How to build a dev tool with zero marketing with Sergiy Korolov @Mailtrap

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.

In episode #10 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Sergiy Korolov, co-founder of Railsware and the brain behind Mailtrap.

From accidentally launching one of the most popular developer tools with zero marketing budget, to running the company with an all-engineer team — Sergiy's journey is packed with lessons most founders learn the hard way.

In this episode:

→ How Mailtrap grew to hundreds of thousands of users before charging a cent

→ The "product studio" model Railsware uses to co-found new companies

→ Why bootstrapping forces better decisions than VC money

→ The hard truth about vibe coding and AI's real impact on engineering teams

→ How to hire when you don't know enough to assess the role

→ Why your biggest job as CEO is to stop having sleepless nights

----------- Episode's Chapters -----------

0:05 — Introduction & Product Overview

0:27 — Background & Early Days of Railsware

3:51 — Building Product Studio Culture

6:58 — Creating Mailtrap - From Tool to Platform

14:10 — Developing Product Taste & Skills Matrix

19:25 — Hiring Strategy & Team Building

27:22 — Dogfooding & Product Development Process

35:24 — AI Integration in Products & Engineering

44:16 — Wins, Lessons & The Calendly Story

48:26 — Founder Hacks & Work-Life Balance

Sergiy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/

Railaware - https://railsware.com/

Mailtrap - https://mailtrap.io/

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