#287 - Melissa Kwan, CEO of eWebinar - on living the Bootstrapped SaaS dream.

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation, that has the power to run hundreds of engaging webinars without having to be there. My guest is Melissa Kwan, CEO of eWebinar. Melissa is a 3rd time bootstrapped founder. Her previous company, Spacio (real estate tech), was acquired in 2019. eWebinar was the product she always dreamt about because she was drowning in sales demos, onboarding and training webinars every day for 5 years. So, in March 2019 she made the jump and founded the eWebinar.  Her mission: to give people their time back so they can do something else more fun because that's what life is about. We don't need to work harder; we need to work more creatively. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Melissa to my podcast. We explore how she built a $1M ARR business from scratch - deliberately going the bootstrapped way. Melissa elaborates on her experiences in building software that helps her customers provide experiences that their customers love to engage with. She talks about how getting her first 200 customers was easy but how growing beyond that became a big challenge - and how she overcame that. Last but not least, she shares some of her secrets to creating a SaaS business without getting into the vicious cycle of desperately chasing funding. Here's one of her quotes: The toughest nut to crack is not getting it launched and adopted with your first 200 customers. The toughest stuff to crack is what happens after you've exhausted your entire network and their friends.  That was a huge reality check for me. Because that didn't happen until about a year after launch. Because all I know is sales I didn't realize that what I need for this business is marketing. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why she's (being an automation-passionate) is betting on SEO and LinkedIn content creation instead of cold outreach automation? What's her secret to creating predictable traction (knowing there are no shortcuts)? How doubling her prices became a blessing for her business in many different ways Why she'd opt for bootstrapping her company again if she'd had the choice again? For more information about the guest from this week: Melissa Kwan Website: eWebinar Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices