The SaaS Podcast: How B2B SaaS & AI Founders Get Customers

By Omer KhanBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology

The SaaS Podcast: How B2B SaaS & AI Founders Get Customers episodes

November 11, 2020SaaS Branding: Typeform's Path to 100K Customers
Paul Campillo was a social worker helping adults out of San Quentin find jobs. Then he accidentally filled out a Typeform job application and became their first marketing hire. Five years later, he helped grow the company to 100,000 customers, 300 employees, and $52M in funding. His SaaS branding approach has nothing to do with logos.
Typeform built its SaaS branding from employee #28 to 100,000 customers by focusing on customer voice over internal creativity, using a 5 Ps copywriting framework (Persona, Problem, Promise, Proof, Proposition), and prioritizing early adopter relationships to drive startup branding decisions.
In this episode, Paul reveals the 5 Ps framework for SaaS branding copy, why a power user tweeted "Typeform is dead to me" after years of ignored feedback, and how jobs-to-be-done interviews reshaped their B2B brand strategy entirely.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 SaaS branding starts with early adopters, not agencies: Paul flew top users to the office and co-created content with them rather than hiring branding consultants.
🧠 Use the 5 Ps framework for SaaS branding copy: Persona, Problem, Promise, Proof, and Proposition give any founder a repeatable structure for landing pages and emails.
📉 Ignoring power users kills SaaS branding from inside: Typeform lost Levels IO, an influential early adopter who built 12 startups on the platform, because they never acted on his requests.
🤝 Let customers build your brand proof: Typeform co-produced launch videos with real users, turning customer stories into authentic B2B brand strategy assets.
🛠️ Jobs-to-be-done interviews reveal your real brand: Customer research uncovered that people valued the social and emotional benefits of looking good, not just data collection.
Chapters
Introduction
Paul's favorite quote and background
What Typeform does and who it serves
From social worker to Typeform's first marketing hire
Typeform's viral growth and early SaaS branding challenges
Growing from 28 to 300+ employees
Early marketing challenges and SEO opportunity
Building in a vacuum and ignoring customer feedback
The Levels IO story and losing a power user
How to talk to early adopters effectively
Identifying the right customers to interview
Using customer voice for SaaS branding and acquisition
The 5 Ps copywriting framework
Content strategy beyond testimonials
Integration Week and co-creating with customers
Storytelling framework for SaaS companies
The customer design question
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/270
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
58 min
November 11, 2020 270: How to Build a SaaS Brand Without Doing 'Branding' - with Paul Campillo
Paul Campillo is the director of brand and communications at Typeform, a SaaS platform that lets you create interactive forms, surveys, quizzes, and more.
Show Notes:
https://saasclub.io/270
Become a VIP Member:
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Sponsored by Typeform:
Create friendly surveys, friction-free forms, and interactive experiences that get more responses.
Start a free trial and get a 20% discount on any plan:
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58 min
October 28, 2020Niche SaaS: 450 Interviews Before Writing One Line of Code
Shruti Ghatge sent 2,500 cold emails and got zero replies. She and her co-founder spent eight months building InVision prototypes for their niche SaaS without writing a single line of code - and customers never knew it was not a real product.
Zomentum validated a niche SaaS opportunity in IT managed service providers - an underserved market processing $200B in services - through 450+ customer interviews before writing code. Once launched, half of all prospects who saw the product signed up, a 50% conversion rate built on deep niche market SaaS research.
In this episode, Shruti reveals why she abandoned a $50K contract in Southeast Asia, how virtual events became the growth engine for her vertical SaaS, and the playbook that took Zomentum to multiple six figures in ARR and $4M in funding.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 Validate your niche SaaS with prototypes, not code: Zomentum spent eight months on InVision mocks that customers could not distinguish from a real product.
📉 Zero cold email replies is a channel problem: 2,500 emails got zero responses, but one-on-one conversations through Reddit and Facebook groups generated all early traction.
🔄 Abandon non-repeatable markets even with revenue: Zomentum walked away from a $50K contract because every customer had different problems.
🤝 Ask about problems, never about solutions: Not being from the IT industry was an advantage - fresh eyes led to better niche SaaS product decisions.
🚀 Deep customer research drives high conversion: 450+ interviews gave such precise understanding that 50% of prospects sign up on first demo.
Chapters
Introduction
Shruti's favorite quote on preparation and luck
What Zomentum does: go-to-market platform for IT MSPs
Shruti's background in venture capital at Accel
Validating the niche SaaS idea through Reddit and Facebook
Eight months of InVision prototypes without writing code
Finding the low-friction entry point into the market
Building the product after eight months of mocks
Landing a customer in Southeast Asia at Cloud Expo
Abandoning Southeast Asia despite a $50K contract
Sending 2,500 cold emails with zero responses
Why mass outreach fails but one-on-one works
Team size: 30 people, multiple six figures ARR
Virtual events as a level playing field for startups
Lessons from the journey: trust your gut and act fast
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/269
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
41 min
October 21, 2020SaaS Without Funding: A $20K Pre-Sale Built Chili Piper to $5M
Nicolas Vandenberghe told his first potential customer he could build them a solution for $20,000. They paid upfront. That pre-sale launched Chili Piper's journey to build a SaaS without funding that reached cash positive in 10 months and $5M ARR before raising a dollar.
Nicolas shares how companies lose over 50% of inbound leads between form submission and sales follow-up because nobody owns the handoff. Chili Piper doubles conversion rates by qualifying, routing, and connecting prospects in real time. Building SaaS without funding forced discipline - he ran a no-discount pricing policy because the product has zero direct competition.
He reveals why his $60M exit collapsed during the dot-com crash, how the "bullseye strategy" targeted Square and Segment first, and why bootstrap to profitability discipline created leverage to later raise $18M on favorable terms.
Sponsored by Typeform: Create friendly surveys and forms. Start a free trial and get 20% off: saasclub.io/typeform
Key Lessons
💰 Pre-sell before building to grow SaaS without funding: Nicolas got $20K upfront from his first customer before writing any code, proving the problem was worth solving while funding the initial build.
🎯 Own the blind spot between marketing and sales: Companies lose 50%+ of inbound leads because nobody owns the handoff. This gap was invisible to existing tools.
🤝 Target influential logos first when building SaaS without funding: The "bullseye strategy" prioritized Square, Segment, and Greenhouse because their adoption created word-of-mouth pressure across SaaS.
📉 Never discount when you have no competition: Chili Piper maintains a strict no-discount policy. Nicolas warns that discounts offered once can never be taken back.
🚀 Bootstrap to profitability creates fundraising leverage: By reaching $5M ARR as a bootstrapped SaaS, Chili Piper rejected unfavorable VC terms and waited until market conditions produced $18M on their terms.
Chapters
Introduction
Nicolas's favorite quotes on boldness and persistence
What Chili Piper does: inbound revenue acceleration
How the idea came from customer conversations
The $20K pre-sale that launched Chili Piper
Why scheduling is more complex than it looks
No competitive pressure enables a no-discount policy
Bootstrapping SaaS without funding to $5M ARR
Nicolas's background: Steve Jobs, Stanford, and four startups
The $60M exit that collapsed during the dot-com crash
How four startups shaped the bootstrap approach
The bullseye strategy for targeting influential logos
Cash flow management as the core bootstrap challenge
Why Nicolas waited to raise funding
How COVID flipped the fundraising market in 90 days
Lightning round
Wrap up
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/268
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
44 min
October 14, 2020Customer Success: How Gainsight Created the SaaS Category to $156M
When Nick Mehta joined Gainsight in 2013, customer success as a category did not exist. There were no tools, no job titles, no conferences. He did not just have to sell software - he had to convince the entire SaaS industry that customer success was a thing worth investing in.
Nick shares the four-question framework for creating a new category: why anything, why technology, why now, and why us. Most SaaS founders only address the last question. He explains why Gainsight found its first customer success buyers among early adopters of other innovative products like Box, Zuora, and Anaplan.
Nick reveals how community events became Gainsight's primary customer acquisition channel, why reducing churn requires six diagnostic questions, and how he grew the company to 700+ employees and $156M in funding by educating buyers before selling to them.
Sponsored by Typeform: Create friendly surveys and forms. Start a free trial and get 20% off: saasclub.io/typeform
Key Lessons
🎯 New categories require answering four customer success questions: Most founders only address "why us" but category creators must answer "why anything," "why technology," and "why now" first.
🤝 Build community before pipeline for customer success: Gainsight's events attracted professionals isolated in their companies but similar across companies, creating a natural pool of early adopters.
📉 Avoid discounting to create customer success urgency: Nick warns discounts never get rolled back. Quantify the daily cost of SaaS churn delay instead.
🏢 Target early adopters of other innovative products: Companies buying Box and Zuora were naturally innovative and also likely to buy customer retention technology.
💰 Six diagnostic pains qualify customer success buyers: Are you surprised by churn, failing at adoption, lacking visibility, throwing people at problems, delivering fragmented experiences, or missing expansion?
Chapters
Introduction
Nick's favorite quote from Albert Einstein
What Gainsight does and who it serves
Nick's background: from on-premise software to SaaS
Joining Gainsight as CEO with a beta product
The biggest challenge: creating a new customer success category
Four questions buyers ask in new categories
Finding early adopters among innovative SaaS companies
The four-question framework: why anything, why tech, why now, why us
Answering "why anything" through content and influencers
Answering "why now" with ROI, goals, and implementation dates
The danger of discounting to create urgency
Community and events as customer acquisition channels
Customer success 101 for early-stage SaaS companies
Six diagnostic pains that signal you need CS technology
Lightning round
Wrap up
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/267
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
43 min
October 07, 2020Founder-Led Sales: $40K Grant to 8,000 SaaS Customers via PatSnap
Jeffrey Tiong started PatSnap with a $40,000 university grant, spent a third on servers, and took two years to ship a product full of bugs. His path to early traction started when he pleaded with a university librarian to become his first customer. Founder-led sales was the only option.
Jeffrey reveals how he accidentally discovered that R&D departments were easier to sell to than IP lawyers, built inside sales from London to reach US and European customers, and grew PatSnap to 800 employees and 8,000 customers including Walt Disney, Tesla, and NASA. Founder-led sales through curated demos hid product instability while still impressing buyers.
He shares why startup sales requires finding the segment with the lowest requirements first, how his leadership evolved across 800 employees, and what his angel investor meant when he said Jeffrey was not fit to be CEO.
Key Lessons
🎯 Find the segment with lower requirements for founder-led sales: PatSnap failed with IP lawyers who demanded perfect data, but R&D teams valued ease of use and became the growth engine for 8,000 customers.
🤝 Inside sales can drive founder-led sales growth for years: PatSnap's London-based team calling US and European prospects was the primary growth channel for 4-5 years before marketing was established.
📉 Curate demos when your product is not ready: Jeffrey ran pre-tested demo paths using specific keywords and visualizations that reliably worked, hiding instability while still impressing buyers.
🧠 First-time founders must build confidence through startup sales experience: Jeffrey's angel investor said he lacked conviction. Over time, he developed an authentic leadership style through founder-led sales practice.
🚀 Target early adopters within your market: Visionary R&D thought leaders tolerated an immature product, while laggards in the same segment would not. Not all buyers are equal in early traction.
Chapters
Introduction
Jeffrey's favorite quote from Henry Ford
What PatSnap does and who it serves
PatSnap today: 8,000 customers, 800 employees, $51M raised
How Jeffrey came up with the idea during his internship
Accidentally finding the R&D market
Starting with $40K from a university grant
Two years to build the first version
Getting the first sale: pleading with a university librarian
Building to 10 customers through founder-led sales
Curated demos to hide product instability
Customer onboarding challenges and complaints
Inside sales as the growth engine for 4-5 years
Lacking confidence and conviction as a young CEO
Evolving leadership across 800 employees
Advice for solo founders
Lightning round
Wrap up
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/266
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
54 min
September 30, 2020SaaS Branding: How Redefining Your Category Grew This to $5M ARR
Rob Loewenthal walked away from running a radio network to build a podcast platform in one of the most crowded markets in SaaS. His SaaS branding strategy: stop thinking about hosting and start solving for engagement. While competitors focused on file storage and Apple distribution, Whooshkaa built transcription, cloud editing, and smart home integrations into one platform.
Rob reveals how this competitive differentiation in SaaS branding grew Whooshkaa to 9,000 podcasts and nearly $5M ARR. He explains how enterprise customers like Atlassian adopted the platform for private internal podcasts, why branded web players created product-led virality, and how bronze-level event sponsorships with HubSpot automation generated 5-10 demos per week.
He also shares why News Corp nearly derailed the product roadmap, and why a great product without SaaS branding and marketing is invisible to the market.
Key Lessons
🎯 SaaS branding starts with how you define your category: Rob positioned Whooshkaa as an engagement platform rather than hosting, opening doors to enterprise use cases competitors never pursued.
📉 Big early clients can distort your roadmap: News Corp provided credibility but treated Whooshkaa like an internal team, pulling engineering toward irrelevant features instead of the core product differentiation.
🚀 Product-led virality beats paid acquisition: Branded web players on thousands of websites created organic discovery as podcast fans clicked through to Whooshkaa.
🏢 Solve for privacy to win enterprise SaaS branding deals: Enterprise buyers wanted internal podcasts but refused public exposure. Building private distribution with no app downloads unlocked a new market.
💰 Bronze sponsorships plus email automation generate pipeline: Rob buys attendee lists from niche HR events and runs targeted email sequences with industry-matched testimonials through HubSpot.
Chapters
Introduction
Rob's favorite quote from Charlie Munger
What Whooshkaa does and who it serves
From accountant to radio CEO to SaaS founder
Building the first version of the product
Identifying opportunities in a crowded market
How SaaS branding shapes the product you build
Landing News Corp as a first enterprise client
Why big early clients can derail your roadmap
The shift to enterprise and internal podcasts
Business size: 9,000 podcasts, 17 staff, near $5M ARR
Word of mouth and product-led growth
Event marketing strategy for customer acquisition
Landing enterprise logos like Atlassian and Cloudera
Building an end-to-end platform vs. best of breed
Lightning round
Wrap up
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/265
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
59 min
September 23, 2020Starting a SaaS: 3 Years to First Customers, Then 70 Countries
Three PhDs in Greece spent two years building a self-funded SaaS product in a bunker. When they emerged, nobody wanted to buy it. It took another full year before they found their first customers. Starting a SaaS during Greece's worst financial crisis meant European prospects questioned whether the company would survive.
Panos Siozos reveals how LearnWorlds broke through by targeting the US market where decisions took 4-5 days instead of 4-5 weeks, manually creating free trials for 3.5 years, and doing unscalable code customizations for the first 100 customers. Those customers taught them e-commerce lessons no PhD could - and starting a SaaS finally started paying off.
He shares how COVID accelerated growth to 15% month-over-month, why building a SaaS in a bunker cost them a year of learning, and why personal availability at 2 AM builds more trust than polished marketing when starting a SaaS.
Key Lessons
🎯 Target the US market early when starting a SaaS: LearnWorlds wasted months on European customers who took 4-5 weeks to decide. US customers made decisions in 4-5 days and cared about product quality.
💰 Co-founders funding each other enables self-funded SaaS survival: Two founders kept day jobs and paid the third's salary for over two years, keeping the product alive without outside investment.
📉 Building in a bunker for 2 years costs learning when starting a SaaS: Panos admits they should have shown the product to customers much earlier. PhD expertise did not teach e-commerce and selling.
🛠️ Do unscalable customizations until your bootstrapped SaaS hits 100 customers: LearnWorlds modified code in individual instances. The merge nightmares were worth the product lessons from real users.
🤝 Personal availability builds trust when starting a SaaS: Panos gave customers his personal phone number and took calls at 2-3 AM for US time zones. A four-person team appearing "always on" converted skeptical prospects.
Chapters
Introduction
Panos' quote - getting better every single day
What LearnWorlds does - Shopify for online courses
Multi-seven-figure business, bootstrapped with 1M euro raised
10 years of PhD research before starting a SaaS business
Three co-founders in a bunker - two years building the platform
Two founders paid the third's salary from day jobs
Two years without talking to customers - the bunker mistake
Launching into Greece's financial crisis
Pivoting to the US market where decisions take 4-5 days
One year to find first customers after launch
Overcoming objections - product love vs. startup skepticism
Personal phone numbers and 2 AM support calls
Manual trial creation for 3.5 years
Unscalable customizations for the first 100 customers
COVID as an accelerator - 15% month-over-month growth
Lightning round
Where to find Panos and LearnWorlds
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/264
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
50 min
September 23, 2020 264: Lessons on Perseverance from a SaaS Startup That Almost Failed - with Panos Siozos
Panos Siozos is the co-founder and CEO of LearnWorlds, a white-label SaaS platform that lets you create your own, personally branded online school.
The Show Notes
•LearnWorlds
•Panos on Twitter
•Panos on LinkedIn
•Omer on Twitter
•Omer on LinkedIn
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50 min
September 16, 2020Self-Serve SaaS: The New Customer Journey by the PLG Coiner
Blake Bartlett did not just study product-led growth - he coined the term. As a partner at OpenView, he has invested in companies like Calendly, Datadog, and Expensify that define what self-serve SaaS looks like in practice.
Blake breaks down the new customer journey where the product leads and sales follows. In the old model, sales led through SDRs and demos over 30-90 days. In self-serve SaaS, users find and adopt the product through product-led growth before a salesperson ever makes contact. He explains why delivering value before requesting value is non-negotiable for PLG.
Blake walks through how HubSpot transitioned to self-serve SaaS by launching a "startup within a startup," why Upkeep proves PLG works in traditional industries, and how growth teams differ from product teams in a product-led SaaS company.
Key Lessons
🎯 Self-serve SaaS inverts the customer journey: In PLG, users adopt through self-service first and sales comes later for expansion - changing everything about how you build and sell.
💰 Deliver value before requesting value in self-serve SaaS: End users expect to try before they buy, just like consumers with Netflix. Free trials or freemium are nearly essential.
🏢 Transition with a separate product, not a retrofit: HubSpot launched Sidekick/Signals as a PLG "startup within a startup" rather than bolting self-service onto their existing marketing suite.
🛠️ Build self-serve SaaS for end user annoyance, not executive ROI: Calendly succeeds because it removes scheduling pain felt by individual reps, not because a VP calculated meeting efficiency ROI.
🚀 Growth teams own activation in self-serve SaaS: Unlike product teams that ship features, growth teams accelerate users from signup to the aha moment in the product-led growth journey.
Chapters
Introduction
Blake's quotes - be contrarian and right, be yourself
What OpenView does - expansion-stage SaaS investing
Blake coined the term product-led growth
Defining product-led growth
PLG is not new - SurveyMonkey and Atlassian pioneered it
The new customer journey vs. the old one
Why free is nearly essential for self-serve SaaS
PLG is not anti-sales - sales comes later
How a sales-led CEO should start the PLG transition
The mistake of just adding a signup form
HubSpot's startup within a startup PLG transition
Building for end users vs. executives
Can PLG work in any SaaS market and industry
Growth teams - what they are and where they sit
Upkeep proves PLG works in traditional industries
Lightning round
Where to find Blake - OpenView and LinkedIn
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/263
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
45 min

About The SaaS Podcast: How B2B SaaS & AI Founders Get Customers

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Building software got easier. Getting customers didn't. Every week, a founder building B2B SaaS or an AI product tells you how they got their first customers, and how they kept them: what worked, what didn't, and what they'd do differently.