Elixir Startups

Derek Reimer is the founder of SaviCal, a meeting and appointment scheduling SaaS platform. The discussion covers Derek's AI-assisted development workflow using Claude Code and Windsurf, his approach to balancing shipping speed with UI polish through component libraries and disciplined code reuse, and practical security considerations for bootstrapped SaaS companies including rate limiting, abuse prevention, and team phishing awareness.

Feedback Panda was a SaaS tool that automated student feedback generation for online English teachers serving Chinese students through platforms like VIPKid. Built by Arvid Karl (software engineer) and Danielle (teacher) in 2017, it grew to $55,000 MRR in two years through pure word-of-mouth by deeply understanding a hyper-specific niche market and celebrating customers as community heroes rather than pushing product features.