In Demand: How to Grow Your SaaS and Stay In Demand

In Demand: How to Grow Your SaaS and Stay In Demand

By Asia Orangio & Kim TalarczykBusinessEntrepreneurshipTechnologyMarketing
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In Demand: How to Grow Your SaaS and Stay In Demand episodes

  • EP14: Can you measure product-market fit?

    How do you know if you have product-market fit? You measure it! In this episode of InDemand, Asia Orangio, founder of DemandMaven, breaks down the different ways to think about measuring product-market fit and how to apply it in your SaaS business.

    25 min
  • EP13: How product-market fit ACTUALLY works

    Does your business have product-market fit? Are you sure? There can be a lot of grey area when it comes to understanding your business's product-market fit, but with a bit of examination, we can bring clarity to the topic and plot a course for strengthening your products fit with the market.


    In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, founder of DemandMaven, breaks down product-market fit and how to think about measuring and improving your own product-market fit as you bring to market and grow your product.

    22 min
  • EP12: How Long Does it Take to See Marketing Results

    When it comes to measuring marketing nuance is key. For every market, product, and business, the results of marketing have their own specific context. To understand when you should be expecting results from your marketing efforts, you need to understand the context of that work.

    57 min
  • EP11: Why Every Founder Needs a Market Vision

    We all start our businesses for different reasons. For some, it is a personal pain point--a problem that we want to solve for ourselves. For others, it is a person or group that we want to help. No matter how you start as a founder, it is crucial that you find the big why for your business--the reason your business exists.

    28 min
  • EP10: How to Compete in an Overcrowded Market

    In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, founder of DemandMaven, shares the principles for growing a SaaS company when you are competing in an overcrowded market. 

    At DemandMaven, we just wrapped up a project for a client that was in one of the most competitive markets. While we had some incredible wins, we also had many lessons learned. We distilled those lessons into 6 principles for founders to apply when they are entering a highly competitive market.   

    Dive deeper by reading the full article that inspired the episode: https://demandmaven.io/lessons-learned-from-competing-in-an-overcrowded-market/

    TLDL: 

    1. You’re going to need a clear, competitive differentiator. This differentiator is what makes you different, better, and special. It sets you apart from everyone else. Maybe you’re tackling a specific pain for a specific audience better than the other guys.
    2. It’s going to have to actually be better than all of the other competitors. “Better” is also not as cognitively clear because to almost every founder, their product already is “better”. But it has to be recognizably “better” to the customers as well. They’ve got to feel that “betterness”.
    3. If it’s not better, it’s going to have to be a little cheaper, although some would argue this would need to be the case regardless as a new player in a highly-competitive market.
    4. Have zero friction to signing up and becoming a paying customer. It needs to be pretty easy to make a decision about the product and actually sign-up. Some would argue that adding barriers to entry would increase demand, but that totally depends on how many competitors there are and how frictionless they appear to be. Time to value is also a critical component when weighing how to approach this. The longer time to value, the less friction you’ll need to have.
    5. Find a channel with the most opportunity. If you’re in an extremely crowded market, then it’s likely that most acquisition channels will be tapped (and maybe maxed out with extremely high CPLs). You’ll need to follow basic rules on ARPU and adjust CAC accordingly, but after that, prioritize the channels you can either beat the competition at, are totally untapped, or both!
    6. Lean into your strengths skill-wise and resource-wise. This one’s a tough one because they’re not always obvious and it seems like a weird thing to list. But knowing the competitive landscape, you’ll need to identify what you can provide that’s better and different from a marketing perspective. So if you’re good at speaking, networking, writing, building, whatever — leverage that because it (usually) can’t be copied. All of that, of course, within the context of what your buyers are most likely to do, consume, and care about.

      7. These 6 basic principles are really just the start. To stay competitive in a crowded market requires an ongoing commitment to improvement and innovation, but if you take care of these 6 principles you will be off to a great start.

      29 min
    7. EP9: How to Know You Have Product-Market Fit
      Product market fit is often talked about like it is a specific destination. A place you arrive at once and know that you’ve arrived. But the reality of growing a SaaS company is that you may not know if you have product-market fit or if you have it, you may not know how good the fit really is.
      In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven shares the seven best indicators for when you’ve found product-market fit and how to take action if you haven’t reached them yet. 
      TLDL: 
      It feels like you are guiding a boulder down a mountain, not pushing it up the mountain. 
      When customers are signing up despite some product issues and every new lead or customer doesn’t feel like a lot of work, that is an indicator that you’ve found product-market fit. 
      Prospects are willing to pay right now and they don’t bat an eye about the price
      When you have customers finding you and signing up right away, that is a great sign of product-market fit.
      Retention and active users improve with every new cohort of paying customers 
      If you look back 12 months (or 6 in case of being a new venture) and you have retained at least 50% of your customers and that rate is growing over time, that is a great sign of product-market fit. 
      Running a product-market fit survey and getting 40% of your customers saying they would be very disappointed if your product disappeared
      Using the SuperHuman fit survey (https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/) and finding that at least 40% of your customers are every invested in your product shows that you have found product-market fit. 
      To quickly recap the survey, ask “How would feel if you could no longer use the product?” With three options: 
      Very Disappointed 
      Somewhat disappointed 
      Not disappointed at all
      When one new customer generates two or more customers
      When a customer generates two new customer without you having to do anything, you have a great indicator of product-market fit. 
      Having this viral growth from word of mouth dramatically decreases your cost of acquisition and is a sign that you have a great segment and fit. 
      Cost to acquire a customer is under a third of the lifetime value of a customer
      If the lifetime value of a customer
      31 min
    8. EP8: The Biggest Growth Lessons I’ve Learned (the Hard Way)
      Some lessons in marketing are easy to learn. You pick them up from a book, take a class, or hear a talk and get it immediately. Other lessons are harder to come by. They are the ones learned over time and through experience. The ones that we look back on and think about the head start we could have got from applying them earlier. 
      In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven shares the four biggest lessons that she learned the hard way. From customer journey’s to funnels and go to market strategy, you’ll learn growth lessons you can implement today to avoid learning them the hard way yourself in the future.
      28 min
    9. EP7: How to choose the BEST acquisition channels
      Understanding your acquisition channels is key to growing your business, but convoluted terminology, different strategies, and numerous channels it can be hard to know where to focus your efforts.
      In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven breaks down the basics of acquisition channels, from overviewing different types of channels to general and specific strategy for maximizing your use of acquisition channels to grow your business!
      31 min
    10. EP6: Top 8 Customer Research Mistakes
      Customer research can be an absolute game changer. It gives you insight into not only what your current customers think of your product, but also who they are, what they want, and how you can better serve them and others in the future. But not every type of customer research is right.
      In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven breaks down 8 ways that you might be doing your customer research wrong and how you can update your research to upgrade your results. 
      TLDR; 
      [1:20] - #1  You’re not doing customer research at all 
      If you’re not doing research, you can be sure what you’re customers think about your product and business. You’re not only missing out on improving your product now, but you’re liking missing the big picture on where you should go in the future.  
      [4:42] - #2 - You’re asking the wrong questions 
      There are lots of resources outlining customer research questions to ask, but asking general questions won’t get you the information you need to solve your specific challenges.
      [7:26] - #3 You’re not digging deep enough 
      In a research interview, you will often get vague answers like “It made my life easier”, as a founder you need to know the specifics of what you’re customers are thinking, so don’t be afraid to follow up and don’t just accept the first response you get if you don’t fully understand.
      [10:18] - #4 You’re answering questions for your customers 
      When you’re doing a customer interview, it’s natural that some awkward moments come up. And it’s human nature to fill awkward moments with words. But when we do that in a customer interview we influence the responses we get back. 
      [14:21] - #5 You’re not taking the feedback objectively
      If you built the product yourself, it’s easy to critical feedback personally. Instead, once you have the feedback you need to take a step back and put it into context. What are the patterns? Who are the outliers? Don’t let your prior viewpoint influence the answers you get back from customers.
      [ 21:14] - #6 - You’re the only one doing the interviewing
      At the end of the day a customer interview is a conversation, and the interviewer is one half of the conversation. So if you have one person doing all of the interviewers they will likely be missing information because they have the same blinds spots. A strong customer research process allows for this by having more than one person interviewing.
      [24:31] - #7 - You’re not recording or sharing your interviews 
      When we recount an interview we filter out information. And when you do that you miss crucial details. If you have a tea
      35 min
    11. EP5: Let's talk about FUNNELS
      Funnels are a great thinking tool for founders. They help us clarify the journey our customers take and help us plan the steps needed to scale. But thinking in funnels can narrow our vision if we don’t truly understand the reality behind the tool. 
      In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven breaks down the basics of funnels. From the different types of funnels to common misconceptions and how marketers and founders can use them to maximize them to grow their business. 
      TLDR; 
      [1min] What actually is a funnel?
      It’s a simple way to visualize how a prospect becomes a customer. From the top were prospects/leads learn about a product, down to where they consider it, and finally become a customer. 
      [2:50] The two funnels
      Sometimes talking about funnels can get confusing because there is an overall business funnel and then there is the marketing funnel. 
      [6:00] The marketing funnel
      At the top of the marketing funnel are activities that help build awareness of your brand and product. As you move down the funnel, marketing focuses in on consideration -- teaching about the problem and your potential solution. Finally, at the bottom of the funnel, you get very specific about your product as the solution to the problem to help prospects make the decision to buy. 
      [16:20] How to think about funnels in your business (and common misconceptions)
      The funnel isn’t a linear experience for your prospects and it isn’t the only experience. While you think of a customer moving from step to step and stage to stage they are often hopping around or doing things you can’t measure (like exploring competitors or chatting with friends). It is important to remember that a real customer journey is much more detailed and harder to track.
      [29:50] When you change the customer, you change the journey, and you change the funnel
      As your business grows and you start to focus on new segments, you always have to come back to your campaigns and think about if your funnel still matches your customer journey. Sometimes it will, but often it won’t and you will need to adjust, adapt, and expand your marketing.
      -------------------------- 
      Times and Unedited draft notes for reference 
      What actually is a funnel 
      A simple way to visualize how a prospect becomes a customer
      A the top of the funnel we have people who are just aware of your product 
      Lower down people who are considering it 
      Lower yet is people who are considering it, maybe
      39 min

    About In Demand: How to Grow Your SaaS and Stay In Demand

    From the publisher's feed

    Growing a SaaS? Yeah, that's hard. Growing a SaaS without a clue what you're doing from a marketing and growth perspective? Pretty much impossible — especially if you want to break the $1M and $10M ARR marks. Kim Talarczyk sits down with Asia Orangio to extract and unpack all the strategic insights she holds in her brain from working with hundreds of SaaS companies and interviewing thousands of their customers. Together, they break down how to diagnose and troubleshoot growth challenges across every part of a B2B SaaS business.