How to position your SaaS after reaching first million in ARR

Claire Suellentrop, Co-Founder & COO of ForgetTheFunnel talks about how SaaS companies should look inwards & understand their best customers to effectively grow after reaching 1-2 $MN in ARR.

  • How they worked with SaaS companies like SparkToro, MeetEdgar etc., helping them reposition & unlock their growth after a point
  • How they ended up increasing the conversion rate of MeetEdgar by 40% by focusing on their stickiest cohort
  • How to position when you’ve got a product that is used by varying customer segments ( ACV )
  • Why looking inwards, understanding the stickiest cohort & positioning based on this is the best way for SaaS companies to unlock massive predictable growth
  • Team, services they provide & how they work with SaaS companies

You can also watch the video on youtube here.

Transcript
Claire Sullentrop:

Hey, here's what your customers said they loved right?

Claire Sullentrop:

Now, here's what your marketing is currently doing, and here's what

Claire Sullentrop:

your messaging currently says.

Claire Sullentrop:

Here's all the gaps where we have opportunity to tighten up that

Claire Sullentrop:

messaging and go reach those customers in channels where they actually hang

Claire Sullentrop:

out, not just where you're kind of.

Claire Sullentrop:

Throwing ideas around because you heard that was a good idea.

Upendra Varma:

Hello everyone.

Upendra Varma:

Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast.

Upendra Varma:

I'm your host of pramine.

Upendra Varma:

Today we have Claire Sue Andro with us.

Upendra Varma:

Claire here runs a company called . Forget the Funnel.

Upendra Varma:

Hey, Claire, welcome to the show.

Upendra Varma:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Upendra Varma:

All right, Claire, so let's talk about what forget the funnel does and

Upendra Varma:

you know how you sort of help your

Claire Sullentrop:

customers.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah, so forget the funnel is a boutique, uh, consulting firm.

Claire Sullentrop:

We work primarily, uh, nearly exclusively with SaaS companies.

Claire Sullentrop:

My co-founder, George, a Lotti, and myself, have long

Claire Sullentrop:

backgrounds in SaaS marketing.

Claire Sullentrop:

So I was, uh, originally the number two hire and the director

Claire Sullentrop:

of marketing at Calendly.

Claire Sullentrop:

That's how I got my start in SAS specifically.

Claire Sullentrop:

And Gia got her start in SAS as the, uh, original director of marketing and

Claire Sullentrop:

eventually VP of marketing at Unbound.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so we use our years of experience in that field and the, the growth framework

Claire Sullentrop:

that we've developed together, uh, which we've named the customer led growth

Claire Sullentrop:

Framework to help SAS companies rapidly figure out who within their customer

Claire Sullentrop:

base are their very best customer.

Claire Sullentrop:

Why do those best, most engaged stickiest customers choose their product

Claire Sullentrop:

versus anything else on the market?

Claire Sullentrop:

. And then based on that insight, we help them improve their positioning,

Claire Sullentrop:

how they differentiate themselves, the marketing channels they use to

Claire Sullentrop:

attract more of those sticky, highly engaged, you know, high L T V customers.

Upendra Varma:

All right, we'll, we'll deep dive into all of those things.

Upendra Varma:

I mean, it's a pretty interesting problem that you're sort of trying to solve and.

Upendra Varma:

. I know it's not, not gonna be easy, right?

Upendra Varma:

So we'll deep dive into that a bit.

Upendra Varma:

But I wanna get a sense of, you know, how many sort of, uh, SaaS customers you're

Upendra Varma:

sort of helping as of today and how, how you are sort of earning revenue from them.

Upendra Varma:

So just give us a sense of that as well.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, in terms of how many, I mean at this point we've worked with

Claire Sullentrop:

dozens, uh, a couple hundred by now.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, I would've to go look through our client's folder, but, uh, we've

Claire Sullentrop:

worked with some really, really awesome brands, uh, as well as you.

Claire Sullentrop:

Smaller startups that are just now making their name, um, some of the bigger brands

Claire Sullentrop:

that, that may have more recognition.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, full story, um, spark Toro, uh, the, the, the SAS that former MAs, c

Claire Sullentrop:

e o, ran Fishkin co-founded, uh, meet Edgar Social Media scheduling tool.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, those are a couple of names that, uh, seem to be well known in

Claire Sullentrop:

the SASS and SASS marketing space.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, but we've also worked with, you know, as, as I said, companies that are

Claire Sullentrop:

a little more under the radar, um, as.

Upendra Varma:

Right.

Upendra Varma:

So, so when, why do you say I've worked with, right.

Upendra Varma:

So when, at what point do you actually leave them and how

Upendra Varma:

does the whole arrangement work?

Claire Sullentrop:

Oh.

Claire Sullentrop:

Like how does the whole process work?

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

Okay.

Upendra Varma:

Um, so basically, so just help me understand at what

Upendra Varma:

stage do you jump in, right?

Upendra Varma:

So, and sort of, I think you can just pick one of your, uh, customers

Upendra Varma:

who's, who's been very successful.

Upendra Varma:

Just walk us through the entire process of how you actually sort of helped

Upendra Varma:

them and at what stage did you jump in?

Upendra Varma:

What did you do exactly?

Upendra Varma:

How did you turn out and when did you sort of leave them,

Upendra Varma:

if I can call it that Right.

Upendra Varma:

, just walk, walk me through one such example.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah,

Claire Sullentrop:

absolutely.

Claire Sullentrop:

So a lot of times we get called in when.

Claire Sullentrop:

The company has reached a point at which they've maybe been like kind of tackling

Claire Sullentrop:

marketing in a very piecemeal way, and they don't really feel like they've gotten

Claire Sullentrop:

like their hands around like a good, repeatable, scalable marketing system.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, some of the pain points that we hear when companies reach out to us is, , you

Claire Sullentrop:

know, we've tried, uh, paid and it's not scaling or, you know, we, um, we don't

Claire Sullentrop:

really know which channels are working and which are a waste of our time.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, sometimes companies realize that their channels aren't working, working

Claire Sullentrop:

because their positioning is kind of off, like their product has evolved and their

Claire Sullentrop:

positioning hasn't evolved with, with it.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, another common scenario is, hey, we just raised a big round of funding.

Claire Sullentrop:

We have a lot of growth goals ahead of.

Claire Sullentrop:

and we know that like the, the kind of like entry level marketing we've

Claire Sullentrop:

been doing is no longer going to work.

Claire Sullentrop:

So those are some of the, like, those are some of the inflection

Claire Sullentrop:

points at which teams bring us in.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, oftentimes they're at least one or more million in revenue, uh,

Claire Sullentrop:

and they've got Happy Pay customers already, um, in their product, right?

Claire Sullentrop:

So they've got product market fit, they've got happy people in there,

Claire Sullentrop:

and now they're like, okay, how do we really unlock why these people.

Claire Sullentrop:

Fired an old solution and hired us so that we can go find more of them.

Claire Sullentrop:

So what we do when we come in is we sit down with the leadership

Claire Sullentrop:

team and we, we say, okay, tell us about your best customers.

Claire Sullentrop:

So when I say best, I'm referring to those that, um, are

Claire Sullentrop:

super happy with the product.

Claire Sullentrop:

They get it right.

Claire Sullentrop:

They're not a big burden on support.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, like they're, they're relatively low touch, uh, and,

Claire Sullentrop:

and happy with the core product.

Claire Sullentrop:

They're not asking for customizations all the time.

Claire Sullentrop:

, um, they are clearly engaged.

Claire Sullentrop:

Like they're not, it's not as if they purchased and then no one ever

Claire Sullentrop:

implemented, but they're actually using it on a regular basis.

Claire Sullentrop:

Who are those folks within your larger customer base?

Claire Sullentrop:

And this part is really important of those folks.

Claire Sullentrop:

How many became customers?

Claire Sullentrop:

Recently, um, and recently really depends on the market.

Claire Sullentrop:

So for self-serve products, that might be a couple of months ago, they were

Claire Sullentrop:

acquired for a more enterprise product.

Claire Sullentrop:

Product.

Claire Sullentrop:

It might be within the year.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, but what's important about learning from recent customers is one,

Claire Sullentrop:

they have the most experience with the current version of the product.

Claire Sullentrop:

And two, they remember what life was like before and what was so

Claire Sullentrop:

painful that they looked for a new, so, So we identify those folks.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, and then we actually either through surveys, sometimes interviews, we unpack

Claire Sullentrop:

not just their, their buying experience, but their their struggling moment, right?

Claire Sullentrop:

Like we asked that customer to take us back to life before they were

Claire Sullentrop:

ever even familiar with this product.

Claire Sullentrop:

What were they doing?

Claire Sullentrop:

Were they using nothing?

Claire Sullentrop:

Were they using competitor?

Claire Sullentrop:

And then in their own words, Not in like a closed multiple choice

Claire Sullentrop:

survey, but their own words.

Claire Sullentrop:

What happened that made them say, okay, I need something else.

Claire Sullentrop:

Right.

Claire Sullentrop:

And we kind of unpack those pain points and, and what they need in a

Claire Sullentrop:

new product and what's really valuable.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, my favorite part, honestly, is we ask them, , like what was so

Claire Sullentrop:

compelling about this product that they chose it over anything else?

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, lots of times we get phrases like, oh, it was easy to use, or

Claire Sullentrop:

great customer service, or, um, it was, you know, super fast setup.

Claire Sullentrop:

And we take those, those high level values and we actually map them

Claire Sullentrop:

to, okay, what are the attributes?

Claire Sullentrop:

What are the features in this product that create that value?

Claire Sullentrop:

So then we can get way sharper in the company's positioning and their product

Claire Sullentrop:

marketing about why they're different, why they're better than their competi.

Claire Sullentrop:

and then we, with those insights, we meet with the team and we say, Hey, here's

Claire Sullentrop:

what your customers said they loved right?

Claire Sullentrop:

Now, here's what your marketing is currently doing, and here's what

Claire Sullentrop:

your messaging currently says.

Claire Sullentrop:

Here's all the gaps where we have opportunity to tighten up that

Claire Sullentrop:

messaging and go reach those customers in channels where they actually hang

Claire Sullentrop:

out, not just where you're kind of.

Claire Sullentrop:

Throwing ideas around because you heard that was a good idea.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so that's the, that's the gist.

Claire Sullentrop:

Our, um, like services.

Upendra Varma:

So just, just a follow up question on that.

Upendra Varma:

I get so, so, uh, let's just say you figured out a real

Upendra Varma:

positioning for them, right?

Upendra Varma:

So, so what exactly do you say, right?

Upendra Varma:

Are you gonna say, okay, these are the three growth channels that are gonna

Upendra Varma:

work for you, just go and invest in it.

Upendra Varma:

Mm-hmm.

Upendra Varma:

is, is that what you're gonna come up with?

Upendra Varma:

Is, is that exact pathway that you're trying to sort of help them with?

Upendra Varma:

Such

Claire Sullentrop:

a good question.

Claire Sullentrop:

, can I give a few examples?

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah, sure.

Upendra Varma:

I would love an example that in fact, asked.

Upendra Varma:

Asked an example in the beginning.

Upendra Varma:

Okay.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Great.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so I'll choose two different ones where the outcome meant

Claire Sullentrop:

very, very different activities that the team pursued.

Claire Sullentrop:

Mm-hmm.

Claire Sullentrop:

. So one, uh, it was Meet Edgar, the social media scheduling tool.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, we learned that within their best customer, Or or group of best customers.

Claire Sullentrop:

There were people who basically sought out the product for two reasons.

Upendra Varma:

Can you just, uh, help me explain at which point this

Upendra Varma:

is, where was Meeted go at, uh, in

Claire Sullentrop:

terms of revenue?

Claire Sullentrop:

Oh, absolutely.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yes.

Claire Sullentrop:

So when they reached out to us, they were already several million in a r r.

Claire Sullentrop:

Okay.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, they had a very happy customer base, but.

Claire Sullentrop:

. Um, even though they've, they were a, they were a rarity in that

Claire Sullentrop:

they had lots of great marketing.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Really good content.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, a s a sophisticated ad strategy, like they were doing great.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

But their revenue was still flatlining, like they were driving

Claire Sullentrop:

in new signups, but their, their trial, the paid rate wasn't great.

Claire Sullentrop:

And so new customers in turn were just kind of canceling each other out.

Claire Sullentrop:

Hmm.

Claire Sullentrop:

And so what we learned from talking with their most engaged customers,

Claire Sullentrop:

Customers showed up to meet Edgar to solve one of two problems.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, one, they were kind of more like, uh, early stage businesses that hadn't really

Claire Sullentrop:

invested in social media, and they wanted to see if it would work as a channel for

Claire Sullentrop:

building an audience and selling more.

Claire Sullentrop:

So they were kind of getting their hands around social media for the first time.

Claire Sullentrop:

And the other problem that a lot of people came to solve was more mature

Claire Sullentrop:

businesses that had already seen a lot of.

Claire Sullentrop:

In marketing on social media, and they were like, cool, this works.

Claire Sullentrop:

We need to scale.

Claire Sullentrop:

We can't do this manually anymore.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, and what the team realized was, okay, that second group is way stickier, right?

Claire Sullentrop:

Mm-hmm.

Claire Sullentrop:

, they're, they've already seen the value of, of this channel

Claire Sullentrop:

that we help them manage.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, they're willing to pay more for tools to increase their presence on

Claire Sullentrop:

this channel versus those who are just kinda learning about social media.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, you know, they may go out of business.

Claire Sullentrop:

It might not be a good channel for.

Claire Sullentrop:

and then we looked at their messaging and we were like, uhoh, y'all are trying

Claire Sullentrop:

to target both of these groups and you're not really speaking to anybody.

Claire Sullentrop:

Like, it's too vague.

Claire Sullentrop:

And so across their website, um, they, they ended because they had such strong

Claire Sullentrop:

marketing programs in place already, they didn't really do any additional

Claire Sullentrop:

marketing beyond what they were already paying for and investing in, but they did.

Claire Sullentrop:

The homepage, the features page, and the pricing page on their website to better

Claire Sullentrop:

speak to those more advanced businesses.

Claire Sullentrop:

And as a result of that, they ended up, oh, let me see if I

Claire Sullentrop:

can find the conversion rates.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, da da da da.

Claire Sullentrop:

What's our media conversion rate?

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, shoot.

Claire Sullentrop:

Where is it?

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, there's like a, this should be very like climactic and I,

Claire Sullentrop:

I can't find my case study.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, they saw a.

Claire Sullentrop:

, I wanna say 40% increase in the number of people visiting their website to sign up.

Claire Sullentrop:

Okay.

Upendra Varma:

Okay.

Upendra Varma:

Where's my, so I, that, that, that's, that's still a good number, right?

Upendra Varma:

I think I can work with that.

Upendra Varma:

So my question is, so you're saying the entire top of funnel lead

Upendra Varma:

generation, they already had, you know, channels that were bringing in,

Upendra Varma:

you know, new leads to the customers.

Upendra Varma:

All you help them is help them with this to sort of, you know, revamp that

Upendra Varma:

whole website, whole positioning so that the conversion just could go up, right?

Upendra Varma:

So yes.

Upendra Varma:

Is it that simple?

Upendra Varma:

I mean, my question is, I mean,

Claire Sullentrop:

In some cases, yes.

Claire Sullentrop:

And to your point, uh, in some, no.

Claire Sullentrop:

So what worked really well for Meet Edgar was their new positioning and messaging

Claire Sullentrop:

was attracting better fit customers.

Claire Sullentrop:

So not only did their conversion rate on the website increase their

Claire Sullentrop:

trial to paid conversion rate also increased cuz they were, they were

Claire Sullentrop:

bringing in more tech savvy users.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, in other cases though, uh, we worked with, um, an HR tech

Claire Sullentrop:

company earlier this year and.

Claire Sullentrop:

we updated, yes, the positioning on their website, but also we, we worked

Claire Sullentrop:

with them to understand, you know, where are your ideal customers actually going

Claire Sullentrop:

when they look for a problem like this.

Claire Sullentrop:

Mm-hmm.

Claire Sullentrop:

. And prior to that point, um, they'd been doing a lot of blog content.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, they had a social media presence, but they, they hadn't really invested in.

Claire Sullentrop:

What they learned through our research were the channels where HR professionals

Claire Sullentrop:

were really hanging out, and so in their.

Claire Sullentrop:

What this work did was enable them to, um, we actually used Spark Toro.

Claire Sullentrop:

Mm-hmm.

Claire Sullentrop:

, um, this audience research tool, and we helped them find private communities

Claire Sullentrop:

where HR professionals were hanging out.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, we helped them find podcasts where, HR professionals were

Claire Sullentrop:

going to to improve, like from a professional development perspective.

Claire Sullentrop:

And so they saw a big uptick because they had learned what channels they

Claire Sullentrop:

were just kind of defaulting to, and how those weren't actually the channels

Claire Sullentrop:

where they needed to be getting in front of their best customers.

Upendra Varma:

All right.

Upendra Varma:

So it's not just the conversion part that you typically help with, it's

Upendra Varma:

also the top of funnel sometimes,

Claire Sullentrop:

right?

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, sometimes it's that it's really wherever there's the biggest

Claire Sullentrop:

opportunity for revenue growth.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

So, so yeah.

Upendra Varma:

Now, now my follow up question.

Upendra Varma:

So, So one thing I realized, right, talking to all of the SaaS

Upendra Varma:

founders is that your top of funnel and your conversion is heavily

Upendra Varma:

dependent upon your a acv, right?

Upendra Varma:

If you're, if you're selling, let's say a hundred dollars ticket versus,

Upendra Varma:

you know, a $10,000 ticket, right?

Upendra Varma:

So it's gonna vary, right?

Upendra Varma:

It's gonna vary entirely, right?

Upendra Varma:

So, So how do you sort of, I mean, you've got one experience.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

And one thing I typically realize it is basically if you are a sales

Upendra Varma:

founder, you would have experience doing one thing or the other.

Upendra Varma:

Right?

Upendra Varma:

So you typically won't have experience of, you know, sort of

Upendra Varma:

solving all the problems at once.

Upendra Varma:

Right.

Upendra Varma:

Solving, coming up solution or framework, which will fit all markets.

Upendra Varma:

You real?

Upendra Varma:

Mm-hmm.

Upendra Varma:

, you need real data, you can call that.

Upendra Varma:

Right?

Upendra Varma:

So how exactly are you sort of approaching these, you know, solutions

Upendra Varma:

for various such, you know, uh, markets?

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah, it's such a good question.

Claire Sullentrop:

So the way that we think about it is in that, I, the, you may not have only one

Claire Sullentrop:

ideal customer group, to your point.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, you may have an ideal customer group on your SM B plan, right?

Claire Sullentrop:

Where they're, you know, a, a lower A C, B, a C, B, and then you might have

Claire Sullentrop:

a different customer segment entirely that has more enterprise needs.

Claire Sullentrop:

So what we recommend and what we help companies do is that same process,

Claire Sullentrop:

um, but independently for those two different groups because ultimately,

Claire Sullentrop:

while they're both getting value from the same product, they might need very, very

Claire Sullentrop:

different experiences to get that value.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so it's, it's a process you can definitely rinse and

Claire Sullentrop:

repeat across different segments of the audience you serve.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, another, another common example of serving multiple

Claire Sullentrop:

segments is companies that.

Claire Sullentrop:

Companies that, that have a product that helps both, you know, a single brand.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, and, and that also helps service provider bra brands.

Claire Sullentrop:

So Spark Toro is a good example of that.

Claire Sullentrop:

Like the head of, you know, marketing at a startup would get a lot of

Claire Sullentrop:

value from Spark Toro, but so would an agency that serves clients

Claire Sullentrop:

over and over and over and over.

Claire Sullentrop:

So those two segments also need a different experience.

Claire Sullentrop:

Different features matter to them, um, and.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah, I hope that

Upendra Varma:

answers the question.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

So, so let me just sort of, uh, simplify what I was trying to understand.

Upendra Varma:

That's, for example, imagine I'm a SaaS founder, I come to you.

Upendra Varma:

Yep.

Upendra Varma:

Let's say I've grown 200 k r r, maybe something worked for me.

Upendra Varma:

I I might have came, I might have grown 200 K with a bunch of contacts, right?

Upendra Varma:

All of those things.

Upendra Varma:

Right Now I really wanna focus, I I wanna figure out those two or three, you know,

Upendra Varma:

uh, lead generation channels, right?

Upendra Varma:

That are going to predictively grow my business, right?

Upendra Varma:

So how exactly are you going to help me, you know, do this?

Upendra Varma:

So how exactly, what, what's your, what's your approach gonna look like for.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, you said you're, you're a couple hundred K in

Claire Sullentrop:

a r r, so you have some customers Yes.

Upendra Varma:

But I don't have any proven, you know, acquisition channels.

Upendra Varma:

You can call something that's repeatable, right?

Upendra Varma:

I got them doing a bunch of random things, but nothing's really, you

Upendra Varma:

know, you can say nothing's fully predictable and nothing's really working.

Upendra Varma:

I wanna, I want those 2, 2, 3 channels that can bring me consistently, you know?

Upendra Varma:

So how would you help me?

Claire Sullentrop:

I would, one of the biggest challenges that SaaS teams face

Claire Sullentrop:

in choosing what marketing channels they should pursue is overwhelm There.

Claire Sullentrop:

So fucking many.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

And there's always a new one.

Claire Sullentrop:

There's always a new channel.

Claire Sullentrop:

Exactly.

Claire Sullentrop:

Example.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so like suffering from overwhelm is probably the biggest blocker.

Claire Sullentrop:

And to avoid that, what I would do is of those customers that you

Claire Sullentrop:

find to be like the best fit for the product, I would actually ask

Claire Sullentrop:

them where they went when they were looking for solutions like yours.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, did they go to Google?

Claire Sullentrop:

Did they actually just ask a friend?

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, did they hear about it in a private community?

Claire Sullentrop:

Did they hear about it at an event?

Claire Sullentrop:

Like where were the channels?

Claire Sullentrop:

They were actually looking for the information?

Claire Sullentrop:

And those are the channels that I would prioritize

Claire Sullentrop:

experimenting with with my team.

Claire Sullentrop:

Now, will that be your forever channel?

Claire Sullentrop:

Maybe not as you scale.

Claire Sullentrop:

But replicating what worked well for your best customers and where they

Claire Sullentrop:

spent time is the sures way to start driving more predictable growth.

Claire Sullentrop:

Oh, that's the, and then as you attract,

Upendra Varma:

yeah, go ahead.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah, that's, that's the thing, right?

Upendra Varma:

So basically, I like a typical SaaS founder who's, who's very early.

Upendra Varma:

I, I'm not even talking about somebody who's like couple hundred,

Upendra Varma:

you know, thousand in revenue.

Upendra Varma:

I'm talking about somebody who's still, you know, at an early stage, he got a

Upendra Varma:

bunch of customers doing a bunch of random things, but he really don't, don't know

Upendra Varma:

where they got, like, how to sort of scale that, you know, how to sort of figure out.

Upendra Varma:

Channels that, that I wanna work for them.

Upendra Varma:

I mean, there are like bunch of, whole bunch of them that

Upendra Varma:

he's gonna experiment with.

Upendra Varma:

Right.

Upendra Varma:

And if he keeps on experimenting with for next couple of

Upendra Varma:

years, he might just go bus.

Upendra Varma:

Right.

Upendra Varma:

Because it's not gonna work for them.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

And so how do you sort of figure those working channels within

Upendra Varma:

like, you know, months time, you know, without actually going bus?

Upendra Varma:

So what's, what's your advice for them?

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, what I just said, which is ask your customers.

Claire Sullentrop:

So

Upendra Varma:

that's the thing, right?

Upendra Varma:

So it's, it's, uh, so they really don't know where to get those customers from.

Upendra Varma:

I mean, so what happens is all of the SaaS founders these days, they do a

Upendra Varma:

lifetime deal or things like those, right?

Upendra Varma:

They get a whole bunch of customers.

Upendra Varma:

Now, how do you sort of figure out a channel, a channel that's

Upendra Varma:

going to effectively, you know, you

Claire Sullentrop:

send them an email, . If you send them an email and you say,

Claire Sullentrop:

Hey, I'm the founder of this company.

Claire Sullentrop:

I'm super happy you're here.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, I'd love to get on the phone for 30 minutes and really understand

Claire Sullentrop:

your experience because I want this thing to be great for you and

Claire Sullentrop:

I wanna find more folks like you.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, and when you have early champion, like early customers who love you,

Claire Sullentrop:

it would be, uh, many people find it surprising how eager those folks are

Claire Sullentrop:

to talk to someone at the company.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, in my early days at Calendly, When we were, we, we were lucky to

Claire Sullentrop:

not have an acquisition problem.

Claire Sullentrop:

The product, yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Really spread like wildfire and, and onboarding and, and activation

Claire Sullentrop:

were our bigger challenges.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, but I was lucky enough to get to reach out to hundreds of different

Claire Sullentrop:

customers at that time, um, and just ask them, like, tell me, tell

Claire Sullentrop:

me how, how did you even find this thing we're brand new in the market?

Claire Sullentrop:

What were you looking for?

Claire Sullentrop:

What were you Googling?

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, , what else did you consider?

Claire Sullentrop:

And really having those one-on-one conversations.

Claire Sullentrop:

A lot of times what I find, um, is that that founders, especially if it's

Claire Sullentrop:

their first business, founders, are hesitant to talk to customers one-on-one.

Claire Sullentrop:

They're, you know, worried because they've never done a research project and

Claire Sullentrop:

maybe they're scared they'll fuck it up.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, they're worried they'll annoy their customers.

Claire Sullentrop:

early champion.

Claire Sullentrop:

Customers are surprisingly vocal and super excited to be involved.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so that's, uh, how I would say you get past that, like, uh, that

Claire Sullentrop:

roadblock of getting that insight.

Upendra Varma:

Makes sense.

Upendra Varma:

So you say work with your customers, figure out where

Upendra Varma:

they're hanging out, then Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

Start approaching them or figuring out then, right.

Upendra Varma:

That's the way you wanna

Claire Sullentrop:

take them.

Claire Sullentrop:

Prioritize where they're actually going.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Rather than just like trying a random tactic.

Claire Sullentrop:

Trying Another random tactic.

Claire Sullentrop:

Trying another random tactic.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

I mean, tactics are great, but , that's your, that's your prioritizing framework.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

I think this, this advice will definitely work if you have,

Upendra Varma:

you know, a whole bunch of customers and you're, you're already doing a

Upendra Varma:

couple million revenue, but I mean, it's really hard to do if you are just

Upendra Varma:

early and just starting out, right?

Upendra Varma:

Because you don't even know who your customers are.

Upendra Varma:

I mean, so that's, that's always gonna be a bit.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, there's also a, there's a lot to be said for, um, you

Claire Sullentrop:

know, learning from beta users, right?

Claire Sullentrop:

If you've got, if you've got users who aren't paying yet, but are, are

Claire Sullentrop:

in the product in a, in an early version, they can be a great substitute.

Claire Sullentrop:

Worst case scenario, I've worked with a number of early stage teams where,

Claire Sullentrop:

um, they don't have any customers yet, and there's a, there's a whole separate

Claire Sullentrop:

process for audience research as well.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, it's a little bit trickier because.

Claire Sullentrop:

, you're not learning from people who customers have vouched for your product.

Claire Sullentrop:

They're paying for it, right?

Claire Sullentrop:

They've, they've voted with their dollars.

Claire Sullentrop:

The audience is the audience.

Claire Sullentrop:

Research is trickier because you're going to have to do a lot more,

Claire Sullentrop:

um, guessing on whether you're moving in the right direction.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, but we have a, actually our, our, um, My business partner, GIA and I

Claire Sullentrop:

recently finished writing a book and we've got a, a chapter on customer

Claire Sullentrop:

research and then we have a second chapter on audience research because to your

Claire Sullentrop:

point, it is tough when you don't have those paying customers to learn from.

Upendra Varma:

Alright, so Claire, let's, let's come back

Upendra Varma:

to your own business, right?

Upendra Varma:

How do you charge these customers that you work with?

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, how do we charge, uh, flat fee.

Claire Sullentrop:

Or if you want a kind of a C M O for hire on board, um, then we just work on

Claire Sullentrop:

a monthly retainer, kind of like a SaaS.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, but it's service as a service instead of software as a

Upendra Varma:

service.

Upendra Varma:

And are you, are you, are you just two folks in your entire consultancy?

Upendra Varma:

Uh, you put

Claire Sullentrop:

myself.

Claire Sullentrop:

Yeah.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, my, my partner Gia.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, we also have a strategic advisor.

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, her name is Beth.

Claire Sullentrop:

She's a seasoned marketing exec.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, she's one of our best, like c m o for hires.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, so she helps a lot of companies in a fractional C M O role.

Claire Sullentrop:

And then our success manager, uh, Ethan, who keeps the trains running on time,

Claire Sullentrop:

as well as some expert researchers who when we're working with a company

Claire Sullentrop:

help us dig in and uncover that, um, that, that data on why customers buy.

Claire Sullentrop:

So what does that make us about?

Claire Sullentrop:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.

Claire Sullentrop:

Now makes

Upendra Varma:

sense.

Upendra Varma:

Alright Claire, so one last question, sir.

Upendra Varma:

Right.

Upendra Varma:

So you've got all of this amazing background, right?

Upendra Varma:

You've seen Calendly grow from like a nothing to you know,

Upendra Varma:

you know, pretty crazy out.

Upendra Varma:

Yeah.

Upendra Varma:

, right?

Upendra Varma:

So why don't you just start a SaaS company?

Upendra Varma:

Why are you helping other SaaS companies?

Upendra Varma:

What's the story there?

Claire Sullentrop:

Uh, I am getting such valuable experie.

Claire Sullentrop:

Seeing so many different businesses and how they operate

Claire Sullentrop:

and the challenges that they hit.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, and that is giving me a, I'm very grateful for this.

Claire Sullentrop:

It's giving me a very broad understanding.

Claire Sullentrop:

How to solve for different business problems at different stages.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, it's not out of the question that Gia and I may start or

Claire Sullentrop:

acquire, uh, or something.

Claire Sullentrop:

We may get involved in a SaaS directly at some point, like

Claire Sullentrop:

that's definitely on the table.

Claire Sullentrop:

Um, but right now I'm having a lot of fun and learning so much, um, with how

Claire Sullentrop:

many different SAS examples I'm seeing.

Upendra Varma:

Alright.

Upendra Varma:

That makes sense.

Upendra Varma:

Alright Claire, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Upendra Varma:

You know?

Claire Sullentrop:

Absolutely.

Claire Sullentrop:

Again, it was, thank you for having me.

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