Dive into the fire with Kris, Garrett and John — three owners of Fireside.fm who know what it’s like to stand in the flames of entrepreneurship. In 'Standing in the Fire,' we tackle everything from the latest trends in podcasting to the realities of running a SaaS business. No scripts, no filters — just real talk about what it takes to keep the fire burning. Join us as we explore the triumphs, struggles, and surprising lessons learned along the way.
Standing in the Fire
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13 episodes
Updated Weekly
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20
Podcast Authority
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Quality41
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Podcast Overview
Dive into the fire with Kris, Garrett and John — three owners of Fireside.fm who know what it’s like to stand in the flames of entrepreneurship. In 'Standing in the Fire,' we tackle everything from the latest trends in podcasting to the realities of running a SaaS business. No scripts, no filters — just real talk about what it takes to keep the fire burning. Join us as we explore the triumphs, struggles, and surprising lessons learned along the way.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
11/9/2024
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20
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Social0
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Recent Episodes
June 10, 2026
13: Running on Empty: Burning Out, Finding Margin, and Growing on Purpose
<p>In this episode of Standing in the Fire, Kris and John pull back the curtain on what life actually looks like when you're managing multiple SaaS products, a coworking space, and a life that doesn't have a quiet corner right now.</p> <h3><strong>What We Cover</strong></h3> <p><strong>Into the Fire: What's Been Hard</strong><br> Kris opens up about a stretch where nothing feels like an oasis: hiring pressure, prepping for a big idea week at Momentum, and the small but real win of finally getting those emails out. John reflects on going deep into AI work with no buffer — and how a camping trip to Disney gave him the margin he didn't know he needed.</p> <p><strong>Fan the Flames: What's Been Inspiring</strong><br> John shares a conversation with a friend about Essentialism and a question that's been sitting with him: what does intentional growth actually look like? Growing a business past a certain point means doing things you don't enjoy — so what do you really want? Kris has been listening to Personality Isn't Permanent, a change of pace from the typical hustle-heavy business books.</p> <p><strong>Embers: Small Wins and Experiments</strong></p> <ul> <li>Fireside's episode upload flow is getting a real look: streamlined fields, drag-and-drop uploads, and AI-suggested metadata from transcripts are all on the roadmap</li> <li>Momentum is solving a surprisingly relatable problem: members don't want to leave when they're in the zone, with a dead-simple iPad + Square terminal snack shop</li> <li>Fireside cover art generation is in early exploration: episode art, built right into the platform</li> </ul> <p><strong>Podcast Rec of the Episode</strong><br> John's been listening to Physics of Startups on the road, specifically the "translation guide" episode on B2B sales and the push/pull framework. Highly recommended for anyone who's ever done a customer discovery call and walked away more confused than when they started.</p>
May 13, 2026
12: Chest Tight, Calendar Full: Finding the Off Switch in a Season of Growth - Ep. 12
<p>Ever feel like you're winning and burning out at the same time?</p> <p>That's the tension at the heart of this episode of Standing in the Fire, the show where SaaS founders Chris and John skip the highlight reel and get into the actual heat of building businesses.</p> <p><strong>What's In the Fire This Week</strong><br> John opens up about hitting a wall after weeks of peak AI productivity. The work was getting done, more than ever, but the cost was invisible: no mental space, chest tightness, podcasts in the car, laptop on the couch, doomscrolling AI Twitter at midnight. He breaks down what recovery actually looked like: basketball, pantry shelves, a journaling workbook, and an E Ink notebook for thoughts he doesn't even need to keep.<br> Kris brings the counterweight: a trip to Austin for pre-South by Southwest events with a room full of women founders at varying stages (bootstrapped, PE-backed, VC-funded, exited, bought back). The caliber of story and the in-person energy reminded him what's been missing: community, events, and the kind of conversation you can't get from a podcast.</p> <p>"It's not a different caliber of people, it's different experiences. And that changes everything."</p> <p><strong>Fan the Flames: What's Been Inspiring</strong></p> <ul> <li>Brainstorming with Claude as a thinking partner, not just a tool, exploring business ideas you don't have to build</li> <li>Reading Cornelius Vanderbilt and wondering: what gave historical figures their relentlessness? Was it just that there was nothing to do after dark except sit by the fire?</li> <li>Watching teammates build the impossible, like Box Out's OCR feature that extracted a name from a photo where a spiral notebook was covering half the letters</li> </ul> <p><strong>Ember Updates: Small Wins Worth Noting</strong></p> <ul> <li>Segmented email onboarding finally live for Speaker Deck - and the lesson: just launch with three emails, don't wait for seven</li> <li>Geo SEO / AI visibility auditing - a WordPress plugin that scores how well your site shows up in LLM responses, generates an llms.txt file, and gives you a prioritized fix list you can paste straight into Claude</li> <li>LLM self-verification as a design pattern - the insight that AI output is only as good as its ability to check its own work. Give it an API to render what it just built, compare against a reference, and let it loop until it gets there. Game-changing for template generation at Box Out.</li> </ul> <p><strong>The Thread That Ties It Together</strong><br> Whether it's burnout recovery, event planning, email automation, or AI architecture, this episode keeps circling back to the same question: how do you define success clearly enough that the system (human or AI) can actually get there?</p>
April 17, 2026
Ship It Fast, Fix It Later - The New SaaS Playbook
<p>What happens when the coffee runs out, and everything else goes sideways too?<br> Kris and John are back with a new episode format built around three segments: what's been hard, what's been inspiring, and what's been shipping. No highlight reels. Just the real stuff.</p> <p>🔥 Into the Fire - What's Been Hard<br> Momentum was built around great amenities. Draft lattes. Cold brew on tap. Pour-over. The works. So when the RO water system ran dry and the kegs went empty first thing in the morning, chaos ensued. Kris breaks down their own version of "Watergate" — and what it revealed about turning a customer frustration moment into surprise and delight.<br> John gets honest too: the constant tension between deep builder mode and staying on top of customer support is real. Plus — why good AI support bots are genuinely useful, and why bad ones make you want to throw your laptop.</p> <p>📖 Fan the Flames - Recommendations Worth Your Time<br> John just finished Alex Hormozi's $100M Money Models and one subtle pricing reframe completely changed how he thinks about annual plans. Instead of offering a discount, give bonus months. Small shift, big psychological difference.<br> Kris connects it to membership sales at Momentum and brings in Ryan Serhant's obsessive follow-up philosophy: people who don't respond aren't always uninterested. A three-month-cold lead just booked a tour.<br> Kris's tool pick: Jesse Itzler's wall calendar for mapping out an entire year intentionally, personally and professionally. They used it to plan 75 events without losing their minds.</p> <p>✨ Embers - Small Wins & Things Shipping<br> John shipped Ember, a brand new embeddable podcast player for Fireside, and then turned a single customer feature request into a working playlist player in under an hour. The customer's response? "This is unreal."<br> The lesson: getting something good to production fast beats waiting for perfect. AI-assisted development has changed what's possible for small teams, and John's sticky note says it all "What has to be true for it to take half the time?"<br> Chris closes with some news: he's been named Outstanding Young Business Leader of the Year by the South Bend Regional Chamber, and yes, he announced it at Christmas dinner to very confused nieces.</p> <p>Standing in the Fire is about what it actually feels like to own and grow SaaS products. Hosted by John and Kris, owners of Fireside.fm. New episodes dropping consistently, sometimes.<br> Like what you hear? Subscribe. It helps more than you know.</p>
13 total episodes available
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- What is Standing in the Fire?
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This podcast updates weekly.
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This podcast is available on 7 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
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