About & contact
Contact
Videos & talks
About Rob Fitzpatrick
Howdy. I've been running various businesses for 14 years. My first was a scalable startup that went through YC (summer 07), had some big customers, and raised from top-tier investors before quietly dying in year four. Since then, I've realized that I'm less motivated by scale and prefer working on smaller projects with one or two friends. I now optimize for for a mix of freedom and reliability, treating entrepreneurship as a long-term career without all the drama or craziness. I hit full financial independence via passive income about six years ago, at 32, but I quite enjoy making stuff, so I've kept at it.
I'm mainly known for my approach to doing custdev and sales as an introverted techie (The Mom Test). I've also written books about education design (The Workshop Survival Guide) and using a modern product design process to create more reliably successful nonfiction (Write Useful Books).
Apart from tech projects, I also kickstarted a card game, helped build a small education agency to just shy of $1m/year, publicy bet my last $10k that I could bootstrap profitable software before running out of money (spoiler: I couldn't), and spent a couple years fixing up an old sailboat and slowly bringing it from London to the Mediterranean.
I'm now settled in the mountains of Catalonia and working with Devin Hunt (yet again) to build software and support for indie nonfiction authors. If you've ever wanted to write a useful book, consider grabbing the guide and joining our nonfiction authors' community.
Speaker bio
I'm always excited to hop on podcasts or interviews, as those don't require any prep on my end. I'll generally also agree to up to one prepared lecture or workshop per month, which I charge for. Grab me at: rob@robfitz.com
Rob is an entrepreneur of 14 years and has written three books about his learnings along the way, including the best-selling handbook for doing better Customer Development, The Mom Test: How to talk to customers and figure out if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you.
Back in 2007, he dropped out of grad school to go through YCombinator with his first startup, and has been building products and businesses ever since. Beyond software, he has also kickstarted a physical card game, built an education agency, and more.
A programmer by training, Rob was forced to learn enterprise sales the hard way at his first company. With a foot in each of those worlds, and with his experience both bootstrapping and raising funding across a wide range of products, industries, and business models, he offers an broad and balanced view of the entrepreneurial journey.
