[SaaS Club] Importance of Founder-Market Fit

Hey Reader

I hope you're doing well.

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

🎧 Podcast

Airplane: The Importance of Founder-Market Fit in SaaS

Josh Ma is the co-founder and CEO of Airplane, a SaaS platform for engineers to build internal tools.

In 2020, Josh and his co-founder Ravi began exploring new startup ideas. They were most excited about building internal tools for developers.

But after seeing how crowded that market was, they began exploring other startup ideas. But they struggled to find an idea that resonated with them.

Eventually, they realized that building internal tools was an area they were passionate about and where they had a strong 'founder-market fit'.

So, despite the idea not looking all that promising on paper and being a very competitive space, they decided to move ahead with it.

The founders seemingly did everything right when they started out, including interviewing over 40 developers to better understand their frustrations and pains before writing any code.

But acquiring initial customers wasn't easy. Their first attempts at targeting other tech startups fell flat. And outbound sales didn't get traction either.

Through persistence, experimentation, and customer conversations, they kept refining their messaging and positioning. And they started targeting and testing other markets.

Today, Airplane is a 7-figure ARR SaaS startup with hundreds of paying customers. The company has raised over $40 million in funding.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the founders committed to the internal tools market despite the crowded competition, and how they differentiated themselves.

• How they went about interviewing over 40 developers, and why they had those conversations before writing a single line of code.

• How Airplane shipped their MVP in 4 months and why Josh believes that they could have and should have shipped the MVP even sooner.

• Why Josh thinks the playbook for selling to other startups doesn't work anymore, and how they discovered other market opportunities.

• Why word of mouth was critical to Airplane's early growth, and what it takes to build a great product customers actually want to share.

I hope you enjoy it!

Listen to the full podcast episode

📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation comes from Josh:

Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds

🌐 Around the Web

YouTube Channel

Here's a link to the full video episode.

😍 Let's Get Social

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Have a great week!

- Omer

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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 3-month coaching program that gives you the tools, knowledge, and support to get to your first $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.