Rand Fishkin raised $29M in VC at Moz, watched it grow to 200+ employees — and then deliberately built his next company to run on 2.5 people. SparkToro now serves 65,000+ marketers. He's simultaneously running two other companies, all on lean teams, all without a board seat or hypergrowth pressure.

Rand is the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, an audience research platform that helps marketers find where their audience actually pays attention. He invented a novel alternative capital structure — not VC, not bootstrap, a third path — with investor-friendly returns and founder-friendly control. He's also co-founder of Alertmouse (4,500+ users in its first 60 days) and Snackbar Studio (indie game studio, $2.15M raised).

This conversation covers the structural and philosophical decisions behind the Chill Work Manifesto, the alt-cap model Ra ...