The SaaS Podcast: Build, Launch & Scale Your SaaS

Adam Fard bootstrapped UX Pilot from a UX agency side project to $5 million ARR in under two years—growing from $3M to $5.3M in just five months—without VC funding, with 15,000 paying subscribers and a 30-person team. In this episode, early-stage bootstrapped SaaS founders will learn how Adam discovered a wireframing opportunity by testing competitors and realizing they were all faking AI generation with templates. You'll hear why he spent 6-7 months solving the genuinely hard technical problem of AI wireframe generation, and how focusing exclusively on design (not no-code, not backend) became UX Pilot's biggest competitive advantage. Adam also shares his biggest bootstrapped SaaS mistake: hiring too slowly. At $30K MRR, he questioned whether revenue might disappear and hired 1-2 people at a time, waiting months between hires. Looking back, he should have hired 5 people at once to gain velocity faster instead of prolonging the bootstrapped SaaS hiring process for months. This episode is brought to you by: 🌎 ThreatLocker → Book a demo 💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 Test Competitor Claims Before Building Your Bootstrapped SaaS: Adam discovered other wireframing tools were faking AI generation by swapping templates, revealing a genuine technical opportunity. 💰 Bootstrap with Existing Revenue Streams: Adam used his UX agency income to fund UX Pilot development, removing pressure to raise VC funding or hit arbitrary bootstrapped SaaS revenue milestones. 🚀 Focus Beats Feature Bloat in Bootstrapped SaaS: While competitors built no-code tools that did everything, Adam focused exclusively on AI wireframe generation—no backend, no drag-and-drop, just design. 📈 SEO Still Works for Bootstrapped SaaS in 2024: Despite advice that "SEO is dead," Adam got significant traffic from high-intent keywords around "design, UX and AI generation" by being first to target them. 🧠 Hire Faster Than Feels Safe When Bootstrapping: Adam's biggest bootstrapped SaaS regret was hiring 1-2 people at $30K MRR instead of 5 at once—slow hiring cost months of velocity. 🛠️ Talk About Your Bootstrapped SaaS Product, Not Just Education: Adam got more newsletter engagement sharing UX Pilot updates than sending generic UX education—people want to know what you're building. Chapters Running a UX agency when ChatGPT launched The user question that sparked the bootstrapped SaaS product idea Testing competitors and discovering they were faking AI Why creating wireframes with AI was technically hard Exploring fine-tuning LLMs and component-based approaches Building a 600K subscriber newsletter from product signups Getting to the first million in ARR with LinkedIn, newsletter, and SEO The bootstrapped SaaS mistake of hiring too slowly The inflection point from $3M to $5.3M ARR in 5 months Focusing on enterprise teams vs trying to target everyone 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email SaaS Club Programs Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: ⁠https://saasclub.io/accelerate Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/469 Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Two years. Almost no revenue. Tito Goldstein and his co-founder Arjun raised $3 million to build a scheduling tool for hourly workers. But when they took it to market, customers kept telling them the same thing: we need to stand out, not use cookie-cutter software. So they made a call that most founders would never risk - throw it all out and start over. The rebuild took a year. But when they launched the new version built on composable Legos instead of fixed features, it outsold the previous two years in the first month. Then it 3x'd, and 3x'd again. That's when Tito knew they'd finally found product-market fit. TeamBridge is now doing multiple seven figures with over 200 enterprise customers, including the San Francisco 49ers' Levi's Stadium and medical staffing agencies scaling to multimillion-dollar businesses with almost no admin staff. This episode is brought to you by: 🌎 ThreatLocker → Book a demo 💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 Listen to what customers don't say about product-market fit: Buyers kept asking for features, but the real pain was "I need to stand out." Reading between the lines unlocked their product-market fit breakthrough. 📉 Throw out sunk cost when finding product-market fit: Two years of work became irrelevant when they realized connective tissue (automations, workflows) mattered more than scheduling. 🛠️ Composability wins in competitive markets: Off-the-shelf tools make you a commodity. Customizable workflows make you a differentiator in the race for product-market fit. 💰 Stay lean until product-market fit: TeamBridge kept a team of 5-6 with multiple years of runway, giving them freedom to pivot without investor pressure. 🚀 First products validate problems, not solutions: The scheduling tool failed but uncovered the real pain. Use early products to learn, not scale, on the path to product-market fit. Chapters Introduction and favorite quotes What TeamBridge does and who it serves Why composability matters for workforce software Size of the business: revenue, customers, team Origin story: interviewing Uber drivers Going door-to-door to understand hourly worker pain Raising $3M seed with just a prototype Why it took 2 years to find product-market fit The pivot: from scheduling to composable Legos First significant sale during COVID Biggest objections: explaining composability Finding the right messaging and storytelling Downsides of casting too wide a net Moving upmarket to enterprise customers How COVID forced TeamBridge to mature go-to-market Cold email lessons: honesty and relationship building Discovery-first selling: hold the pitch until you know the pain Learning the nuances of each vertical Lightning round: grit, curiosity, and fitness 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email SaaS Club Programs Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/468 Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

He lived in his first customer's basement for a year. Nate Baker found Qualia's first customer by wearing a Stanford sweatshirt to a conference. That customer, Barry Feingold, didn't just sign up—he taught them the industry, made intros to competitors, and let the team live in his basement. In this episode, founders will learn how to find their first customers through network-based selling and multi-year upfront contracts. Nate shares the brutal early days: building for months without talking to customers, getting their first customer's software shut off overnight, and plateauing at $45K ARR because they didn't respect sales as a skill. Their VP of Sales told them: "I've never seen such a gap between great product and incompetent sales execution." Within 12 months, they went from $45K to $3.5M ARR. Today, Qualia generates over $100 million in ARR with 600 employees and has raised more than $200 million to transform the home buying process. This episode is brought to you by: 💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 First Customers Must Come From Your Network: Nate says your first 10 customers must come from in-network sales—cold outreach rarely closes when you're asking someone to trust an unproven system of record. 💰 Multi-Year Upfront Contracts Bring Cash Forward: Qualia offered 5-year contracts paid upfront at 80% discounts, aligning incentives and generating meaningful early revenue. 🏠 Embed Yourself With Your First Customer: The first 25 Qualia employees rotated through Barry's basement learning the industry—"you have to be so in it" to build great software. 🗺️ Geographic Focus Beats National Expansion Early: Qualia stayed focused on Massachusetts for the first year, building deep relationships before expanding state by state. ⚡ Crisis Creates Your Most Productive Moments: When Barry's vendor shut him off overnight, Qualia had to deliver—it became their most productive month ever. 🔧 Engineers Must Respect Sales as a Skill: At $45K ARR, the founders thought product would speak for itself. Hiring a VP of Sales unlocked $3.5M ARR in 12 months. Chapters Introduction and what Qualia does How Nate picked the title software market at 21 with no experience The academic approach to market selection (and why it was a mistake) The real problem: coordination across multiple stakeholders Finding first customer Barry Feingold at a conference Living in Barry's basement for a year When Barry's vendor shut him off overnight How long it took to ship the first version Why narrow geographic focus beats national expansion early Early customer conversations and what they actually needed How to get customers to pay before you've built the product The multi-year upfront contract strategy Network-based selling vs cold outreach for first customers The wake-up call: "Great product, incompetent sales execution" Moving upmarket and the "you don't understand Texas" objection Strategy for geographic expansion state by state When Nate realized they had real traction How the opportunity looks today with AI Lightning round 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email SaaS Club Programs Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/467 Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Nine months. Zero revenue. One cold text to a CMO. Yosef Peterseil landed McDonald's as Blings' first enterprise sales customer while bootstrapping—and learned why charging for POCs changes everything. In this episode, founders will learn how to close enterprise sales deals without a playbook, why free POCs kill your priority, and when you're actually ready to hire salespeople. Yosef shares how he validated the wrong ICP for months before discovering customer success managers had no budget, why a 13-month contract structure eliminates double negotiations, and the $30,000 event mistake that taught him to build follow-up systems first. Blings now serves McDonald's, Mercedes, Meta, and Rocket Mortgage—hitting $1M ARR in 2023 with just 19 people. This episode is brought to you by: 💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 Always Charge for Enterprise Sales POCs: Even $3,000-$5,000 forces customers to prioritize you and starts vendor onboarding—free trials put you at the bottom of the list. 💰 Use 13-Month Contracts: Yosef lost months negotiating POC terms then negotiating again for commercial deals—a first-month exit clause eliminates double negotiations. 🚀 Validate ICP Budget First: Dozens of customer success interviews revealed they had no budget—pivot to where the money actually is before building. 🤝 Build Follow-Up Systems Before Events: 70 leads from a $30K event went cold because they had no HubSpot sequences or lead scoring in place. 🧠 Don't Hire Salespeople Without a Playbook: A great rep closing deals proves their skill, not your product—wait until a mediocre rep can follow your process. 📈 Scale Enterprise Sales with Channel Partners: Recruiting industry veterans to open doors for commission scaled Blings faster than direct sales. Chapters Introduction and Favorite Quote What Blings Does - The MP5 Video Format Company Metrics and Enterprise Customers The Origin Story and Co-Founder Relationship Validating the ICP Through Customer Interviews Pivoting from Customer Success to Marketing Landing McDonald's Through a Cold Text Closing the First Enterprise Sales POC Lessons from POC Agreements Why You Should Always Charge for POCs Event Marketing Mistakes - 70 Lost Leads Building a Lead Follow-Up System Hiring Salespeople Too Early Building Channel Partner Relationships Scaling with 19 People Launching PLG Motion Lightning Round 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email SaaS Club Programs Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/466 Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Saket Saurabh defied standard SaaS advice by skipping SMBs and selling directly to Enterprise giants like Instacart and LinkedIn from day one. Here is the "Enterprise First" strategy that allowed Nexla to become cash flow positive with multiple 7-figures in revenue before their Series A. In this episode, Saket (Co-founder & CEO of Nexla) breaks down exactly how to navigate complex corporate buy-cycles without a track record. Learn how he used "consultative selling" to close 6-figure contracts, the "Magic Moment" live-coding tactic that won Instacart, and the painful "Zero Salary" pivot the founders took to save the company and hit profitability. 🔑 Key Lessons 🏢 The "Enterprise First" Bet: Why targeting SMBs would have failed and why he went straight for the Fortune 500. 🪄 The Magical Moment: How his co-founder live-coded a fix during a pitch meeting to close Instacart. 📉 The Hard Reset: Cutting founder salaries to $0 and downsizing to achieve cash flow positivity. 🤝 Founder-Led Sales: How to sell "Build vs. Buy" to technical buyers who think they can do it themselves. 🧠 Nvidia Lessons: The "Critical Path" advice from Jensen Huang that guides his leadership today. 📖 Chapters Introduction & The "Profit" Quote What is Nexla? (Solving the Data Fragmentation Problem) The Origin: From Ad Tech to Data Infrastructure The Contrarian Strategy: Why "Enterprise First"? Landing the First Customer (Instacart) The "Live Code" Sales Demo Strategy Figuring out Enterprise Pricing & POs Founder-Led Sales: Closing the First 15 Customers Overcoming the "We Can Build It Ourselves" Objection The Pivot: Going "Zero Salary" to Hit Cash Flow Positive The Impact of AI on Data Engineering Lightning Round: Best Advice & Productivity Tools This episode is brought to you by: 💖 ⁠Gearheart⁠ → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free 📡 ⁠⁠⁠Signal House⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠Learn more and get a demo 🚨 ⁠⁠⁠⁠NordStellar⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20 Resources: 🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/464 🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email 💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus

Bilal Aijazi built one of the first Slack apps ever created. The install process was so clunky it required five manual steps of copying and pasting tokens. Yet 80% of people completed it anyway. That's when he knew Polly was solving something people desperately wanted. Today, Polly serves millions of monthly active users across Slack, Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Google Slides, and PowerPoint, generating multiple seven figures in ARR with just 20 people. But the journey from that first $8/month fantasy football customer to enterprise deals wasn't obvious—and platform risk nearly derailed everything when Slack launched competing features. You'll learn: How Bilal discovered that only 12% of Polly users would ever become creators and why that was actually a good thing for the business Why their first paying customer at $8/month for fantasy football led them to HR teams who now pay five-figure deals How adding simple demo booking hooks throughout Polly enabled hundreds of customer conversations that revealed their real monetization path What happened when Slack launched Workflow Builder six months after Polly signed their first five-figure deals and how they survived Why Bilal believes every founder building on platforms must eventually become a platform themselves or risk getting crushed Full show notes → saasclub.io/462 This episode is brought to you by: 💖 ⁠Gearheart⁠ → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free 🚨 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NordStellar⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20 📡 ⁠⁠⁠Signal House⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠Learn more and get a demo Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email

James Ashford built GoProposal, a pricing and proposal platform for accountants, on a $5,000 WordPress multisite. Five years later, he sold it to Sage for eight figures with just 12 people on the team. But the path to that exit wasn't about raising money or building fancy tech. It was about moving faster than well-funded competitors, staying closer to customers than anyone else, and building systems that made the business sellable from day one. James picked off the top customers of a competitor with $75 million in funding by publishing helpful content daily, running weekly webinars, and speaking to an accountant every single day just to learn. You'll learn: How James built and launched his MVP for $5,000 on WordPress and why that helped him get to market quickly without funding Why going deep on one ICP for years gave him clarity, focus and traction in a crowded market How publishing useful content quickly, instead of polished content slowly, became his biggest differentiator and drove conversion and onboarding How simple playbooks helped the team deliver a consistent customer experience and scale without complexity How James created demand and trust long before the sale, so customers came in already bought into his approach Full show notes → saasclub.io/461 This episode is brought to you by: 💖 ⁠Gearheart⁠ → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free 📡 ⁠⁠⁠Signal House⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠Learn more and get a demo 🚨 ⁠⁠⁠⁠NordStellar⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20 Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email

Ryan Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Assembled, an AI platform for customer support that helps companies manage both human and AI agents more efficiently. Today, Assembled is an 8-figure ARR company with about 120 people, serves several hundred customers, and has raised $71 million. But getting there was brutal. Ryan and his co-founders spent two years building before launching in March 2020—the same day the WHO declared COVID a global pandemic. About 25% of demos didn't show up. It took them 8 months to earn their first dollar of revenue. When they finally got customers on usage-based pricing with no minimums, usage flatlined during the pandemic. They thought it was their fault before realizing it was macro-related. So they stopped chasing growth and focused on the customers getting value, meeting them in person and building what actually mattered. You'll learn: How Ryan knew he had a real business when he discovered that Stripe, Casper, and Grammarly had all built similar color-coded spreadsheets What Ryan learned the hard way about usage-based pricing with no minimums and how they fixed it How Ryan's team decided which early deals requiring custom work would help them grow versus become distractions Why Assembled focused on one Slack community instead of trying to be everywhere at once The simple method Ryan used to create a detailed ICP by looking at patterns in the customers he already had Full show notes → saasclub.io/460 This episode is brought to you by: 🔐 ⁠⁠⁠Sprinto⁠⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠Learn more and book a demo today⁠ 💖 ⁠Gearheart⁠ → ⁠Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free 📡 ⁠⁠⁠Signal House⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠Learn more and get a demo 🚨 ⁠⁠⁠⁠NordStellar⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠⁠⁠Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20 Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email