837: SaaS: A Good Reason to Have Flat Growth at $200k MRR

Aseem Badshah. He's the founder and CEO of Socedo which is a twenty person, B2B, social media demand generation company backed by Techstars Ventures, Vulcan Capital and Divergent Ventures. Before this company, he was the founder of Uptown Treehouse, a social media marketing agency working with brands like Uniqlo, Nike, Western Union and Lenovo.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – Satya Nadella
• Favorite online tool? — Outreach
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Be patient and focus, above all, on people"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:34 – Nathan introduces Aseem to the show
• 02:06 – Socedo helps B2B marketers find the relevant prospect on social media
• 02:37 – "The last 9 months have been all about efficiency"
• 02:47 – Socedo now has $4K in MRR per month per AE
• 03:42 – Socedo is now moving away from the outbound and ABM model
• 03:47 – Socedo targets SMB companies now
• 04:03 – Socedo has free trials on their website
  • 04:18 – The point is to become a pipeline for their AEs
• 04:58 – Socedo is helping Pendo's growth
• 05:08 – Socedo is looking at moving up their ACV
• 05:57 – Socedo helps B2B companies cut through the noise
• 06:24 – On the sales side, Socedo is more focused on selling to B2B as opposed to B2C companies
• 07:00 – Average MRR
• 07:23 – Aseem ties employee count to growth
  • 07:45 – The idea of scaling too quickly isn't really healthy
• 08:40 – Aseem wants to make sure that their focus is on the right segment of the market
• 10:00 – Everywhere in SaaS is crowded these days
• 10:21 – The outbound path is where Sodeco will bump into their competition
• 10:54 – Sodeco is specifically serving the B2B social media marketers who are underserved individuals
  • 11:20 – Sodeco helps them grow their presence
• 12:34 – Hootsuite is great for marketers who are managing their content for their audience
• 13:00 – Sodeco finds and grows the audience by targeting the right prospects on social media
• 14:44 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. Scaling up does NOT necessarily mean growing your team.
2. Even though your market may be crowded, you can find a way to stand out.
3. Managing your audience is a very different process from growing your audience.

Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives