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:

• 🎧 Lessons from building an 8-figure SaaS
  

• 🤝 Attio’s AI-powered vision for the future of CRM
  

• 📈 Turn website visitors into sales with Leadfeeder
  

• 🤔 Why live chat may hurt your early-stage SaaS
  

• 📗 3 must-read books for SaaS founders

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🎧 Podcast

AMP: Speed and Customer Focus in Building an 8-Figure SaaS

Patrick Barnes is the co-founder and CEO of AMP, a multi-product SaaS platform that helps e-commerce merchants run their online businesses.

In 2016, Patrick co-founded Advocately, a review management platform for SaaS companies. Growth was slow, with only 2 to 4 new customers each month, forcing Patrick and his co-founder to bootstrap and stay laser-focused on customer needs. 

After nearly three years, Advocately was acquired by G2, teaching Patrick invaluable lessons on product-market fit and persistence.

In 2022, Patrick and his friend Cameron acquired a small Shopify app with 2,000 customers and built it into AMP. They redesigned the onboarding experience and implemented email marketing, quickly hitting $1M ARR.

Despite success, challenges followed. An Amazon integration launch flopped, and maintaining a customer-centric culture with a growing team became tough. Patrick’s solution? Regular customer calls for everyone - including engineers -- keeping the team connected to user needs.

This focus on customers paid off. Today, AMP serves 20,000 customers, has raised $18.5 M Series A funding, and generates eight figures in ARR.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Patrick's past startup failures shaped his strategy for AMP, and why these experiences were crucial to his current success.

• Why Patrick believes speed is the ultimate business strategy and how this philosophy drives AMP's rapid growth and product dev.

• The specific tactics Patrick uses to maintain a customer-obsessed culture as the company scales from a small team to 50 employees.

• How AMP effectively balances product-led and sales-led growth strategies to acquire and retain customers in a competitive market.

• Why Patrick emphasizes the importance of clear priorities, and how he uses the V2MOM goal-setting framework to align the company.

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

📈 Leadfeeder: Turn Pageviews Into Sales

Leadfeeder helps you turn anonymous website visitors into actionable leads. See which companies are browsing your site, track their behavior, and sync with your CRM.

Get a free demo and enjoy an extended premium trial today

🤔 Why Live Chat Could Be Hurting Your Early-Stage SaaS (And What You Should Do Instead)...

The live chat feature that's killing your early-stage SaaS startup (and what to do instead)... 
 
I recently hopped on a call with a group of early-stage SaaS founders from my Launch program. 
 
A founder asked if he should add live chat to his website or use an AI chatbot to handle leads and support. 
 
Here's an insight that may surprise you... 
 
Big companies add live chat to their websites for a reason that could actually hurt early-stage founders: 
 
→ They want to talk *less* to customers. 
 
But here's the thing: 
 
As a founder, you should be jumping at every chance to chat with potential customers. 
 
Why? Because those conversations are gold mines of information. 
 
So, here's my advice: embrace customer conversations. 
 
They're not just for making sales. They're your ticket to: 
 
- Invaluable learning opportunities 
- Real customer development 
- Genuine lead generation 
 
Don't hide behind AI chatbots just yet. 
 
Instead, make it easy for people to reach you directly. Your future self will thank you for the insights you gain. 
 
Remember every chat is a chance to build a better SaaS. 
 
So, go ahead and add that live chat feature. But make sure it's you on the other end, ready to listen and learn. 
 
What's your experience? Have customer conversations ever led to unexpected insights for your product?

Let me know on LinkedIn here.

 📗 Book of the Week

This week's 3 book recommendations are from Patrick :

• 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer
• The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike
• Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman

🌟 Help Spread the Word

Enjoyed this week's newsletter? Please do me a favor and forward this email to someone who would benefit from it as much as you did. 

Sharing is caring, and it helps us grow! ❤️

😍 Let's Get Social

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Have a great week!

- Omer

Interested in sponsoring The SaaS Podcast or this newsletter?

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Join SaaS Club Plus: Get early access to our new community for early-stage SaaS founders. Join the waitlist now!

2. Apply for SaaS Club Launch: Designed to accelerate your journey to $10K MRR for new and early-stage founders.

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