Perham (@getajobmike) I Twitter
Sidekiq
Code Code Ship: Mike Perham
Hacker News Discussion about Sidekiq
MicroConf Youtube Channel

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you.

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Episode 661 | Millions in Revenue As a One-Person Software Company

Startups For the Rest of Us