As a SaaS founder, it is crucial to understand how to get customer insight and leverage them for the growth of your Saas business. In today's episode, our guest is Katya Ryabova. Katya enlightens us on Customer-led Growth strategy, how to get started and its place in a SaaS company. As a researcher and consultant, Katya advises over a dozen SaaS and tech companies.   Why you need to listen to Katya - As a certified Customer-Led Growth consultant, She has gained immense experience working with many SaaS and tech companies. Over the past 13 years, she has built on her social research background to help SaaS founders to run their customer research and turn it into actionable insight that informs the decision-making on their product and marketing. What is Customer-Led Growth strategy (CLG)- Katya defines Customer-Led Growth strategy as an array of repeatable strategies that a business owner can implement at every strategy to realize growth. It entails gathering customer information, interpreting it, and mapping it according to the ideal customer profile. It is an effective strategy for understanding the gaps and opportunities in the market to enable customers to find you and convert quicker. Katya clarifies that CLG is not a substitute or competitor to sales-led growth or Product-Led Growth strategies. She sees it as a foundation by which a SaaS founder can implement along with other growth strategies.  Timecodes (0:30) Introduction of today's topic and guest expert (1:28) Why do you need to listen to Katya (02:01) What is a Customer-Led Growth strategy (CLG) (05:08) Minimum requirements for implementing CLG strategy (06:54) Importance of understanding your ideal customer profile (ICP)  (08:58) Metrics for measuring the success of CLG strategy (10:35) Common mistakes in implementing CLG strategy (14:54) Strategies for implementing CLG  (21:32) Challenges when implementing CLG strategy (25:57) Seeking a mentor or consultant for CLG strategy (28:24) Affiliate marketing and Customer-Led Growth strategy  (29:42) Advice to SaaS companies depending on their revenue (33:48) Katya's contact information

Learn from Stefan Smulders, founder of Expandi. He shares all his knowledge on how he bootstrapped Expandi past 7M ARR. He shares everything.. He is currently Scaling his SaaS bootstrapped to $10M ARR. He is a real-life coach for aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs, particularly those who choose the bootstrap approach. He is as honest as he can be about his experiences, including his successes and failures as an entrepreneur. Learn more about our guest: ⁠Stefan Smulders, ⁠Founder of ⁠Expandi⁠. Timecodes (0:30) Introduction of topic and guest expert (1:35) Why you need to listen to Stefan (2:16) How many Failures has he had before starting Expandi? (06:35) How did he know Expandi would be a success (07:40) How has he managed to stay bootstrapped for a long time? (12:12) Did he consider raising funding when money started running out? (13:37) Challenging aspect of bootstrapping his company (17:38) What would he do differently today? (19:56) Elements for the success of Expandi (24:26) Providing value to the end-user through differentiation (28:05) Advice to SaaS beginner earning 10k MRR (29:47) Advice to SaaS founders earning 1M ARR (30:54) How to reach Stefan  on Social media

What is content? Or better yet, what is good content? Do you know how to create content that drives and converts into signups and paid clients? In today's episode, we host John Ozuysal, the co-founder of Datapad and advisor to other startups. We discuss how to create a B2B SaaS content strategy that drives signups.  During his topical mapping, John explains that he uses internal backlinks for all relevant content. This greatly works for startups in the early stages with minimal resources because it is speedy.  Common mistakes made with creating a content strategy. Limiting yourself to keyword tools. He says that you should ask the customers how and what they search for content. It, therefore, helps, during signup, to seek the problem and the desired solution from the customer.  Thoughts on the rise of Chatgpt in content writing. He admits that he utilizes the tool for fast-tracking some functions in research instead of writing content with it. It helps generate content keyword ideas, optimize SEO, and identify entities from paragraphs.  John dives into affiliate marketing and writing content for signups. Instead of focusing on the transactional page and leaving it in the hope it will rank, he advises creating supporting pages to link to the transactional page. It gives your content greater visibility to other potential companies that may want to affiliate with you to promote their content.  Advice to startups growing to 10k MRR? Reverse your funnel by starting at the bottom with content targeting an audience seeking solutions like the one you offer.  Advice to startups growing to 1M ARR? Invest more in the middle and top of the funnel. Using customer research, you should build next-generation features by writing relevant content.  Key Timecodes (01:47) Why you need to listen to John  (02:43) What is content  (03:15) Difference between writing content and content that converts (04:34) What needs to be in place before creating content  (06:42) Strategies for writing content to generate signups  (10:00) Why does he not do link-building for his content? (14:13) Does he create yellow pages for topics he writes about  (17:28) Common mistakes with content strategy  (20:50) His thoughts on Chatgpt for content writing  (22:11) Affiliate marketing and writing content for signups (22:50) Advice to companies with 10k monthly recurring revenue  (26:00) Advice to companies with 1 million annual recurring revenue  (27:20) John's templates on offer and contact information

How can you build a network help to grow your B2B SaaS? In today's episode, we host Alexander Theuma, the founder of Saastock, whose sole responsibility is to grow a network community in SaaS by organizing conferences that bring different people with different roles in the business. Over the last eight years, Alexander has proved himself to be an effective community organizer devoted to strong networks, community, content, building audiences, and events. He has also engaged with thousands of SaaS founders and gained actionable experience in building a conference business and how to scale it. From this episode, Alexander reveals that he niched into B2B Saas as he fell in love by design through undertaking sales for other people. The gap in the SaaS market inspired him to start a blog for the vendor-neutral community, where he sought experts to give their insight in his podcast. He takes pleasure in helping and serving the SaaS community by sharing the stories of those who have experienced the challenges of growing their recurring revenue business. What is the difference between a Network and a community? - Alexander explains that networks are born from a community. In his experience, his community came first through meetups with a small group of contributors to his blog. He was able to help the community build and grow. After that, he built a network by connecting with people from the community events and the audience of his podcast. Community building provided him with a product that he could offer to the community. Building a network is more self-rewarding because it enables you to grow a targeted contact list in the industry to grow your network.  What are the most effective ways of Building a good network, and why is it important? - our guest expert shares that a strong network enables you to reach relevant people for introduction, advice, and feedback. Founders that build or have a network have a competitive advantage over their competition. Those who never act towards building a network always remain a step behind in their growth. Some of the most effective network-building strategies include running a podcast, doing meetups, organizing events, and reaching out. When building a network, founders find themselves making mistakes. Our guest expert shares some common mistakes made. Alexander cautions against seeking too much too soon before building and maintaining relationships and delivering value. It is crucial to approach building a network as a long-term endeavor instead of a quick fix.  Key Timecodes (0:30) Introduction to today’s topic and guest expert (1:48) Why you need to listen to Alexander (03:56) What interests him most about B2B SaaS (07:48) Network versus community (10:40) Building a good network and its importance. (12:50) Common mistakes for founders building a network (15:20) Challenges and successes in building a community for SaaStock (22:26) Best practice process for growing a community (24:25) Role of affiliate marketing in building their networking (27:51) Advice to SaaS founders with growing networks (29:57) Advice to SaaS founders with 1 million ARR (32:40) Alexander’s contact information

How to bootstrap your B2B SaaS to a 200M acquisition? Our guest expert Patrick Campbell did it, and he will share his learnings and knowledge on this show. Why you need to listen to Patrick - Thanks to his company's analytics product, Profitwell Metrics, he has access to the payments data from around 3600 SaaS companies. This brings even a more unique context to his story as he has this rich data library at his disposal. How did you manage bootstrap acquisition for your business? The successful bootstrapping of his own B2B SaaS startup to a $200 million acquisition resulted from the willingness to optimize for the long term. They published lots of content from understanding the system they were working with, engaged with the target audience, and utilized the feedback accordingly. There were also effective cost-management strategies and intentional culture. Generally, they built a great product with high NPS. Would you ever charge for your free Metrics product - The Profitwell Metrics product does not lend itself to moving it to be paid because the nature of the market is not conducive. Thus, Patrick reckons it does not make business sense to start charging for it. He finds the alternative more appealing - instead of skimming a couple of millions at the minimum, they would instead work for a potential hundred billion dollars of lifetime revenue from the free Profitwell Metrics. Instead, the business can add other features to the paid-for effect. Challenges in converting a free trial to paid subscriptions - The hardest thing with bootstrapping with freemium was financial challenges. It would have helped Profitwell Metrics if they initially raised money for the free multi-product that required accuracy. Also, because of the first-timer effect, most of the actions were reactionary, given that it was his company.    What does the data say? - The most successful SaaS companies utilize metric-based pricing. In B2B SaaS, a successful pricing model considers what the target customer values. Tactical churn, which often contributes to 20%-40% of credit card failures, can be addressed through revamping optimization and getting your monthly customers to annual arrangements. Advice to B2B SaaS companies growing towards 10k monthly revenue  - focus on some measure of activation or engagement with your user before concentrating on making money. It helps to create a small number of customers pleased about using your product.  Biggest advice: Cuttle with the Chaos. Key Timecodes (0:32) Introduction of today's topic and guest (1:36) Why you need to listen to Patrick  (3:05) Types of premium   (6:32) Free trial to paid conversion rate  (8:36) Challenges in converting a free trial to paid subscriptions  (10:20) Would you ever charge for your free Metrics product  (12:47) How did you manage bootstrap acquisition for your business  (20:21) What SaaS companies need to do for growth  (25:05) Secrets of successful SaaS companies  (27:45) Role of customers when raising your prices  (32:00) How to decrease churn for your business  (35:55) Advice to companies with 10k monthly revenue (38:39) Patrick's contact information The show is hosted by Joran Hofman, founder of Reditus. Learn more about the podcast: https://www.getreditus.com/grow-your-b2b-saas-podcast/

How can you bring your B2B SaaS to the market? Learn it from someone who has been on all sides within the SaaS industry, currently CMO at Paddle and investor/coach at multiple SaaS startups. Launching a new product onto the market is obviously the next step after development. The go-to-market strategy is essential for introducing a good product or service to new clients and establishing a competitive edge. It includes specialized techniques for pricing products and services, sales and marketing channels, customer journeys, introducing new goods and services, and rebranding in a foreign market. Today's topic features Andrew Davies as we discuss the ideal marketing plan for your goods or services. Key Timecodes (0:40) Introduction to today's topic and guest expert (1:38) Why you need to listen to today's guest Andrew (3:17) What is a go-to-market strategy (3:52) What needs to be in place before going to market (5:52) Mistakes companies often make with go-to-market (7:23) Strategies and processes for B2B SaaS business for go-to-market strategy (10:12) The role of Accounts-based marketing (ABM) (12:45) Differences between bootstrap and funded companies in implementing go-to-market (15:25) Challenges in go-to-market strategies (19:52) Different channels in your go-to-market strategy (23:09) Current go-to-market at his company, Paddle (25:49) "Balloon in space" payment system in space (27:13) Affiliate marketing in go-to-market strategy (28:40) Advice to beginner companies with 10k revenue on go-to-market strategy (30:02) Advice to established companies with 1 million revenue (31:54) Andrew's contact information The show is hosted by Joran Hofman, founder of Reditus

How can you leverage Product-Led Growth to grow your B2B SaaS? In this episode, we talk with Antti Suikkanen, about how to get started with product-led growth to scale your SaaS. What is Product-led Growth? - Antti Suikkanen sees product-led growth as how the world works today: people today want to figure out the value they can attain from a product before deciding to buy it. Product-led growth model vs sales-led growth - Product-led growth follows a more precise framework: the product has to be excellent, and easy to use, and the user has to find the value faster. With sales-led growth, you have to paint the picture to the user about the features and value of the product.  When to start on product-led growth - Our guest argues that it is necessary first to determine if your product and service fit product-led growth. If it is too complex, your account values are very high or the number of potential clients is not big, then you need to weigh if product-led growth is the right strategy for you. Key Timecodes (0:55) Introduction to today's topic and guest expert (1:55) Why you need to listen to Antti Suikkanen (2:36) His definition of Product-led Growth (3:48) Product-led growth model vs. sales-led growth - (4:44) When would a company start on product-led growth (7:10) Minimum requirements to start on product-led growth (7:57) Metrics for measuring the success of product-led growth (11:05) Subdivision of roles in product-led growth strategy (17:25) Challenges companies to face with product-led growth strategy (12:20) Common mistakes companies often make in implementing the product-led growth strategy (15:03) Recommendations for where to start (19:56) How is his company implementing a product-led growth strategy (22:30) Advice to SaaS startups with 10k revenue (27:05) Advice to SaaS established businesses with $ 1 million annual revenue (29:45) Final thoughts for SaaS businesses (32:02) Antti Suikkanen’s contact information The show is hosted by ⁠Joran Hofman⁠, founder of ⁠Reditus⁠

Want to sell your B2B SaaS? Learn from Gavin Tye on how to create demand for your SaaS without selling. A marketer does not always have a full understanding of the problem existing in their business. Any B2B SaaS business founder should first understand the specific business processes they impact directly or indirectly and figure out how to quantify them. As such, you need to demonstrate to the target audience how much it costs them and highlight the existing inefficiencies of their business processes so they can move forward. A SaaS company has to know the business processes they are solving. Who in the business is most impacted by the processes that have the authority to buy from you? Have consistent effort to test your messaging and market. Key Time Stamps (0:54) Introduction of the topic and today's guest expert (1:42) Why you need to listen to Gavin (3:18) Debunking his 'Sales Market Fit' philosophy. (5:30) What SaaS companies need to do to create demand before they start to sell (8:30) How to quantify your direct and indirect impact on business processes (9:56) When should companies hire their first salesperson? (12:48) It is highly crucial to know your numbers. (15:24) Common mistakes most companies make in trying to sell B2B sales. (17: 42) You need to create a problem for your clients. (20:09) Challenges he faced in selling B2B SaaS solutions. (21:40) Future changes in sales. (25:40) Advice to B2B Saas starting to grow their revenue to US$10k. (27:35) Advice to B2B Saas realizing US$1million. (29:28) What is the stage at which a company needs a B2B SaaS advisor - The right time is when the company is ready to approach the market. (30:52) What is the typical account value of your client (31:50) His final thoughts (32:49) Gavin's contact information The show is hosted by ⁠Joran Hofman⁠, founder of ⁠Reditus⁠

Why should you care about affiliate marketing for your B2B SaaS? We talk with Evan Weber who has been in the industry for a very long term since the inception of affiliate marketing. He has been consulting for over 350 companies in the last 15 years, doing media buying and managing the ad campaign on the agency media platforms. He has plenty of references in B2B, thus one of the direct consumer and digital marketing advertising experts. In addition, he has traveled extensively, which allows him to know what would work. Our guest emphasizes that conversion rate should be a key focus area of the company. Continuously strive to increase your conversion rate by growing the number of people registering and becoming paying customers. An excellent conversion rate effectively improves digital advertising and makes money for their affiliates. Before launching an affiliate program, ensure you have an excellent conversion rate. It is only then that the affiliates can make meaningful returns. A takeaway quote from him is:, "You will not be able to scale without a conversion rate optimization being an active activity of the company months on end." What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing refers to a third-party referral to clicks that converts to leads or sales. These include bloggers, influencers, other companies, or donors that a company can turn into affiliates. Since affiliates are often not the company's customers, striving to convert your customers and free users into affiliates who, in turn, give you referrals is crucial. It is, therefore, important to push your Saas affiliate marketing program to people in a friendly way that offers them clear benefits such as free trials or payouts. Spend money to make money. It would be best if you made it highly lucrative for other people to recommend your company in exchange for paid clients or new leads through commission or kickback fee. Some SaaS affiliate companies can pay their affiliates for a given period (say a year), while others may opt for a more lucrative customer lifetime payment. What are the benefits of a B2B SaaS company having an affiliate marketing program? It is performance-based marketing that only pays affiliates for the traffic they drive to your website. To make business sense, the payment to the affiliates should be between 20% - 30% of your revenue. Also, the SaaS affiliate program is risk-free in the sense that you do not risk your advertising dollars in an expensive digital marketing campaign. The right time is when you have increased your conversion rate adequately and run other traffic sources to the website to try to get them to convert. He suggests 3-6 months before setting up a SaaS affiliate program. An affiliate program is not the company's savior but rather an important complement to other organizational efforts, such as successful conversion rate and outreach. What are the common mistakes that companies make in affiliate marketing? One of the main problems is launching an affiliate marketing program before the company is ready and expecting to work. It should not be the first go-to alternative before an enabling environment exists at the company. Secondly, it often boils down to how the company strives to bond with its affiliates or find other companies to have a reciprocal relationship with SaaS companies often benefit from reverse affiliate marketing on their dashboard, often non-competitors with a similar audience. You only need a few affiliate companies because 2 or 3 a month can be regarded as a success. This way, you can benefit from dashboard swaps, email swaps, the partnership offers, SaaS blogs, influencers, or video content creation with other B2B SaaS affiliate companies. This show is hosted by Joran Hofman, founder of Reditus.

Want to set up or grow your CS team? Learn how to gain more revenue from your current clients and keep them longer. Mike Dry, Senior director of customer success at Leadfeeder will share the importance of CS and best practices. Over the past 10 years, he has gathered immense experience working with customers, teams, startups, and established companies. To start things off, we get Mike's definition of customer success within B2B SaaS. He observes that customer success entails leveraging technology to provide customers with support and the know-how to generate success on the company's product and, in the long term, continue purchasing the product. From the customer's perspective, customer success is having someone on the other end of the firm to speak with to try and solve their problems. In other words, it is having somebody they can bounce ideas with on new ways a product can be used. What is the right time for a company to establish a customer success program? On this, he explains that people need to get value from your product right away. Establishing a customer success department is an immediate requirement. However, as Mike explains, it is most required when a company is having challenges answering every question that customers have while doing the firm's core operations. What are some effective strategies for getting ahead of the game with customer success? It is crucial to keep accurate data records and create reports on what customers are doing that are relevant to your business. If you have a B2B SaaS business, for instance, you have to work out the critical determinants for value for your customer and then turn that into a report. Your company's growth is directly related to the value derived from your product. Your customer success team will also find those efforts invaluable. What are the three most important metrics for customer success? It comes down to financial metrics (growth churn, nature, expansion rate) for founders and business executives. The growth churn metric measures how well your product is doing on its own on the market. These expansion metrics enable the firm to see how effectively your sales team sells your customer base. His thoughts on tracking end value as a metric for customer success are also invaluable. He advises the need to seek feedback from the customer on the value derived from the product. Happier customers stay longer and bring return business to your business. You can apply this principle to any SaaS company you can think of. Furthermore, Mike spends some time illuminating some of the strategies and processes for growing your customer success team. He reckons that you should have elaborate metrics for determining the right time to hire somebody. These include workload - increased workload requires more personnel. Also, when you are experiencing diminishing returns, it is about time you hired a professional customer success team to improve the trajectory. Documenting and creating processes help make things easier for management and people coming on board and provide guidelines for customer success. Appropriately, Mike addresses some of the common challenges and obstacles to return rates. He argues that the economies of scale of a company greatly impact customer success levels; thus, smaller companies experience more significant challenges to their return rates than larger companies. If a customer leaves you, thoroughly investigate why they left and what you need to do for the remaining customers to realize greater customer success. At the same time, he provides valuable advice to startup and income-generating companies regarding customer success. This show is hosted by ⁠Joran Hofman⁠, founder of ⁠Reditus⁠.