How To Start A SaaS Company in 2023

– All right, let's do this. Back in 2011, I started a
SaaS business called ToutApp. We pioneered the sales engagement space. I took it from $0 in revenue, All the to 7 million in AR. It was backed by the likes
of Andreesen Horowitz, Jackson Square Ventures And a lot of prominent angel investors. Then I sold ToutApp to-Marketo. Marketo was a market leader In the marketing automation space. They were owned by Vista, One of the best PE firms in the world. I served as SVP of
strategy over at Marketo. We did a two year transformation And sold it to Adobe for $4.75 billion. Nowadays, I work with SaaS founders, Anywhere from pre-revenue
all the way upwards Of a $100 million ARR in
their go-to-market strategy. So I ask myself, given
everything that I know, Given all the companies that I've coached Over the last few years, If I were to start another
SaaS business today What are the three steps I would take To actually start that SaaS business To make sure I don't waste months Building the wrong product? So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you Through the three principles
you absolutely need to know If you're looking to
start your SaaS business. If you're pre-revenue And you wanna make sure You maximize your chances of success. And when you watch till
the end of this episode,

I have a bonus step for you. You'll know exactly the
steps I'm following right now As I build my next set of SaaS companies. Intro. (upbeat music) What's up everybody. Welcome to Unstoppable. I'm TK and on this channel I help SaaS founders like you Grow your SaaS businesses faster, With an unstoppable strategy. Now, if you are new to
this channel, welcome. I drop an episode every single Sunday, With actionable strategies And tactics from the trenches Having been a founder just like you, Still am a founder having
coached over 250 SaaS companies As part of my SaaS
go-to-market coaching program. I bring you the actual tactics That move the needle in driving growth For your SaaS business. So be sure to hit that subscribe button And that bell icon. That way you'll get
notified every single time I drop an episode with the TK Energy. Now, if you're already
part of this channel, If you're part of my SaaS
go-to-market coaching programs, My people, welcome back. It's really awesome to see you over here. All right, so if I was to
start a SaaS business today, Given everything that I know And over 15 years of experience in SaaS, Here are the three steps
that I would follow To figure out exactly how to maximize

My chances of success And avoid wasting months
building the wrong product. All right, if you're excited to dig in, Go and smash out like button For the YouTube algorithm
that really likes it When you do that, And let's dive right into it. So step number one is not what you think. Step number one, I would
first focus on market. The first thing that I would focus on Is what is the target
market I'm going after? What is the specific person That I'm gonna be targeting? And what is the urgent and
important problem that they have? So many times in my own Baby-TK journey, As a first time founder,
I obsessed over product. I started writing lines of code. I started building these features. I'm like, "Oh my God,
this has gotta exist. Wouldn't this be cool? This API exists, I can connect this." But I ended up wasting months
building the wrong product And then I fell into the
one-more-feature trap, Thinking I I was just
that one feature away From finally generating revenues
or getting the traction. Instead, what I learned the hard way. What I do now, What I coach every founder
to do is start with market. What is the exact ideal
customer you're going after? What is the market that's in? What are the competitive dynamics? What is the actual urgent
and important problem? A problem can exist, But if it's not urgent,

Meaning they have to solve it, And if it's not important, Meaning they will die
if they don't solve it, It is not worth pursuing. You will have a shitty SaaS business. So it's super important, At step number one, to really flesh out What market you are
going to be going after If you are working on a SaaS business. Now you may be a founder that
have already started a code. You may already have a product, But if you're pre-revenue,
stop everything. Do not do another feature. Get out of the one-more-feature trap And first figure out what is the market? What is the specific
market we're going after And why are we 10 times
better than the competition? And is this problem actually urgent And is it actually important? That would be my step number one Given everything that I've learned. Once I have a good thesis on the market, Remember, this is a thesis,
this is your opinion. A lot of times people will DM me Or people will message me And they'll say, "Hey, can
we get on a 30 minute call? I just need a quick conversation. I just need to get your thoughts On this idea I'm working on." And I'm like, "Look, first
of all, I spent all my time Either on these YouTube
videos, which I give for free. I have over 200 episodes, Or I work with my clients
inside of my coaching programs." There is no in between.

But more importantly, my
opinion does not matter. What matters is the market. The market decides If you are solving an
urgent important problem, Which brings me to step number two. Step number two is not to build product, Not to write a line of code, Not to build anything. It's to actually focus
on your go-to-market, Your version zero of your go-to-market. I've seen this over and over And I've made the same mistake. A lot of times, founders build the product And they think they will
turn on sales and marketing. They will hire that fractional CMO. Fractional CMOs suck. If they were any good,
they would be a real CMO. So take that aside Or they'll hire an agency
to run lots of ads. That won't work because the
agency will ask you like, "Hey, what's the market
you're going after? Why would they buy? What are your success stories?" That won't work. Or you think that you'll just hire that AE Who will make it rain And actually sell your product. That won't work either. What matters the most is to start early In your go-to-market, What I call it your V0, V0 go-to-market. What does a V0 go-to-market look like? It's where you're actually
building an audience

Of the people that you're
solving the problem for. It's where you're
putting out a lead magnet Or you are building a following on Twitter Or YouTube or LinkedIn, And you're actually engaging
with the target people That you're solving this problem for. And most importantly, It's where you're building a mailing list A list of these people who are engaged And listening to you in
everything you're sharing As you're going on this
journey to solve this problem. Some people call it building in public But that's not what this is. Building in public is
a bunch of developers Who should be coding And should be building go-to-market, Should actually be doing some work But instead they're tweeting about, "I'm building in public." No one cares. What this is really about is
to actually have conversations With the target people
that you are targeting. That's your V0 go-to-market. It's actually engaging with these people, Making connections, talking to them About the urgent and important
problem that you are solving To really validate, Is this an urgent important problem? Will they actually buy your
product if it were to exist? And more importantly,
would they pay for it? Versus saying this is a great idea. Let me know when it starts. So step number two Is to actually build your V0 go-to-market,

To actually start to build that list, That mailing list of people, Maybe through a lead magnet Or through connections Or just through tweeting,
whatever it may be. What's super important Is to actually build that
mailing list of people And that audience of people
that are in your target market That you are solving the problem for And getting into actual
conversations with them. That's what building in public really is. Now, step three, and I have a bonus step, But before I go into that, Let me just pause here for a second. Are you starting to see the power in this? This is one of those things That I wish Baby-TK knew 12 years ago, Before I started ToutApp, Before I actually figured this out, Because I was working on
all these other products And they were going nowhere. And finally I started
to approach it this way And everything started to click. And this is not just theory just for me Or just worked for me and my one company. At this point, I've worked with over 150 pre founders As part of my lounge program Where we actually followed this framework And they were able to
break through to revenues. So if you're starting to
see the power in this, If you're starting to see why
market is super important, Building a go-to-market Where you're building connections

And a mailing list of these
people that are in your market And having conversations
with them is super important. If you're starting to
see the power in this, Can I just get a yes
in the comments below, That way I know you're with me. And also smash that like button For the YouTube algorithm That really likes it when you do that. Also, I wanna make one more point. If you're really far along, you're like, "TK, I already started coding. I already have this product,
but no one's buying." It's okay. Just pretend you're starting today. Start with market, start
with the go-to-market And then circle back to the product. And chances are you're
a couple of pivots away To actually figuring this out. Also, if you're at this stage Where you are wanting
to build a SAS business And you're pre-revenue, You wanna avoid wasting months
building the wrong product And you wanna dig into
some of these pieces, I encourage you to grab a copy Of my 10 point SaaS business checklist. 10 point SaaS business checklist. I'll tell you more about
it at end of this video. We don't have to go anywhere right now. Let's go to principle number three. All right, principle number
three, finally is product. Once you start to figure out, "Okay, this is the market I'm going after, This is my go-to-market, I'm gonna figure out
how to go to the market

To all these people, build that list, Offer something of value, Start to have those conversations, Really validate this is an
urgent, important problem And start to talk about Here's what I'm building,
would you be interested?" Then you start to actually
build out the product. That's step number three. But there is a nuance here. A lot of times what I see founders do Is they'll talk to five people and say, "Oh, yeah, I know what the market is. Don't worry, I got this. And no, don't worry. We did customer discovery. I talked to five people. They said they would love it, To hit them back once I build it, And they're totally gonna buy." You would not believe
the number of founders I've had this story with. And what ends up happening is they go away For months building this product These five people said they would buy And then they circle back, say, "Hey, I built that product
that you really wanted. You said you'd buy it. Do you wanna buy now?" And they're like, "Yeah,
I'll get right back to you." What you got was a polite, no. They didn't wanna say
this is a shitty idea. They didn't wanna say that, oh my God This is not an urgent important problem. They just said, "Yeah, that's cool."

And here you are after building all that And now they're like, "Yeah, well, if you just added this Single sign on authentication, I'll totally buy." They give you some random feature Now you gotta go build it again. So there's a trick to
doing step number three. What you wanna do is build in iterations. You wanna build, You wanna show, You wanna sell. You wanna sell as early as possible, No matter how shitty You think the idea is or the product is. And you wanna keep iterating. Because until someone
swipes the credit card, Even if it's for $99 for a lifetime deal, And then they use it until they do that, You do not know if your
thesis around your market And your go-to-market and
your product is correct. So you want to get in as early as possible To develop that market thesis, Run those go-to-marketplace consistently. And as you are building, You keep adding more people into your list And keep showing them the product. You keep iterating, Keep going back to the
people that said, "No" And showing them the latest product And it eventually it clicks And you do it in iterations. Those are the three steps. When you follow those steps,

You are able to actually get To that initial product market fit. Your initial idea will probably not work, But you will get there. Your are just one pivot away, And that's what I've learned. Now, one of the key things about this, This is where the bonus step comes in, You've got market, You've got go-to-market,
you've got product. And I know this is
completely backwards, right? Most people start with product, Then they say, "Oh, who will use this?" And then they try and go-to-market. This is totally backwards, But if you want to do it the normal way And have the high
mortality rate of startups Then go for it. But if you wanna save yourself some time And really find the
right product market fit And follow these steps. But there's one bonus step That I really recommend while
you're doing these three That you want to add on. And this is also counterintuitive. This entire thing is counterintuitive But it works really well. And when I explain it to, You're like, "Oh, obviously it works." It sounds obvious, but
most people don't do it. That's the power in this. So the bonus thing, I would tell you, It's very early on, As you are building that list,

As you're starting to build that product, Even as you start to wireframe things, You should focus on two things. You should think about what
your demo is gonna look like And what your pricing
model is gonna look like. Also, this is counterintuitive But what I've learned Is when you just pretend
that the product's done, Your best product, And you say, "Okay, cool,
how am I gonna demo it? What do I show first? What do I show next? How do I get them to buy? How much are they gonna pay?" If you script that initially, It helps you build a better product. If you script that initially, It helps you build a better go-to-market. If you script that initially, It helps you figure out If this is an urgent and
important problem or not. It's the weirdest mind hack, But I do it all the time with founders And it works really well. So the bonus step for
you is, very early on, Think about what your
demo's gonna look like, What are the parts of the
product you're gonna show, Whether they exist or not, Even if it's over wireframes. And also think about what
your pricing is gonna be. It's a wildly different product That you're gonna be building, The way you're gonna be selling, Who you're gonna be selling it to

When it's $30 a month Or it's $99 a month, Or it's $12,000 a year Or it's a $100,000 for the platform fee, Otherwise, you're not gonna talk to them. Very different products, Very different markets. So thinking about these two things Things will really
flesh out your strategy. So to recap, if I were to
start a SaaS business today, Knowing everything that I know And having built ToutApp And having worked on Marketo`, Which was a 500 million AR business And having worked with
over 250 SaaS companies In my coaching programs to
help them grow their companies, Here are the three steps And the bonus step that I will follow. Number one, I would start with market. What is the urgent and important
problem that I am solving? Number two, that's just the thesis. I would test it by building
my V0 of my go-to-market, Build a lead magnet, Build a following, build an audience Build a mailing list, Have conversations with them, Engage with them, talk to them, Figure out what's working And then start to build a product. As I'm building the product, I would build it, show them, sell it, And then keep iterating
until someone buys. And I would early on think about What my demo's gonna flow like

And what my pricing is gonna be, And that's gonna feed into my market, My go-to-market and my product strategy. And now you know, Three-and-a-half steps that I would follow If I were to start a SaaS company today. What you may not know is, "Hey, what are the key
components to the right market? How do I know if it's an
urgent important problem? How do I know what a proper
go-to-market V0 looks like? How do I build that audience? What does a lead magnet look like? What do those pieces look like? How do I know what the
right core product loop For a product is? How do I know what a demo should look like Or what the pricing should look like?" This is why I created my 10 point… 10 point SaaS business checklist. It's completely free, Not charging anything for it. You just go to tkkader.com/saas-checklist, Tkkader.com/saas-checklist. When you download that checklist, It'll ask you some questions
that you wanna work through To really flesh out some of these pieces, At least give you some tips on These are the directions to go So that you actually
have something written And you can tether yourself to it And then iterate from there. It's completely free. Just go to tkk.com/saas-checklist Or follow the link below

And you get full access to it right away. Also, if you got values from this video, Please smash out like button
for the YouTube algorithm. It really likes it when you do that. We put a lot of love into these videos. I drop an episode like this With actionable strategies And tactics on how to grow SaaS companies, Whether you're pre-revenue Or upwards of a 100 million in revenue. That's the base of customers
that we service right now. So be sure to hit that subscribe button And that bell icon, That way you'll get
notified every single time I drop an episode. If you have a fellow founder, A team member, If you're part of a Slack group, A WhatsApp group, please
share this video with them. Just mean the world to us. We wanna help as many SaaS
founders like you as possible. And lastly, remember, Everyone needs a strategy for their life And their business. When you are with us, yours,
it's gonna be unstoppable. I'm TK and I'll see
you in the next episode Or inside of that 10 point
SaaS business checklist. (gentle music) – Where was I with that? (TK softly chuckling)