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:

• 🎧 From waitlist to $2M ARR: A bootstrapped journey
• 🤝 Attio’s vision: Revolutionizing CRM with AI
  
• 🤔 Stop ghosting: 7 solutions for SaaS trials
  
• 📗 A SaaS founders top 4 book recommendations

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🎧 Podcast

From 60 Waitlist Signups to $2M ARR Bootstrapped SaaS

Lav Crnobrnja is the co-founder and CEO of Vacation Tracker, a SaaS leave management product for small to medium businesses (SMBs).

In 2017, Lav Crnobrnja ran a software dev company. 

He was tracking employee leave with a spreadsheet, which created chaos as the team grew. So he and his team built a software solution. 

They also created a landing page where people could signup on a waitlist. They ran a few small ad campaigns to see if anyone else was interested. 

But 9 months later, only 60 people were on the waitlist.

Then Lav got email from someone who'd joined the list ages ago asking "When are you going to launch?".

That was the wake up call Lav needed.

Realizing the potential demand, they hustled to launch. But only 20 people signed up. And only 10 people became active (free) users.

Lave personally did all demos and customer support.

At the end of the 6-month beta, they added a paid plan. But excitement turned to panic when a dev accidentally wiped the production database!

The team had to scramble to recover user's data.

One day, Lav was having lunch at a restaurant when he got a Stripe notification. Their first customer had signed up for $25/month. It may not have been a lot of money, but it was huge for Lav.

He celebrated by buying drinks for everyone at the restaurant!

But getting more customers proved tougher.

Their content marketing efforts generated traffic, but attracted the wrong type of people and very few leads.

After lots of trial and error, they figured out what type of content to create. Then focused on that ONE marketing channel to grow their business.

Growth didn't happen overnight, but they kept at it.

Today, Vacation Tracker, the company Lav founded with Slobodan Stojanović serves 2,500 customers, has a 20 person team and generates almost $2M in ARR.

And they're bootstrapped. Never raised any funding.

In this episode you'll learn:

• How Lav and his team turned a side project into a successful SaaS business by listening closely to customer needs.

• Why a “Slack-first” approach helped Vacation Tracker differentiate itself in the market and reduce friction for users.

• How the team leveraged content marketing to drive growth and the mistakes they made along the way.

• Why Lav believes in the importance of founders directly engaging with customers in the early stages of a startup.

• How Vacation Tracker successfully navigated the transition from a free beta to a paid product, despite significant challenges.

I hope you enjoy it!

Check out the full episode on:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Web

🤝 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

🤔 How to stop prospects ghosting during SaaS trials:

How to stop prospects ghosting during SaaS free-trials: 
 
Without endless chasing and frustration... 
 
A founder in my coaching group is facing this issue. 
 
He gives personalized demos and helps onboard leads onto a free trial. Yet, he's facing 2 types of prospect problems: 
 
1. They either disappear once the trial starts. 
2. Or they ask for extensions but never engage. 
 
As we dug deeper, I realized his onboarding was fine i.e. he's converting quite a few trials into sales. 
 
But the 'problem prospects' drain a ton of time & energy. 
 
Here are 7 solutions from our mastermind group: 
 
1. Qualify leads rigorously: 
Make sure they understand and need your solution. Use discovery calls to gauge interest and pain points. 
 
2. Involve all key stakeholders: 
Have both technical and business stakeholders present during demos. Engage decision-makers from the start. 
 
3. Reframe the onboarding: 
Emphasize how onboarding helps solve their problems, and isn't just a technical setup or feature tour. 
 
4. Set clear trial expectations: 
Communicate the process clearly. Explain what you'll do during the trial and what you need them to do. 
 
5. Prioritize engaged prospects: 
Focus on the people that show genuine interest. Don't waste resources on the unresponsive leads. 
 
6. Audition your prospects: 
Stop trying to onboard everyone. Assume they're not a fit unless they can convince you otherwise. 
 
7. Sharpen your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): 
Use data from successful trial conversions to identify promising leads. It will help you disqualify poor leads. 
 
Implement these strategies to: 
 
- improve trial quality 
- reduce ghosting 
- increase conversion rates 
 
Stop trying to convert every lead. 
 
Focus on the right leads who'll benefit most from your solution. 
 
→ Which step has been most effective for your SaaS trials?
 

Let me know on LinkedIn here.

 📗 Book of the Week

This week's 4 book recommendations are from Lav:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
• Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
• Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different: A Biography by Karen Blumenthal
• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

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Have a great week!

- Omer

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