S7E22 - How to grow your B2B SaaS to 10M ARR? Advice from 21 experts

Speaker A: Every episode of season seven of podcast I've asked my guests the exact same question. What kind of advice would you give a SaaS founder who's just starting out and going from 0 to 10k mrr? In this summary episode we combined all their answers. You'll receive the most practical, battle tested advice from dozens of founders, operators and go to market leaders in one single episode. No theory, no fluff, just real guidance on how to find your first customers, validate demand, price correctedly and build momentum without burning too much cash. You're going to hear recurring patterns, some conflicting insights, but overall sharp insights on founder led growth. Go to market pricing, product market fit and early traction. All from people who've actually done it already. So if you're building a B2B SaaS and your goal is to grow to 10k mrr, this episode is for you. Good news once you reach 10k missr, we're also going to have an episode on how to grow 10,000 10,000,000 ARR. So that's going to be the next episode, but without further ado, let's dive in. In episode one I chatted with Carolyn Lewis on how to build SaaS partnerships that actually drive revenue.

Speaker B: They're a real true startup. I would say focus on the relationships that you have leverage those where you can and don't necessarily try to systemize yet and also those gaps really see what not just customer but what potential partner or peer am I solving a problem for or a gap for and try to buddy up with them wherever possible and find the product market fit. That's also a good one as well.

Speaker A: In episode two I chatted with Besnik Veliko why 80% of outbound sales fails and how to fix it.

Speaker C: It just depends what product you have just so many but obviously the best way to quickly to validate if you're on pre product market fit is one of the key things we I've did in multiple of my ventures in the past right because it's not my first rodeo at sales flow. I've had quite a few different ones is I would do a lot of I uh would reach out LinkedIn or email and beyond and just get in interview course say what's your pain point? Understand them. The majority of the time those interviews will end up as potential customers because it'll be incredibly high, incredibly high rate to interview them, put them part of a report, an adjustment, you know, feeling who doesn't like to look good. Uh and beyond. You know we did a 40 creators that we put together every single one of them shared what we did. Well actually no, that's not true. Majority of them did. But m all of them engaged with us is the my question. So I would say just how are you like that's why outbound becomes so easy, especially at the beginning because the investment is more in your grit and you are uh, in your genuine tactics that you want to use. So anyone that's just growing validating is either that or naturally you find a way to just, you know, if you have got the budget seed money. The best way to quickly validate your concept to 0 to 100 is actually driving traffic paid ads. Actually the quickest way to validate it, it's expensive as well is ads to get to zero to 100. Those two would be much. Zero to ads is really, you know, it's proactive Albano of interview style. And B is just you actually spend money on advertisement to get a few grand.

Speaker A: In MRR, in episode three I chatted with Jujo Pereira building SaaS partnerships that actually drive revenue.

Speaker D: I can talk about my own mistake. I was trying at 0 to 10k mrr, which was the first stage. I was trying to prove scale and I realized I'm not even at the scale stage. I should have been proving value. So that means the cliche of nail product market fit first period. And that's the most cliche. There's not even an advice, it's just none. Um, I think building in public is definitely something that if you're comfortable with is worth it for accountability. One major mistake is to prioritize conversations over conversions. I was caught up on conversion rates because that's when I came from a mindset point of view at such an early stage, that is not worth it. I was like, oh, website visits, conversion, demo, trials, activation. Oh, the conversion is not good. I was trying to activate for conversions, but there was just like 80100 demos in 3, 4 months. It's not a big number. So why I was so caught up on conversions rather than having deep conversations to figure out which are the best five, 10 potential customers and really understand working with those so that prioritize, you know, deep conversations with the right fit over conversions. Because that's, yeah, that's definitely one that I, I, I mishap completely. Yeah, I was looking at efficiency rather than insights from 0 to 10k. MRR is all about conversations and insights and not convergence and efficiency. And that was a massive error on my side.

Speaker A: In episode four I chatted with Garrett Robinson. Why your SaaS go to market isn't working and how to fix it with operational discipline.

Speaker E: Talk to your market, talk to your buyers, not just the people using your product. You know, figure out what, what's happening in real time. Figure out what perceptions are changing in real time. And don't just get into this again. Don't just get into this place where you're seeing signals in Apollo or you're seeing signals in Clay and you're just, you're trying to automate those relationship, you're trying to automate that. That really what you're doing there is eroding your gut, uh, instincts. And so I think the focus needs to be on how do we develop one to one relationships and understanding that after 12 or 18 months, those one to one relationships will really scale your business. And focusing on getting one motion to work really well versus trying to have outbound m inbound, um, plg go like all these different tactics and all these different motions that eventually just bog down your time, your energy and your resources. Focus on nailing the one thing that's going to work for your business. Get to a good spot for you and then build out from there.

Speaker A: In episode 5, I chatted with Joey Gilke on B2B SaaS sales outbound strategies

Speaker F: to scale your revenue product market fit all day, every day. Don't focus on anything except for the customer and what you sell to them. The practice that I have run in multiple companies now, that has always worked out well for me is figure out who you want to sell to first before you build too much. Right? Obviously you gotta have some MVP type of product to sell, but maybe not, right? And so my belief is I want to identify the people I want to sell to. I want to identify the pain that they have and then I want to go talk to them, um, with zero strings attached outside of will they be helpful to me. So I've done this on three companies. Every company had great product market fit. After this, I try to find about 20 people in the market I'm willing to pay for their time. I'd be like, hey, John, I'll pay you whatever your hourly rate for just 10 minutes your time. I'll give you an hour for 10 minutes. And all I'm asking for you, John, is I have nothing to sell you. Not today. I hope I do in the future. It's why I want to talk. I think I know your market very well. I think I, uh, have a solution to this specific problem. All I want to do is get 10 minutes where I can tell you exactly what I think I'M going to bring to the market. I'm going to give you a permission to shoot it, right? You get a license to shoot. I'm going to shoot as many holes in that as possible to make me better including what I'm going to charge solution, how I'm going to deliver it. Have three or four of those conversations. Recreate the offer or product, go to the next three or four, do it again iterate, go to the next three or four. By the time you do about three rounds of that, you have a really solid product that people want to buy. And ironically the people you asked for help and said I have nothing to sell will inevitably tell you half of them.

Speaker A: Hey huh.

Speaker F: When you actually launch this, hit me back up and there's your first seven, eight customers.

Speaker A: In episode six I chatted with Maya Voyeur on how AI is transforming. Go to market for B2B SaaS.

Speaker G: Learn how to sell because the first control prototypes you will probably have to either like acquire from warm outreach or beat introductions from investors friends or just like if you have the possibility to do outbound in your industry either or LinkedIn or email that would be amazing. So usually this is the fastest and the most secure way how we can just like get our foot in the door to do some pilots. The second one is that pricing is getting increasingly interesting. So now everybody is doing like this credit system. But then when you think about this from the buyer perspective, I don't know how much exactly it's going to cost me to book 50 meetings with human. I know with these AI agents burning random credits if it is working or not. I believe that result based pricing owes to outcome based pricing as well as just like the predictability of the costs and will dominate the conversations in the next year. For now you will be able to present your implementation as a pilot. You can say there is a price per pilot. This is what's going to be deployed. This is how they can like see if it provides value for it. After like they experience the value you can negotiate like a higher uh deal. Use the pilot logic for your pricing. It's um, an easier sell than if you are selling them something which is like super far fetched and need like 13 people in the decision making you need to buy. Last but not least, don't give up too fast because as always there will be many things that are not working. It's increasingly hard now on AI saturated LinkedIn to have a fair share of organic human attention. So some of the playbooks that have been working decently well before no longer work. So you can either play the game and use the bunch of AI to simplify your life a little bit or find something that is working. Maybe it's going to be an old school channel. Maybe you will have to cold call customers. Maybe you will have to go and like present something in the fair. Maybe you will have to advertise in a freaking newsletter. Newsletter.

Speaker H: How is it called?

Speaker G: Newspaper. Yeah, the media, the printed stuff. So yeah, just like keep your m minds open and go where the audience is is the best advice that I can give.

Speaker A: In episode 7 I chatted with Desiree Jessica Paley why human psychology still wins in B2B SaaS sales even in the age of AI.

Speaker I: I would break it down. What are your first three customers? And then how do you get to 500k to 1 million, to 3 and 10? And really think along the line, okay, how do you get your first three? Maybe through the network. Then how do you get to your first 500? Just double down on the heavy users that you have from your first three. So who are their twin companies, who are their competitors and really just narrow down on them and then going from one to three, we are not there yet. So I can just share what I'm working with from our customers. Maybe what is working is okay now from having like exploited the twin companies. Now really hone into the signals those companies were showing the pain points and scale that going from 3 to 10 is opening up the market. Focus on the sum and use tools, tech and AI to penetrate uh, those markets faster. Always have a good strategy for it. And I think the first 3 million is a lot of experimentation. Try new things and always hone what is working and forget what is not working. Just use it as information to inform your next experiment.

Speaker A: In episode 8 I chatted with Andrew Kaplan on the growth operating system and building teams that deliver real value.

Speaker J: At this stage I'd be looking for one channel that works really well for acquisition and one communication channel that drives retention. I would keep it very basic in the early stages. That's what you need. Obviously you're not going to really have a lot of conviction on the right way to position the product. You're going to have a ton of data on a B test, none of that stuff. Right. We can get customers in leverage. One channel in the early days there's different channels. Part of the early process is finding the one and then really see if you can perfect one acquisition channel, one retention channel and that'll get you going.

Speaker A: In episode 9 I chatted with Ricardo Gakiri on growing a B2B SaaS without recurring revenue.

Speaker K: 0 to 10. Don't spend anything on marketing, honestly like spending on marketing. But like you're in the validation of one channel basically you only have to get one channel. Depending on what the hell you're building, your channel will change or whatever you do. So focus on one channel from 0 to 10. One channel and one channel only. Basically that could be SEO, that could be affiliate marketing, that could be YouTube, could be whatever the hell is. But just focus on that one channel to grow your business and then ads stack up basically as you grow. Basically, uh, that would be my advice looking back. Also for a new company, the only thing we're doing is partner sales for Better Studio. We don't run ads, we don't have big things even if we're heavily funded. We just do one thing, one channel very well. Now we're adding things. Now that we've validated certain things, we're adding stuff. We're doing a big event next year basically we're doing round tables next year as well. So now we're just stacking things up basically. But in the beginning it's just one channel you want to nail moving forward.

Speaker A: In episode 10, I chatted with Christopher Gannon on how to build the right go to market engine. Hiring, structure and growth.

Speaker L: For BB SaaS founders, it's back to that commitment. That level of commitment and desire to achieve something resonates through all levels. At that stage it's you have to have that personal commitment and discipline. You have to understand what you're doing is hard and no one's going to care, but you have to get it done. Finding a network is really important for that early stage founder. It's something that I didn't do early on that I wish I did earlier is finding a group of people like me or like yourself that will maybe understand that because you go home, your family might not get it, your friends that you had in in primary school aren't probably going to understand it unless they're doing the same thing. So it's really important you understand the commitment you have to go through and maybe find a network of other people that will understand that.

Speaker A: Are you already running an affiliate or referral program? But it's not really driving growth. Reddit is the affiliate and referral platform built exclusively for B2B SaaS. Combining an in app referral program, an affiliate network of over 20,000 SaaS affiliates and AI powered recruitment that finds new relevant affiliates for you migrate for free with Our White Glove service affiliates can keep their link and you can start managing both programs from one single place with tracking, payouts and fraud detection all handled for you. You can start building a scalable growth channel that compounds without high upfront cost. Want to learn more? Check out getreadytiz.com in episode 11 I chatted with Mark Apple on B2B SaaS growth strategy for 2026 and scaling with AI agents and growth loops.

Speaker M: I always tell people if they start have flip the funnel so start at the bottom of funnel so mainly uh, focus on those audiences which are in market um and uh, to make it very practical, uh, talking about the type of campaigns that you need to run, it is really search campaigns because these are the people who show intent and then you can start to collect data, gather data and have some real life examples of how people respond to your campaigns, to your proposition, etc.

Speaker A: In episode 12 I chatted with Chitta Josten on SaaS pricing strategy for 2026 about hybrid models, AI cost and value based pricing.

Speaker H: I would advise you to see every single big deal as separate or in a vacuum. Don't look at what you propose to other companies just every single time think how can I optimize for this particular client one how can I lower the barrier to entry a little bit while still having skin in the game? Right. So you want to always charge a little bit the skin start but then make sure that you're not giving everything for free in perpetuity. How can I already add some value metric in there that I, I know or at least I assume over time they're going to use more of and therefore I'm going to grow this account. Right. So always ask yourself this question and think as every single deal separate, I think that's the number one advice and play a lot with packaging, not with price. Price comes later once you figure out what the packaging.

Speaker F: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: In the end so don't give things for free but kind of just have them pay something and then grow them over time. In episode 13 I chatted with Hotzke Veselius about scaling a SaaS in 2026 AI talent and the future of people operations.

Speaker N: Well if you already found your product market fit and you can do it yourself, it doesn't cost you your whole life then I would say wow, that's already amazing if you're already there. So if you want to grow it to like doubling it. Yeah. Then you need to think like okay, where's like the success? Should I add someone next to me I don't know in, uh, finding more revenue because it's already pretty clear who's our customer. Or should I build an AI agent that can take over part of my job?

Speaker A: In episode 14, I chatted with Romy de Groot about scaling SaaS in 2026. AI adoption, pricing shifts and efficient growth.

Speaker O: It's a complicated question because at a 10 million AR you have so many things running, but you're still not a big enough player. So many things can still go wrong and you're, you're out. So what, uh, I would advise in the first period is one, reduce cost. I keep on saying this to everybody because people are anxious. We don't know if there's not a stock market crash happening. People are not spending the same way. You want to have your reserves and you don't want to raise funding when you can't raise funding yet. It's a delicate den. So try to figure out. And of course, cost is people. So I would say hire less, hire better. And what I mean by that is I'd rather have someone more senior that I pay a bit more money for, but can do two to three jobs than one person alone. Um, that's one, two. What I would tell them to focus on is innovation and technology. It's such a cliche, but things are rapidly changing so fast. Can you do partnerships? Can you leverage big, you know, big companies where you can be an asset and they can sell things for you? I think the sales part is going to be extremely dynamic. Yes. You already have proof in your track record because you've got clients who've got 10 million AR, but then comes the next piece. Are you going to be, you're scaling. Do you want to become an enterprise company or do you want to stay at scale up? And when you become an enterprise company, a lot of different elements will need to be there. And then thirdly, it's more operations. Often these companies, you walk in and they're like, oh my God, guys, I can't believe we're doing this.

Speaker L: What do you mean?

Speaker O: This is a huge risk from legal. This is not set up right. You've scaled so fast, but you're still a broken house. So internally fix your systems, make them more automated, reduce cost and make sure you can actually still have that speed but that, you know, what's your next Horizon? Is it 100 million? Are you becoming an enterprise customer? Well, that means you have to build your strategy. Now. Where are you going? And that's often the question that I would ask my C suite Leaders yourself. What are we doing not now, but in two years. Where are we? Are we in the us? Where is you? Go to market. Where is the biggest customer coming from? What acquisitions have we done? And if you cannot answer those questions, you're in trouble. So that's what I would focus on. Keep costs low, innovate fast. Build your right. Go to market with partners and references and scale as fast as you can. Take big risks. Be bold. That's what I often see a lack like think big.

Speaker A: In episode 15 I chatted with Krzysztof Sikivich on SaaS monetization in 2026. Steering Usage AI add ons and pricing experiments.

Speaker P: Pretty simple differentiate, right? So at the very beginning I think that your one and only uh goal with pricing, I mean it needs to be okay pricing but it shouldn't be that hard. But I think you should make yourself a favor and learn as much as possible. Which means that if you have all in one solution, uh, and you know only one price for one plan after a year you are, are just, just in the same spot where you've started, right? When with regards to pricing related knowledge, I would say that if you're starting think how you can differentiate your solution. How to make it at least good better, how to respond uh to the use case icps that you are uh, you are targeting. Try to think you know one price that is X, the other price is 120% per person X. After a year you will see see which plan your customers are choosing, why they are choosing this plan. Maybe they're 95% of the your customers are choosing the most expensive plan. Maybe you're too cheap. If 95% of your customers are using the cheapest plant, you are giving too much value in this uh, cheapest plant. So I would say that if your solution uh is rich enough where in most of the cases the solutions are rich enough would be to differentiate and experiment a bit. Treat pricing as well process.

Speaker A: In episode 16 I chatted with Richard Schenzel about SaaS go to market in 2026 AI hybrid sales and high performance revenue engines laser focused on your market.

Speaker Q: Be obsessed with your buyer Persona. Like first of all try to figure out who is my real icp. Especially in the beginning. Uh, that's hard because you just take whatever you you want. But you need to get intent from them why they buy from me. So be obsessed with the market at that stage. Learn and test fast or test and fail fast basically. But try to learn as much as possible from your buyer Persona. Uh, how is the market reacting to it? Uh, because you need to build that ICP or the buyer Persona up quite quickly after this stage. Uh, but it's just like research mode. So speak to as many people as possible, try to get as much input as possible, but make sure that you build a scalable product as well. If you have one massive customer and you kind of build your tool around this customer, then you're stuck. Then you're like a one, one trick pony. So stay agile. Make sure that everything you build is scalable. Try to get as much feedback as possible from the market. Uh, but look at your own niche market where you want to grow. Because if you only go after the enterprise companies, your total restaurant market is most probably way too small. And if you need to build features for all the 24 customers that you got to have in the enterprise, uh, segment, um, it's unscalable, it's very hard to, uh, maintain and it's very hard to sell in the end as well. So feedback, that's a gift and that something you need to seek. At the beginning of uh, this cycle.

Speaker A: In episode 17, I chatted with Rudolf Otten on how PLG will change in 2026. AI agents, onboarding and hybrid go to market.

Speaker R: I would go for the final sales LED approach. Uh, I could say, well, you have to go product led, but in this case they are too early or at least they need to learn. So for example, your first 20 customers get uh, them on a call, try to answer the job to be done questions. For example, get to know what is it that they wanted your product for. Let them describe your product in their words. That will help you on the messaging, on the positioning and the pricing. Of course that will be, if you really want to test that one out, you have to do other elements as well. That would be my Advice.

Speaker A: In episode 18, I chatted with Rene de Jong about preparing your SaaS for an exit. We talked about valuation, drivers, buyers and metrics that matter.

Speaker S: Well, first of all, I think if you're in that uh, field, then enjoy the ride, uh, and keep learning from every step that you take. Uh, because if I look back at when I started my company, my first company, I was 25 years old, uh, everything was possible of course. And I think, um, what's really important is to constantly look at what are you doing and learn from the things that you do. Also gather some people around you who have already done it in the past. I've had many people who helped me within the whole journey of my Entrepreneurship, um, so have people on board uh, who can um, show you the mirror and show you, hey, this is what I see that you're doing but also give you tips and tricks. That's why I love also this conference. I mean I've been a fan of the SaaS base when it was still called SaaS base. Now it's, we love SaaS, but I think um, it will help those entrepreneurs to uh, not make the mistakes as uh, many others uh, did.

Speaker A: In episode 19 I chatted with Glenn Misery on how SaaS go to market will change in 2026. Thought leadership, intense signals and AI powered growth.

Speaker T: Try to do it as lean as possible. Try to get your uh, let's say your amount of impressions. And I would say LinkedIn is a very good go to market channel. Not because we offer LinkedIn, uh, automation and skill, but more in general. LinkedIn is a very good go to market channel. I mean your buyers are there but the only thing is you have to be a little bit vulnerable and how you set up yourself and actually showcase what you're doing, which problem you are solving. And it's a long game, it will take a little bit longer. But I do believe this is one of the best, um, let's say not expensive at all. You just need to invest your time. Same like if you're bootstrapping a company or you, you know, like are we talking by the way about bootstrapping companies or could be anything. Yeah, okay. Regardless, LinkedIn is a good channel. It's cheap. Uh, thought leadership is actually uh, free. The only thing is you need to invest your time. Right. I think this is one of the best things to kick off with and then properly um, try to catch all those intent signals, um, and learn from them. And if you ask me like what kind of growth is this? Is this product led, sales led? I think I still found a lead and from 0 to 10 you should be doing founder led, founder led motion. Also you have to dive into every call with your clients as well.

Speaker A: In episode 20 I chatted with Kunstam on how SaaS companies will scale in 2026 go to market efficiency, rev ops and word of mouth growth.

Speaker U: I mean I made this mistake myself as well when I was uh, briefly a startup founder. But I also think to some extent everyone is in the old school days of SaaS so fixed on this recurring revenue piece. But I think if you really want to get to our 10k, 15k, I mean on the side, I also have some coaching and I'm not yet there on 10k a month, but I'm getting there. I'm more than halfway, um, really have. And I learned it because I work very closely with a content design coach who said I couldn't be clear. You have one offering for one audience and focus there and really deliver exceptional value on that matter. And that's both on um, potentially your product, your service, whatever you're opening or your product, but definitely as well like your service component towards that. They really actually see that the impact you will bring and I think that that in combination can really actually nowadays quite easily get you towards 10k and then uh, maybe even to 20k a month, which is a sustainable foundation to build something on.

Speaker K: Right.

Speaker U: But I think again there the focus doing less but better. And it's the most difficult thing for everyone for a founder, for a revenue leader, for myself definitely. But like doing less but better. I think that, that, that and that compounds over time, but you need to be consistent and you need to hold on strong to that one. Not easy. But then I think 10k, to be honest, I mean in three, six months you can easily reach.

Speaker A: In episode 21, I interviewed Jakob von de Kooy on how AI will rewrite SaaS go to market in 2026. We talked about pricing, efficiency and sales automation.

Speaker S: Built the data system in real. Build a real time data system. Make sure that you have that right because it's really costly and problematic to

Speaker A: fix that later on. Any recommendations? I guess because it sounds big, right? Like where do they start? Like what should they do? As a minimum, get a real good

Speaker S: infrastructure provider like something like Snowflake that provides from the get go, a real time data lake.

Speaker A: Thank you for watching this show of the Grow your B2B SaaS podcast. You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you like this content. If you did, give, uh, us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel if you like this content. Feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show. If you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to know more about Reddit, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your B2B SaaS.