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Spencer Fry

December 28, 2020

Spencer Fry is a serial entrepreneur. He has co-founded three bootstrapped companies. He is currently the founder and CEO of Podia.

    Personal

    In 2009, he published his life plan for the next 50 years.

    Startups: Stress and Depression What it’s really like being an entrepreneur.

    Tips

    • How to Network: What I’ve learned the past four years networking in NYC
    • Let’s Be Friends: How I use Twitter for business.
    • Under the Radar: How To Quietly Run Your Startup

    Programming

    • What Learning to Program has Done For Me
    • From Business Guy to Programmer
    • What’s a Non-Programmer To Do?

    Current Projects

    Podia

    Podia is an all-in-one digital website builder where you can sell courses, memberships, and digital downloads in one place. Spencer founded it in 2014, although at that time he called it Coach. He shared the story of founding Podia at A New Company. At that time, it was online test prep company that offered students video lessons, practice questions, access to GMAT experts, and more. By 2016, he pivoted. Podia was now a platform for professionals looking to independently market, manage and grow their businesses.

    They changed the name to Podia in December, 2017. They shared more information about the name change at Introducing Podia: Coach has changed its name.

    In 2019, his team grew from 10 to 20 people. He shared how it changed his role as the founder.

    Behind The Scenes

    • Spencer shared the reasons he decided to launch his fourth company at Why I started Podia
    • What a week working at Podia looks like
    • Podia uses 64 tools across the company (operations, product, development, marketing, and support) to run the business. He shared them in a Twitter thread.
    • Podia’s product process: Spencer’s step-by-step process for product planning and execution
    • What makes Podia special
    • Podia hit profitability in 2020. Spencer shared how they achieved that in a Twitter thread.
    • How has customer feedback changed for Podia as it has grown

    Check out Podia

    Sweat The Product

    In 2014, Spencer launched Sweat The Product. The goal was to create interviews entirely focused around the details of product development and product design. He shared more information about the launch day at Sweat The Product by The Numbers

    Visit the website


    Past projects

    TypeFrag

    Spencer launched his first Saas business, TypeFrag.com, in March 2003. He sold the company in 2007.

    Burstoid

    Spencer used to run a photography blog called Burstoid. It had thousands of readers, however the photography niche was becoming saturaed. It also wasn’t as exciting to source new photographs as it had been.

    The above information was taken from Announcing Sweat The Product

    Carbonmade

    Carbonmade was launched in 2006. By March 2009, it had reached 100,000 users. He shared history of the company at 100,000 Users And So Can You.

    He left the day-to-day operations in 2011.

    Behind The Scenes

    • A collection of customer service stories.
    • Carbonmade’s First Hire: The story of hiring Grant Blakeman.
    • In 2010, they created a progress page to market a new version of their app.
    • Carbonmade: 2009 In Review
    • Carbonmade: 2010 in Review
    • How they created their ‘Goodbye’ page in one day. The page was to help them identify why people are leaving their service.
    • What’s A Non-Programmer To Do? (Advanced) How his role changed as Carbonmade shifted out of the startup phase and into the small business phase,

    Uncover

    Spencer launched Uncover in 2012. Uncover was a company that gave customers everything they needed to start and run an employee recognition program for their company. He shared more about it’s creation in the 2013 post Introducing Uncover. He posted a recap three months later at What I’ve Learned Since Releasing Uncover

    Behind the scenes

    • They sold a previous version of Uncover in 2013
    • They didn’t initially have automatic order fulfillment.
    • They had planned an update to the product in 2013. It ended up becoming a ten month product cycle.
    • How I Met My Co-Founders & What I Look For
    • How Learning to Program Got Me A Technical Co-Founder

    Twitter

    Threads

    Thoughts on bootstrapping vs. raising money

    Many new startups entering a market often appear similar to their competitors, yet that’s rarely the case as time goes by. Here is why dismissing them is dangerous.

    “I’ve realized over the past 20 years what kind of entrepreneur I am and what I care about“

    Why his goal is to only ask for feedback when he really wants feedback


    Features

    Interviews

    How He Did It: From Business Professional to Programming Founder and CEO of Uncover

    How to become the authority figure in your industry

    ZCS 040: Using Podia for Your Online Course

    Spencer Fry: Founder of Podia at Founder Chats

    Lessons in Building Digital Identity Products from a 4x Founder at Amplitude

    Spencer Fry’s Path to Podia’s 1,000 True Fans at Growth Ramp

    Our Investment in Podia — An Interview with Spencer Fry at Notation

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