Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast Episodes
He quit Apple to sell honey jars and learn sales | Ep- 64
Episode 64
From building apps at Best Buy to getting into Techstars, this episode is a masterclass in startup grit. Our guest, a Toronto-based founder and ex-Apple/IBM engineer, walks us through building 35+ projects, what failed, what made money, how he learned sales from scratch, and why he’s now obsessed with solving go-to-market problems for B2B startups.
We go deep into:
- How to know when to kill an idea
- Lessons from making $0 to 5-figure MRR
- The truth about VC pressure vs bootstrapping
- Building SaaS + service hybrid models
- Staying sane while building solo
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro: From On Deck to 35 Ideas
01:00 - Why most technical founders fail at sales
04:00 - Best Buy hack: Gaming ad revenue with Android apps
06:30 - First “real” win: Canada Top 10 apps
08:00 - Building “Spotify for News” (and shutting it down)
10:30 - When to kill your startup
13:00 - Side hustle to 1k MRR → quitting full-time job
16:00 - Why learning sales changed everything
18:00 - Selling blueberry honey to learn sales
21:00 - Cold email agency that failed — what went wrong
24:00 - SaaS vs. service models: What scales?
28:00 - “My platform did 10 things. Users wanted 1.”
31:00 - Mission-driven idea testing
35:00 - The 5K/month rule & building in public
38:00 - Should you raise VC or bootstrap?
41:00 - Burnout, support systems & staying sane
45:00 - AI tools stack: Cursor, Claude, Replit & more
50:00 - What actually keeps him going after 35+ tries
Published on 13 hours ago