Permission Not Required

Colleen Schnettler and Joe Masilotti
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Colleen Schnettler and Joe Masilotti didn't wait for anyone to greenlight their careers. Together they talk about building wealth on your own terms: finding leverage, compounding your skills, and designing careers that don't require a boss's approval. For developers, freelancers, and anyone plotting their escape from the org chart.

Episodes

  1. 5D AGO

    Heroku, We're Gonna Miss You

    Joe's Ruby Native launch video is stuck in Remotion hell Claude + Remotion produced something mediocre after many rounds. Colleen's verdict: commit to becoming a video creator, or pay a pro. Joe admits he has a mental block around spending business money, even though he sells consulting for a living. Joe migrated 7 apps to Hatchbox over the weekend Off Heroku, Render, and Fly onto a single $25 Hetzner box + $10 Hatchbox to save ~$1,500-2,000/year. Postgres → SQLite, Solid Queue, nightly S3 backups. Heroku's still the gold standard, Fly's dashboard is unusable, and every "Heroku but better" startup ends up being Hatchbox. The dream of building their own PaaS is officially dead (again). Colleen got her first cold-ish inbound for AI consulting But the asks are vague: "I feel like I should use AI." Clients treat it like a magic lead-gen machine. Her fix: send tiered proposals ($5k / $20k / $50k) so the client picks their own budget and scope creep gets a natural guardrail. Breaking into non-tech industries (insurance, mortgage brokers) Huge opportunity, but enterprise procurement kills independent pitches. Joe floats: pitch a 6-month W2 embed to learn the institutional knowledge and build the system from the inside. Case study gold. LinkedIn 30-day challenge Colleen posted 7 days straight, impressions up 400%. LinkedIn's feedback cycle is weird and slow (posts resurface for two weeks), but it's clearly shaping social proof on discovery calls. X has plateaued, Substack feels like "X with a smaller audience." Joe commits to daily LinkedIn starting April 3. Chapters 00:00 Challenges of Video Creation07:58 Migration to Hatchbox and PaaS Limitations36:15 Social Media Engagement Strategies

    42 min

  2. APR 8

    Nobody Pays a Stranger (for Consulting)

    Colleen is two months into her AI automation pivot and doing the work, but cold inbound leads haven't landed yet. She's going all-in on LinkedIn for 90 days and doing discovery calls in insurance and home services. Joe got two full-price annual Ruby Native subscribers over the weekend and is building Inertia support for a well-known client headed to TestFlight. They swap conference networking strategies, debate whether there's a magic industry to target, and vent about Anthropic killing subsidized tokens on third-party harnesses. Chapters 00:00 3D Printing Adventures07:02 Returning from Vacation14:59 Networking at Conferences20:04 Industry Exploration27:06 Deterministic vs. Indeterministic AI37:28 Marketing Strategy and Audience Targeting43:15 Engagement and Intent Signals

    46 min

  3. MAR 17

    1K ARR and Too Scared to Launch

    Colleen is overwhelmed in a good way after saying yes to everything, and Joe pushes her to stop planning and just run ads for two weeks. Joe hits 1K ARR on Ruby Native but can't bring himself to launch it. Colleen pushes back on scope creep and they land on a two-phase launch plan. Plus, the irony of AI making both of them work more, not less. Chapters 00:00 Life Updates and Overwhelm07:00 Exploring New Markets12:59 Balancing Work and Productivity21:57 Client Work and Side Projects29:48 Expanding Scope and Product Features36:21 Market Validation and Launch Strategy42:17 Planning the Product Launch47:25 Final Preparations and Launch Strategy

    49 min

  4. MAR 10

    Laravel Cloud Envy

    Colleen deploys her first Laravel app and gushes about how Rails has nothing like it, while Joe tallies up $250/month in hosting bills across three platforms. They also brainstorm a joint B2C app experiment, wrestle with Google Ads conversion tracking, and Joe shares his Ruby Native beta strategy as five client projects kick off at once. Chapters 00:00 Laravel Cloud?21:46 Product Development Mindset and Consulting33:32 Conference Talk Ideas and Strategy42:38 OpenClaw Update and Browserless API

    46 min

  5. MAR 6

    Own the Robot

    Joe reveals Ruby Native (rubynative.com), a new product that lets Rails developers get their web app into the App Store without touching Xcode, Swift, or App Store Connect. Upload a few files, configure a YAML, click a button, and download your app via TestFlight in as little as two hours. He already has a paying customer and is targeting an official launch in about two weeks. Colleen shares her growing AI consulting work, including setting up self-hosted AI agents on Hetzner for clients. Her pitch: a one-time setup fee, no recurring SaaS subscription, and the client owns their infrastructure. She walks through a real client example where she replaced a multi-step content workflow (contracted writer, SEO person, ChatGPT cleanup) with a Slack-connected agent that pulls Google Search Console data and generates content briefs automatically. They also discuss marketing strategy for Ruby Native (newsletters, podcasts, Product Hunt, Hacker News), whether building a product cannibalizes your consulting business, Joe signing a new advisory retainer focused on strategy instead of code, the surprising grief of not writing anymore in an AI world, and naming Colleen's consultancy. Chapters 00:00 Bathroom Pipe Woes08:51 RubyNative.com and App Development14:15 Product Launch and Marketing Strategy22:56 Consulting Business and OpenClaw Setup36:36 Consulting Business Naming47:11 Domain Purchasing and Management

    51 min

  6. FEB 24

    Spoons in the Pot

    Colleen is building AI-powered SEO agents and Meta ad pipelines for clients. Joe reveals a secret product that packages Rails apps into iOS apps with one click. They debate whether AI automations actually deliver business value, and why breaking out of the tech Twitter bubble might be the real moat. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Solo Work Retreat05:48 Automating Content Generation13:05 Meta Ads and Custom Landing Pages20:59 Challenges of AI Marketing Products26:04 Exploring New Markets33:44 Automating Mobile App Development39:14 Product Launch Strategy

    44 min

  7. FEB 17

    It's Better to Just Do the Things

    Colleen's first week at a new AI consulting contract is off to a great start. She's building automations for marketing ops and customer success, self-hosted n8n on Hetzner to cut costs, and got her YouTube shorts roasted by her 12-year-old. Joe sent two contracts, wrote a flagship mobile framework comparison article, and learned some lessons from his first round of cold outbound emails. Chapters 00:00 Olympics and Curling05:50 Customer Success and AI11:09 Workflow Automation and Cost Reduction17:05 Selling AI Automations28:04 YouTube Shorts and Content Creation56:09 Upcoming Solo Trip and Secret Project Teaser

    45 min

  8. FEB 9

    We Lost a Client to Claude Code

    Joe opens an email that confirms his biggest fear. Colleen comes back from a founder retreat with a new strategy: do everything. We talk about losing clients to AI, pivoting to strategy, and why working more isn't the answer. Takeaways: Impact of AI on BusinessChallenges in SaaS GrowthMarketing Automation Tools Real human contentExploring new opportunities Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Client Email07:20 Marketing Automation Tools16:51 Challenges in SaaS Growth23:24 Super Bowl Ads and Business Trends29:11 Expanding Speaking Engagements and Market Reach35:04 The Myth of Working More for Better Results41:32 Starting a New Consulting Venture

    42 min

  9. FEB 3

    Putting Ego Aside to Fill the Pipeline

    Colleen landed a six-month part-time AI consulting contract and two go-to-market coaching clients. All within a week of reaching out to her network. Joe spent 50 hours building his own Substack clone before realizing the code wasn't the important part. Strategy was. He threw it all away and finally made peace with where his content lives. Topics covered Using your network when you need work (and putting your ego aside to do it)Shadowing an AI head to learn what companies actually need from AI enablementWhy marketing services are a harder sell than technical services to founder-led companiesThe mental drain of coaching calls and keeping scope containedJoe's rebrand from "the Hotwire Native guy" to mobile apps for Rails businessesBuilding a productized service vs. getting too comfortable with a long contractUsing Claude as a business partner for strategy and copy iterationWhy solo consultants can adapt faster than agencies in the AI eraThe domain name problem when your last name is hard to spellWork retreats and the mental freedom of being away from home responsibilities

    42 min

  10. JAN 27

    When Coding Isn't Enough

    AI is eating into the value of "just coding", so what do you do about it? Colleen and Joe talk through how they're each adapting: AI-enabled services, getting more strategic with clients, and actually understanding what non-tech businesses need (not just what they say they want). Plus: cold outreach experiments, product ideas, and some financial housekeeping. Takeaways: When coding becomes commoditized, strategy becomes the differentiatorCold outreach isn't deadThe best opportunities come from understanding the business problem, not just the technical one Chapters: 00:00 Adapting to AI eating our lunch06:33 Cold outreach and building in public16:25 What non-tech businesses actually need from us

    27 min

  11. JAN 27

    Welcome to Permission Not Required

    Colleen Schnettler and Joe Masilotti didn't wait for anyone to greenlight their careers. Together they talk about building wealth on your own terms: finding leverage, compounding your skills, and designing careers that don't require a boss's approval. For developers, freelancers, and anyone plotting their escape from the org chart.

    4 min

Trailer

About

Colleen Schnettler and Joe Masilotti didn't wait for anyone to greenlight their careers. Together they talk about building wealth on your own terms: finding leverage, compounding your skills, and designing careers that don't require a boss's approval. For developers, freelancers, and anyone plotting their escape from the org chart.

Information

  • Creator
    Colleen Schnettler and Joe Masilotti
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Colleen Schnettler and Joe Masilotti
  • Show Website
    Permission Not Required

You Might Also Like