Saas Club - [SaaS Club] 7-Year Perseverance to PMF

Hey Reader

I hope you're doing well.

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

🎧 Podcast

Pointerpro: A 7-Year Journey of Perseverance to Product Market Fit

In 2012, Stefan was feeling stuck. After 15 years in consulting, he wanted to start his own company. But he didn't have a great business idea.

While still in his 9 to 5 job, he made an iPad quiz app for his daughter's birthday party. It was just for fun, but it turned out to be a big hit.

This gave Stefan an idea what if he made this quiz app better and put it online for free? So he spent his weekends improving the app and then released it, not expecting much.

But then, something unexpected happened...

The app quickly gained popularity. Teachers were using it in classes, and even AT&T was using it for HR events. Stefan saw a potential business and interviewed his users to find out what they liked and didn't like.

Once he was confident about the app's business potential, Stefan quit his job. He worked hard for three months to add a way to accept payments and was thrilled when some free users converted to paying customers.

But despite some early success, business growth was slow. Stefan struggled for seven years to find product-market fit.

Eventually, in 2019, he had a big breakthrough. He realized many customers wanted personalized reports. So, he doubled down on that and changed the app's focus to help professional services firms.

Today, Pointerpro has surpassed $3 million ARR and has grown to a team of 28 people. The company is still entirely bootstrapped.

In this interview, you'll learn:

• Why it took Stefan 7 years to find his killer use case and how you can avoid making some of the same mistakes.

• How Stefan attracted important early customers outside his network to validate his business idea.

• How Stefan established credibility and social proof despite being an unknown startup and founder.

• The importance of customer feedback in Stefan's journey to find the right product-market fit and the lessons from that experience.

• Why Stefan believes perseverance above all else led to his success and helped him push through the difficult years.

I hope you enjoy it.

Listen to the full podcast episode

💰 Payroll & Benefits for Small Business/Startups

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🕸️ Web Accessibility. Solved.

It’s never too early for startups to address web accessibility & comply with the law. UserWay is the digital accessibility compliance platform. They enable equal access to online experiences on millions of websites.

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📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation comes from Stefan:

Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less by Joe Pulizzi

🌐 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

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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: This 3-month coaching program that gives you the tools, knowledge, and support to fast track your journey to $10K+ MRR.

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