Michael Mayer - Business Boss Battles - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 40]

My guest today Michael Mayer, is the founder and CEO of Bottomless, a company that automatically replenishes your coffee supply where I am both an excited investor and customer. Today’s conversation is about tactical lessons Michael has learned while building the business. We talk about identifying an addressable problem, how to avoid solving for bottlenecks that don’t yet exist, and how to iterate through problems before scaling. As yet another example of a self-taught entrepreneur, it’s inspiring to hear Michael’s mindset for problem-solving. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Michael Mayer. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to by Dell Technologies. Upgrade your business during Dell Technologies’ Black Friday in July event. Get savings up to 50% off AND take your office with you with Windows 10 Pro. To learn more, call a Dell Technologies Advisor at 877-ASK-DELL or check out the deals at https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/deals. ----- This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to get and maintain your SOC 2, HIPAA, or ISO 27001 reports at a fraction of the typical cost. Founder’s Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. ----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:02:45] - [First question] - How he got into this space in the first place and found the problem Bottomless would eventually solve [00:08:43] - What he would do better the second time if he had to find a problem and narrow his focus all over again [00:09:49] - The most notable lessons learned about data legibility beyond the scale [00:10:15] - Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed [00:13:01] - Overview of building the first Bottomless hardware prototype [00:14:29] - First steps of physically assembling the first scale and learning fabrication [00:17:40] - Roughly how long it would take to build scales in the beginning [00:18:30] - How long the company was bootstrapped [00:20:41] - Making the pivot to seeking out investor support [00:29:03] - The often overlooked role of social capital as a startup founder [00:31:00] - Importance of following niches and passions [00:32:15] - His philosophy in successfully scaling the production side of the company [00:34:45] - Lessons learned from bottlenecks and their utility in founder growth [00:36:52] - The problem of supplier legibility and improving it [00:40:14] - Understanding USPS predictability as a product input [00:43:03] - Always problems to solve and the fractal nature of them [00:46:13] - Challenges of hiring staff in the tech space [00:50:15] - Lessons learned about personal bottlenecks and the need to evolve alongside your company [00:52:21] - Monitoring your informational inputs and their role in shaping your mindset [00:55:58] - Closing thoughts on the business boss battles founders face [00:57:38] - Why society writ large should perceive starting a company as status-enhancing [00:59:44] - What bottlenecks for Bottomless may present themselves in a year from now