What SaaS Companies Need To Know About Content Marketing with Geoff Roberts of Outseta

In this episode of SaaS Origin Stories, Phil speaks with Geoff Roberts, Co-Founder of Outseta, the only all-in-one platform that integrates subscription billing, email marketing, support, CRM, and reporting tools which reduces costs, maintenance, and helps SaaS startups get off the ground faster. He is also the founder of SaaS Growth Strategy, and was previously the Vice President of Marketing at Roambi.

They discuss just how ruthless prioritization within your company can be, the revolutionary, problem solving methodology of Outseta, why you don’t need to know everything about SaaS in order to be successful, and the importance of sharing your entrepreneurial journey.

Guest at a Glance:

Name: Geoff Roberts

About Geoff: Geoff is the Co-Founder of Outseta, the only all-in-one platform that integrates subscription billing, email marketing, CRM and more which reduces costs and maintenance. It was designed to help SaaS startups get off the ground faster. He is also the founder of SaaS Growth Strategy and was previously the Vice President of Marketing at Roambi.

Geoff on LinkedIn

Geoff’s Twitter

Outseta on LinkedIn

Outseta’s Website

Topics we cover:

• The problem-solving methodology of Outseta
• Why you know need to know absolutely everything about SaaS
• The helpfulness of sharing your entrepreneurial journey
• How ruthless prioritisation within a business can be
• The difficulty of having to face the hard truths about your business
• When your product isn’t quite as good as you think it is yet

Key Takeaways:

The Problem-Solving Methodology of Outseta

It is said that, in order to build a successful business, you need to create something which either solves a problem/fulfils a need or entertains an audience. In creating Outseta, Geoff was able to solve a hefty amount of business’ problems.

All SaaS or membership businesses need the same fundamental technological tools: a billing system, a CRM for prospecting customer data, and marketing tools to communicate with customers. Outseta is the only company bringing all of these tools together under one platform. Geoff compares it to the way Shopify works for e-commerce, and just like a lot of the world’s best ideas, Outseta was born out of personal experience and agitation towards the complexities of building a company which needed all of these tools. 

You Don’t Need to Know Everything About SaaS to be Successful

Despite developing such an ingenious SaaS platform, Geoff reveals that he didn’t create Outseta due to any real attachment to SaaS, rather it was out of his love for startups and their evolution. He is also responsible for almost everything at Outseta apart from developing the tools themselves: sales, support, marketing, and internal operations. 

But how? He claims that his writing degree was probably one of the most beneficial things to happen to him. And yet, despite not having any inherent connection to the SaaS industry, he has been able to make waves and offer a revolutionary, groundbreaking platform for any startup who needs it!

Share Your Entrepreneurial Journey into SaaS

Geoff recommends that, when starting your SaaS business, share your entrepreneurial journey with the world. It can be incredibly beneficial to show off to everyone how much you’ve grown. This can develop a sense of trust between yourself and potential new clients and customers. Not only that, but it is naturally interesting to see how a business grows over time. It’s like watching evolution in real time.

“This is not something I expected going in, but a huge part of our customer acquisition strategy is simply sharing our own entrepreneurial journey. I know that a lot of other founders do that; we’re certainly not the first company to do so, but I think it actually worked for us as an acquisition strategy because we sell our product to other founders. Just by sharing our own journey, founders tend to be interested in that kind of stuff.”

The Ruthlessness of Prioritization 

With the sheer quantity of tools that Outseta uses, they had to figure out which aspects to prioritize amidst its creation. In order to do this, they had to look at what it was that all subscription and membership SaaS services use and where they would focus their energies.

When beginning your startup, you will have to ruthlessly prioritize your work. Some ideas simply won’t make the cut or, at the very least, won’t get as much attention as others. But this is okay, just make sure you are prioritizing the right things.

Once a Developer, Always a Developer

Geoff acknowledges that for the first few years of Outseta’s existence, they were trying to sell to too much of a niche audience. Instead of trying to sell to business founders, they were selling to founders who were also developers. So, when the time came to pitch to them, they would often just make the tools themselves. This isn’t logical, but it is rational, and both parties involved know this; once you’re a developer, you can’t shed that programmed, coded skin.

Know who you’re pitching to—a niche audience is good, vital even, but if it’s too niche then you may run into some problems.

“The hard truth was we were trying to change the predominant behavior of developers. I would have a lot of conversations with developers where I would say ‘It’s not the best use of your time to spend all of this time integrating these tools. Why don’t you focus your time on building your product rather than building all these tools.’ And they would nod and say, ‘That makes a completely logical sense,’ and then they would go and build it anyway. It’s just what they’re accustomed to, even if it didn’t make the most logical sense.”

Sometimes, the Product Just Isn’t Good Enough Yet

You could have the best ever idea for a product, but you need to be able to acknowledge that you won’t always get it to perfection right away. It’ll take time, and there may even be moments when you think it’s over, but it doesn’t mean it is. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is face the hard truth and think about the way you can improve and be better in order to grow.