What happens when the coffee runs out, and everything else goes sideways too?
Kris and John are back with a new episode format built around three segments: what's been hard, what's been inspiring, and what's been shipping. No highlight reels. Just the real stuff.

🔥 Into the Fire - What's Been Hard
Momentum was built around great amenities. Draft lattes. Cold brew on tap. Pour-over. The works. So when the RO water system ran dry and the kegs went empty first thing in the morning, chaos ensued. Kris breaks down their own version of "Watergate" — and what it revealed about turning a customer frustration moment into surprise and delight.
John gets honest too: the constant tension between deep builder mode and staying on top of customer support is real. Plus — why good AI support bots are genuinely useful, and why bad ones make you want to throw your laptop.

📖 Fan the Flames - Recommendations Worth Your Time
John just finished Alex Hormozi's $100M Money Models and one subtle pricing reframe completely changed how he thinks about annual plans. Instead of offering a discount, give bonus months. Small shift, big psychological difference.
Kris connects it to membership sales at Momentum and brings in Ryan Serhant's obsessive follow-up philosophy: people who don't respond aren't always uninterested. A three-month-cold lead just booked a tour.
Kris's tool pick: Jesse Itzler's wall calendar for mapping out an entire year intentionally, personally and professionally. They used it to plan 75 events without losing their minds.

✨ Embers - Small Wins & Things Shipping
John shipped Ember, a brand new embeddable podcast player for Fireside, and then turned a single customer feature request into a working playlist player in under an hour. The customer's response? "This is unreal."
The lesson: getting something good to production fast beats waiting for perfect. AI-assisted development has changed what's possible for small teams, and John's sticky note says it all "What has to be true for it to take half the time?"
Chris closes with some news: he's been named Outstanding Young Business Leader of the Year by the South Bend Regional Chamber, and yes, he announced it at Christmas dinner to very confused nieces.

Standing in the Fire is about what it actually feels like to own and grow SaaS products. Hosted by John and Kris, owners of Fireside.fm. New episodes dropping consistently, sometimes.
Like what you hear? Subscribe. It helps more than you know.

In this episode, Kris and John dig into what's been hard and stretching lately — from December's packed schedules to leveling up the Box Out conference booth, hiring challenges at the print shop, and keeping Momentum's big vision alive through the day-to-day grind.

John shares his obsession with Claude Supermax and how switching to Opus-level AI coding has unlocked a "Neo in the Matrix" moment — pushing Speaker Deck links, Flipper Expressions, Box Out page views, and Fireside episode duplication all forward in a single week.

Kris recommends Opus (the video tool) for turning landscape podcast footage into vertical social clips.

They wrap up with goals for the new year: John wants to 2-4X his output, while Kris is focused on filling Momentum, growing strategically, and finding better work-life integration.

In this episode of Standing in the Fire, John and Kris return after a summer break and settle into the new Fireside studio inside the Momentum Entrepreneurship Hub—an ambitious space they helped bring to life in South Bend. With Garrett remote in Colorado, the two hosts talk about why recording in-person felt like the right move for now, how the summer unfolded, and what it took to get the hub open, from construction chaos to a packed ribbon-cutting.

They share stories about landing big-name visitors—including the co-founder of Hotwire and an early investor in Facebook and Slack—along with pitch nights, food in the fridge, and the surprisingly important role of community. The conversation drifts into reflections on their first year owning Fireside: the plans they thought they’d tackle, the reality of maintenance and customer needs, and the satisfaction of making publishing reliable and metrics faster again.

From T-shirt shipments across the world to planning the next iteration of the Fireside marketing site, John and Kris talk openly about learning to set more realistic goals, building foundations before flash, and the excitement of seeing long-term vision start to take shape.

They wrap by looking ahead—Black Friday plans, product improvements, onboarding upgrades, and maybe even hosting a creator gathering in South Bend. It’s casual, honest, funny, and a great reset episode before the momentum picks up again.

Inspired by John’s real-life annual physical, this episode explores what it means to give your SaaS app its own annual checkup. What should you audit regularly to keep your app healthy?

The guys cover:

It’s packed with tactical insights and spicy opinions, like:

“If you reply to an email I claim is from me—it better come to me.”
“Most teams don’t need more email. They need better email.”
“Documentation, accessibility, and alt text… yep, we forget those too.”

This one will leave you with a solid checklist for improving your product, process, and communication in the year ahead.

What if you could focus only on what truly moves the needle?

John and Kris dig into Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell and explore how founders can delegate smarter, systemize better, and scale faster.

Key Takeaways:

• You can always get more money, but you can never get more time.
• Outsource tasks that drain your energy and time.
• Creating playbooks can streamline delegation and training.
• Hiring should focus on finding the right fit through practical projects.
• Energy and enthusiasm are contagious in leadership.
• Setting clear metrics helps track progress and success.
• Delegation is essential for scaling your business effectively.
• Systems are more important than goals for achieving success.
• Celebrating small wins can motivate teams and individuals.
• Understanding when a task is done is crucial for productivity.

“You don’t hire to grow your business. You hire to buy back your time.”

This episode is for founders drowning in tasks, solopreneurs hitting a ceiling, and anyone looking to escape the endless work treadmill.

Challenge: Can you delegate one task this week? Let us know!

How does a growing SaaS company keep track of important knowledge? From server setups to customer success playbooks, every company builds a wealth of internal information—but too often, that knowledge is scattered, siloed, or locked away in someone’s head.

In this episode, John, Kris, and Garrett explore how to document and share company knowledge effectively. They discuss real-world challenges, like merging Rails apps and ensuring critical infrastructure knowledge isn’t lost, as well as how to balance text-based documentation with video walkthroughs.

Takeaways:

• Company knowledge management is crucial for team efficiency.
• Identifying challenges in knowledge sharing helps improve processes.
• Technical documentation should be thorough and accessible.
• Centralizing information can streamline communication.
• Choosing the right tools is essential for effective documentation.
• Video can enhance knowledge transfer but should be concise.
• Documentation needs to be regularly updated to remain relevant.
• AI has the potential to automate documentation processes.
• Creating a culture of knowledge sharing is important.
• Feedback from users can guide improvements in knowledge management.

Key Quotes:

"If you document nothing, the only knowledge management system you have is luck."

"Slack is great for quick answers but terrible for long-term knowledge storage."

"Your team should always know where to look before they have to ask."

"Documentation is a moving target."

Celebrating tech wins in a way that resonates with customers can be tricky—so how should SaaS companies do it? John, Kris, and Garrett break down how they approach communicating improvements, from backend optimizations to feature rollouts. They debate whether customers care about upgrades like Rails 6 and share ideas on writing updates that connect with both technical and non-technical users.

The conversation then shifts to hiring—how to evaluate developers, why trade-offs are crucial in the interview process, and the unique challenges of hiring remote vs. local talent. John shares insights from his GitHub hiring experience, Kris talks about building teams for different projects, and Garrett explores the psychology behind finding people who truly align with company culture.

The episode wraps up with wins of the week, including major Fireside updates, basketball coaching victories, and a heated discussion about Notre Dame football.

"If you don't celebrate, it can feel like nothing is happening—even when big things are."
"Customers don't care about Rails upgrades, they care about how fast and smooth their experience is."
"Hiring is as much about culture fit as it is about technical ability."

• Celebrating tech wins authentically is crucial for customer engagement.
• Customers care more about stability and bug fixes than technical upgrades.
• Effective communication of tech improvements can enhance customer trust.
• Hiring processes differ significantly between startups and larger companies.
• Cultural fit is essential when hiring, especially in remote teams.
• Technical evaluations should focus on problem-solving and trade-offs.
• Building a positive company culture requires intentional effort and understanding.
• Non-technical founders can benefit from involving technical friends in hiring.
• Celebrating small wins can boost team morale and motivation.
• Understanding employee motivations is key to fostering a supportive work environment.

This episode tackles the highs and lows of Black Friday marketing and its relevance to SaaS businesses like Fireside. John, Kris, and Garrett discuss how customer-centric timing could outperform traditional holiday discounts, with ideas ranging from New Year podcasting pushes to conference-aligned offers.

The trio also delves into the backend challenges of modernizing software, balancing Rails upgrades with visible customer improvements, and finding psychological triggers to help customers start and sustain new initiatives. They share insights on turning performance boosts into happy customers and why community-building could hold the key to podcasting success.

“What if instead of discounts, we focused on lowering the risk for customers to try podcasting?” - Garrett

“You don't have to go crazy and work a ton. You can you can achieve great success by turning a few levers. But sometimes it just takes a lot of work to figure out what those levers are.” - John

"I'm just thinking about swag, but that's a discussion from another day." - Kris

"I feel like that's the thing with SaaS in general. I'm sure some people have gone viral, new product just hit the sweet spot, nailed it, they knew exactly what they're doing, had a bunch of experience. But, on the other hand, every other SaaS app I've been involved in, it is nothing but just slow and steady constant improvements that are customer centric. And eventually at some point you've removed enough of the friction in onboarding, registration, daily usage, whatever it is, you know, either it combats churn a little bit or it increases registrations. And then, you look back three years later and you're like, it got there. But without that immediate reward all the time, it's definitely challenging to keep the faith." - Garrett