SaaS Backwards - Reverse Engineering SaaS Success

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.

Here's another episode that is just incredibly valuable for CEOs and CMOs at early stage SaaS firms. Whether you're a services firm moving to SaaS, bootstrapping, or pre-launch, there's a wealth of insight shared by Amit Bivas, VP of Global Marketing at Optimove.Optimove is a marketing SaaS that helps companies to communicate right message to right segment at the right time... consistent with the micro-audiences we hear leading edge CMOs talk about -- targeting smaller and smaller cohorts to act on their motivations and intent.Bivas explains how Optimove helps large enterprises to use data as a differentiator. In particular he talks about how it helps commoditized products and brands to create a better customer experience to create repeat purchase. And to customize that experience at scale and as their preferences change.Optimove was originally a services firm taking data from retailers and wholesalers to understand how customers migrated from "state to state" or segment to segment. Early on, the founders knew they wanted to become a software company that could scale. All revenues from its services business were invested to build the software so they could have a platform to scale. Since it was started as a moonlighting project, they were able to funnel a lot of revenues back to product development.Among the highlights from this episode:When you start as a service provider you gain a lot of experience and understanding before you build the product. And those customers who you are selling services to can become your first customers for the software. And since you know their issues so intimately, you can build the roadmap based on real-world customer experience. You do need to be prepared, however, for the reality that not every services customer is going to want your software, and you put at risk the services relationship when you transition to a software company - people still want their hands held. You need to make sure that your critical mass is centered around the product not the service for a variety of reasons - ability to scale and when you do take investment, services are not as highly valued as SaaS revenues. Moving consultants into customer success and solutions engineering roles also helps support the transition from services to SaaS.A great interview and insights for those considering a startup or transitioning from an established services company to a Software-as-a-Service company.Let us 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?---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.

Terry Sydoryk is the CEO of Chaordix, a SaaS that helps brands to build communities with their end users.  This sounds quotidian at a surface level, but it's remarkably impactful.Effective growth and nurturing of a community can drive product innovation, enable feedback for consumer / CPG brands where it's hard to generate contact with end users and makes it possible to be closer to employees as well. B2B brands also can generate tremendous value from communities of users.This episode is  a great thought starter for product and brand managers who are looking for ideas on how to engage more deeply with end users. I also made a call for social media strategists to take a deeper look at communities as an extension of their SoMe plans.Our conversation is also interesting in that this firm was originally a "consultant with kit" before Terry joined. In order to scale up, they realized that the crowdsourcing opportunity had a wider applicability than they could implement as a service and achieve growth ambition. And so, a SaaS was born. This idea of a services firm leveraging a homegrown technology to transform to a SaaS model isn't new, but it remains a difficult transition to make. Terry  offers valuable insights on how he helped make it happen.You're really getting two episodes in one here! Love to hear your feedback on this one.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.

This episode features an enlightening conversation with business transformation change agent Michael Richardson , founder and managing director of Tech Azur, a consultancy providing support for digital business transformation initiatives, scale-up operations and c-suite advisory. His advice? You don't have to learn everything the hard way. What does that mean? Operationalizing the organization to be able to scale is often a blind spot for CEOs. "What got you funded won't get you scale," according to Richardson. As a founder, CEO or CTO, you should be proud of what you've built, early customer success and impressing investors. The skills to operationalize are not necessarily the same as what got you to your first big VC round. You have to grow the organization across many areas of expertise.For founders, why would you seek an outside expert? The CEO when he/she presents wants to seem like a superhero, but the investors know there's no such thing as perfection and no exec can know anything. In fact, they look for continuous improvement and realism in how you plan to scale. Act in a foreground role or in a coaching mode. Don't mask the issues but deal with them.The virtual c-suite exec can help you deliver on the pitch you made - and post-funding you're just 90 days from your first meeting with your new bosses. Take the weekend off post-close but now the hard work really begins. With a virtual c-suite augmentation you can keep the core team focused on the really hard work that is right here, right now - and amplify what the core team can do.Examples - young SaaS firms dealing with large companies can be a mismatch in terms of process and procedure, and if it's your first big money raise, you might not know what is expected from your investors and get off to a bumpy start. Outsourcing a senior operating role can help you grow these skills in your SaaS.Michael and I drill-down deep into what it takes to build a scaleable SaaS and there's a lot here for scale-up CEOs, CTOs and CMOs to learn from this deeply skilled and experienced exec.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.

Guillaume Moubeche is a fascinating SaaS founder. He recently gained fame for a PR stunt in which he publicly mounted a VC fundraising campaign only to turn down $30 million. But he is so much more than that. He's a real deal entrepreneur who cracked the code on bootstrapping his startup and he did so through a modern approach and old-fashioned focus on the customer."G," as he likes to be called, covers a lot of ground in this "things you can do, too," episode that should be of high value to any SaaS founder in the early days, VC-fueled or not. In particular, G talks about how:Bootstrapping can lead to hyper-growth, and high profitability. The PR strategy around the public fundraising and rejection was to shine a spotlight on the viability of bootstrapped SaaS and his company in particular.Creating a business was a way for him to create freedoms he experienced in a gap year between his chemical engineering degree and marketing studies. First business with his dad failed for lack of customers. Went in business with a friend to help others drive sales and then decided to start his own business helping others to drive sales.He identified opportunity - saw that sales campaign tools available weren't doing the job. Met a couple of tech geniuses in an incubator, built some things for others and decided to form a company among them.Built an MVP in a few weeks, took market and initial user feedback and kept innovating. Relentless iteration got them to a product and company that people really want to use.Selling on value vs features. Lemlist's unique value proposition started with dynamic images within emails. Used his own tool to acquire customers. By running his own campaigns on Lemlist he could show how it worked.This episode is a deep dive on how G growth hacked via organic, hand-to-hand marketing, sales and customer success.He also talks about how focus is key - doing one thing as a big differentiator. Mass customization of email was the point of difference for Lemlist. Participating in FB groups (like startup founders) to generate audience and fans. And eating your own dog food to show the value of the solution.G also talks passionately about how from the early days until today he remains most focused on his users, spending hours a day in touch with them to ensure his success.Give the episode 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 ---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.