The SaaS Club Newsletter

Hey Reader

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

 In this week's newsletter:

• 🎧 A rollercoaster ride of SaaS entrepreneurship
• 🤖 How AI is revolutionizing CRM software
• 💡 Two paths to your first $10K MRR
• 📚 A fable about chasing your true dreams
• 🌟 Share the SaaS wisdom, grow our community

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🎧 Podcast

From $1K Launch to $26M ARR Profitable SaaS

Guillaume Moubeche is founder and CEO of lempire, a suite of products that help B2B businesses grow, including lemlist, lemwarm, Taplio, Tweet Hunter, and lemcal.

Guillaume's entrepreneurial journey began with a painful failure. 

A t-shirt business he started with his father sold only 6 shirts, straining their relationship for nearly a year.

Undeterred, Guillaume joined a B2B lead gen agency, where he learned about cold email prospecting. This experience sparked the idea for lemlist.

In 2018, with just $1K, Guillaume and 2 tech co-founders launched lemlist.

The early days were grueling. They worked tirelessly, with Guillaume often surviving on pasta and isolating himself from doubtful friends and family.

To acquire customers, Guillaume provided free services and traded lemlist accounts for essential tools. He personally helped set up campaigns for early users, going above and beyond to ensure their success.

His persistence and “build in public” strategy paid off. Revenue grew 30% month-over-month, hitting $1M ARR in less than 2 years after launch.

The growth continued at a breakneck pace. 

By 2021, just 3 years after launch, lemlist had skyrocketed to $10M ARR. 

This rapid success attracted investors, leading to a $30M cash-out for the founders at a $150M valuation. 

But the celebration was short-lived.

Shortly after the cash-out, Guillaume's co-founders unexpectedly left. Suddenly, he was alone, managing all aspects of the business, including unfamiliar technical areas. 

Despite this setback, Guillaume made a bold move to expand lempire's product suite, acquiring Taplio and Tweet Hunter. 

Critics called the acquisitions senseless, but Guillaume pushed forward, convinced these tools would create a powerful B2B growth ecosystem.

Today, lempire serves tens of thousands of customers in 100+ countries, generating $26 million in ARR with a team of 90 people.  

And they're profitable!

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Guillaume turned early failures into valuable lessons that shaped his entrepreneurial journey.

• Why “building in public” was crucial for lemlist's growth and how you can implement this strategy in your own startup.

• How Guillaume navigated the sudden departure of his co-founders and managed to grow the business despite this major setback.

• Why focusing on profitability allowed lempire to maintain a lean team while scaling to $26M ARR.

• How Guillaume balances running multiple products and what this approach could mean for your B2B SaaS company.

BTW - I originally interviewed Guillaume in 2019 on episode 227. A lot has happened with his company since that interview, so I invited him back for 5-year anniversary.

I hope you enjoy it!

Listen to the full podcast episode

🤝 Attio: A Powerful, Flexible & Data-Driven CRM

AI is here, and it’s going to revolutionize CRM.

Attio spoke with 50+ GTM leaders who believe CRMs in the AI era will:

• Turn ideas into action

• Understand the context of businesses

• And be the driver for your GTM strategy

Attio is committed to building these features & leading the CRM revolution.

Read more of Attio’s vision for the future of CRM

🤔 Choose the right path to your first $10k MRR

Most new SaaS founders struggle to reach $10K MRR. 
 
Here's how to avoid that fate. 
 
SaaS success hinges on solving a real, painful problem. 
But how do you find that golden opportunity? 
 
You must achieve 'problem market fit.' 
 
Here are two proven paths: 
 
1️⃣ Market-First Approach 
 
→ Pick a specific industry or niche. 
→ Interview at least 50 people in that market. 
→ Attend industry events, join online communities. 
→ Analyze their workflows, tools, and daily challenges. 
 
Goal: Uncover their most costly, time-consuming problem they're willing to pay to solve. 
 
2️⃣ Problem-First Approach 
 
→ Start with a pain point you've personally experienced. 
→ Find at least 10 others who share this problem. 
→ Clearly define the problem and its impact. 
→ Focus on those with the greatest pain. 
 
Goal: Identify people who not only have the problem but will also happily pay for a solution to this shared pain. 
 
Yes, this process feels slow. You'll itch to start coding. 
 
But remember: 
 
A great product solving the wrong problem = $0 MRR. 
A validated, painful problem = foundation for $10K+ MRR. 
 
Counterintuitively this "slow" approach. 
Is often the fastest path to sustainable revenue. 
 
Do you want help getting to your first $10K MRR faster? 
 
My Launch program might be a good fit for you. :-) 
 
Reply with "$10K" and let's chat.

Or share your thoughts here.

 📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation is from Guillaume:

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho

"We all focus especially with press and things like that that are showing overnight success and the get rich quick type of things and all these short form content that makes you believe that life is easy and that you're going to get something that will make you happy eventually. The reality is all the things that you believe that will make you happy in the future, like the fancy car, the model, the nice house, etc. They won't. It's all about enjoying the process." - Guillaume

🌟 Help Spread the Word

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😍 Let's Get Social

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Have a great week!

- Omer

Interested in sponsoring The SaaS Podcast or this newsletter?

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