As a founder myself, I did it the hard way. I tried to navigate my way through growth without a group of peers to act as a sounding board. I didn’t look to see if maybe someone else had done what I was about to do. I made good decisions, but there were also plenty of mistakes and they cost time and money. Mistakes on hiring, scaling, spending, software. You name it, I’ve learnt the hard way and that’s taught me expensive lessons and quite possibly slowed the growth of SaaStock at times.
The irony was, that I am running a business that brings peers together, B2B SaaS Founders, that are all on the journey to $10M ARR, to meet with one another and learn from one another at our annual conference SaaStock in Dublin every October.
I got the sense each year, that by simply putting on this event and seeing thousand of SaaS Founders talking in the hallways, the meeting rooms, Dublin pubs and bars, restaurants and even golf courses that every minute of the waking day during the 3-4 days in Dublin was an opportunity for a SaaS Founder to get peer group support and ask a ton of questions that they’d been thinking about for some time and just wanted to get a peers input, to sense check ‘am I making the right decision?’ or ‘how do I hire a team of A players’.
From the feedback of SaaStock attendees, we knew that we were making a real difference to the lives and companies of those SaaS Founders by holding SaaStock. Yet there was a feeling that I’m helping SaaS entrepreneurs but could also benefit from similar help myself and this feeling went on for 4 years.
Only then did I take the leap to start work on my own support group. I joined a peer group of other entrepreneurs, all in different professions and at different stages of growth and we’d meet once a month and support and coach one another around our respective businesses. Taking a day out of the office often made me feel a tinge of guilt to attend these sessions however afterwards there was always a sense of relief, justification and ROI. I had just spent a few hours working on the business and myself and not working in the business.
“Feels like I’ve joined a YCombinator program, there’s a lot of activity and content to keep up with, coming at you at pace.” – Pat Donnelly, Founder of Autoaddress.ie
As the Covid-19 pandemic put a pause to our physical conferences, we had to think about ways of bringing the value that we delivered in Dublin online. How can we continue to make a real difference in the absence of thousands of SaaS Founders flying into Dublin and learning from one another, supporting each other and making them feel less lonely?
We started work on the SaaStock Founder Membership (SFM) and worked on it in the background, whilst delivering virtual conferences in 2020 which was the fastest time to revenue and value to help keep the business going during the pandemic.
In April 2021, we launched the SFM with the belief that ambitious B2B SaaS Founders need the best available support, network and education on their journey to $10MM ARR and the SFM would be the best place to receive this. Our mission is to help 1000 SaaS Founders get to $10M ARR before 2030.
Rewinding to 2015, before the first SaaStock in Dublin (2016), I ran a Slack group called The SaaS Founders Club. This was a place for SaaS Founders to connect online, via slack and ask questions, share helpful things. This grew to 500 members and engagement via Slack was always an issue before we moved it over to Facebook. Many other SaaS Founder communities have sprung up over the years either on Slack or on Facebook groups and have varying degrees of success. What they are missing is what we have built with SFM.
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Support – Curated peer groups of B2B SaaS Founders at the same stage as you.
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Connect – A clear way to build a global network of SaaS Founders.
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Learn – Workshops to tackle the challenges of scaling from where you are to $10MM in ARR from leading experts.
“I’ve been growing faster since starting with SaaStock Founder Membership. It has been opening my eyes on different parts on the business” – Adam Golub, CEO of Videommerce
Having gone through it myself and having brought SaaS Founders together at physical and virtual events now for 6 years I know that as an early stage founder, you are faced with challenges from every direction. You can feel like an imposter at times. You can feel lost and anxious. There will be sleepless nights and the odds for success can feel like they are stacked against you.
You might not have the right knowledge at present to grow your business. It’s likely you could be wearing too many hats. Getting new leads and new customers might feel like a continuous battle that you are not winning. The list goes on.
But you do know you are not alone? The journey doesn’t have to be difficult. There is a proven path to success and by getting a support group in place, building out your network of SaaS founders and learning how to overcome the obstacles and put the right team, systems and processes in place means your chances of getting to $10M will be increased and your journey to get there a less lonely one.
Lay out a clearer path to success for your SaaS with:
Peer Groups
Founders helping founders. Hand-picked groups of founders going through the same journey get together in one safe, sales free space.
In the Monthly Founder Circles, founder members support one another with their problems, plans and progress. Helping each other along the journey to $10M ARR.
A Global Network
Building a network enables you to find opportunities that you otherwise wouldn’t find on your own. By growing a global network of SaaS Founders, you’ll no longer have to go it alone and connecting with the right people will save you time and money.
Member Workshops
Invites to exclusive talks and workshops led by leaders in the SaaS landscape.
Experts share actionable insights in our regular member-only workshops, so you are equipped to implement lessons learnt into your business.
Recently, Dev Basu, CEO at Powered by Search led an interactive and insightful workshop on Double your Conversion Rates, double your ARR for our Founder Members. He shared ways to identify the ‘leaky bucket’ in your demand generation strategy using a framework for predictable growth.
Building a SaaS company is like building a house, one floor at a time. One revenue milestone at a time. And in order to get to the roof, you need scaffolding. A support group is your scaffolding. Trying to build a house without it makes it much much harder.
If you are over $10k MRR and want to scale faster don’t limit yourself and slow your growth, find your SaaS tribe and thrive with the SaaStock Founder Membership. Apply today.
