EP24: Painkiller vs. Vitamin

Are you building a painkiller or a vitamin?  In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the two categories of products and how you can use the concept in marketing your SAAS business.  You’ll learn why most successful SAAS businesses are pain killers, examples of both types of business, and how your messaging and positioning should adapt to the product your building.  TL;DR 0:48 - Breking down the concept of painkiller vs. vitamin as it applies to your product. 1:51 - What is a painkiller solution? It is a product that is solving a very specific problem directly. For example, Loom is a painkiller product for giving feedback and training to your team. A good test is if your product is relieving frustration or annoyance for your customers. 3:37- What is a vitamin solution? It is a product that fulfills a desire and aims for a better version of your customers organization. 4:45 - When it comes to building a SAAS business, you almost always want to focus on building a painkiller, solving a direct pain point for your customers. 7:08 - Why you can think of Zoom and Notion as examples of painkiller SAAS products. Zoom solved the pain point of friction and reliability with other video conferencing tools. Notion did what you formally needed multiple tools to do. 9:30 - A SAAS vitamin is rare because what motivates people and be willing to more money is experiencing a pain point 14:30 - Security and insurance products can be a painkiller for those who have already experienced the problem and a vitamin for those who haven't yet. 15:20 - The reason why understanding if you're building a painkiller or a vitamin matters is that it informs your messaging. 

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Growing a SaaS? Yeah, that's hard. Growing a SaaS without a clue what you're doing from a marketing and growth perspective? Pretty much impossible — especially if you want to break the $1M and $10M ARR marks. Kim Talarczyk sits down with Asia Orangio to extract and unpack all the strategic insights she holds in her brain from working with hundreds of SaaS companies and interviewing thousands of their customers. Together, they break down how to diagnose and troubleshoot growth challenges across every part of a B2B SaaS business. About your hosts: Asia Orangio is the CEO & Founder of DemandMaven. Asia helps founders of PLG SaaS companies troubleshoot their growth across GTM, acquisition, activation, retention, and expansion and get unstuck. In early 2018, Asia founded DemandMaven — a consulting firm dedicated to helping bootstrapped and funded SaaS companies build revenue-generating growth engines. Previously, Asia served in a number of marketing roles, but most notably as head of marketing at Hull where she helped the team 10.5x in growth, and #FlipMyFunnel / Terminus as demand generation manager. Asia also served on the board of Moz before its successful acquisition in 2021. Kim Talarczyk is the Client Services and Operations Manager at DemandMaven, where she ensures all client engagements are executed to the highest standard. With a strong background in client-facing roles and professional service firms, Kim has played a key role in scaling operations and delivering exceptional experiences for both B2C and B2B brands.