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:

• 🎙️ How Missive grew to $6M ARR with no VC help.

• 🚀 A smart way to solve SaaS authentication headaches.

• 📈 Ready to hit $10K MRR? Join SaaS Club Launch.

• 🤔 Why an MVP isn’t enough anymore.
  

• 📘 A must-read to reframe founder struggles.

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🎧 Podcast: New Episode

Missive: How a Tiny Team Built a $6M SaaS Without VC Funding 

Philippe Lehoux is the co-founder and CEO of Missive, a tool that helps teams work better together through email.

In 2015, Philippe and his co-founders had a Shopify app business. But they saw a big problem with how teams used email and decided to fix it.

Using money from the Shopify app, they started building Missive.

For over a year, they poured everything into it without making any money. It was a big gamble for the founders.

When they finally launched, hardly anyone noticed. Growth was painfully slow. For two long years, they struggled to reach the first $10K MRR.

Many would have thrown in the towel, but the trio kept going.

They stayed a tiny team of three, doing everything themselves – from writing code to helping customers. And they focused on building a great product instead of marketing, which meant getting new users was tough.

But their different way of doing things started to pay off. 

They came up with an unusual affiliate program that began to bring in more users. Word started to spread slowly but surely. And their commitment to keeping things simple began to resonate with customers.

After years of using their own money and staying small, they finally hit a growth spurt. In just the past year, they grew from 3 to 11 team members.

Today, Missive helps around 3,700 businesses and generates almost $6M in ARR.They've done all this without taking any outside money and going toe-to-toe with competitors who have big investors backing them.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Philippe handled the risky move of building Missive for over a year without making money

• The tough times during their first two years after launch and how they pushed through

• Why their unusual affiliate program became key to growth when regular marketing didn't work

• How staying small and focused let them compete with bigger, well-funded rivals

• Why they put the product first and how this approach eventually led to their success

I hope you enjoy it!

Check out the full episode on:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Web

🚀 PropelAuth: Authentication for B2B SaaS

PropelAuth is authentication your whole company will love. 

If you're tired of your dev team getting bogged down with authentication issues instead of building your core product, it's time to use PropelAuth.

They take care of all the complex auth stuff - from Enterprise SSO to user analytics - so you can focus on what really matters: your product.

PropelAuth integrates quickly for devs and provides built-in tools for your customer-facing teams. It's the full package.

Sign up for free (no credit required). And when you're reading to upgrade use code SAAS24 for 50% off the Growth plan for 6 months!

Sign up for a free account

🚀 Early-Stage SaaS Founder? Hit $10K MRR Faster

Struggling to scale your early-stage SaaS? Most founders waste precious time and money making rookie mistakes without a clear path forward. 

SaaS Club Launch is a 12-week group coaching program that connects you with a close-knit community of early-stage SaaS founders. 

Get personalized guidance, weekly group coaching, and grow alongside fellow founders also on the path to $10K MRR.

Apply now to join

🤔 SaaS Insights

MVP vs MLP

"Minimum Viable Product" is no longer good enough.

The game has changed:

"Good enough" has evolved into "must love".

Ten years ago, users tolerated clunky software if it solved their problem. 

Today? 

They expect every product to feel as polished as their favorite apps. 

That B2B tool you're building isn't just competing with alternatives - it's competing with every delightful digital experience users have ever had.

The most successful founders I work with understand this.

They:

1. Treat early users as valued customers, not test subjects
2. Obsess over small details that create moments of joy
3. Kill mediocre features that get lukewarm feedback
4. Focus on making core workflows delightful
5. Build trust through polish and reliability

But here's the thing:

The label doesn't matter. MVP, MLP, whatever. 

What matters is building something users love.

 📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation is from Philippe:

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh

“It’s the [true] story of Toussaint Louverture, the Black general who led the Haitian Revolution back when it was Saint-Domingue. What I love about biographies, and Black Spartacus in particular, is seeing the struggles of people who made a huge impact in their time or culture. It helps put my own struggles into perspective because their lives were often complete chaos. Reading about them is comforting—it reminds me that I’m doing okay, even when things feel messy."

🌟 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.

3. Apply for SaaS Club Mastermind: Scale from six to seven figures with our focused mastermind group.