EP4: The WORST Assumptions You Can Make as a SaaS Founder

In our personal lives we’ve learned that assumptions will often lead us astray. When it comes to an early stage SAAS startup, they can be the difference between success and failure.  In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio of DemandMaven shares the six worst assumptions that you can make as a SAAS founder and how to reframe them for success. Extra Resources: Check out the Baremetrics blog post on SAAS milestones: https://baremetrics.com/blog/how-fast-saas-companies-hit-arr-milestones TLDR; The Worst Assumptions You Can Makes as a SAAS Founder 1. [1:29] “If you build it they will pay” It’s not “If you build it they will pay” it is much more like “If you build it, test it out, validate it, then they are much more likely to pay.” Most founders don’t believe the old idea “if you build it they will come.” They know they need to market their product, but today more than ever, many assume that when the time comes the paying customers will be there.  If you expect to charge for the product in the future, it is crucial that you don’t just assume that customers will be willing to pay when you ask. “The best way to know if someone will pay for your product is to actually try and charge them for it.”  If you’re early on and don’t have paying customers yet there are two directions you can go: You can create a group of beta users who get free access  You can focus on finding your first ten paying customers  2. [16:00] “If it worked for them, it’s gonna work for me” It’s not really “if it worked for them, it will work for me”. It’s much more like “if it worked for them, in this market, in this industry, for these kinds of people, for this kind of software category, then it will probably work for me." It is great to listen to the stories of other founders, to learn from what they did, but the context for your business will always be different. If you find yourself doing research on others companies journeys, always remember that there is a specific context in which this strategy worked and compare it to the context you are operating in. 3. [24:00] “The first 100 customers is fast” It’s not “the first 100 customers is fast” or that it should be fast, if anything it is exactly correlated to you, your market, and your product.  No matter the milestone, never assume that it will be fast or easy. As the saying goes, your first $100k will be much harder than the second $100K

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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.