SaaS Founder or Pop Star? CJ Gets Schooled
Mostly Growth
What does FITFO (Figure It The F*** Out) imply for early-stage customers?
CJ argues many early customers fall outside later ICPs and companies must refine their customer base as they scale.
In this high-energy episode of Mostly Growth, CJ Gustafson, Kyle Poyar, and Ben Hillman dive into the hidden levers of SaaS growth and what truly separates startups that scale to $20M+ ARR from those that stall out. They explore eye-opening data from 6,500 companies, revealing how the best improve net retention, raise pricing, and re-engineer their revenue models over time. Alongside the metrics, there’s plenty of playful chaos—like a naming debate over “Yoshinobu Yamamoto Gustafson,” a rapid-fire game of “Founder or Pop Star,” and CJ’s accidental IPO embargo break. It’s part insight, part inside joke, and 100% for SaaS operators and C-suite climbers.
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LINKS:
Mostly Metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com
CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/
Growth Unhinged: https://www.growthunhinged.com/
Kyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/
Slacker Stuff: https://www.slackerstuff.com/
Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slackerstuff/
https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/the-compounding-startup
https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/the-odds-of-making-it
https://www.superme.ai/kylepoyar?conversationId=VgDXTOl2Z89mW7UYXstU0b
https://a16z.com/anatomy-of-an-enterprise-platform-company/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hhi.asp
https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/navan-ipo-s1-breakdown
https://x.com/amendandpretend/status/1983588137453416763?s=46
https://x.com/ryan_c_walsh/status/1983705182371475630?s=46
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwinCities/comments/z6hxp8/how_much_are_people_paying_for_residential_snow/
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RELATED EPISODES:
Getting fired 4 times made me a founder | Sam Jacobs of Pavilion
Why Founders Are Posting Sad Dinners
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Preview and Intro
00:01:20 Sponsors Pulley and Metronome
00:03:24 Welcome Back Dodgers Banter
00:05:03 SaaS Founder or Pop Star Game
00:07:08 Growth Levers Report Overview
00:08:33 Building for Expansion and Retention
00:10:11 Figure It Out and ICP Discussion
00:11:47 Monthly Growth and Compounding
00:13:44 Pricing Lessons Fat Joe Quote
00:14:46 AI Avatars Introduction
00:15:35 CJ Tests the Kyle Chatbot
00:16:39 AI Costs Beta and Power Users
00:17:54 Using AI for Writing and Research
00:19:52 Cannibalizing Content and Platform Talk
00:21:28 A16z Platform Discussion
00:23:49 Herfindahl Hirschman Index Explained
00:24:33 HHI Applied to Market Entry
00:26:13 CrowdStrike Datadog Multi Product Models
00:29:17 Business Blunders and Navan IPO
00:33:08 Snow Removal Pricing in the Real World
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SPONSORS:
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