SaaS Backwards - Reverse Engineering SaaS Success

In this episode we explore the product-led growth go-to-market motion with Breezy Beaumont, head of growth and marketing at Correlated. It's a SaaS that helps product-led growth companies to find expansion, upsell, cross-sell, and other revenue opportunities based on how people are using their product.If like us, you're trying to distance your marketing from the "fake" MQL, you might consider a product-led growth go-to-market strategy. It's no small change if your product cannot or does not already support free users and provide you with instrumentation and in-app promos to sell users an upgrade. But the benefits are huge. We all know and use one or more PLG applications daily (Slack, LinkedIn, DropBox, Calendly). But can we make it work where we work? If the product was made to support PLG, or can be made to do so, now what?Among the really interesting subjects we explore are:How the pipeline is different for PLG. It's a continuous cycle not linear. And this has benefits beyond the upsell in terms of staying close to your customer.How your organization is different with PLG.  Sales, marketing and customer success are now much more integrated and collaborating throughout the customer life cycle.How sales can now be customer and product advocates vs driving people through what she calls a "manufactured" pipeline (love this, btw).And how the old model for predictable revenue has to give way to a more statistical and usage-based view of where and when revenues will be achieved.It's a refreshing take on what we all do for a living. Take a listen and let me know what you think!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Brian Trautschold is not your usual YCombinator alum, though he does credit his success in part to what he learned from the experience and the people he's met.Talking about their recent funding round of $15.5 million, he and his cofounders built the company to be capital efficient, and this has enabled business model and outcome flexibility; they don't have to be the next unicorn to achieve their own ambitions for the company. And the risk of failing to achieve unicorn status and being absorbed at a low valuation by a competitor, which "sucks for everybody," is reduced.We dive deep on business model, too, in particular about how integrations can help drive the business. Brian's take here is refreshing, too. He talks about customer needs set the prioritization of integrations rather than taking a look at the ecosystem and deciding to build integrations based on market penetration of the players. It's a really organic way to approach it, and the way he puts it is interesting, too.This CEO conversation is notable for how open Brian is with his decision-making, especially with the hire of a marketing leader to help move the firm from founders doing too much to professionalizing the organization and enabling scale-up. There's a lot to take away in this conversation, so I encourage a listen! And as always, there's a transcript on our blog if you'd prefer to read it.Let me know what you think!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

There are few marketing leaders with the perspective, experience and insights of Jay Gaines. He's also one of the more generous people I've met; he truly enjoys sharing his expertise to help other marketers. In this episode, Jay talks about:Covid and the resulting content tsunami - good content just isn't good enough anymoreThe value of context and empathy in marketing (you read that right)How to use a quarterly "lightning strike" to cut through the noise and drive revenueMaking the case for creative - it's not all about the numbers (but you need to manage your KPIs)How to use direct mail in today's world (yes, USPS direct mail)When and how SaaS founders need to invest in product marketingTalking the language of CFOs, a skillset that's as valuable as it is under-appreciatedAnd moreIt would be hard to imagine anyone not learning something they can use from this episode. Enjoy... and please let me know what you think! Thanks!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.  ---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Finding the right marketing leadership position is difficult (to say the least). You must have alignment with the CEO and executive team from the get-go. And it’s even better when you can follow them from one opportunity to the next.  Now in her third opportunity with the same CEO, Helen Baptist from PathFactory discusses not only how to find the right leadership role, but also how to manage that change from within that so often required in a turnaround situation.Whether you’re in the process of finding a new marketing leadership opportunity or putting out fires in your current one, Helen offers the following gems in this episode:•Positioning yourself correctly for the opportunity•What to do first in a turnaround situation•Rooting out toxicity• Buyer centricity to break down sales and marketing silosLet me know what you think! Thanks!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community. ---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

It's a pattern we're seeing out there, and some agency friends experience in their careers when they make the mistake of putting themselves in this situation. CEOs at young companies hire a marketing leader, usually a woman with substantial experience, and expect her to singled-handedly transform the fate of the organization. And being the "one woman army" is a really difficult position from which to generate success.In a meaningful discussion of recent experiences she's had as a marketing leader, Jenn Edwards takes us through the highs and lows of being the sole marketing pro at a young company, questions to ask and her point of view on whether or not it's a good idea to even take such a position.If you're thinking about a new CMO / head of marketing job and you think you'll be a OWA or OMA, this is probably a great episode to listen to.Let me know what you think! Thanks!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community. ---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Success at Account Based Marketing is not (necessarily) about the tech stack, maybe not even at all about it. According to Kristina Jaramillo, president at Personal ABM, it's doing the fundamentals correctly from both a sales and marketing perspective.Kristina makes a strong case for doing the strategy ahead of the implementation (I know, I know) and then dives deep on how she helps clients to make significant progress in strategic accounts with a highly personalized approach.If you think ABM is right for your organization, or you are struggling to show ROI from the ABM program in place at your firm, this is the episode for you.Let me know what you think!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community. ---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Craig Fuller and his early-stage firm FreightWaves are living proof that media as a business is not dead. In fact, he's created a powerful new media company and with it a SaaS-like data subscription business to monetize the information coming out of the shipping industry.Moving physical goods is an enormous business that most Americans haven't thought much about until recent headlines about logistics issues breaking supply chains. But Craig's company has been helping shippers and investors to take advantage of its unique aggregation of data to increase timeliness and reduce costs, and also to trade effectively on the data.Craig likens his strategy to that of Bloomberg, LP, but in reverse. His media company is driving the revenues that fuel is data business.Like me, you might be skeptical that anyone else can follow in Michael Bloomberg's footsteps... that he was singular phenomenon. But after listening to this episode, I think you'll want to dig deeper into this company, founder and business model.We've long promoted the idea that owned media is important to help SaaS firms control the narrative and bring their stories to prospects and customers. FreightWaves does this as well as anything we've seen...since Bloomberg itself.Let me know what you think!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Every once in a while you have a conversation that truly changes how you think about the world. This episode was that kind of experience for me. Latane Conant is a thoughtful and thought-provoking proponent of a new way to think about marketing for B2B marketing leaders.In one of the densest 30 minutes you'll invest in your marketing career, Latane covers these topics and more:Calling for CMO title to mean Chief Market Officer, in recognition of the larger role CMOs should play vs the questionable KPIs they are often forced to report onAbandoning the MQL in favor of a more holistic view of how organizations buy and qualifying them vs individualsTargeting people and companies that fit your ideal customer profile AND who are in-market now, relying upon intent data to help reach your "dark funnel" CMOs must be maniacally focused on predictable pipeline, sales velocity formula and net retention, the foundations of the SaaS business modelThis episode and #16 with Casey Carey are really must-listens for CMOs that see the writing on the wall but don't have the blueprint for how they are going to move their SaaS companies forward. You've realized that stuff you've been doing is declining in effectiveness, but what next?Let's discuss after you've had a listen! Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Casey Carey is CMO at HR tech platform Kazoo, an all-in-one solution for SMBs. In a wide-ranging discussion Casey illuminates how he approaches the role of marketing leadership, how he's taken the focus off lead generation (he's in the camp that believes that lead gen is dead or nearly so) and how he aligns with sales to drive revenue for his company.Many CMOs face the "lead generation imperative." Casey posits that lead generation is the outcome of great marketing strategy - that is - by positioning and messaging well, understanding the customer in a deep, nuanced and meaningful way, and letting them do their own research to decide if your solution is right for them, you can more than meet your objectives. And he has the numbers to back it up.For CMOs wondering how they are going to thrive over the next two years (especially new CMOs seeking to re-establish credibility for marketing in their organizations), this is a mini-masterclass in elevating the role of marketing and driving revenue for SaaS.Take a listen and let me know what you think!Resources for SaaS ExecsRecently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:Think your website could generate more leads?Get our inbound lead generation self-assessmentWant to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Refersion was founded in 2014. Prior to that, CEO Alex Markov was in digital marketing and dabbled in programming since he was a kid. Alex credits his career experience in affiliate / influencer marketing to help him to reimagine affiliate marketing and innovate on the model.Important innovations included simplifying the onboarding process for merchants, and also tapping into emerging managed e-commerce platforms like Shopify. Importantly though he came to it from a developer's POV, he based his innovations on intimate knowledge of the pain points and gaps in solutions that e-commerce entrepreneurs were experiencingRefersion was an intentional bootstrap. It allowed them to rule their own destiny and manage to KPIs that were more organic to the business than what might have been mandated by VCs.  Alex was moonlighting until the business was able to support his basic needs. He called it a grind-it-out business model that enabled him to work on his passion with very little risk. He learned a lot about the real world of business as a result of having to make traction with an MVP product.Alex tested the need for the product before having it by setting up a landing page that explained the main features he planned to build. The first couple hundred responses  encouraged him to build the product. Alex is the second SaaS Backwards guest to mention using groups on social media to generate feedback and initial interest in his product (also true of Lemlist)."You either build your product or you raise money - very hard as a sole founder to do a good job at both," asserts Alex. As a bootstrap startup you have also to be willing to take a longer view. Hiring decisions are harder when you're keeping your eye on the bank balance. He made the first hiring decisions based on where he was spending too much of his own time, adding staff to offload work from his plate. And one of the key initial hires was in customer success, which remains a major focus for Refersion.An early decision that helped him grow was to build a partner ecosystem - SaaS firms like Shopify but also agencies that craft the e-commerce experience. They spend a lot of time on teaching agencies about the offering and that adds to sales momentum. These investments in partnerships and a platform model have been the main drivers of Refersion's growth. It's an interesting contrast with the venture-fueled model of SDRs, AEs and a lot of outbound pressure to try and generate sales. Alex recently sold the business to Assembly, an e-commerce company owned by Providence Strategic Growth, a decision he says was made at the right time. "All companies need to grow up," said Markov. "Now we have the best of both worlds, we can run the business as we always did but now it's like we're on steroids." He credits Assembly with accelerating investments in the business and bringing new capabilities via Assembly's extended family of companies.It's a great interview and I can't thank Alex enough for sharing his founding and growth story.Resources for SaaS Execs---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch. 🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations. And the best part? 💡 It’s completely free. No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos. Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.