Surprising Lessons From The Journey: 4-Steps To SaaS Greatness
As SaaS founders, we often find ourselves eager to scale, but one of the most critical lessons I've learned is that growth isn’t a race. It’s a process, a journey that demands you hit each stage with intention before moving on to the next. Here’s how I think about these stages, distilled into four levels, each with its unique challenges and goals.
Level 1: Find a Small Group that Loves Your Product
Every SaaS journey begins with a handful of people who genuinely love and need what you’re building—and are willing to pay for it. It sounds simple, but this stage can be deceptively tough.
It’s about zeroing in on a core audience that finds your product indispensable. This is where you spend time obsessing over every detail, every use case, and, most importantly, every piece of feedback.
How to Make It Work: Focus deeply on this small group. Understand their needs, and refine your product until it fits perfectly into their world. Ask yourself if they’d miss your product if it were gone—and don’t move to the next level until the answer is a clear "yes."
Level 2: Scale Your Learning as a Founder
Once you have those loyal early adopters, it’s time to expand your reach—personally. At this stage, it’s all about founder-led sales. You’re out there in the trenches, talking to customers, honing your messaging, and developing the early frameworks that will eventually become your sales playbook.
What This Looks Like: As you build up this next cohort of users, refine your understanding of what works. Seek out “lookalike” customers—those who share characteristics with your original user base but might push your product’s limits in new ways. Each new customer should ideally benefit even more than the first, thanks to improvements you’re implementing along the way.
Level 3: Build a Small, Scrappy Sales Team
By this stage, you’ve likely found some repeatable tactics, but now comes the test: can you hand off some of that selling power to a team? I always recommend hiring in pairs—two sales reps or two lead generators. This approach lets you benchmark performance, creating a natural feedback loop.
Why Two Reps? With two people, you can more objectively evaluate what’s working. Plus, this mini-team dynamic brings out insights that can shape your budding sales engine. But remember, it’s still founder-led sales; you’re leading the charge, training the team, and iterating together. This phase is about speed and learning, not blind scaling.
Level 4: Formalize Your Sales Process and Scale
Only now, with a foundation in place and key learnings from each level, is it time to build a more formalized sales structure. This is where you can think about hiring a head of sales or a CRO who understands the fundamentals you’ve put in place and can bring in fresh ideas.
Biggest Takeaway Here: Jumping to this stage too soon can derail your entire startup. Growing too fast without deeply understanding your customers, your product-market fit, or your sales process is a recipe for burnout, misalignment, and unnecessary churn.
➡️ When to Move On
I can’t tell you how many founders I’ve met who regret pivoting too late. It’s incredibly hard to walk away from something you’ve poured time, energy, and funding into, but sometimes it’s essential. Often, it’s because we’re too attached to what we’ve built—whether it’s the code, the concept, or the target audience.
Two Critical Dimensions of a Pivot:
Embracing “Default Dead” Thinking
This concept from startup circles is invaluable when considering a pivot. Imagine that your startup isn’t going to make it—unless you identify specific signs that prove otherwise. This mindset forces you to question your assumptions, measure your progress with a clear-eyed view, and ultimately, make smarter decisions.
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Takeaways for Founders
SaaS growth isn’t a sprint. It’s a careful climb up each level, with lessons that only reveal themselves with time and hard-won experience. Remember to:
Whether you’re at level one or three, or considering a pivot, every stage of this journey is an opportunity to set yourself up for lasting success.
– Vlada
P.S. Ready to accelerate your SaaS journey with clarity and strategy? Let’s connect. Whether you’re in the early days or at a turning point, I’d love to hear from you.
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Sending you off with this thought...
Building and scaling a SaaS startup isn’t just about moving quickly—it’s about moving strategically. True, lasting growth means tackling each stage with intention, learning from each customer, and refining your product along the way.
As you gear up for what’s next, think about how you’re building a foundation that can handle each phase, from nailing product-market fit to expanding with a solid playbook. Each step is a chance to set yourself up for lasting success.
Want to dig deeper? Let’s connect on LinkedIn—I’d love to hear where you are on your journey!
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