Home Podcasts Sounds Good.
Sounds Good.

Sounds Good.

Anna Nadeina 8 Episodes Aug 18, 2026

Sounds Good is a podcast where host Anna Nadeina asks the questions you actually wanted answered. She talks to founders and operators about the playbooks, growth hacks, and frameworks the internet swears by — and whether any of it actually worked. Expect real numbers, honest post-mortems, and the occasional confession that the thing everyone recommended was a waste of six months. Topics include SaaS growth, bootstrapped and VC-backed startups, product-led growth, sales-led growth, founder-led marketing, exits and M&A, remote teams, AI tools, indie hackers, and building on the internet.

Episodes

Stop chasing traffic, fix your SaaS funnel first — Simonida Jovanovic
Stop chasing traffic, fix your SaaS funnel first — Simonida Jovanovic Aug 18, 2026 4139 Simonida has made a career out of figuring out why SaaS users don't pay—and she doesn't think throwing more AI, more emails, or more traffic at the problem is the answer. She focuses on one of the most valuable parts of the SaaS funnel: the gap between someone starting a trial and deciding the product is worth paying for. Sometimes moving that conversion rate by just a few percentage points can c
The real cost of building an AI startup — Ricardo Ghekiere @ Patricia
The real cost of building an AI startup — Ricardo Ghekiere @ Patricia Aug 11, 2026 3699 Ricardo Ghekiere bought BetterPic for $1 when the product was still rough, the AI struggled with consistency, and very few people believed AI headshots could become a real business.Less than three years later, BetterPic had grown into a multimillion-dollar company. But while everyone else was celebrating AI image generation, Ricardo was already thinking about what comes next. That thinking led to
Don't add features: how to simplify your SaaS — Jeremy Chatelaine @ MonsterOps
Don't add features: how to simplify your SaaS — Jeremy Chatelaine @ MonsterOps Aug 4, 2026 3470 Jeremy has been bootstrapping SaaS products for more than a decade. After building QuickMail into one of the most respected outbound platforms, he's now betting on a much bigger idea: AI won't replace companies — it'll replace the way companies operate. We talked about where AI actually delivers value (and where it absolutely doesn't), why founders are creating technical debt faster than ever, ho
The human advantage: how to give your brand a real voice — Lianna Patch
The human advantage: how to give your brand a real voice — Lianna Patch Jul 28, 2026 3204 AI can write. But can it actually persuade customers? In this episode of Sounds Good, Lianna Patch joins Anna Nadeina to talk about what AI is genuinely good at, where Claude and ChatGPT still fail, and why the best SaaS companies are investing more—not less—in brand, personality, and great content. We cover: • Why AI-generated copy still sounds the same • When Claude is actually useful (and w
The $500M SaaS company that doesn't chase AI hype — Ken Weary @ Hostaway
The $500M SaaS company that doesn't chase AI hype — Ken Weary @ Hostaway Jul 20, 2026 3065 Hostaway has raised more than $500 million. It still hasn't acquired a single company. Ken Weary, COO at Hostaway, believes that's not a missed opportunity—it's discipline. Instead of buying competitors, the company has spent the last decade building a single platform, staying profitable, and resisting the temptation to chase every shiny new thing. We talked about what AI is actually changing in
SaaS isn't dead but old playbooks are — Mac Martine @ Demandbird
SaaS isn't dead but old playbooks are — Mac Martine @ Demandbird Jul 14, 2026 3384 Mac Martine has been building and acquiring SaaS for 20 years. He still doesn't think it's easy — and that's the point. We talked about what it actually looks like to run a small SaaS portfolio as a two-person team, why buying a boring Slack backup tool led to Fortune 500 clients and a 50x price increase within 48 hours, and why the fundamentals of distribution haven't changed as much as the hype
You don't need to go shopping ever again — Felix Hoffmann @ 7Learnings
You don't need to go shopping ever again — Felix Hoffmann @ 7Learnings Jul 7, 2026 3306 Felix Hoffmann has been inside Zalando's pricing engine. Now he's building the tools retail brands need to survive the AI. We talked about what agentic shopping looks like these days, why European platforms are dangerously slow to react, and why asking "how do I use ChatGPT in my company" is completely the wrong question. In this episode: - Why 30–50% of online purchases already start with an A
Your AI product needs an accountability layer — Sai Dhanak @ deduction.com
Your AI product needs an accountability layer — Sai Dhanak @ deduction.com Jun 30, 2026 3358 Most AI companies make big claims. Sai built a guarantee into the business model. Sai Dhanak is the founder of Deduction, an AI tax firm that pairs licensed CPAs with AI agents to deliver tax advice, planning, and filing for US consumers — at a fraction of traditional accountant prices. We talked about what happens when accountability is actually on the line, why services that were "unscalable" a
Stop the slop. Here's how to do founder-led content — Finn Thormeier @ Project 33
Stop the slop. Here's how to do founder-led content — Finn Thormeier @ Project 33 Jun 23, 2026 3745 Good content still wins. Finn Thormeier has spent years building LinkedIn presence for B2B executives and he's got a genuinely uncomfortable take on why most of it fails — and it's not the algorithm. Finn runs Project 33, an executive LinkedIn agency working with B2B founders and C-suite leaders to turn their actual opinions into content that moves pipeline. He's obsessed with the gap between wha
Bootstrapping in an over-funded market — Antoine Minoux @ Fernand
Bootstrapping in an over-funded market — Antoine Minoux @ Fernand Jun 16, 2026 3279 What happens to bootstrapped SaaS when AI levels the playing field — and VC money controls distribution? Antoine Minoux, serial founder and builder of Fernand (a customer support tool for founders doing their own support), gets real about what's actually broken right now: UI as a moat is dead, cold email is harder than it looks, and "distribution is king" is not just a cliché anymore — it's exist
Why the Best product doesn't win anymore — Joseph Lee @ Supademo
Why the Best product doesn't win anymore — Joseph Lee @ Supademo Jun 9, 2026 2737 Your product isn't defensible because it's hard to build. The tough news: you're in trouble. Joe Lee, founder of Super (200,000+ users, growing without a sales team), joins Sounds Good to dismantle the idea that technical complexity is a moat. We get into why distribution and brand eminence are what's left, why "we're just watching AI" stance might have been the smartest move of the year, and why
Don't start SaaS right now — Mike Hill @ Curator.io
Don't start SaaS right now — Mike Hill @ Curator.io Jun 2, 2026 3215 Sounds Good Podcast #1 — Mike Hill on whether bootstrapped SaaS is still worth starting in 2026. His advice to anyone asking him right now: don't. Not because SaaS is dying. He doesn't buy that — neither do I. But the gap between building a product (easier than ever) and getting your first SaaS customer (harder than ever) got pretty broken. Mike Hill is a serial bootstrapper. His newest thing is

Recommended