[SaaS Club] Nice-to-Have vs. Must-Have SaaS Product

Hey Reader

I hope you're doing well.

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

🎧 Podcast

Going from Nice-to-Have to Must-Have SaaS Product

In 2013, Jonathan got a job at ZipRecruiter, and over several years he watched it grow from 15 to 1,500 employees. He noticed the company invested heavily in culture and wondered if technology could help other companies with fewer resources do the same.

So in 2016, he and three co-founders decided to do something about it.

But they weren't ready to quit their jobs just yet. So they bootstrapped and worked on their company at night and on weekends for over three years.

They initially launched with a simple peer recognition and rewards app.

But finding the first customer (let alone their first 10 customers) turned out to be extremely difficult, e.g., they didn't know what an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) was back then, so they wrongly assumed anyone could be a potential customer.

Eventually, through a lot of persistence, finding people to talk to through their network, and learning from mistakes, they finally got a customer.

Today Assembly is a multi-million dollar ARR business, serving over 4,000 customers, and has raised $14.5 million.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the founders decided to build their business at night and on weekends for several years while working full-time jobs.

• How the team struggled to land their first 10 customers, and the important lessons Jonathan learned from that experience.

• The challenges when your buyers are not the primary users of the product and often have different needs compared to the users who determine the success of your product.

• The growth strategies they used to go from struggling to land their first customer to scaling to over 4,000 customers.

• How the founders repositioned Assembly from being seen as a “nice to have” to a “must have” solution in their buyer's minds.

I hope you enjoy it.

Listen to the full podcast episode

📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation from Adam is:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

"It's an amazing book. It's more of an EQ versus an IQ book, but read it once a year!"  - Jonathan Fields

🌐 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.