The SaaS Venture

Hubspot has defined the SaaS sales funnel as Awareness, Engagement, Exploration, and Conversion.  This episode is focusing on Engagement in the sales funnel to move your prospect down further. For me it comes down to two main strategies:

1. Are you easy to work with?

2. Do you work how your customers want you to work? 

I look at what makes for good CTAs, that appeal to all levels of engagement. 

• Questions - live chat, web-to-text
• Get updates - email newsletters, podcasts, blog content, social
• Demos - recorded, live, interactive

Part 2 or 2, what I got RIGHT the 2nd time around in SaaS starting Leadferno. The decisions you make when starting a company can have lasting, even forever impacts on the path of the company, so getting as many right as you can matters. Let's look at the main decisions I feel I got right in starting Leadferno.

Prior: Part 1 on what I got wrong.

Leadferno is my 2nd time around the block in SaaS. While I wasn’t a founder the 1st time, I came on as a partner to lead sales and marketing a year in. I ultimately became CEO and then led GatherUp to an 8 figure acquisition 6 years later.  So I think that qualifies as a first trip combined with cofounding and leading multiple digital agencies for over 15 years. I saw the early decisions, made some of them, and had ones I wish I could “re do”.

This episode, part one of two, is a look at core decisions I made solo, or with my cofounder, that we didn’t get right for Leadferno. My experience makes me feel like I should have gotten more of these right. They are all costly in different ways. Some will still work themselves out or have had additional moves made to lessen their impact, while others led to additional bad decisions. That's just how it works.

This wasn’t my first rodeo, but I still got bucked a few different ways. Hopefully sharing these might help you lower your list of "wrongs" … first time, second time, or whatever time founding your SaaS company you're on.

I take a look back at 2023 for Leadferno and share some of our numbers. We doubled our MRR over 2023, but I still feel we left a lot on the table. I also cover getting to meet with my co-founder Joel Headley in person last week to plan our 2024 and how much he matters to our business. Lastly we are giving the Leadferno website a big refresh for the first time since launching.

Another solo episode with Aaron. I talk about the features we've recently built for Leadferno. It's been 3 years since we broke code (over 2 years to market) and it I'm feeling like we have our true Version 1 - but my definition might be very different than yours or most. I discuss why I love "swiss army knife features" and our new report focused on quality and timing. Plus a marketing and sales update from last episode.

Have feedback or ideas?  Email [email protected] 

A bit of a change, it's a solo episode with just Aaron. I update a recent growth plateau for Leadferno. Churn is up some, leads and new accounts are down, and that combination makes for very little growth over the last 3 months. I share what I'm doing in marketing and sales to try to turn the tide and get back to stronger MRR growth in the coming months.

If you have any feedback or suggestions on this solo format, please let me know:  [email protected] 

Thanks for listening!

Darren and Aaron catch-up on the last few months of business. Darren shares a new product and pricing ... and get's some "spicy" feedback on it. 

Darren and Aaron discuss the benefits of user feedback. Do you know how your SaaS customers and users really feel? Ways to capture it, when to capture it, getting reviews, and all it provides when you have it. The guys also catch up on their latest feature releases, progress, sales, and more.

2023 is off to a fast start. Aaron and Darren catch up on what's happened to start the new year. New features, growth, marketing, demo challenges, and more.