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Most SaaS technical founders struggling with revenue growth don't have a sales problem or a product problem; they have a fundamental listening problem that costs them months of runway. 

Richard Blundell scaled Message Labs from zero to £150M ARR and exited for £800M. In this week's SaaSGenius Podcast episode with host Aurelie, he reveals why hiring salespeople before you generate overwhelming inbound demand typically wastes £500K in burned capital, how Message Labs achieved hypergrowth almost entirely through strategic channel partnerships instead of traditional sales teams, and the three distinct go-to-market strategies with radically different speed-to-market timelines that most founders don't even know exist.

For SaaS founders questioning why their technically superior product isn't converting qualified prospects, or those debating when to make their first commercial hire, this conversation delivers the operational insights that separate successful exits from expensive failures.

Key insights you'll discover:

• Why "leads before sales" could save you from a £500K hiring disaster.
• The three GTM strategies founders choose between (and which one gets you to market fastest).
• How to spot when you're solving a problem nobody actually has.

Listen to discover:

• The "usage vs. value" grid that reveals which product features actually matter to customers.
• Why Richard says "I can't see any business gambling their future on AI" for buying decisions.
• The exact moment to transition from founder-led sales to hiring your first team.
• How Message Labs closed a £800M exit literally hours before the 2008 financial crash.

Key moments of this podcast:

[00:01:55] How one friend's push launched a 25-year partnership.

[00:03:50] The lunch that revealed six months of selling the wrong feature.

[00:13:06] Why founders who can't explain their value in one sentence fail.

[00:20:00] The moment founder culture dies and why quarterly boards matter.

Ready to avoid the mistakes that cost Richard and his co-founders months of runway?

Subscribe to the SaaSGenius Podcast wherever you listen. Each episode brings you unfiltered insights from operators who've scaled SaaS businesses through the chaos, so you don't have to learn everything the expensive way.

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