The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

A story about an opinionated founder, the customers he turns away, and the ones who stay.
This episode is for SaaS founders quietly wondering whether trying to be a fit for every buyer is what's slowing them down.
Most founders think the goal is to be a fit for as many buyers as possible. Burak Karakan, Co-founder and CEO of Bruin, runs his company on the opposite belief. A former engineering manager at HelloFresh, he built an opinionated product — and he's at peace with the buyers who walk away because of it.
And this inspired me to invite Burak to my podcast. We explore why being opinionated on purpose creates focus, speed, and the right kind of customer base. Burak shares his thinking on the question that qualifies a buyer in five minutes, why he hires juniors over seniors right now, and what happened when his team stopped tracking competitors altogether. You'll discover why he turns down deals that other founders would take.
We also zoom in on three of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies: – Acknowledge you cannot please everyone – Aim to be different, not just better – Master the art of curiosity
Burak's journey proves that remarkable companies don't try to be a fit for everyone — they hold their position, and the right customers find them because of it.
Here's one of Burak's quotes that captures his thinking:
"It's unbelievable to me that engineers think they are there just to build stuff. No, you're there to solve problems, and sometimes solving that problem will especially require you to not build something."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why opinionated products attract better customers than agreeable ones
What question reveals whether a buyer is a real fit in five minutes
When ignoring your competitors becomes your sharpest strategic move
Why hiring juniors right now beats hiring seniors
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Burak Karakan, Co-founder & CEO of Bruin
Website: https://getbruin.com

A story about rebuilding how a company runs from the ground up.
This podcast is for SaaS founders wondering whether the playbook they've been running is still enough to keep their edge.
Most software CEOs scale by hiring. Few question that.
Tim Barker, CEO of Attain IP, walked away from the obvious next move. After scaling Salesforce in EMEA, leading DataSift through Twitter's data shutdown, and running a public mental health platform for five years, he turned down PE roles and board seats to start over. New company, new market — white-box AI for patent attorneys. But the real bet wasn't the market. It was the build: five people, no functional org, agents doing the work a department used to. That's the choice I wanted to understand.
This inspired me to invite Tim to my podcast. We dig into how the operating model of a software company gets rebuilt when one person can run what used to take a department. Tim shares his thinking on why products should be bought not sold, why trust is now a measurable input, and why the obvious next move is rarely the remarkable one.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Sell the idea, not the product
Master the art of curiosity
Tim's story proves that remarkable companies don't follow the obvious playbook—they question the foundations everyone else takes for granted and build what works now.
Here's one of Tim's quotes that captures how his definition of a winning product has shifted:
"There's no MVP in our world, in our vocabulary. It's replaced by the minimum magical product. Magical products drive word of mouth, and our North Star is: once I've used it, I'm never going back."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why systems beat super prompts in any AI-first business
What separates products people buy from products you have to sell
Why trust is a measurable input, not just a brand value
Why uncomfortable choices teach faster than comfortable ones
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Tim Barker, CEO at Attain IP
Website: attainip.ai

A story about questioning the play itself—not the execution.
For SaaS founders quietly wondering whether their next round will fix what the last one didn't.
Most founders who fail try harder the next time.
Amos Bar-Joseph, co-founder and CEO of Swan, took a different path. Three-time founder. Two prior B2B startups built on the unicorn growth-at-all-costs playbook—both ended in failure. On the third one, he didn't tighten his execution. He rejected the play—and reached seven figures in ARR in just nine weeks.
And this inspired me to invite Amos to my podcast. We explore why questioning the playbook creates a different kind of edge. Amos shares the thinking behind scaling talent first, not headcount—why mental capacity is the bottleneck, why knowledge has to become software, why meetings and alignment calls are the real cost of scale.
We also zoom in on three of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies: – Aim to be different, not just better – Master the art of curiosity – Focus on the essence
Amos's journey proves that remarkable companies don't follow consensus—they question what everyone else accepts and walk away from it.
Here's one of Amos's quotes that captures his philosophy on how a business should be built:
"We're scaling our talent inside the company so we can discover what does it look like the 100x version of an engineer, the 100x product, the 100x seller, the 100x marketeer. [...] A business that is designed from the ground up to scale its employees, not a business that employees are designed to scale the business."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why convention is the fastest path to mediocrity in software
What changes when revenue per employee becomes your North Star metric
Why mental capacity is the real bottleneck, not headcount
Why knowledge has to live in the system, not the team
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Amos Bar-Joseph, Co-founder & CEO of Swan
Website: https://www.getswan.com

A story about advantages that capital cannot buy.
This episode is for SaaS founders who are watching better-funded rivals raise round after round—and questioning whether outspending is really the only way to win.
Most founders chase scale before they've earned the right. Joseph Lee, CEO of Supademo, took a different path. After six years and several pivots in his previous company, he started Supademo in early 2023 with a bootstrap mindset—even after raising. He did the gritty work that bigger competitors refused to do, and shared every harsh lesson in public from day one.
The result: mid-seven-figure ARR — built by a team of 11.
And this inspired me to invite Joseph to my podcast. We explore why founder-led grit beats capital when capital is everywhere. Joseph shares why he stopped tracking twenty metrics to focus on three, and why he believes 99% of a startup's momentum has nothing to do with the founder. You'll discover what happens when the smaller player chooses the work the bigger players won't touch.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Turn customers into fans
Master creating momentum
Joseph's journey proves that remarkable companies don't outspend competitors—they build flywheels competitors can't buy.
Here's one of his quotes:
"You need to build the right levers into your business where you're riding the momentum of the market or momentum of the product. We're not doing as much like hand-to-hand combat."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why structural market dynamics drive 99% of a startup's momentum
What makes 100 early customers more valuable than 10,000 later ones
Why measuring twenty metrics hides what three actually reveal
Why trust compounds when founders share lessons publicly from day one
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Joseph Lee, CEO of Supademo
Website: https://supademo.com

A story about refusing what the market expected—and a business that grew stronger for it.
This episode is for sales-led SaaS founders wondering why adding more people keeps making growth harder, not easier.
When I last spoke with Alex Levin in 2022, Regal was already scaling. Since then, revenue has grown 4x—with the exact same team.
Back in 2022, Regal was growing fast, and the team was expanding with it. Alex made a different call. He stopped hiring to solve problems—and started solving problems instead. Three and a half years later, the team is exactly the same size. The revenue isn't.
He said no to entire customer segments. He stopped solving product gaps with people. He moved from $50K average contracts to over $150K—without adding a single person to make it happen. The result is a business approaching cash-flow break-even with most of its $83M still in the bank and revenue growing 50 to 100% a year.
And this inspired me to invite Alex back to my podcast—three and a half years after our first conversation. We explore how questioning every default assumption about growth creates compounding advantage. Alex shares hard-won insights about the ego trap of hiring, the shift from $50K to $150K average contracts, and why AI agents didn't change his core belief—they finally made it scale.
You'll discover what happens when a founder refuses the obvious answer—and finds that the constraint was always the key.
We zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies: – Acknowledge you cannot please everyone – Focus on the essence
Alex's story proves that remarkable companies grow their leverage, not their headcount.
Here's one of Alex's quotes that captures his thinking on building a business that forces clarity:
"Don't solve problems with people, like solve the problem and then hire people if you, you know, if you want to. That's a very big shift in how companies are run."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why the most valuable employee is the one who automates their own job out of existence
What saying no to a whole customer segment does for average contract value
Why the constraint you kept accepting was actually the problem all along
Why the fastest solution to a product gap is often the most expensive one long-term
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Alex Levin, CEO & Co-founder
Website: regal.ai