I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society,.
Headed to the USA
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Tomorrow, I'm headed to DC for Podcast Movement. Then, I'm flying to Chicago to spend time with my Transistor co-founder Jon Buda. Finally, I'll be attending Laracon in Dallas. If you will be at Podcast Movement or Laracon, please let me know, and let's try to meet up! Going beyond "B2B SaaS"Before I go, I wanted to share this blog post with you: https://justinjackson.ca/beyond-b2c-b2b The classic thinking in business is that you have to choose to serve either consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B). In SaaS, folks often recommend you only serve B2B because consumers have many undesirable traits (low churn, low price, high support costs). My post challenges this idea by showing that there is a spectrum of subcategories within B2C and B2B. These include consumers, prosumers, very small businesses, small businesses, medium businesses, large businesses, enterprises, and non-profits. I also point out that in today’s software business, the difference between serving consumers and businesses isn’t as big as it used to be. Many consumers and businesses buy products the same way and even buy the same products. For example, Canva is used by millions of consumers and big businesses. Everyone can sign up and create graphics using the same software. I believe a SaaS can target multiple customers at once across the spectrum—consumers, small businesses, enterprises, and even government—all with the same product. I call this approach B2M (Business to Many).
When I shared drafts with people, some resonated with the thesis, while others disagreed. I'm curious what you think; if you read it, reply and let me know your thoughts: https://justinjackson.ca/beyond-b2c-b2b Cheers, PS: I’ve started a private Telegram group for SaaS founders/marketers doing more than $50k in MRR. The focus is on marketing/sales, and growing revenue. If you'd like to join, let me know. (We already have 18 founders in the group)
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Justin Jackson's SaaS marketing experiments
I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society,.
I didn't expect the last newsletter to generate so much debate! It ended up getting posted to Hacker News. Aaron and Ian talked about it on Mostly Technical, and many other folks responded in comments and emails. Some folks felt the tone was too pessimistic/defeatist. Others felt like I was discouraging older founders from starting companies. (I also had quite a few folks who responded and resonated with the spirit of the post). I recorded a response to all this feedback here: A few...
I recently listened to three podcast episodes, all with bootstrapped founders over the age of 40: Paul Jarvis has retired from Fathom Analytics Matt Wensing steps down from Summit, takes job with Customer.io Brian Casel and Jordan Gal talk about building SaaS at this stage of life It's interesting to see how differently this stage of life is compared to our 20s and 30s. (I'm 44). An Evolving Definition of Success: "I've been at Summit for 5 years. My last company took 15 years, and I didn't...
Every day in Transistor's #marketing channel in Slack, we track our new trial signups: Like most SaaS companies, our growth relies on new people finding us every day. Whenever I see these numbers, I ask myself: "Where are these signups coming from?" There's this idea in marketing that we'll be able to find a magical channel that brings in thousands of customers. But, when I look at where these signups come from, there's never one dominant source. Here's what we saw in August: Search (40%):...