If you’re trying to build a SaaS, you’re wasting your time. You should be building a TEAM. A team of talented developers, marketers, customer success agents and salespeople… Then that team will build your SaaS. It’s a huge paradigm shift, but it’s damn important. Elon Musk didn’t hand-build Tesla cars himself, Richard Branson never piloted a Virgin aircraft, and Steve Jobs didn’t assemble the electrical components in the first Apple iPhone. No, these entrepreneurs were...

Paid ads… or publicity? Choose. For a bootstrapped startup with little-to-no cash in the bank trying to find their first thousand customers, this question should be a no-brainer. Publicity. PR doesn’t cost. There’s no PPC or ad spend behind good PR. Every dollar returned is profit and the only upfront cost is time. Yet a good PR campaign can explode in virality and skyrocket your traffic. Why? Because instead of paying to get your product featured on valuable...

I have an exclusive interview for you... No matter how far I looked, I haven’t been able to find ANY other interviews anywhere with my latest Escape Velocity guest, Justin Shimoon. He just… doesn’t do them. But for me, he generously opened up about the massive success of his company, AffinityClick. ...And how he grew them to be one of the biggest players in the enterprise VOIP market. Justin is the founder and CEO of AffinityClick and the creator of Hushed, one of the...

Freemium? Free trial with a credit card? Or premium only? If you’re asking these questions about your pricing model, then - according to Wes Bush - you’d already be on the wrong path. Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of ProductLed and the bestselling author of Product-Led Growth: How To Build a Product That Sells Itself. Product-led growth is a methodology that attracts the right customer, gives them a reason to use your tech, and then turns them into a raving fan of your...

Don’t let anyone tell you it’s too late to change your direction. Emily Walsh went from being a ballet dancer… to a lead investor at Georgian, a VC firm that has raised $1.2B across 4 funds and recently added another $850M in early 2020. Georgian focuses on investing in software and fin-tech. According to Emily, Georgian typically invests $20M - $40M at a time. Being a lead investor, Emily has to be right at the forefront of making the decisions of how to spend that money and...

“How many mermaid tails do you think are sold every year globally?” It wasn’t a question I expected to be asked by a SaaS founder. I guessed 50 million. But I was short… by 450 million. Liam Martin, one of my SaaS Academy coaching clients, asked me this question in the latest episode of Escape Velocity. Liam is the co-founder of both Time Doctor, time tracking software for remote workers, and Running Remote, the world’s largest remote work conference. I’ve been...

When I launched my company Clarity.fm in 2010, I gave a live demo to an audience showing how the service works. It was my Steve Jobs moment. From stage, I demonstrated how Clarity enabled me to call high-profile, successful entrepreneurs and get business advice from them over the phone instantly. For the live demo, I had to call someone notable… someone the audience couldn’t reach. I called Mike McDerment, the CEO of FreshBooks, a super successful accounting SaaS. Mike...

“Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not”. This is a quote from my latest Escape Velocity Podcast guest, Marvin Liao, formerly a partner at 500 Startups. 500 Startups is a venture capital fund that runs an accelerator in San Francisco and invests in seed rounds for tech startups. At the time of recording this interview, they backed a lot more than 500 tech companies as their name suggests... How many? 2300+ and counting. Investing in seed-stage startups is risky, too.  ...

Your website is polished. Facebook ads retargeting, Google ads pushing your domain to the top of the results page. Traffic trickles through… starting with a sign-up for a free trial. All your PPC ad spend is balancing on a knife’s edge. But here’s the question: Will the prospect convert from a free trial to a paid customer? If yes, you can wipe away the sweat and enjoy a profitable growth funnel.    If not, you’re pouring money into Zuckerberg’s pocket without anything to...

Back in 2012, when I raised $1.6M in funding for Clarity.fm, I insisted on squeezing more out of my investors.   When I put together the final cap table, I made it clear that I also wanted introductions with other investors and businesses on their portfolio.    They told me, “Dan, you’re asking a lot here…”   But I put my foot down.   I knew you couldn’t put a price on leveraging contacts and networking. Every minute I’ve spent growing my network has paid dividends tenfold.   Since...

If you want consistent, predictable revenue for your SaaS then there’s one thing you’re going to need to build: A killer sales team. Don’t roll your eyes yet… Let me set the record straight. In 2008, when I moved to silicon valley, sales teams were considered evil. Tech companies pursued the unicorn: A product that would “sell itself”. (Yes, I’m using sarcastic air quotes). The likes of Facebook and Instagram fed false hope that you could build a platform with non-existent revenue, burn...

Here’s a word that either makes you cringe… or sigh with relief: “Networking”. If you’ve had a bad experience of it, you’ll get that icky feeling of trying to schmooze through fake smiles for business. But if you’ve had a great experience, you’ll think of life-long friends sharing war stories about their businesses and helping each other out. Networking done right is invaluable. You might have heard me say it before: Investors don’t want to meet you… they want to be introduced to you.  ...

CEOs have it tough. It’s not enough to grow your company into healthy profit margins and then coast along “because it’s working”. I know it’s tempting to kick back and pour the martinis, but comfort is a dangerous position to be in. A great CEO knows this and doesn’t want to be comfortable.  They’ll stay on the bow on the ship, in the storm, telescope in hand, watching the changes in the waves and looking out for even the slightest hint of an iceberg in the distance. Today I want to...

In 2011, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, started giving $100k to young entrepreneurs under 22. …but only if they would drop out of college. $100k paid to 20 applicants per year without taking any equity at all.  There was nothing in it for him. So why did he do it?  Thiel believed talented young minds were choosing college instead of building valuable businesses, so he began paying entrepreneurs not to go. It was super controversial. Whether the idea...

Take everything you think you know about sales teams… And get ready to throw it out the window. I mean it. Sales, as a concept, is still dragging a lot of dead weight from old-school sales gurus chanting “ABC – Always Be Closing!” The SaaS business model is being polluted by these old ideas that just don’t work. For decades, we’ve needed a fresh new take on sales training strategies… And I finally found that in Jacco van der Kooij. Jacco is the founder and co-CEO...

When you first came up with a price for your SaaS product, I bet you did one of 3 things: 1. Picked a low number because “you’re just starting out” 2. Matched (or beat) a competitor’s price 3. Chose a number based on what you would spend How would you feel if I told you to take that price… and double it? Nervous, right? Pricing strategy is where many SaaS founders get nervous, panic and shoot themselves in the foot, yet it’s one of the most crucial numbers for scaling and growth. ...

How fast can you scale a software business? 0 – 150 employees in 12 months…? How would you even manage that?! For Elias Torres, the CTO and co-founder of Drift, and my latest guest on the Escape Velocity podcast… it was easy. Elias is the stuff of legends. He’s a machine. He’s been either the founder, CTO or VP of engineering at: Hubspot  Performable Lookery And now Drift. He’s very technical, a coder at heart, but he’s mastered how to scale development teams SUPER...

How do you sell your SaaS? I mean… how does that process actually look, end to end, from meeting a buyer to pocketing a 7+ figure paycheck? Buying and selling a business isn’t like walking into a store, picking an item off the shelf and approaching the counter. There are valuations, due diligence, escrow accounts, handover processes, and more… before the massive paychecks can get cashed. It’s quite a process. I’ve sold 3 of my own companies, I’m an investor in 40+ other...

Being a venture funded SaaS founder is like walking into a casino to bet all of your employees’ salaries… every single day. Your decision to make one choice over another – bet on red or black – can cost your company millions. A few wrong bets can dry up your finances and run your company into the ground. But a few consecutive right bets can leave your competition for dead and give you the lion’s share of the market. I’m not a gambling man. I never bet on chance. I bet on proven...

Years ago the so-called “secret” to B2B company growth was getting leads.  If you got enough email addresses or phone numbers that you could give to your sales team, you were going to make BANK. Not any more. Everyone is on LinkedIn, social media accounts are 1-click away, and business emails get scraped and sold daily. It sucks… but it’s true. The question isn’t how to get leads, it’s “How do I make them stop and listen?” My latest guest on the Escape Velocity Podcast has built...

If I could take all of the BS about “success” and cram it into the single most actionable statement ever, it would be this: The key to success is consistency. I don’t care how cheesy it is… It’s the truth. Print it on a T-shirt. Crochet it on a wall hanging. Hashtag it on Instagram. Just don’t forget it. If you want to be successful at anything BE CONSISTENT. No-one encapsulates consistency more than my latest guest on Escape Velocity, Steli Efti. Steli is the co-creator...