How to Build a $5 Million Software Business from a Spreadsheet File

Jesse is the founder of “You Need a Budget”, a software product that helps you with your personal budgeting. Jesse is a former Certified Public Accountant (CPA) turned software entrepreneur. He founded YNAB in 2004 and has successfully grown it into a multi-million dollar business with tens of thousands of users from all over the world.

Key Talking Points

How Jesse started this business by selling an Excel spreadsheet that he'd initially created for himself and his wife.
How the Excel spreadsheet wasn't selling until Jesse started charging MORE money for it.
Why content creation and education is the top priority for YNAB and why software plays ‘second fiddle'.
The key essential lessons that Jesse learned about copywriting and landing pages which helped to double his sales.
How Jesse's goal with his business was to simply generate $350 per month to cover his rent.
How Jesse grew YNAB from its modest beginnings into a business that he could work on full-time.
Why Jesse scrapped software that he'd spent over $60,000 on and rebuilt it from scratch.
Why Jesse kept working in the full-time job when his business was generating about double his salary.

Success Quote

“The single-minded ones, the monomaniacs, are the only true achievers. The rest, the ones like me, may have more fun; but they fritter themselves away…. Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.” – Peter Drucker