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 Smile — a Slack app for sending dorky cards to your team (which I love using!).

What we got into:

- Why the SaaSpocalypse started five years ago and has nothing to do with AI

- The Google-to-ChatGPT shift is wiping out bootstrappers

- AI makes senior people better and junior people worse

- Lifetime deals stop making sense when token costs are ongoing and buyers already have your competitor ...