Mostly Growth

The 5 Paths for Legacy SaaS Companies


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In this episode of Mostly Growth, the number one podcast in product monetization, we tackle the question every legacy SaaS company is facing: what now? From “do nothing” to full reinvention, we break down the five strategic paths—profit maximization, internal disruptors, going on offense with AI, and more. If SaaS isn’t dead but the playbook is, this is what comes next.

SPONSORS:

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LINKS: 

Mostly Metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/

Growth Unhinged: https://www.growthunhinged.com/

Kyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/

Slacker Stuff: https://www.slackerstuff.com/

Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slackerstuff/

RELATED EPISODES:

Big Bubble Trouble: Lessons from 400 Years of Financial Bubbles

https://youtu.be/6__QACkHOgM

SaaS Is Back… Or Is It?

https://youtu.be/-Ua6ukTJihw

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Intro banter: changing sides of the bed

1:14 Show intro

2:00 SaaS apocalypse topic intro

3:54 Software down 20% — worst of any sector

4:49 SaaS company advantages

5:51 On-prem to SaaS analogy

8:43 Sponsors — Lightfield | beehiiv

10:39 Path 1: Ignore it

12:16 Newspaper analogy and timeline

15:01 Limits of the newspaper analogy

17:03 Path 2: Get really profitable

21:48 The PE playbook

22:26 Thoma Bravo: insulated categories

23:19 Path 3: Startup within a startup

23:35 Challenger brand example: Cricket Wireless

25:19 Service as software carveout

26:25 Intuit example

27:54 Intercom: burning the bridges

28:36 Path 4: Go on the offensive

29:33 Anthropic vs. Cursor credits example

33:22 Path 5: Total reinvention

35:13 Bolt / StackBlitz example

37:04 Which route would you pick?

38:48 Business blunders

38:56 AI use cases that were never real problems

41:47 Credits

#MostlyGrowthPodcast #SaaS #AIStrategy #ProductMonetization #GrowthStrategy

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