1269: Why Being Your Own Stakeholder is a Superpower w/ Mike Conway
After nearly two decades in the high-stakes tech and finance industries, Mike Conway traded his corporate career for the entrepreneurial grind. He’s now the founder and CEO of Arcodo, a SaaS platform designed to help indie game developers plan, manage, and launch their games. In this episode, Mike shares the raw and real journey of bootstrapping a business, from finding a scalable idea to overcoming the introverted engineer’s fear of marketing and community building. This episode is a masterclass in practicality for any wantrepreneur, revealing why your product doesn't have to be perfect to succeed and how focusing on solving a real problem is the ultimate key to building a valuable business.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
- Why "ugly" products that solve a real problem will always beat beautiful products that don't.
- How to leverage your past career experience (even the parts you didn’t like) to build a better business on your own terms.
- The bootstrapper’s mindset: How to build a sustainable company without VC pressure by being your own (and only) stakeholder.
- How to use AI as a strategic tool to solve specific problems, not as a buzzword to chase.
- Actionable strategies for introverted founders to get out there, talk to customers, and build a community around their product.
- The power of time-blocking: a simple daily habit to manage the chaos of entrepreneurship and actually get things done.
- Why the barrier to entry in entrepreneurship is much lower than you think, and how to use that knowledge to take action today.
📝 About Mike Conway
Mike Conway is the founder and CEO of Arcodo, a SaaS startup dedicated to empowering indie game developers. With nearly 20 years of deep experience in technology, spanning development, cloud architecture, and security, Mike left a successful career in the finance industry to build something of his own. He combines his technical expertise with a lifelong passion for gaming and creativity, offering a unique perspective on building a community-driven platform from the ground up as a solo, bootstrapped founder.
🎯 Mike’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Ultimately it comes down to the fact that the bar is lower than you probably think."
📢 Memorable Quotes
- “If you're legitimately solving a problem for someone, they don't care what it looks like. They don't care about the marketing and all that. They just care about solving a problem in their day-to-day life.” – Mike Conway
- “AI is a tool just like a hammer is a tool... it's built for a very specific purpose. Before you go chasing an AI strategy, you need to figure out what problem you're trying to solve first.” – Mike Conway
- “I'm the only stakeholder that I have to appease. I can build it correctly... versus trying to appease an army of shareholders out there somewhere. It's a really nice change of pace and it gives me a lot of pride in what I'm building.” – Mike Conway
💡 Actionable Takeaways
- ✅ Start your day by time-blocking your calendar. Instead of a massive to-do list, assign realistic time slots to your most important tasks to ensure they get done.
- ✅ Step outside your comfort zone and talk to your potential customers. Find out what they are passionate about and what problems they truly need solved.
- ✅ Embrace imperfect action. Focus on building a solution that works, even if it's not perfectly polished, and get it into the hands of users.
🔗 Links & Resources
