[SaaS Series] AI, Global Talent, and the Future of Software Teams With Matt Watson

Matt Watson is the Founder and CEO of Full Scale, an offshore software development company that helps U.S. companies build dedicated software engineering teams in the Philippines. A four-time tech founder and longtime CTO, he previously co-founded VinSolutions, an automotive software company that AutoTrader.com acquired in 2011, and later founded the developer-tools company Stackify. Matt brings more than 20 years of engineering and startup leadership experience to helping companies build and scale high-performing software teams. He is also the author of Product Driven and host of the Startup Hustle podcast.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:38] Matt Watson on Full Scale’s accidental beginnings and rapid growth through software talent in the Philippines
• [7:36] Key hiring and leadership lessons from building and scaling Stackify
• [16:52] How staff augmentation helps companies extend their in-house software teams
• [20:28] Best practices for integrating Philippines-based developers into distributed software teams
• [23:42] Matt’s use of AI, MCP servers, and plugins to streamline business operations
• [29:40] How AI search is transforming website traffic, marketing, and content strategy
• [34:49] Lessons and standout guests from more than 1,300 episodes of Startup Hustle
• [40:28] Why Matt believes AI is increasing the need for product thinking and human judgment

In this episode…

As AI transforms how companies build software, they are rethinking what it takes to scale development teams without sacrificing quality, speed, or accountability. With global talent and increasingly capable AI tools changing the economics of software development, how can leaders build teams that are both more efficient and more effective?

According to Matt Watson, a serial SaaS founder and longtime software leader, companies can scale development more effectively by combining offshore talent with AI-powered workflows while keeping human judgment at the center. He highlights how staff augmentation allows Philippines-based developers to work directly within a company’s existing teams instead of operating as a separate outsourced unit. This approach can give businesses greater flexibility and access to experienced talent while maintaining stronger team integration. Matt also explains how AI tools, MCP servers, and shared plugins can streamline operations by connecting business systems, surfacing information, and standardizing repeatable workflows. As AI accelerates execution, he emphasizes that product thinking becomes even more valuable because teams still need people who can determine what to build, why it matters, and whether the outcome actually serves the customer.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Matt Watson, Founder and CEO of Full Scale, to discuss the future of software teams. They explore offshore staff augmentation, AI-powered business workflows, and why product thinking matters more as development accelerates. Matt also shares how AI is reshaping marketing and website development.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Matt Watson on LinkedIn
• Full Scale
• Product Driven: The Software Engineering Leadership Model for Product Thinking, Ownership, and Outcomes by Matt Watson
• Startup Hustle
• Mixergy
• Stackify
• Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters
• AMC Theatres
• Claude Cowork
• Next.js
• Lovable
• Replit
• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
• Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great by Eric Ries

Special mentions:

• Andrew Warner on LinkedIn
• Craig Ferril on LinkedIn 

Related episodes:

• “[SaaS Series] Revenue You Lose When You Stay Live With Melissa Kwan” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[SaaS & AI Series] Relationships are the Real CRM With Jon Ferrara” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Automation Solutions with Wade Foster Founder of Zapier” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[SaaS Series] Revolutionizing Online Forms and Productivity With Aytekin Tank of Jotform” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Author Series] The Two Leadership Traits To Explode Your Business With Mark C. Winters Author Founder of RocketFuelNow.com” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Leading with Passion with Gino Wickman Founder of EOS Worldwide” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Eric Ries: Why Good Companies Go Bad” on the Startup Hustle Podcast
• “Scaling WP Engine with Jason Cohen” on the Startup Hustle Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “We just help find great talent and make sure they’re productive and happy.”
• “You still need people, but you need people that have the judgment to own the work.”
• “If we can build products twice as fast, we probably need like twice as many product managers.”
• “It’s like AI is like having an intern, but somebody’s got to manage the intern, right?”
• “The biggest problem in software development right now is we don’t have enough product managers.”

Action steps:

1. Integrate offshore talent into your existing teams: Embedding Philippines-based developers within internal workflows can strengthen collaboration, accountability, and team cohesion.
2. Ask open-ended questions when managing distributed teams: Moving beyond yes-or-no questions can encourage clearer communication and surface challenges before they become bigger problems.
3. Use AI to streamline business operations: Connecting tools through AI, MCP servers, and shared plugins can reduce manual work and make critical business information easier to access.
4. Keep human judgment at the center of AI-enabled work: AI can accelerate execution, but experienced people are still essential for evaluating quality, making decisions, and owning outcomes.
5. Strengthen product thinking across software teams: Helping developers understand what to build, why it matters, and how it serves customers can lead to better products as development speeds increase.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I have Matt Watson. You can check him out at FullScale.io. Matt, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast. People should check out.

Melissa Kwan, who, big thank you, that’s how we met actually. You can check out the interview I did with her and eWebinar. It was fantastic. Jon Ferrara, he’s Founder and CEO of Nimble. He has some good Mark Cuban stories in there. I had the co-founder of Zapier, Wade Foster on. That was also a great one. And one of my favorites too was Jotform founder. And he talks about, you know, Matt has a great book, which we will we’ll talk a little bit about, you know, Product Driven and, you know, really with the Jotform founder, we talked about how he grew to 25 million users on the back of a kind of a product driven marketing really for his company. So it was really interesting there.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do. We are an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. You know, Matt and I were talking about Mixergy. Shout out to Andrew Warner, who I done work with in 2008-ish for like seven, eight years. And he was definitely one of the early on podcasts for interviewing business founders, especially on video at the time. And Matt has been on Mixergy as well.

Also, we help companies with their corporate gifting. We’re an easy button to stay top of mind with clients. It could be with partners, prospects, or even staff from a culture perspective. So, you know, for me, Matt, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my relationships. I found no better way to profile them on the podcast, to show what the world what they’re working on, and send them sweet treats in the mail. So you can email [email protected] to learn more. If you have questions.

I am excited to introduce Matt Watson and he is the Co-founder of Full Scale and Full Scale helps companies scale with affordable talent in the Philippines, and they have over 300 staff helping dozens of companies build their software quickly and affordably, especially in the, you know, the era of AI, you know, getting experts in there and know what the heck they’re doing is really valuable. They’ve provided over $50 million worth of development services to over 200 clients since 2018. I mentioned author of Product Driven. He’s founded and exited three SaaS companies at this point. And he has a podcast, the Startup Hustle podcast, which we’ll talk about as well. Matt, thanks for joining me.

Matt Watson: 03:17

Yeah, thanks for having me, Jeremy.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:19

Let’s talk about Full Scale first. I mean, we’ll go to everywhere else because you have a really fascinating journey, but I’ll pull up the site and just talk about Full Scale and what you do. A lot of people these days need to know what’s going on with AI. They need people who know what they’re doing so they don’t have to do it themselves.

Matt Watson: 03:38

You know, you mentioned earlier that I’ve started some other businesses, so I’ve started three SaaS companies that we exited and Full Scale was born actually as an accident. Out of one of those, I needed to hire a bunch of software developers. My friend had some employees in the Philippines and he kept telling me, he’s like, Matt, we should, I can help you. We can help try and find some people. And it started as an accidental business. And then we hired 100 people in the first year. So it’s like a year later, we were doing like $5 million a year in revenue, which was really crazy. I mean, most SaaS companies never do anything. It takes years to build a product and get a market and all this stuff. And like a year later, we were at 5 million in revenue and, and trucking along.

And eight years later, you know, we’ve been in the Inc 5000 the last five years in a row. We do work for people like AMC Theatres is one of our clients, which is super cool. And yeah, we help people scale their software development teams that with really affordable talent from the Philippines. And the difference is like our team members basically work for and inside our clients businesses, you know, we’re not getting in the way of how the work gets done. We just help find great talent and make sure they’re productive and happy. And we have super high employee retention. And that’s really the key value that we provide.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:54

Was the previous company that Stackify?

Matt Watson: 04:58

Yeah, that was one of my companies.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:00

Talk about Stackify. Maybe some of the lessons there. And you grew fast, right? So maybe some hiring lessons, obviously, because that goes into what you do at Full Scale. What were some of the maybe mistakes and also the good things you learned with hiring in Stackify?

Matt Watson: 05:18

Well, so my first company, Vinsolutions, I was a CTO. And so the big lesson from Stackify was going from CTO to CEO, and I had no business partners. It was just me. And that was a brutal bunch of lessons for several years of going to be, you know, a whole different solo founder leader, whole different world. And I thought, you know, probably like a lot of people say, oh, I did this before. I can do it again. Man, that was a punch in the face like that. That was so hard. And we were selling to software developers and engineering leaders, which, by the way, are some of the most difficult people to sell to. They all use, you know, ad blockers. They all hate spam. Half of them, you know, I think they wear aluminum foil hats, you know, a lot of them, right? Like they don’t like talking to people. You can’t call them on the phone. Right. Like it’s a hard people to sell to.

So there were a lot of lessons learned about how to sell to that market. And Full Scale market’s a little different. We’re selling more just to the leadership at a higher level. And a lot of times to other like founders and executives as well. But, but yeah, that was a hard lesson. And that’s actually where I learned to first hire global talent. I had never hired software developers before that were out of the United States. Like a lot of people, I’d heard a lot of horror stories. Almost all of those horror stories revolved around India. They’re like, I hired people in India. It didn’t work. Whatever. Like always a lot of bad stories. So I just always avoided it. And the first time I hired, I hired a couple contractors. I needed to hire a couple Java developers, and I show up on the first call and come to find out they were in Russia. I had no idea. I had just hired two developers from Russia, but they did a fantastic job. This was like 15 years ago now, and that was my first foray into hiring global talent. And since then, I’ve worked with people in a lot of different places, but definitely fell in love with working in the Philippines.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 07:18

So what were some of the mistakes you made hiring early on? Obviously you’ve perfected over the years with Full Scale. I mean, this is what your business does. You help people hire. With Stackify, what were some of the mistakes and maybe things you learned that you did well, maybe on accident with hiring?

Matt Watson: 07:36

Well, well, on the Stackify side, I think it was, some of it was over hiring. It’s like we hired too many people. Our burn rate was too high. I was spending too much money. I should have reduced the size of the team along, you know, way, way before I ever did. Like we were overspending. And maybe like a lot of founders, I should have been doing more offshore then to reduce cost and reduce our burn rate and stuff like that. I should have balanced some of it, but we eventually made it all work. You know, we grew to a few million a year in revenue and ended up exiting that business. And it was an Inc 5000 stuff too.

But I think a lot of the lessons I learned were maybe less on the hiring side and more on the leadership side, right? It’s just like being the CEO of a company the first time was very difficult, and learning how to lead in a different ways was a lot of hard lessons.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:30

Putting people in place. You know, you mentioned you were CTO of the first company was Stackify. You were solo founder CEO. At what point do you bring people on to the leadership team? I mean, what did that look like to take some of the maybe weight off your shoulders?

Matt Watson: 08:48

You know, so going back to my first company, actually like one of the best moments in the history of that company was the day we hired a CFO. It’s like there’s somebody here that’s worried about if we’re going to make payroll now besides me, right? Like, I think we all have some of those moments. At Stackify, it was actually when I hired a guy named Craig Ferril, who I still work with today, who became our chief operating officer. And, you know, in a lot of ways, I would say it was actually kind of a mentor to me and coached me a lot about leadership. And he helped build the rest of a lot of our management team and helped with them.

He knows I don’t read books. And you and I talked about this before for a minute because I have ADHD and I can’t read books. It’s super difficult. But Craig famously gave me the book Rocket Fuel, put it on my desk, and he’s like, Matt, I know you don’t read books. You have to read this book. And I’m like, oh crap. You know, it was one of those moments, like, actually, before I was like, Matt, we need to have a talk. And I’m like, oh my God, Craig’s quitting. But actually he was just telling me I had to read this book or maybe he was going to quit if I didn’t read the book. But that was like an awakening moment for me, like reading that book and realize like, oh, I’m the visionary in this book and I’m making a lot of mistakes. So yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:06

Yeah. People can check out. I did do an episode with Mark Winters and Gino Wickman separately. They co-authored Rocket Fuel. I don’t know if you’ve had Mark on your on the Startup Hustle yet, but we’ll have to get him on there if you want to have them on there full circle. So we’ll have to send them a message. Mark, if you’re listening. Yeah, you should go on the Startup Hustle. He’s got over a thousand episodes and amazing guests. So we’ll see what we can do there.

And yeah, and that is I took the they had I don’t know, they still had it like a software. You take the the test with a visionary integrator test. And I definitely skew, you know, integrator there. But yeah, it’s like the Rocket Fuel. You need the visionary integrator together to get that rocket fuel. So yeah, that’s a great book.

You know, you mentioned selling and selling, especially Stackify. And obviously, you know, it seemed like that was maybe a harder market than Full Scale. What was the big breakthrough with selling? How’d you get in front of the people who were kind of jaded to the marketing messages with Stackify?

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