Our B2B SaaS Journey

In this episode, Mitchell and Gavin deal with their first proper hater, reset their routines after a messy few weeks, unpack a six month marketing project for SixSides, and get into a surprisingly tense debate about whether AI is helping us work smarter or quietly making us lazier.LinksCommunity Builders Network on SkoolChapters(00:00) - Intro x2 (01:33) - Meeting the first hater (03:56) - New habits die easy (08:01) - Fitness goals, walking, and pickleball (13:48) - Juggling multiple balls across SixSides and DealBuddi (17:46) - Planning a six month marketing project (20:39) - Research projects for the engineering team (23:37) - Redesigning the SixSides mobile app (35:13) - World Police and Fire Games delivery timeline (37:52) - AI is making us dumber In this episode, we cover:Handling negative feedback from someone who does not believe in the SixSides visionWhy the opportunity might be in the cracks that other people missHow moving house disrupted Gavin’s routines, habits, gym schedule, and focusWhy new habits die easy, especially when your environment changesMitch’s post-wedding fitness motivation struggles and the search for a new goalPickleball, long walks, and finding achievable physical challengesGavin juggling SixSides, DealBuddi, family revenue, house setup, sales, and lead generationThe pressure of managing a team, delivering for the World Police and Fire Games, chasing customers, and exploring fundingPlanning a six month marketing project around community fundraising ideasUsing research, interviews, webinars, podcasts, blog posts, LinkedIn content, and white papers as one connected marketing engineThe SixSides community being set up on SkoolResearch projects for the engineering team across ticketing, event websites, and event registrationWhy the team paused coding for a week to research the market before buildingThe new SixSides mobile app design, including native iOS patterns and liquid glassReducing event organiser customisation so the app feels more cohesiveDesigning communities, events, explore flows, and future app navigationPreparing for the World Police and Fire Games timeline and internal testing windowOffline mode research and why it may require a major rethink of the mobile app data layerWhether AI-generated research, code comments, LinkedIn posts, and internal communication can be trustedThe difference between AI-generated work and AI-assisted thinkingWhy founders still need to slow down, think clearly, and care about qualityGot questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides

In this episode, Mitchell and Gavin unpack a huge turning point for SixSides as they start hiring, celebrate Project Rendezvous moving into contracts, and talk through how DealBuddi, team structure, and long-term planning are all evolving at once.LinksDealBuddi - https://dealbuddi.comChatGPT Atlas - https://chatgpt.com/atlas/Superwhisper - https://superwhisper.comAaron Francis on YouTube - Are designers cooked? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm9im-3g8fYStitch by Google - https://stitch.withgoogle.comSuno - https://suno.comChapters(00:00) - Editor’s note and intro (00:52) - We’re hiring at SixSides (07:38) - Using Atlas browser and AI to screen applicants (14:08) - Project Rendezvous gets approved (18:49) - What DealBuddi does and why it matters now (27:39) - Rebuilding DealBuddi in Laravel (31:04) - Founder roles, planning styles and playing to strengths (35:23) - National Safety Conference and product adoption lessons (38:44) - PlanetScale spikes and event infrastructure (41:58) - Founders Collective, student work experience and wrap-up In this episode, we cover:Why now feels like the right time for SixSides to start hiringHiring a growth marketer, lead gen support and multiple developersUsing AI tools like Atlas browser to screen job applicants fasterHow voice-to-text workflows with Superwhisper and ChatGPT are changing day-to-day workProject Rendezvous getting committee approval and moving into contract discussionsWhy DealBuddi’s positioning needs work and how it supports real sales conversationsThe plan to rebuild DealBuddi from Bubble into LaravelFounder roles, planning styles and how to play to each other’s strengthsLessons from the National Safety Conference and event app adoptionDatabase load spikes in PlanetScale during live eventsFounders Collective momentum, community building and staying in touch between eventsWhy student work experience is a good idea, but not the right fit just yetGot questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides

In this episode, Mitchell and Gavin celebrate their fastest client win yet, prepare for five events in seven days, share updates to the SixSides app and dashboard, and unpack the growing pressure of building a bootstrapped SaaS when the momentum finally starts to kick in.Chapters(00:00) - Intro (00:19) - Fitness update and hitting new milestones (03:42) - Fastest client win yet (06:46) - Five events in seven days (10:35) - Building the first user guide (14:59) - Should we go back to AIM next year? (18:11) - Product updates in the app and dashboard (22:33) - There is so much to do (31:31) - Should we hire our first developer? (38:05) - Outro In this episode, we cover:Fitness progress and how personal routines are tracking alongside startup pressureOur fastest client win yet and what made the sales process workHow a quick Loom walkthrough helped close a new event customerWhy community building keeps coming up in SixSides sales conversationsInvoicing momentum and how March revenue is already beating last yearPreparing for five events in seven days across multiple customersThe operational risk of becoming the bottleneck as event volume growsBuilding a first draft attendee user guide for event clientsUsing Gamma to speed up polished documentation and onboarding assetsWhy sponsor and exhibitor workflows could become a product-led growth leverRecommitting to AIME as a key conference for future customer growthNew SixSides product updates including sponsor tier layouts and feature togglesFixing AI assistant tooling issues in the dashboard backendThe growing product roadmap across the website, dashboard, infrastructure and mobile appWhether it is time for SixSides to hire a first developerThe realities of bootstrapping while juggling multiple businessesGot questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides

In this episode, we go mostly technical - Mitchell migrates the SixSides dashboard from Vue to React, moves the database to PlanetScale, and outlines the plan for proper preview environments that go from Linear to Cursor to live. Along the way there’s a fitness check-in, a disrupted Canberra trip, Project Hammer running without us on-site, and a new plan for an event manager success playbook.Linksmostlytechnical.comChapters(00:00) - Intro, billionaires, and the Christmas present (05:00) - Anniversary trip recap - escape room, Harbour Bridge nope, ice cream mission (08:50) - Fitness updates - gym habits, 75 Hard halfway, and easing into running (14:20) - We’re a React app now - why we moved from Vue (20:05) - PlanetScale migration - ditching RDS and simplifying the database setup (25:05) - Cost reduction and scaling globally into other regions (27:30) - Import issues, support fixes, and the “metal instance” workaround (32:50) - Linear to Cursor to live previews - the new dev workflow (41:30) - Project Rendezvous, CCF Magazine, and external deadline pressure (48:25) - Canberra trip disruption, Project Hammer lessons, and mailing out the dice In this episode, we cover:The “billionaire” Christmas present (Zimbabwean dollars, obviously)Anniversary trip vibes, escape rooms, and bailing on the Harbour Bridge walkFitness updates - 75 Hard progress, running blocks, and sore feetWhy SixSides is now a React dashboard (goodbye Vue)Using Cursor to accelerate a React rewrite and why popularity matters for AI toolingMoving the SixSides database from AWS RDS to PlanetScaleConsolidating global and regional databases into a simpler modelData sovereignty trade-offs (and when it’s worth paying for)Big cost reduction for adding regions (from hundreds to tens per month)The plan for preview environments: Linear tickets - Cursor agents - live preview linksReplacing Laravel Vapor with Terraform for better automationProject Rendezvous update and what “due diligence” could look likeCCF Magazine editorial deadline pressureCanberra trip disrupted, then Sydney trip pivotProject Hammer ran without the founders on-site - lessons learnedBuilding an event manager success playbookMailing out SixSides dice to leads - and a review-for-dice offerGot questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides

In this episode, Mitchell and Gavin record in person from a Melbourne hotel room ahead of AIM, share what it cost to exhibit and what they’re actually trying to achieve, and unpack big momentum updates across Project Rendezvous, CCF, and a major push to get SixSides dashboards ready for live demos.Linksatlas.devChapters(00:00) - Audio note - recording in person with two mics (00:28) - Live from Melbourne - exercise trip meets lead gen trip (02:53) - Morning person vs night person (and the need for naps) (05:39) - Project Rendezvous update - multi-year potential and pricing pressure (08:29) - What AIM is and why we’re exhibiting (09:23) - Booth setup - reusable banner, shipping pain, and vendor shoutout (12:19) - Booth envy - avoiding the event tech aisle and why positioning matters (15:08) - Conference strategy - lead rating, rapport, and follow-up commitments (17:12) - Pricing direction - per-event pilots to SaaS, dashboards as the key (26:57) - Shoutout to Clay Smith on Bluesky (28:44) - CCF President’s Lunch recap - JT on stage and Tag, You're It via event photos (31:51) - Dashboards build sprint - consolidating repos and shipping fast with AI (35:42) - Using AI for white papers - foundations first, then polish (38:13) - Weight loss update - 5kg down, walking focus, no booze habits (46:00) - Lessons learned coming next week - pitching, exhibiting, and confidence building In this episode, we cover:Recording in person from Melbourne and the joys of mismatched micsExercising like maniacs and discovering who’s a morning person vs a night personWhat AIM is, why we’re exhibiting, and how much it costBooth setup decisions, reusable banners, and avoiding the intimidating event tech aisleConference lead strategy - cold/warm/hot leads and getting commitment to follow upProject Rendezvous update - pricing pressure, US decision makers, and multi-year deal potentialShifting from per-event pricing to SaaS pricing, and why dashboards are the unlockThe CCF President’s Lunch recap, JT on stage, and a new angle for Tag, You're It using event photosHow we’re both using AI - white papers for sales, dashboards for product iterationMitch’s weight loss journey updateGot questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides

In this episode, we debrief a not-quite-right funding program (and a rejection that honestly saved us time), share encouraging momentum on Project Rendezvous, and get into full pre-conference mode for AIME in Melbourne - flights, accommodation, banner logistics, meeting bookings, and the lead capture tool build.Chapters(00:00) - Intro - wedding prep and what’s on this week (07:01) - Funding chat - rejected for the first interview and why it wasn’t a fit (10:15) - Project Rendezvous update - signs are positive (and it could change everything) (14:25) - Marinus check-in - timelines, sponsors, and expectations (15:23) - Lead capture tool progress - backend done, frontend next (18:36) - AIME prep - flights, accom, and the Melbourne plan (21:26) - Credit card points - Amex without spending beyond your means (23:25) - Booth logistics - banner arrives and meeting booking portal opens (26:00) - No dice - supplier drama, refunds, and the Alibaba pivot (29:30) - 75 hard vs 75 medium - fitness updates, shin splints, and staying consistent In this episode, we cover:Why the accelerator style funding program wasn’t a fit (10 weeks in-office with no guarantee)A positive update on Project Rendezvous and what “long-term partner” could meanCatching up with Marinus ahead of their May conference and sponsor scale (60+ exhibitors)Progress on the sponsor lead capture tool - backend done, frontend nextWhether the lead capture tool should become a separate appAIME conference prep - flights, accommodation, bikes, and daily walking plansApplying for an Amex to earn points on business spend (without spending beyond your means)Banner arrived - and it’s way heavier than expectedMeeting booking portal opened and how we’ll approach outreachThe dice order saga, the refund, and switching to Alibaba for cheaper dice75 hard vs 75 medium updates - plus shin splints, walking plans, and diet tweaksExpect a candid, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to launch a B2B SaaS company from scratch – completely bootstrapped.Got questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides

In this episode, we’re back from the break and gearing up for the biggest pitch of our SaaS journey so far. Gavin walks us through how we approached pricing for Project Rendezvous — a potentially game-changing deal — while Mitch shares what he didn’t finish during the holidays.We also get into prepping for AIME, our lead capture tool, why we’re ordering custom dice (yes, dice), and a whole lot of honest founder chat about fitness, burnout, and figuring out what kind of company we want to be.Links8 Ball Pool app: iOS and AndroidChapters(00:00) - Intro - back for 2026 (00:37) - Holiday catch-up - first aid incident and a tough Christmas (06:00) - Mitch’s new pool table hobby (and the 8 Ball Pool app) (10:34) - Project Rendezvous update - sponsor prospectus and indicative pricing (12:25) - Pricing advice - “get the logo first, pricing second” (16:42) - Big opportunity pressure - backlog, speed, and protecting advantage (20:24) - Learning from podcasts - growth tactics and AI agents in sales (26:57) - AIME prep - booth planning, swag, and ordering custom SixSides dice (31:47) - Mitch’s “spectacle” ideas vs conference reality (32:40) - AR concept - how we might wow people at the booth (34:10) - Badge scanning tool - OCR lead capture and follow-ups (36:18) - Do we even need a TV? Booth strategy chat (38:48) - Travel logistics - flights, accom, and budgeting (41:26) - Mitch’s tea ceremony - getting “married” before the wedding (43:28) - Project Hammer Sydney trip planning (44:35) - Virtual office - looking legit with a business address (45:48) - Fitness goals - running, Strava, Parkrun, and wedding prep (52:13) - Wrap-up - where to find us and the SixSides dice giveaway In this episode, we cover:Our experiences over the holiday period (including some intense moments)Why Mitch didn’t get as much done on SixSides as he hopedThe story behind Project Rendezvous and our pricing strategyCreating sponsor and pricing documents for a major eventHow Gavin’s ex-CEO helped shape our approachPlanning for AIME: dice giveaways, AR interactions, and moreWhether we need to aim higher for in-person eventsWhy Gavin is rethinking our pace and whether we should stay bootstrappedWhat we’re learning from other SaaS founders via podcastsOur lead capture tool and how OCR is helping us demo at AIMEVirtual offices, customer perception, and looking legitFitness goals and accountability leading into Mitch’s weddingMitch’s pool table obsession (and why 8 Ball Pool is surprisingly educational)Expect a candid, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to launch a B2B SaaS company from scratch – completely bootstrapped.Got questions or topics you want us to cover? Email us at journey@sixsides.coIf you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star rating and a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us reach more people!Connect with usSixSides: sixsides.coBook a call with Gavin: call.sixsides.coMitchell on Bluesky: mitchdav.isMitchell on LinkedIn: mitchdavGavin on LinkedIn: gavintyeGavin on YouTube: gavintye1SixSides on LinkedIn: sixsidesSixSides on X: sixsideseventsSixSides on Bluesky: sixsides.coSixSides on Youtube: sixsidescoSixSides on Substack: sixsides