The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS

By Omer KhanBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology

The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS episodes

February 22, 2024SaaS Partnerships: $230K MRR With Zero Paid Marketing
Ian Brodie and his co-founder quit their jobs in March 2020, got laughed out of every VC meeting, and built a services business instead. After selling it for a mid-7-figure deal, they launched Levanta and hit $230K MRR in 9 months through SaaS partnerships with affiliate agencies - without a dollar in paid marketing.
Learn how SaaS partnerships drove 650 brands and 2,500 affiliates to one platform, why validating on Fiverr works, and how partner-led growth replaced traditional acquisition channels entirely.
🔑 Key Lessons
🤝 SaaS partnerships can replace paid acquisition entirely: Levanta hit $230K MRR in 9 months without spending on paid marketing by partnering with affiliate agencies who brought sellers and affiliates to the platform.
🎯 Validate demand on Fiverr before building any SaaS partnerships product: Ian posted affiliate recruitment services on Fiverr and got 100+ inquiries within days, proving market demand without a product or website.
📉 A failed SaaS product can be a lucky escape: Grovia's self-service tool flopped because customers wanted managed service. Raising VC to build it would have wasted millions.
🏢 Close aggregators to load your SaaS partnerships marketplace: Levanta partnered with Amazon aggregators owning 100+ brands each, loading the two-sided marketplace quickly through channel partners.
🚀 Co-create content with SaaS partnerships to scale awareness: Levanta co-authored ebooks and case studies with agency partnerships, then partners distributed content to their own networks.
Chapters
Introduction
Ian's favorite quote from Rand Fishkin
What Levanta does and who it serves
Current metrics: $230K MRR, 650 brands, 2,500 affiliates
The backstory begins: wanting to build a SaaS company
How Ian and Rob met and quit their jobs in March 2020
Using Fiverr to validate the agency business idea
Why Fiverr works for demand validation
Moving upmarket from SMB clients
Building SaaS partnerships with affiliate tracking platforms
Funding the SaaS dream from services revenue
Why the first SaaS product failed as self-service
Realizing Grovia was a services company, not SaaS
Selling Grovia: acquisition offers and the mid-7-figure deal
Bootstrapping Grovia with almost no outside capital
Transitioning out of Grovia after the acquisition
The genesis of Levanta and Amazon's Attribution API
Validating Levanta through months of customer calls
Building the product with a technical co-founder
Raising a $430K pre-seed round in two weeks
From incorporation to beta in three months
First customers: targeting Amazon aggregators
Selling to affiliate agencies as channel partners
Scaling content through co-marketing with agency partners
Why the partner-led growth model worked for both sides
Challenges of finding the right level of funding
Choosing a boutique VC over traditional growth rounds
Lightning round
Wrap up
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/387
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
47 min
February 15, 2024Self-Serve SaaS: From VR Failure to 7-Figure PLG
Vlad Gozman spent two years building a VR product nobody wanted. Then he pivoted into one of the most crowded markets in SaaS - form builders - and grew a self-serve SaaS to 7-figure ARR with a 14-person team. Content marketing now drives 60-70% of revenue for this self-serve SaaS.
Discover how involve.me differentiated in a crowded market, why a private lifetime deal beat AppSumo for funding this freemium SaaS, and how 350+ template pages became a product-led growth engine.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 Validate your self-serve SaaS by showing competitors to customers: Vlad showed agency clients existing form builders and asked why they fell short, revealing brand customization and lead scoring as gaps worth building.
💰 Use private lifetime deals to fund self-serve SaaS growth: involve.me ran a limited lifetime deal through a private community, raising 12 months of capital and gaining invested customers who provided feedback.
🚀 Paid search works on underpriced keywords for a self-serve SaaS: Vlad personally ran Google Ads on quiz and lead qualification keywords competitors overlooked, generating immediate MRR signal.
🛠️ Build templates as SEO magnets for your self-serve SaaS: involve.me created 350+ template pages, each targeting a specific business goal, turning templates into both a product-led growth engine and traffic channel.
🔄 Eat your own dog food to improve freemium SaaS onboarding: involve.me uses its own quizzes and surveys in onboarding to personalize the user experience, demonstrating product value while improving activation.
Chapters
Introduction
Favorite quote: Only the paranoid survive
What involve.me does and who it serves
Business size: 7-figure ARR, 14-person team
Vlad's background and co-founding Adverity
The VR pivot: 2 years on a product nobody wanted
How agency work led to the involve.me idea
Validating in a crowded market by showing competitor products
Getting the first 10 customers from agency clients
The lifetime deal that funded 12 months of growth
Why a private community deal, not AppSumo
Why Vlad chose bootstrapping over VC funding
Using paid search as a bootstrap acquisition channel
Self-serve SaaS conversion rates and growth loops
Content marketing driving 60-70% of revenue
Measuring content marketing attribution
Eating their own dog food with involve.me tools
Repositioning from quiz builder to AI-powered form builder
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/386
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
53 min
February 08, 2024SaaS Positioning: From 80% Explaining to 4 Minutes
James Evans spent 80% of every sales meeting explaining what Command Bar did. Nobody understood his SaaS positioning because he was trying to create a new category instead of fitting into an existing one. When he repositioned into digital adoption, discovery calls went from 25 minutes to 4 - and the company grew to 7-figure ARR.
Learn why SaaS positioning in an existing market beats category creation, how personalized Loom cold emails achieved a 30% response rate, and the framework for fixing your product positioning when prospects keep asking what your product does.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 SaaS positioning in existing categories beats creating new ones: Command Bar spent years explaining a novel product. Repositioning into digital adoption cut discovery calls from 25 minutes to just 4.
🤝 Personalized Loom videos replace generic SaaS positioning pitches: James created custom videos showing Command Bar inside each prospect's product and got a 30% response rate from 200 cold emails.
🧠 Listen to product comparisons to clarify SaaS positioning: Prospects kept comparing Command Bar to digital adoption tools. Leaning into those comparisons became a shortcut to competitive differentiation.
📉 Measure explanation time to test your SaaS positioning: James realized 80% of every sales meeting was education, not selling. Tracking time spent explaining reveals whether positioning is working.
🛠️ Show the product working for competitive differentiation: A Chrome extension let James demo Command Bar inside prospects' own apps, proving ease of setup that product positioning claims alone could never achieve.
Chapters
Introduction
James's favorite quote - Steve Jobs on building the world
What Command Bar does - user assistance platform
Business metrics - 40 people, $24M raised, 7-figure ARR
How Command Bar differs from other tools
Copilot product - AI user assistant vs chatbot
Origin story - from EdTech to command palette
Getting into YC with zero traction
The Chrome extension and personalized Loom strategy
Making 200 custom cold email videos
Why this strategy validates product-market fit
Handling objections and making integration easy
Growth channels beyond cold email
Content marketing ROI and the attribution problem
Category creation vs SaaS positioning into existing market
Steps to fix SaaS positioning when stuck explaining
The "yes and" framework for product comparisons
Evolving from single channel to multi-channel growth
Biggest founder challenge - how much to work
Lightning round begins
Best advice - ask more open ended questions
Book recommendation - Never Split the Difference
Successful founder trait - scout mindset
Productivity tool - Apple Notes
Business idea - LLM accountability coach
Fun fact - bass player in a high school metal band
Passion - angel investing as a founder
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/385
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
55 min
February 01, 2024SaaS Retention: From $1M ARR to 40% Monthly Churn
Brett Martin and his co-founder hit $1M ARR in just two and a half months. Then SaaS churn nearly killed the business - 40% of customers disappeared in a single month. The SaaS retention crisis forced a complete pivot.
In this episode, Brett reveals how Kumospace pivoted from a viral events platform to a virtual office serving millions of users. You will learn why SaaS retention problems were hidden by fast growth, how TikTok became their most effective B2B acquisition channel at a tenth the cost of LinkedIn, and why "dropping in" on new signups inside the product became their highest-converting sales motion for reducing churn.
Kumospace is a virtual office platform with 7-figure ARR, millions of users, a team of 16, and $25M in funding.
🔑 Key Lessons
📉 SaaS retention problems hide behind fast growth: Kumospace was growing so quickly that 40% monthly SaaS churn went unnoticed - rapid acquisition masked a fundamentally flawed customer retention model.
🔄 Dogfooding reveals the pivot when SaaS retention forces change: When their offsite was cancelled, the team lived in their own product daily and discovered every remote collaboration pain point.
🎯 TikTok reaches B2B buyers at a fraction of LinkedIn costs: The same decision-makers are on TikTok, where reaching them costs one-tenth as much through work-related influencer content.
🤝 In-product sales beats emails for reducing churn: Kumospace's "drop-in" approach of meeting users inside the product right after signup converted far better than lifecycle email sequences.
🚀 Product-channel fit matters as much as SaaS retention: Kumospace's video-based product showed its value naturally on TikTok's video medium - something traditional SaaS products could never replicate.
Chapters
Introduction
Brett's favorite quote and background
What Kumospace does and who it serves
Size of the business and fundraising
Origin story and the pandemic problem
Spatial audio prototype and co-founder story
Getting to $1M ARR in 2.5 months
Making the decision to pivot after 40% churn
Transforming from events to virtual office
TikTok as a B2B acquisition channel
Creating content and targeting on TikTok
Surviving the return-to-office narrative
Future of remote work
Category creation challenges and positioning
Conference playbook for customer acquisition
Product-led growth vs sales-led strategies
In-product drop-ins as a sales channel
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/384
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
45 min
January 25, 2024Vertical SaaS: From Race Car Driver to 60 Airports
George Richardson went from professional race car driver to vertical SaaS founder - and says building AeroCloud has been far harder than risking his life on the track. After two years building an airline app with zero traction, he pivoted to cloud-based airport management software.
In this episode, George reveals how AeroCloud built a vertical SaaS business targeting niche SaaS opportunities in airport management. You will learn how his first enterprise SaaS customer came from a conference bar at 4pm on the last day after every cold email failed, why vertical SaaS wins when incumbents are stuck on-prem, and how lumpy deals nearly bankrupted the company before their second raise.
AeroCloud serves 60 airports, employs 60 people across the US and UK, and has raised nearly $18M in venture capital.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 Vertical SaaS wins when incumbents are stuck on-prem: AeroCloud replaced legacy airport software that was version-released and painful to integrate, proving cloud-native niche SaaS can unseat entrenched competitors.
📉 Two years of zero traction is a signal to pivot: George and Ian spent two years on an airline app before pivoting to vertical SaaS for airports, leveraging existing domain expertise.
🤝 Conference floor-walking beats cold email for enterprise SaaS: AeroCloud emailed every attendee and got zero responses. Three days of persistence landed their first customer at the bar on the last day.
💰 Lumpy enterprise deals require conservative runway planning: AeroCloud nearly ran out of cash when vertical SaaS deals with seven-month sales cycles slipped their timelines.
🚀 Pick investors for a 10-year horizon: George underpriced his seed round but attracted Playfair Capital, who followed on in every round and led the second raise during a cash crunch.
Chapters
Introduction
George's favorite quote and career as a race car driver
How George became a professional driver at 16
The origin story of AeroCloud
Two years building a failed airline app
How George learned sales with zero experience
Landing the first 200K ARR without funding
Why George trusted his first customer Parker
Raising a seed round from Playfair Capital
Nearly running out of runway before the second raise
The "what keeps you up at night" sales framework
Why being a SaaS founder is harder than race car driving
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/383
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
50 min
January 18, 2024Scaling SaaS Solo: Two Products, No Funding, $10M ARR
Michael Kamleitner spent over a decade scaling SaaS as a solo founder running two bootstrapped products in parallel. When the pandemic wiped out live events overnight, his social media aggregator Walls.io lost its core use case.
In this episode, Michael reveals how he pivoted Walls.io into virtual events, built SaaS partnerships through a channel program that saved the company, and why running an agency alongside a product business nearly cost him everything. You will learn how scaling SaaS through SaaS content marketing and SEO drove organic growth, and why separating agency and product teams was the turning point for bootstrap to profitability.
Walls.io and Swat.io together generate over $10M in combined annual revenue with a team of 65, entirely bootstrapped.
🔑 Key Lessons
🚀 Scaling SaaS requires separating agency from product resources: Michael lost months of development velocity because agency projects kept pulling engineers away until he created a strict firewall.
🎯 Enter emerging categories early for content marketing leverage: Walls.io's SaaS content marketing worked because Michael started writing about user-generated content before the category was saturated.
🤝 SaaS partnerships can rescue scaling SaaS during a crisis: When the pandemic killed live events, Walls.io integrated into virtual event platforms and built a channel program that offset the revenue drop within six months.
💰 Geographic focus creates a defensible niche for scaling SaaS: Swat.io thrived by targeting German-speaking markets where global competitors struggled with language, time zones, and GDPR.
🧠 Solo founders must step back to scale: Michael's dual CEO role meant 10+ hours of daily context switching. Focusing on Walls.io was the turning point for bootstrap to profitability past $10M ARR.
Chapters
Introduction
Michael's favorite quote and the "twice you're stupid" philosophy
What Walls.io and Swat.io do
Revenue, team size, and $10M+ ARR milestone
How Michael went from software developer to agency to SaaS
Coming up with the idea for Swat.io from agency clients
Validating the product idea and early prototyping
Getting the first 10 customers took nearly two years
How the idea for Walls.io came from a co-working event
Why Michael kept Walls.io and Swat.io as separate products
Why mixing agency and product business caused problems
Content marketing and SEO as primary growth channels
Free licenses to NGOs for backlinks
Why outsourcing content marketing to agencies failed
Search ads worked but social media ads failed
Channel partnerships and integrations as a growth engine
Positioning Swat.io in a crowded market with geographic focus
The personal toll of running two companies as a solo founder
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/382
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
56 min
January 11, 2024Consultative Selling SaaS: Solo Founder to 8-Figure ARR
Thejo Kote sold the first 15-20 Airbase customers through consultative selling SaaS - without a co-founder, without a sales team, and without writing code until 10 CFOs confirmed they would buy. That founder-led sales motion became the foundation of an 8-figure ARR company.
In this episode, Thejo reveals how consultative selling SaaS to CFOs shaped Airbase's entire SaaS sales strategy. You will learn why he validated with high-fidelity mockups for six months before building, how startup sales as a solo founder differs from having a co-founder, and why his first hire was a VP of sales who could write the playbook from scratch.
Airbase is a spend management platform with 8-figure ARR, 300 employees across 16 countries, and over $100M in funding from Menlo Ventures, Bain Capital, and First Round Capital.
🔑 Key Lessons
🤝 Consultative selling SaaS reveals willingness to pay before you scale: Thejo sold the first 15-20 customers himself at $10-20K ACV, learning exactly what mid-market CFOs would pay.
🎯 Validate with mockups, not code: Thejo showed high-fidelity designs to CFOs for six months. Consultative selling SaaS through mockups avoided sunk-cost traps before committing to build.
🤝 Hire a VP of sales when founder-led sales stretches too thin: As a solo founder, Thejo needed a leader who could write the SaaS sales strategy playbook, not junior AEs who needed managing.
📉 Resist copying competitors' broken models: Airbase launched a free tier to match VC-fueled rivals, then spent a year unwinding the mistake when interchange revenue proved unsustainable.
💰 Control your destiny by slowing growth when needed: Airbase was growing faster than T2D3 but deliberately slowed to extend runway and avoid raising on unfavorable terms.
Chapters
Introduction
What motivates Thejo and why he loves building companies
What Airbase does and who it serves
Background on Automatic Labs and the SiriusXM exit
How the spend management idea came from building Automatic
Mistakes from building before validating
Choosing corporate card spend as the initial wedge
Six-month validation timeline with CFO interviews
Building the product solo before hiring engineers
Founder-led sales for the first 15-20 customers
How to get honest feedback from cold prospects
Why Thejo chose to be a solo founder
Journey to the first million in ARR
Why his first sales hire was a VP of sales
Average contract values and go-to-market strategy
Competing against heavily funded rivals
Surviving market madness as a cockroach
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/381
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
1 hr 9 min
January 04, 2024SaaS Product Validation: 3 Years of Pivots to $60M ARR
Greg Smith spent three years manually building online courses for customers one at a time before finding product-market fit for Thinkific. Then a single webinar converted 20 of 55 attendees into $1,000 paying customers overnight - the ultimate SaaS product validation moment.
In this episode, Greg reveals how he and his brother went from a $29 LSAT prep course to a $60M ARR public company. You will learn why SaaS product validation through manual work gave them customer insights no survey could match, how partnerships that led with value outperformed cold outreach, and what happened when post-IPO growth pressure led to laying off 200 people.
Thinkific is a platform for creators to build and sell online courses. The company has 280 employees, generates $60M ARR, and raised over $200M primarily through its 2021 IPO.
🔑 Key Lessons
🔄 SaaS product validation requires surviving multiple pivots: Thinkific tried a marketplace, custom agency, and enterprise learning sites over three years before discovering self-serve SaaS was the model customers wanted.
🛠️ Manual customer work accelerates SaaS product validation: Building courses by hand generated revenue while teaching the team exactly what features the platform needed.
🤝 Partnerships work when you lead with value: Early cold outreach to influencers failed. Greg succeeded by interviewing partners for his audience first and finding product-market fit through relationship-driven deals.
📈 Content marketing builds an audience that survives a SaaS pivot strategy: Blog posts, YouTube, and interviews attract an audience tied to a topic, not a product - so pivots keep the funnel intact.
🧠 Trust your instincts over external growth pressure: After IPO, Greg hired aggressively based on investor advice, then had to lay off 200 people when the market turned.
Chapters
Introduction
Greg's favorite quote on persistence
What Thinkific does and who it serves
Revenue, team size, and fundraising overview
Origin story: LSAT prep course in 2005
Why Greg decided to build Thinkific in 2012
How the product works for course creators
Getting the first 10 customers through manual work
The customer who ghosted after a month of free work
How long it took to reach $1M ARR
The breakthrough webinar that proved product-market fit
How Thinkific differentiated in a crowded market
Growing from $1M to $10M ARR
Content marketing strategy and lessons
Partnership failures and what finally worked
Path from seed round to IPO
Laying off 200 employees post-IPO
The creator economy opportunity
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/380
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
1 hr 4 min
December 21, 2023SaaS Pricing: What AWS Taught This Founder About Billing
John Griffin built a backend platform for game developers, sold it to Amazon, and then watched AWS run the most sophisticated usage-based pricing system on the planet. That experience sparked the idea for m3ter - and a new approach to SaaS pricing.
In this episode, John reveals how m3ter helps software companies adopt usage-based pricing models, why going too broad with early customers nearly derailed the business, and how VC introductions and expert-driven content marketing became their most effective growth channels. You will learn why SaaS pricing based on consumption boosts net retention by 10-30%.
m3ter is a subscription management platform generating multiple seven figures in ARR. The company has raised over $30M in funding to solve pricing operations at scale.
🔑 Key Lessons
💰 Usage-based pricing boosts SaaS retention over subscriptions: Companies adopting usage-based pricing see net retention increase by 10-30% because revenue grows organically with consumption.
📉 Narrowing customer focus prevents early-stage SaaS pricing sprawl: m3ter signed fintech, telco, and SaaS customers simultaneously, creating unclustered feature requests that spread the team thin.
🤝 Mining VC portfolios creates a reliable early sales channel: John matched investor holdings to m3ter's ICP and requested targeted introductions, generating the first 10-30 customers.
🎯 Expert-driven content outperforms lightweight SaaS pricing articles: m3ter incorporates subject matter experts into deep educational content on pricing operations, making it their top inbound channel.
🏢 Ecosystem enablement beats disruption for metered billing: m3ter integrates with Salesforce, Chargebee, and NetSuite instead of competing, turning potential rivals into co-sell partners.
Chapters
Introduction
John's motivating philosophy and background
What m3ter does and the usage-based pricing trend
Size of the business and Series A funding
Genesis of the idea at GameSparks and AWS
Why usage-based pricing is not for every SaaS company
How m3ter launched and validated the product
Why launching too soon was a mistake
Problems caused by non-clustered early customers
Using VC introductions as the first growth channel
Content marketing as a primary growth driver
Using subject matter experts for high-quality content
Content marketing as the dominant channel today
Building partnerships with billing platforms early
How partnerships typically kick off
Why cold outbound has not worked well
The hardest thing about being a founder
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/379
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
57 min
December 14, 2023SaaS Positioning: How Picking One Customer Hit 8 Figures
Duda was growing fast as a mobile website builder when Itai Sadan made a counterintuitive SaaS positioning decision - stop serving half the customer base and rebuild the core product from scratch. Revenue went flat for two years.
In this episode, Itai reveals how that SaaS positioning bet turned Duda into an 8-figure ARR company with 22,000 agencies. You will learn why competitive differentiation against Wix and Squarespace required choosing one customer type, how an AT&T deal unlocked funding after a year of rejections, and why a niche SaaS strategy can outperform competitors with 10x the resources.
Duda is a professional website builder used by 22,000 agencies managing over 1 million websites. The company has raised $96M in funding with a team of 180.
🔑 Key Lessons
🎯 SaaS positioning beats trying to serve everyone: Duda was torn between SMBs and web professionals until it dropped SMBs entirely, aligning marketing, R&D, and sales around one customer persona.
📉 Pivot before the cliff, not after it: Itai started rebuilding Duda's core product while mobile revenue was still growing, enduring two years of flat revenue rather than waiting for a crisis.
🤝 One enterprise deal can unlock fundraising: After a year of investor rejections, Duda's AT&T partnership produced two term sheets in three months through SaaS branding by association.
🔄 SaaS positioning clarity simplifies every team's job: Once Duda committed to web professionals only, marketing knew the language, R&D knew which features to build, and competitive differentiation became clear.
🚀 Turn a reseller program into your core product: Duda's agency reseller program started as a side feature but grew until it became the company's entire niche SaaS positioning and product.
Chapters
Introduction
The Big Lebowski, Duda's name, and the co-founder relationship
What Duda does and who it serves
Size of the business and $96M raised
Struggling to find customers and investors in 2009
Side hustle at SAP and getting meetings with investors
Mobile-only website builder and the original value prop
A year of doubt and then a lucky break
AT&T discovers Duda and signs a white-label deal
How the AT&T deal changed investor interest
The 2012 roadblock and responsive design threat
Entering a crowded market with Wix and Squarespace
Why serving two customer types was tearing the company apart
Going all-in on web professionals and dropping SMBs
The Google white-label partnership
Growth channels and product-led growth model
The reseller program that became the core product
International expansion to Japan and why it failed
Lightning round
Resources
Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/378
Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
52 min

About The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS

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Building software is easier than ever. Growing it into a profitable business is the hard part. Every week, a founder gets specific about what actually moved the needle: finding product-market fit, landing customers, pricing, defensibility, and durable growth.