James Mooring
Director, Astalty
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Biography
I am the co-founder and director of Astalty, a B2B SaaS platform in the disability industry in Australia. We have successfully bootstrapped to $1 million ARR in 18 months, and we're on track to hit $2 million ARR within the next 6 months with a team of only 6. I am passionate about helping bootstrapped startups build high-performing engineering teams, as well as assisting founders in understanding what to prioritize and when, using customer feedback and continuous shipping. I currently lead a team of 3 engineers, and we ship over 500 times per month with almost 3,000 daily active users and no downtime. The ability to ship quickly has been pivotal to our success.
What James Mooring recommends you check out
1. For technical founders (and even non-technical founders), read Accelerate by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, and Nicole Forsgren. This was key to building a team of 3 engineers that ships over 500 times per month. It's a book that is backed by research about how to build high performing engineering teams. This completely changed my business.
2. Read The Mom Test - this book is full of actionable advice and great examples of how to take customer feedback and translate it into something meaningful. This book is targeted at sales in the early days but I think with some adjustment to your thinking, the takeaways can be used across all aspects of a startup.
3. Ask questions and give answers - when I first joined the Microconf community, I was a bit of a bystander - happy to read and hopefully take away some value however what I found is that when I contributed more to discussions, I found myself having more conversations and extracting even more value than I was when I wasn't answering questions. For every question you ask, try to answer another (regardless of how unqualified you feel, you'll always have a different perspective and value to give).
4. If you go to a Microconf, the content is great but it is the relationships built outside of the venue that are invaluable. As someone who is not typically very social, at Microconf US, it was the breakfasts, lunches and dinners where I found just as much value as the talks themselves.
5. Do what you enjoy - even if that is work. This is a hot take but in my opinion if you enjoy working, you should do it more. If you go on a holiday and feel you need to work a few hours each day, then do it. If you think this is tough when you have a family, you're wrong - having a holiday means being able to unwind and spend time with family and friends; if that means you have to work a few hours here and there in order to relax, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.