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:

• 🎙️ Rescuing and rebuilding a struggling SaaS

• 🤝 A next-gen CRM teams actually love to use

• 🚀 Fix authentication headaches with ease

• 🤔 The onboarding mistake losing you customers

• 📗 Scale faster with this hyper growth leadership book

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🎧 Podcast: New Episode

Sapia.ai: Rescuing and Rebuilding an Enterprise SaaS

Barb Hyman is founder and CEO of Sapia, an AI-powered platform using smart chat interviews to help companies make better hiring decisions.

In 2018, Barb was brought in to scale an existing HR tech startup. 

But within weeks, she discovered a harsh reality – the product wasn't working, and the business needed a complete reset.

She made the tough decision to fire the entire team, including the founder.

With just 6 weeks of runway left, she had to quickly raise funding to keep the business alive. The next 2 years were a constant struggle for survival.

Some months, Barb wasn't sure if they'd make payroll.

She and her small team worked to rebuild the product from scratch, conducting countless experiments to find the right approach.

Landing their first major customer, Qantas Airlines, took a series of 15 trial runs over several years before they finally signed an enterprise deal.

And just as they were gaining momentum, COVID hit, making it even harder for them to close new business.

But Barb's team stayed focused on building a product customers loved.

Their persistence started paying off as more companies began seeing value in their approach. They won contracts with some of Australia's largest brands, with much of their growth coming through referrals.

Today, Sapia is approaching eight-figures in ARR with a team of 45 people and has raised over $21 million in funding.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Barb navigated the difficult transition from fixing to completely resetting a struggling startup

• Why focusing on product excellence over sales and marketing was a strategic gamble that paid off

• What led to their failed US expansion and how they found success in the UK market instead

• How personal touches, like handwritten Christmas cards to clients, became their secret growth weapon

• Why Barb believes that having clear AI regulations actually creates more opportunities than constraints in enterprise sales

I hope you enjoy it!

Check out the full episode on:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Web

🤝 Attio: The Next Generation of CRM

Attio is the CRM for teams who love products like Notion and Figma. It's powerful, configurable, and takes minutes to set up.

Attio delivers value faster than any other product out there - with a simple tactic during onboarding: they sync your work email & calendar, instantly mapping all your interactions and enriching them with valuable insights.

The result? In less than a minute, you're looking at a comprehensive view of all your email relationships, enriched with additional data. This gives you time back to focus on what truly matters.

Join companies like ElevenLabs, Replicate, Modal and more in scaling your startup to the next level.

Try Attio for free today

🚀 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

🤔 SaaS Insights

The #1 Onboarding Mistake Killing Your SaaS

This morning, on my weekly call with early-stage founders in our SaaS Club Launch program, we reviewed the onboarding flow for a founder.

A common SaaS onboarding mistake is overwhelming users with too much information too soon.

I remember signing up for a new SaaS product myself. The onboarding was packed with tooltips, pop-ups, tutorials, and emails. Instead of feeling guided, I felt lost—and ultimately, I never became a customer.

Here’s the mistake I see many SaaS founders make:

They’re so excited about their product that they want to showcase every feature right away. But successful onboarding isn’t about showing off every bell and whistle—it’s about delivering value fast.

Here’s how you fix it:

1. Identify your product’s core value. What’s the one thing that solves your user’s key problem?

2. Determine the simplest action users can take to experience that value. This is your “Aha moment.”

3. Streamline your onboarding flow. Guide users to that one key action—everything else can wait.

4. Resist feature overload. Save advanced options for later in the user journey.

5. Optimize and measure. Track how long it takes users to reach the “Aha moment” and work on reducing that time.

Remember, in SaaS, success is not about how many features you have—it’s about how quickly you can deliver value.

Focus on that to turn more signups into customers. 
 
What's the one task that gets your users to their "Aha moment"?

Want to join a group of like-minded early-stage SaaS founders supporting each other to $10K MRR and beyond?

Apply for SaaS Club Launch here.

 📗 Book of the Week

This week's book recommendation from Barb:

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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