Toptal
company on 7 shows · 7 statements across 6 episodes · said 691 times in 140 episodes since 2016
Top Founders 611 
Mixergy 62 
Lenny's Podcast 8 
My First Million 4 
Startups For the Rest of Us 2 
the Neon Show 2 
the Startup Ideas Podcast 2
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
Top Founders 611Mixergy 62Lenny's Podcast 8My First Million 4Startups For the Rest of Us 2the Neon Show 2the Startup Ideas Podcast 2
2025 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2024 8 mentions in 1 episode
2023 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 8 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- Saas Companies that Anyone Can Start with Rob Walling
- How A 23 year Old Created A $8M Yearly Revenue Content Marketplace Business ft. Anirudh Singla
- How he sold his $1m business for $20m Last Week
- Flip Your SaaS Playbook: PE firm Acquires $1m ARR MightlySignal for .5-1.5x, Sold 24 months later for $4.5m.
- Fintech For Gig Workers Breaks $1m ARR, 10k Customers
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 6 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
- Indie Riches: He Makes More Now Than The $100k Job That Laid Him Off in 2019
- Episode 558 | Thinking Through Funding as a Bootstrapper
- How a $25 Million a Year Sweepstakes Business Works | My First Million #193
- Developer Goes from Freelancer to SaaS Founder With Simple Playbook (Copy it!)
- Can He Convert Twitter Followers to Software Subscribers?
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 10 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
2019 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2018 26 mentions in 4 episodes 7 per episode
- #1559 Cameron Herold coaches me on hiring (so I don’t collapse at my desk)
- 1156 YC Alum Burning $110k/mo in Cash To Scope Projects and Place Dev Talent Using Machine Learning
- 1140 I only work 17 hours per week, don't trust Google, and make $1.7m+
- 1201 How he sold customers before hiring first head of engineering
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 83 mentions in 28 episodes 3 per episode
- #1417 How Sam Ovens is helping everyday people start their own consulting businesses
- #1524 When does a startup founder need a COO?
- #1453 The future of chat (and interacting with your customers)
- EP 530: Shut Down $2m Business, Why with CEO Shawn Livermore
- 700: With $3,000,000 in Projects Completed, Will He Take Down Upwork and Toptal?
- 822: SaaS: 25 Years Old and $250k+ in MRR, Here's Trick to Starting With No Developers
- 699: The Fired ConvertKit Co-Founder You've Never Heard Of, Father Made Me Feel "Not Worth Enough"
- EP 575: Fruitstreet Raises $6m From 180 Customers for HealthTech, New Kind of VC with CEO Laurence Girard
- 20 more episodes that year, every mention in 2017 →
2016 538 mentions in 88 episodes 6 per episode
- EP 399: $1m+ Mattresses Sold using Toptal.com with Adam Tishman of HelixSleep
- EP 314: He Just Sold His Company SkillBridge.co, But Why?
- EP 442: $803k In 2015 Revenue from The Hardcore Closer, Ryan Stewman
- EP 505: Qwil.co Pre-Pays Contractors/Freelancers $10M in 2016 with CEO Johnny Reinsch
- EP 450: 14 Ag Companies Raise $32M Using AgFunder.com with CEO Rob Leclerc
- EP 444: $1.5M in MRR, SaaS, Helping Studios Render Film Faster with GridMarkets CEO Mark Ross
- EP 443: SaaS $20M 2015 ARR, 150K Customers Giving People Quality Video, Photos, Audio with Joel Holland, CEO of VideoBlocks
- EP 441: $605k Revenue Agency Spins off $35k MRR SaaS Products with Sujan Patel
- 80 more episodes that year, every mention in 2016 →
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
7 statements about Toptal, every show
Toptal advertises a 3% acceptance rate because its true 1% sounded fake
“There's, they advertise something like maybe like a three percent you know, sort of pass rate for their talent, so they only, like, on board, like, three percent of the people who apply, and allegedly their actual pass rate is even lower than that, but they th…”
Toptal generates $450 million in annual recurring revenue
“Top tile, which does four, fifty million ARR where they're basically peppers model, but for product engineering folks.”
Walling: Toptal founders extracted profits while early noteholders received no equity
“There's actually, isn't it, it's top towel, I believe, where they, Raise money on safe's convertible notes. They never raised another round. They haven't sold. And so all the investors don't technically own the equity and the founder can actually literally leg…”
Masood: Freelance developers regularly cross-list across Toptal and Tara
“We have TopTile developers on our platform too. It's not like every developer just joins one platform. They usually join multiple.”
Gillivan: FreeeUp focuses on e-commerce and marketing, unlike Toptal
“TopTal is more focused on your higher level developer and designer. Our workers are more specialized within e-commerce business operations, and then also digital marketing.”
Chowdhury notes that Toptal accepts only 3% of developer applicants
“Literally, they only have, they genuinely only take the three percent of people that apply for them for their developer, for developers.”
Chowdhury argues modern consulting firms should be built as digital platforms
“If you were to build either of those businesses today, you'd probably not build them with fancy offices and sort of, ah, you know, rainmaker partners. You'd probably build them as a platform. And in many ways, that's what I think TopTel are doing. They are bas…”