In this episode, you will learn how to leverage high-touch consulting to fund and build a scalable SaaS product without raising early venture capital.
Jared Siegal (Founder, Aditude) bootstrapped his ad-tech platform to $5M ARR by doing everything the "wrong" way. He wrote code in text files, borrowed engineers from clients, and gave his product away for free. He reveals how he converted 30 consulting clients into SaaS subscribers overnight and why he eventually raised $15M despite being highly profitable.
π Key Lessons
- π The Service-to-SaaS Bridge: How to use high-margin consulting revenue to fund product development without giving up equity.
- π The "Free Tech" Strategy: Why giving your SaaS product away for free initially can be the fastest way to lock in enterprise clients.
- π€ Borrowed Resources: How Jared convinced a client to give him an engineer for six weeks to build his MVP.
- π Founder Bottlenecks: The painful realization that micromanaging payroll and invoicing was literally costing the company growth.
- π΄ The Disney Strategy: Why taking clients on vacation to Disney World closed more deals than any pitch deck.
π Chapters
- From Employee to Scrappy Consultant
- The Pivot: Turning Down Acquisition Offers
- Borrowing a Client's Engineer to Build the MVP
- Flipping the Switch: Converting Consulting to SaaS
- The Pain of Bootstrapping & Personal Risk
- Why You Should Be Profitable Before Raising VC
- Growing Without Sales or Marketing
- The "Disney World" Client Retention Strategy
- Letting Go: How a Forced Vacation Saved the CEO
This episode is brought to you by:
π Gearheart β Book a free strategy session + get 20% off select services
π« Mailtrap β Get 20% off with code THESAASPODCAST
π Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email
SaaS Club Programs
Resources
