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The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS cover art

The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS

The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS

Written by: Omer Khan
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Building software is easier than ever. Growing it into a profitable business is the hard part. Every week, a founder gets specific about what actually moved the needle: finding product-market fit, landing customers, pricing, defensibility, and durable growth. Host Omer Khan has interviewed nearly 500 software founders, from their first customers to real scale. You get what actually worked, not theory. Lately that includes the honest take on AI: what it changed about building and selling software, and what it didn't. New episodes every week. Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • He demoted his SaaS to sell a service and 4x'd revenue in 12 months

    He demoted his SaaS to sell a service and 4x'd revenue in 12 months
    Jul 9 2026
    Six years of grinding, and SaaS churn kept capping his growth: win a customer, lose a customer, repeat. Then one pricing call flipped everything. Farzad Rashidi pivoted Respona to a done-for-you service-as-software model and 4x'd in twelve months the revenue it took six years to build. Farzad shares why adding features never fixed his SaaS churn, the agency CEO haggle that sparked the pivot, how he demoted his own SaaS on the homepage to lead with the service, and how he rebuilt a software layer on top so the business could scale. Respona helps brands get cited in AI answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Farzad first appeared in episode 323 as a self-serve outreach tool doing a few hundred thousand in ARR, before SaaS churn stalled it; today the first done-for-you customer alone spends around $65K to $70K a month. This episode is brought to you by: 🍎 Product Fruits → Book a demo tailored to your product 🔑 Key Lessons 🔄 Service-as-software beats pure SaaS when usage drives SaaS churn: Respona's customers canceled because they had no time to use the tool, not because it lacked features, so doing the work for them removed the real reason for churn. 💰 Price on outcomes, not subscriptions: When Farzad shifted from an $800 monthly license to paying per result, the same customer who haggled over $300 immediately committed to $7K to $8K a month, then scaled to $65K. 📉 A plateau is a signal to change the model, not add features: For years Respona feature-slapped the product to fight SaaS churn and stayed stuck; growth only came after they changed the business model, not the feature set. 🛠️ Build the software layer back on top of a service-as-software model: After delivering manually off a Google Sheet, Respona rebuilt a client portal, publisher network, and a back-end brain so the service could scale like software. 🎯 Productize the service so it moves on an assembly line: Respona set five fixed tiers, volume-based discounts, and paid add-ons, avoiding the custom-call trap that makes traditional agencies impossible to scale. 🚀 Off-page SEO is making a comeback for AI visibility: To get cited in AI answers, Respona finds lookalike publishers, publishes fresher skyscraper content, and builds a surround-sound presence so the models repeatedly encounter the brand. Chapters 00:00 The call that changed everything 00:30 Introduction 01:18 What Respona does today 02:48 Respona's origins and the first interview 04:13 Early traction, then the SaaS churn plateau 06:20 Stuck feature-slapping the product 08:07 The pivotal customer call in early 2025 10:52 Why going into services felt like the cardinal sin 11:50 How AI changed the services math 14:20 Delivering the first service off a Google Sheet 14:54 Testing demand and finding product-market fit 19:18 Rebuilding a software layer on top 22:13 Service-as-software and the YC and Sequoia thesis 27:59 Productizing the service with fixed tiers 31:27 How AI answers get generated (the Notion example) 37:14 Finding lookalike publishers and fresher content 43:12 Surround sound and the Opus Clip case study 45:06 Is SEO dead and the truth about Reddit 50:54 Lightning round Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/487 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
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    58 mins
  • How Danny Jenkins Bootstrapped ThreatLocker From $150K Debt to $200M

    How Danny Jenkins Bootstrapped ThreatLocker From $150K Debt to $200M
    Jul 2 2026
    Danny Jenkins was $150,000 in credit card debt with zero paying customers 18 months into building his bootstrapped startup. An accelerator told him to quit. He ignored the advice and built ThreatLocker into a cybersecurity company approaching $200M in revenue. In this episode, Danny Jenkins shares how he grew a bootstrapped startup from $150K in debt to nearly $200M in revenue. You'll hear how he turned a tiny market into a $10 billion category, why he was shaking when he asked for his first sale, and how a bootstrapped startup can win against an entire industry. ThreatLocker now protects 70,000 companies worldwide. Danny explains the zero trust approach behind the bootstrapped startup, how MSPs became his distribution wedge into small business, and the founder mindset that carried his self-funded company through near-bankruptcy. It is a candid look at bootstrapping a profitable company without losing your nerve. 🔑 Key Lessons Create a new category instead of fighting for a small market For a bootstrapped startup, sales is asking for the order, not a magic pitch Money changes your problems, it does not solve them Use MSPs as a distribution wedge into small business A real product and buyers knowing it exists are the only things that matter early Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:04 What ThreatLocker does 01:56 Danny's background in cybersecurity 05:15 The ransomware recovery that sparked the idea 08:00 WannaCry and creating a category 10:02 The 18-month grind to the first customer 13:12 Shaking to ask for the first sale 16:03 Surviving debt, a hurricane, and near-bankruptcy 21:15 The founder mindset that kept the bootstrapped startup alive 23:00 The only two things that matter early 24:56 Hiring the right salesperson 30:02 Trade shows, COVID, and scaling 35:30 MSPs as a distribution wedge 38:27 The Kaseya attack and overnight growth 41:12 Why zero trust is controversial 45:39 Lightning round Resources Full show notes: saasclub.io/486 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders and get the best SaaS content every week: saasclub.io/email ThreatLocker: threatlocker.com Danny Jenkins on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dannyjenkins
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    54 mins
  • Eric Ries on How Founders Quietly Lose Their Company

    Eric Ries on How Founders Quietly Lose Their Company
    May 28 2026
    He wrote the startup playbook. Then he watched founders who used it lose control of what they built. Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, felt like he was feeding companies into a meat grinder. Founders will hear his startup governance framework, why most lose founder control after product-market fit, and the two-page filing that protects them. Eric breaks down what happens when one customer becomes half your revenue, how to tell real product-market fit from slow drift, and why the term-sheet paperwork your lawyer hands you is quietly working against you. He shares the Twilio case where Jeff Lawson was removed by activists 199 days after his seven-year dual-class sunset expired, and a Harvard Law School study showing only 20% of venture-backed founder CEOs are still CEO three years after IPO. Plus: why Vectura's board sold an inhaler company to Philip Morris for an extra 10 pence per share, and what that says about every startup governance choice founders face today. Eric Ries authored The Lean Startup and the new book Incorruptible on startup governance. This episode is brought to you by: 💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free 🔑 Key Lessons 🧠 Startup governance erodes through drift, not attack: Founders lose companies through quiet roadmap drift, board concessions and term-sheet defaults, not one dramatic event. 🎯 Real product-market fit feels like a tornado: If you have time to call an advisor and ask whether you have product-market fit, you do not. Real PMF means drowning in demand. 📉 One big customer can hijack your roadmap: A SaaS founder Eric advised landed a whale, and the product drifted within six months around what that customer "might" want. 🏢 The two-page filing that protects founder control: A Delaware C-corp can convert to a Public Benefit Corporation in five minutes, writing the mission into the charter before investors push back. 💰 "Any lawful purpose" is not neutral: Delaware courts read it as a fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder value, which is how Vectura sold to Philip Morris for 10 extra pence per share. 🤝 Decide who you would rather die than betray: Customers, employees or shareholders. Whoever you put first becomes the test for every startup governance decision. 🚀 Build the startup governance fortress before you need it: Protective provisions and charter purpose are easiest to install when you have five people and no investors on the cap table. Chapters What would Eric Ries change about The Lean Startup today Why AI makes building cheaper but learning the real bottleneck The meat-grinder problem that led to Incorruptible Jeff Lawson, Twilio and the 199-day post-IPO ouster The LTSE bathroom floor and the capitulate-or-die ultimatum Financial gravity, explained One customer hits 50% of revenue: what happens next Product-market fit vs slow drift Why startup governance matters at five people The Public Benefit Corporation conversion in two pages The Philip Morris thought experiment The real Vectura sale and the 10-pence betrayal OpenAI, structural integrity and the limits of paper governance The 5-minute filing a founder can do this week Lightning round and where to find Eric Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/485 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
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    46 mins
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I just love the way Omer interviews his guests. Love the summary upfront, and the Q&A towards the end. Love how he has gotten all founders to share this much knowledge, which is truly beneficial to the startup ecosystem!

Love Omer Khan's interview style

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