If you’ve ever thought about bootstrapping your own side project to meaningful revenue and scale, this episode is for you. Today I’m talking to Maxime Berthelot of Buffer and PixelMe.

PixelMe was conceived next to a pool in Bali, but this is not a digital nomad story — both founders are based in France. In fact, Maxime didn’t even quit his day job as Product Manager of Growth at Buffer. Yet the pair have managed to validate their concept and reach $5K in monthly recurring revenue.

I spoke with Max about:

• Validating the product without writing code
• Hacking his way to those
  
  first few paying customers
• The radical transparency at both Buffer and
  
  PixelMe
• Balancing time on his side project with his primary job

…and much, much more!