Rob Walling

Career

In the early 2000s, Walling tried to launch a number of software products which failed. He had his first notable success with DotNetInvoice, an invoicing software application. Subsequently he launched other small business and formed an online community of software founders called Micropreneurs.

In 2010, he started a podcast with Mike Taber, which became one of the most popular startup podcasts in iTunes, called Startups for the Rest of Us. The next year, in June, he co-founded MicroConf, a conference for self-funded startups, which is held twice a year in Las Vegas and Europe.

In August 2011, Walling purchased and revamped HitTail, a web-based software as a service product that provides long tail keyword suggestions. Before purchasing HitTail, it had used a freemium business model to market the product. Walling stopped the fremium model and used traditional software marketing to bring in more paying users. He co-founded Drip, an email marketing tool that allows a user to send emails to their audience based on user behavior, in 2012.

Walling has become known as a supporter of self-funding or bootstrapping software companies that turn a profit, instead of raising funding from venture capitalists. Much of his writing focuses on tactics for growing software as a service startups.

In 2014, he wrote the foreword to Dan Norris' book, The 7-Day Startup: You Don't Learn Until You Launch.