#177: Building Multi-product Vertical SaaS With a Tiny Team - Robin Eissler
Practical Founders Podcast
Shipping MVPs and Iterating with Users
Robin describes their MVP approach, rapid user feedback, and the need to ship early to refine usage patterns.
Robin Eissler is the founder and CEO of BoosterHub, a vertical SaaS platform built for high school booster clubs. After selling her prior business as a private jet broker, Robin volunteered to run a local booster club and discovered a messy problem run with spreadsheets, emails, and manual accounting. She decided to build a single system that could actually handle it.
BoosterHub now serves nearly 600 booster programs, representing over 100,000 users. With just two full-time employees and a small dev team, the company processes more than $40M in transactions across payments, fundraising, merchandise sales, and accounting. Annual contract value typically runs $1,500–$2,000 per customer, with strong retention and expanding usage.
Still independently-owned and bootstrapped, BoosterHub is approaching $1M ARR and profitability. Robin shares lessons on building complex software with a tiny team, selling to volunteer buyers, surviving seasonal revenue swings, and why slow, compounding growth can create durable SaaS businesses without venture capital.
Key Takeaways
-
Tiny Teams Work - Two employees plus contractors can build serious SaaS with focus, systems, and modern tooling.
-
Sticky Beats Big - Hundreds of small customers compound more reliably than a handful of enterprise deals.
-
Seasonality Is Real Education-adjacent - SaaS must survive cash spikes and winter slowdowns without panic.
-
Founder-Led Marketing - Consistent content from the founder still drives inbound growth in niche markets.
- All-In-One Wins in Verticals - Being the system of record makes churn low and customer value expand naturally over time.
Quote from Robin Eissler, Founder and CEO of BoosterHub
"The numbers are much better than what we projected. so we're starting to see that compounding effect is really what's happening is there's just enough users and enough people in the system that they're using more of the add-on products and we're processing more volume.
"So it's starting to have that compounding effect. And so I really just admitted to myself this month, like, I think we're seeing it.
"I think we're finally seeing it. I feel like, OK, maybe for me, it's almost that I can exhale. I've been holding my breath for four years, so maybe I can breathe."
Links
Podcast Sponsor – Full ScaleThis podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io.
The Practical Founders Podcast
Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel.
Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.
Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups
Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding. A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.
The AI-powered Podcast Player
