284: Hard Lessons on Finding SaaS Product/Market Fit - with Rohith Salim

In 2017, SpotDraft's three founders teamed up to launch their new startup. They saw an opportunity to streamline the end-to-end contract management process and believed they could solve that problem. Initially they built a product for freelancers and solopreneurs. But they quickly realized that most people in that market weren't willing to pay for a solution. So they decided to move upmarket and target Fortune 500 companies. But they didn't have the experience or credibility to win customers. Eventually, they struck a deal with a large reseller through which they got their first couple of customers. On paper, things were looking pretty good for them, and they were able to project out several million dollars in revenue from this one channel. But working with a reseller also created several new issues for the founders. They found themselves doing custom development work for each customer, which led to a higher onboarding and support overhead. But worst of all, they didn't own any direct relationships with customers - they were effectively a sub-contractor. It took the founders a long time to understand a fundamental lesson - as a SaaS business, you can't channel partner' your way to product/market fit. Eventually, the founders had to go back to drawing board, do a bunch of customer interviews and try to figure out a completely new plan. In this interview, we talk about how they went through that process, how they had to deal with losing some customers and revenue, and how they've been able to turn things around and start growing again with a more focused strategy. Enjoyed this episode?

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284: Hard Lessons on Finding SaaS Product/Market Fit - with Rohith Salim is an episode from The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship (formerly ConversionAid Podcast) by Omer Khan.

This episode is 49:05 long.

This episode was published on Apr 7, 2021.

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