Bernard Aceituno went from PhD research at MIT to founding StackAI, a no-code AI platform that's now generating 7-figures in ARR with over 100 enterprise customers and $16M raised.

In this episode, Bernard shares how he pivoted from academia to entrepreneurship, why his first product wasn't solving the right problem, and how a perfectly-timed MVP launch on Hacker News created overnight demand. He explains the painful lessons of chasing too many customer segments before finding focus with enterprise IT teams.

You'll learn:

Full show notes → saasclub.io/453

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Pat Kinsel went from years of painful struggle at Notarize to building Proof, a SaaS platform approaching $100M ARR with 230 employees and $260M raised.

In this episode, Pat explains how a notary error during his first startup exit sparked the idea, why he validated demand with a simple landing page before building, how he endured years of slow traction and false signals, and what changed when he expanded beyond notarization to transaction security.

You’ll learn:

- How Pat validated demand with a landing page and Google ads

- Why losing money on every transaction nearly killed the company

- What really happened when COVID demand spiked 100x overnight

- How he spent years pushing to make online notarization widely accepted

- Why many COVID-era enterprise signups never activated and what that taught about real product-market fit

Full show notes → saasclub.io/452

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free strategy session + get 20% off select services

📫 Mailtrap → Get 20% off with code THESAASPODCAST

Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email

Todd Olson went from two failed startups to building Pendo, a SaaS platform now generating $200M ARR with 880 employees and nearly $500M raised.

In this episode, Todd reveals how early mistakes shaped his obsession with product-market fit, why he refused to hire salespeople until he validated the sales motion himself, and how creating an entirely new category forced him to abandon inbound marketing for manual outreach.

You’ll learn:

- Why Todd waited until $500K ARR before hiring salespeople

- How raising prices 10x overnight changed Pendo’s trajectory

- What two failed startups taught him about product-market fit

- Why category creation required a bold go-to-market approach

- The counterintuitive product strategy that made Pendo stand out

Full show notes → saasclub.io/451

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free strategy session + get 20% off select services

📫 Mailtrap → Get 20% off with code THESAASPODCAST

Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email

Flo Crivello is the founder and CEO of Lindy, a no-code platform for building AI agents to automate workflows.

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Show Notes: ⁠https://saasclub.io/450

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Richard White is the founder and CEO of Fathom, the #1 rated AI note-taking app that automatically captures and summarizes meetings.

👉 This episode is sponsored by Mailtrap. Try it at ⁠Mailtrap.io⁠ — use code THESAASPODCAST for 20% off

Show Notes: https://saasclub.io/449

Join Email List: Get weekly SaaS learnings, new podcast episodes, and actionable insights right in your inbox: https://saasclub.io/email/

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Rob Woollen is the Co-Founder and CTO of Sigma Computing, a data analytics platform that lets business users analyze cloud-scale data without writing SQL.

👉 This episode is sponsored by Mailtrap. Try it at Mailtrap.io — use code THESAASPODCAST for 20% off

Show Notes:

Join Email List:

Get weekly SaaS learnings, new podcast episodes, and actionable insights right in your inbox:

Join Community:

SaaS Club is the community for early-stage SaaS founders and entrepreneurs:

Jonathan Festejo is the co-founder and CEO of Salesbricks, a platform that helps startups close deals faster and take the manual work out of quoting, billing, and getting paid.

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Show Notes: ⁠⁠⁠https://saasclub.io/444⁠⁠

Join Email List: Get weekly SaaS learnings, new podcast episodes, and actionable insights right in your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠https://saasclub.io/email/⁠⁠⁠

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