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Interview summary: Building a micro SaaS portfolio with Ryan Kulp from Fomo

Here's a summary of some key parts of an interview I did with Ryan Kulp on building a SaaS portfolio.

Note, these are summarised dot points from myself, not quotations. Listen to what Ryan said in the full interview.

What do you call yourself?

  • Ryan talks about absorption mode vs creative mode. You need to build up creative energy and then deploy it.
  • Sees himself as a creator, but creativity is defined as the combining of not similar ideas into something interesting.
  • The common thread through his marketing, coder, and investment career is that they hinged on his ability to be empathetic to what people care about and want.
  • Many coders actually just great a being empathetic than they realize.

On Fork Equity's Strategy

Fork Equity is Ryan's micro SaaS company.

  • Fork Equity started when working on Fomo.com, when we started pattern matching by testing different marketing tactics, design changes, etc.
  • Wondered, what happens if you build up a library of best practices?
  • He doesn't know everything but now knows a little more than the average person.
  • You only need to be right once in entrepreneurship.
  • You only need a slight edge and exploit that, don't need to be Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg level.
  • Some people call this special knowledge.
  • I thought, let's be bold, take the assumption of best practices, and see try this process again and again.
  • It allows us to A) take companies that weren't doing as well, and make them do better and B) start things from scratch.
  • We have kept refining, and it continues to work.

Why Micro Acquisitions?

  • First started out of necessity. Didn't have a lot of funds.
  • Needed to start small.
  • Companies start out at different stages.
  • Small businesses have different problems than bigger businesses.
  • Comes back to pattern matching, now we can pick companies with a certain size [micro] and add value almost with our eyes closed.

Listen to the full interview for more details.

Other stuff in the interview:

  • Builders vs growers
  • Ryan's thoughts on bankers ;-)
  • Tips on sourcing and dealmaking
  • Building teams for micro SaaS management

And more.

posted to Icon for group Micro SaaS
Micro SaaS
on June 20, 2022
Trending on Indie Hackers
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