So, for the incumbents, Iâve tried to keep things understandable from a âbottoms upâ mentality vs âtop downâ. So a company of 9 people with 3 teams are really ICs (6), and managers (3).
I try to make sure all incumbents have the opportunity to BE that person, but they may not want it.
For recruiting, you have to know what youâre offering and finding the right people to join you at the right part of this journey. Every day, I feel like I have a better understanding of what the needs are for the business. I can articulate it better in conversation, so I know what Iâm looking for. The right people will feel right.
I try to look for that right person who has hit a ceiling somewhere else. (i.e. a team leader who hasnât gotten their shot at management or the manager who aspires to be a director) Those people can take you far and hopefully onto the next stage (if needed).
Hereâs a twitter thread I wrote about how we approach recruiting:
Have not considered a reboot and wouldnât want to get into that market today. So many great players Notion + Asana + Others that are serving that market well.
If I was looking for something else, Iâd still look for B2B niche.
When you have a money machine where you know inserting $1 can get you $3 out the back + youâre not worried the machine breaking down.
Know the answer to the question âwhat would I do with $X so I can get to Y fasterâ
So, if you know $ is the resource you definitively need to grow then get $. Also keep an eye out for non-dilutive capital like revenue-based financing or some of the micro funds that arenât betting on you being a 100M company.
Lots of podcast listening and a few communities! I listen and consume the bootstrap/indie side of the tech startup world as well as the SaaStr VC side. I also have been watching D2C, influencers, and other B2C style things as well.
Then I try to break it down in my own lens.
By nature I try to always see all sides and am open to all roads to build better product, distribution, and an overall business that is authentic to me.
I think my diversified learning approach has helped me find the right things for us to focus on and also recognize when something isnât in our wheelhouse. Def more to come on this front, but the learnings help me strategize where we should dig next.
I try to make friends in these areas and talk business lessons with lots of people as well.
Overall I think you have to know your buyer. What is ânormalâ for them and how they buy? The buying process should be as frictionless as possible which usually aligns well with how they are used to buying. Whatâs normal for that industry, how are competitors priced and packaged, payments by ACH/check/CC? What are expected terms? Who has to approve it? Sometimes pricing can be an advantage if youâre making it even easier for an older industry.
I do believe if you have market pull⌠best in class⌠clear winner, you can start to have a change the game on pricing for your industry.
In my experience ârev shareâ is harder to pull off and also harder to track. Seems good in theory, but how do you keep it honest and keep incentives aligned for either party not to think they are being tricked by the other party. Also the economics start to get wonky as things scale. But if your in âpaymentsâ thatâs the norm, so works fine.
Flat is normal and an easy bet in most markets, but I believe âusage-basedâ pricing is more of the future in SaaS. I feel like that aligns best with value delivered in many cases.
Thanks @astha for dropping my question.
Thanks @jlogic for your response. Super valueable!!!
The debate starts because we first launched our product on Shopify, and when talking to their team suggested to go ârev shareâ as this begins to be a trend in this ecosystem.
After a couple of months and more then 70 downloads, we did outbound sales to mid market accounts (eComm +25M annual GMV) and what we see is that ârev shareâ is easy to sell, but we are more confortable with your recomendation âusage-basedâ.
THANKS!!!
Basically I found what worked for us by hopping on calls with people who signed up for a trial. I found the audience we were attracting, wanted to talk to us. Thatâs what led to higher sales conversions.
It was effective and still had good unit economics paired with SEO - inbound leads, so we just kept doing it and scaling out âwhat workedâ in the early days.
It wasnât so much of a decision, but more of just following what the customer needed.
Building the team modeled after how I did it in the early days. It has since matured to a team of 3 sales consultants and a manager. I canât say I built that part out myself but had great people to help build and scale a team off of the initial model.
@jlogic, thanks for taking the time! Whether itâs your note on âfollowing what the customer needs,â or knowing and working with oneâs own strengths and limitations, or intentionally diversifying peer circles, what animates these responses is an admirably frank admission of the consistently complex work of learning and growing as a founder.
This is such a powerful, not often acknowledged side of the bootstrap-vs-fundraise decision:
A lot more was learned about our customers, market, and behaviors because of the slower pace we moved that had less pressure.
Wish more founders examined what a heightened/slower pace can do for their particular product and market, instead of going by whatever the prevailing assumption is.
And Iâm definitely borrowing those all-hands questions. Especially the one on visualizing (doing exactly that as I write this) seasons. A beautiful conversation starter!
Totally relate to the pain of not being able to do enough pricing iterations. In the early days, with all that goes on as you begin to scale teams, it does get hard to prioritize pricing.
And, I think, we can all take a page from your âsee all sides and open to all roadsâ approach to building a business. Thanks, again, for doing this, @jlogic!