[SaaS Club] Building an Enterprise SaaS Against All Odds

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

🎧 Podcast

TealBook: Building an Enterprise SaaS Against All Odds

In 2014, Stephany launched TealBook, initially as a service where she sold $5,000 memberships to suppliers selling to enterprise customers.

However, she realized this model couldn't scale when a large customer wanted data on 500k suppliers, rather than just a few hundred.

After years of bootstrapping from her living room while raising three young daughters, Stephany faced a pivotal moment.

She realized she needed to transform TealBook into a software platform.

But fundraising was really tough for Stephany, mainly because investors were skeptical about her being a solo founder without a tech background.

One investor bluntly told her: 

“You'll never raise capital on your own. You've got three kids, a funny accent, and you've never built a tech company.”

Despite the harsh feedback, Stephany rose to the occasion.

She knew she needed a strong team to get investors on board, so she found a CTO who shared her vision and together they got to work.

By 2017, she successfully raised the funds they needed to grow.

Today, TealBook is a 7-figure SaaS business, with over 100 enterprise customers. They've raised $72 million and grown to a team of 60 people.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Stephany's resilience and ability to adapt based on feedback helped her overcome challenges and scale TealBook.

• How Stephany persevered through investor rejections and ultimately secured funding by building a strong team and showing traction.

• Why TealBook made the decision to rebuild its platform and how Stephany navigated the challenges that accompanied this move.

• How Stephany leveraged thought leadership content on LinkedIn to establish credibility and gain exposure for TealBook in the early days.

• How Stephany managed to balance her personal life and startup responsibilities while growing TealBook.

I hope you enjoy it!

Listen to the full podcast episode

 🤝 Attio: A powerful, flexible and data-driven CRM

Attio is built specifically for the next generation of companies. It syncs with your data sources, easily configures to their unique structures, and works for any go-to-market motion from self-serve to sales-led.

Attio automatically enriches contacts, syncs your emails & calendar, gives you powerful reports, and lets you quickly build Zapier-style automations.

The next generation of companies deserves more than an inflexible, one-size-fits-all CRM. Join OpenAI, Replicate, ElevenLabs and more, to scale your startup to the next level.

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💡 Crafting SaaS Messaging That Resonates

Want to craft compelling messaging for your SaaS product? 

Start with the benefits.

Your secret weapon is the Feature-Advantage-Benefit (FAB) framework.

It helps you articulate the key benefits of your SaaS.

Here's how it works:

1. Feature: Identify a specific feature of your product.
2. Advantage: Highlight the advantage of this feature.
3. Benefit: Define how it improves the user's life or work.

Let's use Slack as an example:

On their website, they highlight 3 big benefits:

1. Move faster with your tools in one place.
2. Choose how you want to work.
3. Bring your team together.

Let's 'reverse-engineer' these with the FAB framework:

Benefit 1: Move faster with your tools in one place

- Feature: Integrates with many third-party apps.
- Advantage: Centralizes tools, reducing app-switching.
- Benefit: Speeds up tasks and project management.

Benefit 2: Choose how you want to work

- Feature: Offers chat, audio, and video communication.
- Advantage: Adapts to your preferences and situations.
- Benefit: Enhances work flexibility and personalization.

Benefit 3: Bring your team together

- Feature: Channels organized by topic or project.
- Advantage: Makes information sharing efficient.
- Benefit: Fosters improved communication & team unity.

The FAB model is a simple yet powerful way to:

1. Identify and articulate your product's key benefits
2. Communicate the value of your SaaS product

Ready to give it a try?

1. Identify the top 3-5 features of your SaaS product (ask customers and look at your usage data).

2. Use the FAB framework to work through each feature until you get to the real benefit.

3. Wordsmith each benefit until they all 'sing'.

You know you should communicate benefits not features.

The FAB framework helps you get there.

📗 Book of the Week

This week's books recommendations is from Stephany:

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz

😍 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 Launch: Join an awesome mastermind group of early-stage SaaS founders supporting each other to 6-figures in revenue and beyond.

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

3. SaaS Club Accelerate:  Want to work directly 1:1 with Omer? Apply for a free strategy session.