In the latest episode of the SaaS Revolution Show Alex talks with Tope Awotona, the CEO of Calendly about positioning your SaaS and figuring out the messaging, ideal customers, and company structure that come with it.
The story of Calendly, a tool for scheduling meetings, begins where the best entrepreneurial stories do – a nerve wrecking experience with existing products. In Tope’s case, it was trying to schedule a meeting with one of his biggest clients that involved over 20 people present. Just finding a way to get them to agree on a time was overwhelming. The amount of back and forth email was a huge pain. The more he searched for a solution, the more Tope became obsessed with tools for scheduling and calendars, making them work for busy people.
Obsession with tech had ruled his life since his teens. After failing to find a user-friendly tool that looked good, enabled scheduling with many people, and integrated with other calendars, Tope decided to attack the market himself. In late 2013 he launched Calendly. Initially, it was free for all but 9 months after the launch, he introduced a paying plan. Cringing at first, it gave Tope an incredible amount of information who his ideal customer was based on who was paying and for what.
Four years later, the company has 1 million users and 53 staff.
Listen to learn more about:
- What data points Tope looked at as he was figuring out the positioning of Calendly
- Why you should not automate the collection of those data points and rather do it yourself
- How the positioning of your SaaS company should lead product development and the internal organization
- How to figure out messaging when you have a very versatile group of users
- What are the three things you need to get right from the start