Colleen Schnettler
Co-Founder, SaaS Marketing Gym. On 1 show, 9 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderengineerhost@leenyburger ↗LinkedIn ↗colleen.is ↗
Colleen Schnettler is a software engineer and entrepreneur who founded developer tools such as Simple File Upload and Hello Query. She also co-founded SaaS Marketing Gym, co-hosts tech podcasts, and works as an AI automation and Rails consultant.
Everything Colleen Schnettler said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Schnettler: Community popularity does not matter when building SaaS
“Like if you're popular in your community, you do courses, you do coaching, right? Like that's how you capitalize on, on popularity. And we were trying to build a SaaS and popularity doesn't matter when you build a SaaS.”
Schnettler: AI is not yet good enough for non-technical database reporting
“And I think part of that was because you can't put it in front of completely non-technical people yet because the AI is just not good enough.”
Schnettler: Modern software niches require higher polish due to pervasive competition
“Honestly, I think it just seems that the products are so good and it seems like every niche that you've, you can think of, that's what it feels like to me. Has five or six products. Like there's no world of like, oh, there's one competitor and they have a crap…”
Schnettler: Positioning AI database chat tools as virtual data analysts is ineffective
“Chat with your database is not in any way unique. Everyone's doing that. And a lot of the companies doing it are trying to position it as the data analyst for your company. I don't think that's right. Cause I think that is still too vague. People are still lik…”
Schnettler: Developers do not pay for proprietary software gems
“Developers, generally speaking, they aren't in the mindset that they go and they license, like they pay for a Ruby gem and license that. That's not their workflow. Their workflow is they want an open source package, and then maybe you can upcharge them for sup…”
Schnettler: Open-source-to-paid model does not work for small teams
“I am not a big believer in the open source to paid model for a small team. I mean, I think if we had raised a lot of money, it might be a great path, but What we're trying to build, like that, that just isn't a model that was really working.”
Schnettler: Rails developers have a higher willingness to pay than Laravel developers
“In Laravel, we're getting a lot of hobbyists. In Rails, we're getting a lot of companies. And so when you look at the propensity to pay, we think the Rails market is just a little more mature, and the people are coming to us are more likely to pay for things.”
Schnettler: Timing and market demand stalled Hello Query's traction
“I am just not seeing the traction for the amount of marketing effort and sales effort and cold outbound I have been doing. I am just not seeing the traction I think I should be seeing. If I was actually building something people want at the right time. And I t…”
Schnettler: Hello Query probably could have succeeded if co-founder stayed
“Could we have made this work together? I still kind of think we could have, which is kind of sad, but unfortunately, it didn't go that way.”
Schnettler: Crowded markets require 30 people asking for the same solution
“It's just, I mean, it's just not worth, it's not worth it without having 30 people saying, yes, I need this one very specific thing.”
Schnettler: Marketers share a general hatred for GA4
“The one thing that the marketers did seem to have in common was a general hatred for GA four.”
Schnettler: Users demand SQL editing features but rarely actually edit queries
“You can edit the SQL, which was funny because that was like a heavily requested feature, but no one actually does it. It's like people just want to know that they can.”
Schnettler: Podcasting is a tough market because podcasters are broke
“Podcasting is a tough mark market, low margins, podcasters are broke. So the fact that they would shell out additional money seemed unlikely.”
Schnettler: Reluctance to connect production databases could doom Hello Query
“One of the biggest reasons I think this particular product could fail will be because people won't connect their production databases”
Schnettler likens co-founder breakups to knocking over a vending machine
“Breakups are like shaking a vending machine, like knocking over a vending machine. You have to shake it a few times before it falls over.”
Schnettler learned developers are a difficult market to sell software to
“We spent a first year, before we were, we hooked up with TinySeed, we spent a year trying to sell this as a Ruby gem to developers. But they're a hard market to sell to.”
Schnettler admits Hello Query's half-built product fails to solve customer needs
“It's that the product Aaron and I had envisioned is not the right solution. Like I can already tell you from the customer interviews, what he, what we have 50% done, that is not the right solution.”
Schnettler regrets avoiding conflict and delaying co-founder breakup by eight months
“And I, because Aaron and I, we maybe didn't, I don't want to say we're conflict avoiders, but you know, when you have a personal relationship with your co-founder, you don't, I was always really worried about pushing him too hard. And we broke up anyway. So I …”
Schnettler: B2B customers value embedded end-user reporting over internal standalone tools
“As we refine our vision for what this product should be, what we learned was there's even higher value for our customers' customers To get their data. Our customers, customers need to build their own reports. These companies are constantly being asked for cust…”
Schnettler: Weekly C-suite reporting requests lack sufficient pain for SaaS sales
“What was happening when we get on these customer calls is when we ask them about internal reporting and we say, how many times does your C-suite, for example, request a report? Maybe once a week. Once a week is not that painful. And then if you move upmarket, …”
Schnettler: Data analysts prefer direct raw data access over pre-built SaaS charts
“So data analysts don't want you the SaaS owner, to build charts for them. Data analysts want their hands on their data.”
Schnettler: Embedded software cannot use standard MVPs due to production trust risks
“To your point, this isn't an MVP. These people are going to put this in their production software. So we have to be really, really careful When we look at the quality versus minimal features to value, you know, figuring that out. And so that's why on one hand,…”
Schnettler: Market-leading BI tools remain far too complicated for users
“To be fair, like this is a crowded field. There are several competitors in the space, but what I'm hearing from people, even if the air quotes, easiest ones to use are not easy. They are too complicated.”
Schnettler: Audience pre-sales can create false validation via hobbyist purchases
“I think what I learned later actually just when I did this other round of customer interviews is it came out that people were using it on hobby projects and they wanted, they thought it was cool and they wanted to support us, but the hobby projects is not the,…”
The other half of the tape: Colleen Schnettler's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Rob Walling 1
Statements about Colleen Schnettler, by other people (1)
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Startups For the Rest of Us 1
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Colleen's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Co-Founder, SaaS Marketing Gym | 9 | 43 | — | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |