[SaaS Club] Challenges of a Horizontal SaaS

Hey Reader

I hope you're doing well.

Here's a quick round up of what's been going on at SaaS Club:

🎧 Podcast

Overcoming Horizontal SaaS Challenges

In 2018, after years of working in product roles and getting frustrated with inefficient work tools and endless meetings, Adam quit his job and set out to start his own company.

He spent over a year validating different ideas before picking Almanac, a collaboration platform for remote teams to write and organize docs.

But launching a horizontal product poses huge challenges. And it was no different for Adam. When your product can work for everyone, it's easy to dilute your messaging and end up grabbing no one's attention!

So it's no surprise that Adam and his co-founders struggled to find their target customers.

However, today Almanac is a 7-figure ARR SaaS with over 50 employees, tens of thousands of customers, and $45 million in VC funding.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why after quitting his job, Adam took a whole year to thoroughly test and validate different ideas before settling on Almanac.

• What the Almanac founders built first (not an MVP) to validate their two-sided marketplace instead of diving straight into the product.

• How content marketing and influencer promotions helped Almanac to get the first 1,000 customers.

• How Adam maintained optimism and stability for his team even after losing all three of his co-founders!

• What Adam did to overcome the challenges of building a horizontal product and help his team to get clarity and focus.

I hope you enjoy it.

Listen to the full podcast episode

📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation from Adam is:

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer

"The book is about running a restaurant, but I think, serving people in a restaurant is very similar to how you serve and care for customers in a startup." - Adam Nathan

🌐 Around the Web

YouTube Channel

Here's a link to the full video episode.

😍 Let's Get Social

Want to get more social? Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Have a great week!

- Omer

Interested in sponsoring The SaaS Podcast? Learn more here.


P.S. whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. SaaS Club Plus: We're re-launching a brand new paid community for SaaS founders with an exciting new offering. Join the waitlist!

2. SaaS Club Launch: A 12-week coaching program to help you launch your SaaS and/or get to $10K MRR faster. 

3. SaaS Club Clarity:  Book a 1-hour consulting session with Omer to get unstuck and gain clarity about your SaaS business.