Trends PRO #0088 – B2B SaaS

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Trends PRO #0088 – B2B SaaS

Why It Matters

B2B SaaS gives you a simple, secure and accessible way to solve business problems.
 Problem

You can solve internal challenges:
internally by building tools and hiring

externally by outsourcing the problem

Building your own tools can distract you from your core competency.
 Solution

B2B SaaS helps you focus on your core competency.
While reaping the benefits of improvements made by teams dedicated to specific problems.
 Players

B2B SaaS

Make • Build and automate workflows

InvoiceBerry • Online invoicing for small businesses

Gusto • Payroll, benefits and HR management

Hive • Manage tasks, workflows and team’s work

Lanva • Social video editing app.

ClickUp • Manage tasks, docs, chat, goals and more

Plausible • Open-source privacy-friendly web analytics

Podcast Hawk • Podcast guest booking software.

Writesonic • AI-driven content creation

Folderly • AI-Based platform to improve email deliverability.

Craftar • Build APIs with No-Code

Budibase • Low-code internal app builder

LiveAgent • All-in-one platform for live customer support

SavvyCal • Experience-focused Calendly alternative

Communities

Trends.vc • Community of entrepreneurs discovering new markets and ideas

MicroConf • A community and event series for bootstrapped SaaS founders

Indie Hackers • Real stories, advice, and revenue numbers from indie makers

The Indiependent • A community for founders where you get kicked for inactivity

MegaMaker • A community for bootstrappers

100DaysOfNoCode • Lessons, stories and activities for no-code founders

Funds

TinySeed • An accelerator for bootstrapped SaaS founders

SureSwift Capital • Buys and grows businesses of independent founders

Calm Company Fund • Capital, mentorship and community for B2B SaaS

Dura Software • Invests in hyper-niche software

Lighter Capital • Invests in companies with $15,000+ MRR

Calm Capital • Invests in profitable businesses

LTV SaaS Fund • Focuses on profitable and privately held SaaS companies
 Predictions

B2B SaaS companies will index into existing markets instead of trying to create new categories.

Plausible reached $500,000 ARR in 3 years with an analytics tool.

ConvertCalculator has 15,000 users and $24,000 MRR.

Checkout Page is a side-project that processed $2,000,000 in payments.

Paperform reached $2,000,000 ARR. Tally reached $10,000 MRR in less than a year in a crowded market of form builders. The latter has 30,000 users and sits at $17,000 MRR.

Companies will use open-source SaaS to avoid platform risk and vendor lock-in.

Baserow • No-code database, Airtable alternative.

Fider • Feedback management tool, alternative to Canny.

Chatwoot • Customer engagement platform, Intercom and Zapier alternative.

Businesses will use personalization to nurture leads and convert customers at high-intent moments. Live video sales reps is the second most upvoted idea on Kernal.

ConvertKit uses surveys to change onboarding paths.

Candu lets you serve different content to different users.

Helium lets you talk to web visitors as they land on a page.

Bonjoro lets you send transactional personal videos to your customers.

Businesses will use SaaS analytics to improve customer experiences. Data-driven roadmaps and pricing will help reduce churn and maximize revenue.

Chargebee allows you to run billing experiments with real-time insights.

Chartmogul helps you measure, understand, and grow your recurring revenue.

Mixpanel helps you convert, engage and retain users with user behavior analytics.
 Opportunities

Don’t waste time, money and energy trying to create new markets. Solve existing pain points. Not those you wish existed.

Upvoty • Feedback management tool, grew to $20,000 MRR.

Potion • Notion to website converter, grew to $4,000+ MRR.

Headlime • AI-powered marketing copy generator, grew to $20,000 MRR and was sold for $1,000,000+ in 8 months.

Focus on a specific job-to-be-done. Design simple, powerful features.

ShareThis lets you add share buttons to your website.

Hugo helps you manage notes and tasks for your meetings.

SavvyCal is a calendar scheduling tool that generates $20,000+ MRR.

Hyperping helps you monitor uptime and manage incidents. It has ~$7,000 MRR now.

Friendly offers privacy-first marketing automation and web analytics. It’s close to $13,000 MRR now.

Narrow your target audience. Vertical SaaS targets niche industries and customers. Niching down helps you stand out from competition, clearly communicate your value and find customers.

The Agent Nest • Social media marketing for real estate that reached $10,000 MRR.

Aplano • Employee management and time tracking for shiftworkers that reached $450,000 ARR.

Zenmaid • Scheduling, automation and reporting for maid service that reached $1,500,000 ARR.

Presell to validate demand. A landing page, mockup or screenshots will do. Don’t waste time building something nobody wants.

Ch Daniel got $1,000 in presales.

Alex Pethick received $4,000 in presales for Lanva.

Brian Casel got $3,000 in preorders with wireframes.

Aazar Shad reached $560 MRR with Ecomply after 3 webinars.

Danny Postma got $16,000 in presales in 48 hours for Headlime.

Kalo Yankulov says Encharge got ~$4,000 in pre-sales with content marketing.
Risks

Feature parity • No-code and low-code tools make it easier to reach feature parity. This is a two-way problem. It increases competitor risk. You can catch up with competitors. They can also catch up to you. Competition lowers margins.

Low Lifetime Value • This makes it hard to invest in customer acquisition. Paired with other expenses it can lead to negative cash flow and the Valley of Death.

Platform Risk • Building on other platforms subjects you to their product roadmap, outages and fees. Changes to Notion API broke Super.
 Key Lessons

Micro-SaaS does not mean low revenue. “Micro” means a specific niche, target audience or set of features. Hubstaff started as a time tracker for field and remote teams. It grew to 75,000 users and $3,800,000 ARR.

Growth systems > growth hacks. Growth hacks are designed for fast, low-cost user acquisition. Growth systems focus on long-term marketing strategies. Doopoll grew MRR by 800% over 6 months with a growth system using pain point SEO.
 Hot Takes

The largest SaaS categories will be commoditized by Monetized Open-Source alternatives. Rocket.Chat and n8n are open-source alternatives to Intercom and Zapier. This is counter-positioning. It’s unlikely the latter will open source.

You need lots of customers, a high customer lifetime value or both to build a great B2B SaaS business. A company without one of these is in a death zone.

Feature parity is a weakness of SaaS. This leads to commoditization and lower margins. Low prices and complementary services become your key differentiators.
Links

Who should we talk to about B2B SaaS? • The tweet behind this report.

The Stair Step Approach to Bootstrapping • A model from Rob Walling on increasing the odds of success by “stair stepping.”

B2B SaaS Marketing Guide • SaaS-centric marketing guide.
 Related Reports

Micro-SaaS • Solve specific problem for specific audience

Competitor Risk • Indexing into crowded markets

Product-Led Growth • Build a product that sells itself

Value-Based Pricing • Get the right pricing

Programmatic SEO • Acquire high-intent customers
 Thanks

Thanks to Rob Walling, Reza Saeedi, Stewart Townsend, Prabhjot Singh, Uwe Dreissigacker, Tarun Muvvala, Soma Mandal, Kimsia Sim, Darren Travel, Ben Alexander, Ab Advany, Yun, Niklas Nielsen and Vladislav Podolyako. We had a great time jamming on this report.
Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.
 What else?

Trends PRO #0088 — B2B SaaS has more insights.
What you’ll get:
36 B2B SaaS Examples (157% More)

23 Communities (283% More)

23 B2B SaaS Funds (228% More)

15 Predictions (275% More)

16 Opportunities (300% More)

6 Risks (100% More)

4 Key Lessons (100% More)

6 Hot Takes (100% More)

15 Links (400% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
( Pro) How to build fast with no-code tools?

( Pro) How to leverage product-led growth?

( Pro) Why buy instead of build?

(Pro) How to monetize open-source SaaS?

( Pro) What’s the difference between passive and active SaaS?

( Pro) What are 8 examples of B2B SaaS lifetime deals that generated up to $800,000?

( Pro) What is software-with-a-service?

( Pro) How to hyper niche?

( Pro) How to add value with APIs and integrations?

( Pro) Where to buy SaaS apps?

( Pro) How to reduce churn with customization?

( Pro) What are 5 examples of white-label SaaS?

( Pro) Why build your SaaS in public?

( Pro) How to leverage existing ecosystems to grow your SaaS?

( Pro) And much more…
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