saas.unbound

saas.unbound

by Anna Nadeina
EntrepreneurshipInvesting
Season 6
Zero outbound, 90% SEO: how to grow without a sales team | Hiren Hasmukh @Teqtivity
Hiren bootstrapped Tectivity from a smart locker idea into an IT asset management SaaS that competes with VC-funded rivals — with 25 people, zero outbound, and a customer base that refers each other across job changes. In this episode: → Why he pivoted from hardware to software, and the years he wishes he'd gotten back → How a two-week feature turnaround beats competitors who "charge for innovation" → The $900K his team saved one enterprise from a couple of reports on mobile phone usage → The security breach that hit them four years ago — and how they rebuilt trust with SOC 2 and forensics reports → Why founder-led support stops working, and when to actually step back → How 90% of growth comes from SEO and referrals — with zero cold outreach For founders building bootstrapped B2B SaaS in crowded, well-funded categories. ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:06 — Introduction & Hiren's Background 1:10 — How the Smart Locker Idea Was Born 2:05 — Pivoting from Hardware to SaaS 2:29 — Why Hiren Chose to Stay Bootstrapped 3:44 — Founder-Led Support on Slack: Sustainable? 4:41 — Customizing the Product for Each Customer 6:35 — Word of Mouth as the Primary Growth Engine 9:54 — SEO vs. AI Search: What's Actually Driving Traffic 14:03 — The Security Breach & Lessons Learned 15:47 — Building Remote Culture with a 25-Person Team 20:24 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Final Hack 🎙️ Hiren Hasmukh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiren-teq/ Teqtivity - https://teqtivity.com/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E23
Jul 6, 2026
24:38
How game mechanics are changing B2B onboarding in 2026 | Karel Papik @ Product Fruits
Karel Papik spent 20 years making video games and then discovered that gaming principles for hooking users in the first hour are more advanced than most B2B onboarding. He brought that thinking to Product Fruits, then scrapped the entire roadmap to rebuild it around AI. We get into why his investors offered more money within 24 hours of hearing the pivot, how "forbidden mechanics" from gaming translate into SaaS adoption, why he stopped doing outbound and content entirely — and why he now tells founders to stop listening to customers about the future of their product. For SaaS founders, product managers, and operators thinking seriously about onboarding, AI adoption, and how to grow without chasing every trend. In this episode: → Why investors offered more money within 24 hours of the AI pivot → How gaming "forbidden mechanics" translate to SaaS adoption → Why they stopped doing outbound and content — and what replaced it → Personalizing onboarding at the user level, not the segment level → Why founders should stop asking customers about the future → The personal cost of critical thinking and going against consensus ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:00 — Intro & Karel's Gaming Background 1:13 — From Video Games to SaaS: How Karel Found Product Fruits 3:17 — Gaming Principles That Apply to SaaS Onboarding 6:59 — Why Product Fruits Went All-In on AI 9:19 — AI Personalization & How Elvin Works 15:07 — The "Annotation" Method: Teaching AI About Your Product 20:33 — Data Privacy & Why Customer Data Stays Separate 21:40 — Dealing With AI Uncertainty & Pricing Changes 22:58 — Growth Strategy: PPC Over Content 26:21 — Biggest Win: The Bold Bet on AI 29:17 — Founder Hack: The Power of Critical Thinking 🎙️ Karel Papik - linkedin.com/in/karelpapik Product Fruits - https://productfruits.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E22
Jun 22, 2026
33:43
Why your biggest pricing mistake is copying competitors and going cheaper | Mark Walker @ Nue
Mark Walker has been a litigator, a music industry lawyer, and a repeat SaaS founder — and he's now CEO of Nue, the revenue orchestration platform quietly running the billing stack for most of the major AI companies you've heard of. We get into why customers come to you looking for reasons not to buy, how one Nue customer had $2M unbilled and didn't know it, when Stripe is genuinely enough and when it isn't, why seat-based pricing was never really right — and what Mark thinks are the only real moats left in SaaS. For SaaS founders thinking about pricing, billing complexity, or what their revenue stack should look like as they scale. In this episode: → Why customers come looking for reasons not to buy → How to find and fix revenue leakage (one customer: $2M unbilled) → When to invest in revenue infrastructure — and when Stripe is enough → Why seat-based pricing was never the right model → Lessons from selling his last company → Why distribution and data are the only real moats left ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:24 — Introduction: Mark's Unconventional Path to SaaS 1:08 — First Startup Blanketware: Ahead of Its Time 3:21 — What Is Nue? Revenue Orchestration Explained 4:27 — Who's Running Nue: The AI Company Client List 5:44 — Pricing for the Fastest-Growing Companies in the World 9:13 — When to Invest in Revenue Infrastructure 16:08 — How to Price Your Product (and Stop Leaving Money on the Table) 22:40 — Usage-Based Pricing: Hype or Reality? 26:48 — Revenue Leakage: What It Is and Why It's Costing You Millions 35:36 — Lessons from Acquisitions and Exits 39:19 — Biggest Failure and Biggest Win 44:08 — The Hack: Sell by Addressing What They're Afraid Of 🎙️ Mark Walker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwalker/ Nue - nue.io Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E21
Jun 8, 2026
49:10
Why vibe coding is a slot machine (and what to do instead) | Eric Ries @ Lean Startup Co.
Eric Ries wrote The Lean Startup and then spent a decade realizing he forgot to say "for the better." In this one he breaks down what's actually missing from the way founders build companies, and what to do about it before it's too late. We get into why it's always too early to set up governance until suddenly it's too late, the two-page legal filing most founders skip for no good reason, the study showing AI made developers 19% less productive while feeling 20% more, and what Samsung's refrigerator strategy says about cycle time. For founders, operators, and anyone building something they actually want to protect. In this episode: → Why governance is always "too early" until it's too late → The two-page filing that protects mission (and why founders skip it) → How surrogation destroys great companies — and why mission is the cure → The study: AI made developers 19% less productive (they thought they were 20% faster) → What Samsung's refrigerator strategy teaches about lean startup → Why "just give people what they want" is harder than it sounds ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:05 — Why Lean Startup Still Matters After a Decade 3:47 — What Lean Startup Left Out (and Why Eric Wrote Incorruptible) 8:25 — The Danger of "Change the World" Without Saying "For the Better" 14:51 — Why It's Never the Right Time to Protect Your Mission (Until It's Too Late) 17:51 — The Gruff Founder Who Secretly Had a Mission All Along 20:22 — The Builder's Intuition vs. Shareholder Primacy 22:03 — How to Structurally Protect Your Company's Values from Day One 28:26 — Surrogation: When Metrics Replace the Mission 35:56 — The AI Mania: Demos Without Products and LLM Psychosis 44:51 — How Leaders Actually Learn to Use AI (The Two-Week Hack) 54:09 — The Real Hack: Just Give People What They Want 🎙️ Eric Ries - linkedin.com/in/eries Lean Startup - theleanstartup.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E20
May 25, 2026
57:53
How we doubled prices twice without losing customers | J.Y. Delmotte @BuddiesHR
J.Y. Delmotte co-founded six startups, went through YC, and is now running BuddiesHR — a suite of Slack apps doing $56K MRR. In this one he gets unusually specific about what's working, what flopped, and what could kill the business. We get into the Slack Marketplace SEO play that captured 90%+ of inbound (and why it's nearly impossible to replicate now), what happened when he doubled the price twice, the existential risk of building on Slack, and the co-founder split that got lawyers involved. For SaaS founders thinking about growth channels, pricing leverage, and building a business that can actually be sold. In this episode: → The Slack Marketplace SEO play that captured 90%+ of inbound → Why doubling the price twice barely lost any customers → The platform risk of building on Slack — and the escape plan → Why 40 founder interviews shaped the roadmap before any code → The co-founder split that got lawyers involved → Selling KarmaLinks and TalkFluence: two acquisitions, smooth handoffs ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:05 — Introduction & Guest Background 1:18 — Why J.Y Built Buddies HR 2:00 — What Is Buddies HR? 4:14 — Platform Risk & Slack Dependency 14:18 — Growth Channels & Acquisition Strategy 22:32 — Building in Public — Does It Backfire? 27:42 — Revenue, Pricing & Predictability 34:06 — Selling Car Links & Acquisition Lessons 43:57 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Lessons Learned 54:31 — Founder Hack: Monthly Self-Reflection 🎙️ J.Y. Delmotte - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jydelmotte 🌐 BuddiesHR - buddieshr.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E19
May 11, 2026
1:00:02
5 years of 100%+ growth with zero funding | Adnan Malik @ SoftwareFinder
Adnan Malik bootstrapped Software Finder from two people in 2019 to 340 employees with 100%+ growth every year — without ever taking outside funding. The engine: a human matchmaking layer between confused software buyers and overwhelmed vendors. We get into why 70-80% of B2B software buyers end up unhappy, how a 120-person content team drove 300% organic growth while competitors collapsed, and the mid-market sales mistake costing SaaS founders their margin. For SaaS founders, operators, and marketers who want to understand how marketplaces actually scale. In this episode: → Why most B2B software buyers end up dissatisfied → The chicken-and-egg problem and the first-mover edge of starting in health IT → How content scaled to 300% organic growth while competitors dropped → Why 90% sales / 10% marketing is the costly default for mid-size SaaS → AEO in practice — and why Adnan calls it "glorified SEO" → The personal cost of scaling from 100 to 340 employees ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:05 — Introduction & Guest Welcome 0:49 — What Software Finder Does & How It Started 2:01 — The Business Model: Free for Buyers, Paid by Vendors 5:58 — Solving the Chicken & Egg Problem 9:21 — 5 Years of 100% Growth — What's Driving It 14:43 — SEO Investment & Organic Traffic Wins 17:04 — AEO & How LLMs Are Changing Buyer Search 20:48 — Biggest Mistakes Vendors Make with Buyers 25:22 — Why Brand & Reviews Matter Before the Sale 26:32 — Review Manipulation & How to Build Trust 30:49 — Founder Burnout & Managing Rapid Growth 33:49 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Lessons Learned 36:38 — Advice for Bootstrapped Founders Today Adnan Malik - linkedin.com/in/adnanmalik1 Software Finder - https://softwarefinder.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E18
May 4, 2026
39:29
A serial bootstrapped SaaS founder's framework | Aaron Gibson @ Hurree
saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #17 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Aaron Gibson has exited two companies, turned down VC funding, and built Hurree — a data analytics platform — by obsessing over one thing: showing users value before they quit. In this episode: → Why Aaron thinks moats are "a lot slimmer than they used to be" in the AI era → How anonymous pulse surveys exposed a culture problem he didn't know he had → Initiatives that changed team retention → His framework for knowing when to double down on a growth channel — and when to kill it → Why he doesn't expect his team to love their jobs, and what he expects instead → What serial founders actually build toward when they're "not building for acquisition" For bootstrapped founders, operators, and anyone building a team-first SaaS business in a crowded market. ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:05 — Introduction & What Hurry Solves 3:20 — Aaron's Background & Journey into Tech 4:45 — The Origin Story of Hurry 6:38 — Showing Monster Value Before Users Churn 10:12 — Using AI Internally & in the Product 11:55 — Measuring AI Success 14:04 — AI & Hiring: Is It Changing the Team? 17:20 — Building a Strong Culture as a Startup 29:22 — Growth Strategy: Bootstrapped & Customer-Obsessed 30:37 — Account-Based Marketing & Go-to-Market Strategy 34:30 — Building for an Exit — Lessons from Two Acquisitions 37:50 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Founder Hacks 🎙️ Aaron Gibson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronhurree/ Huree - https://www.hurree.co/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E17
Apr 27, 2026
44:34
The wrong way to bring AI into your company | Leo Goldfarb @ Albato
saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #16 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Leo Goldfarb, co-founder of Albato — a 100% bootstrapped automation and integration platform with 200,000 users and 80 people — after years at Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Booking.com. This episode gets into what it actually takes to build an AI-first product when you're competing with Zapier and nobody on your team has formal AI experience. In this episode: → Why Albato deliberately pivoted away from competing with Zapier head-on — and what they built instead → The AI copilot that kept crashing, and the API redesign they had to do before it could work → How to spot an AI skeptic on your team before they slow everything down → Why 95% of enterprise AI investments fail — and the metric mistake behind it → The case for decentralizing AI across every team, not siloing it in an innovation lab → What "pump your tires before tuning your car" means for founders bringing AI into legacy products This one's for founders and operators navigating the gap between AI hype and what it actually takes to ship something that works. ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:05 — Introduction: Meet Leo from Albato 1:35 — From Corporate Life to Co-Founding a Startup 6:30 — What Albato Does & 7 Years Bootstrapped 10:44 — The B2B Pivot: Albato Embedded 18:53 — Building AI Without Dedicated AI Engineers 27:38 — Mistake #1: The AI Skeptic on Your Team 35:54 — How to Actually Measure AI ROI 42:27 — Biggest Win & Biggest Failure at Albato 49:07 — Founder Hack: Trust Your Team, Let Go 54:10 — Fix Your Foundation Before Adding AI Leo Goldfarb - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-goldfarb-7b743449/ Albato - albato.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E16
Apr 20, 2026
58:52
From open source side project to bootstrapped solo business | David Boyne @EventCatalog
saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #15 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with David Boyne, founder of EventCatalog, an open-source documentation tool specifically designed for event-driven architectures (EDAs), allowing teams to document, visualize, and discover services, events, schemas, and producers/consumers. Dave Boyne left a senior AWS developer advocate role — the highest salary he'd ever earned — and jumped into bootstrapping with 12 months of runway, a self-hosted documentation tool, and no clear business model. Fourteen months later, Event Catalog has crossed $300K in revenue, and Dave reached personal sustainability in just 8 months. In this episode: → Why Dave chose a self-hosted license key model over SaaS — and why it made procurement 10x easier → How he reached sustainability in 8 months without raising a single dollar → His AI-powered content and coding workflows as a solo founder → The post-sale mistake he almost didn't catch: ignoring renewals while chasing new sales → Why he raised prices twice — and the 20% drop-off rule he uses to know when pricing is right → How he uses LinkedIn to build trust with developers without ever leading with the product ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:00 — Introduction & Guest Background 1:55 — From AWS to Bootstrapping 5:00 — Marketing on LinkedIn 7:25 — What is Event Catalog? 9:39 — Business Model: Open Core Over SaaS 14:23 — Building with AI as a Solo Founder 38:08 — Biggest Win & Biggest Failure 41:46 — Founder Hacks & Closing Thoughts This one's for solo founders and technical builders who want to see what the zero-to-$300K journey actually looks like. David - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-boyne/ EventCatalog - https://www.eventcatalog.dev/
S6 · E15
Apr 13, 2026
46:00
Why building inside your competitor is a better strategy | Pieter Boon @ImpactPilotv
saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #14 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Pieter Boon, co-founder of ImpactPilot, a Customer Success (CS) platform designed specifically as an add-on for HubSpot. Pieter spent his career in post-sale roles — from Google's ads team to a SaaS startup he helped sell to a unicorn. Now he's building Impact Pilot, a customer success tool that lives inside HubSpot, not next to it. Three months after launch, HubSpot announced a competing feature. Here's what happened next. In this episode: → Why standalone CS platforms create "ghost towns" of stale data → The difference between customer support and customer success (and why it matters for retention) → The classic first-hire mistake that sets CS teams up to fail → How to use AI in customer success without damaging real customer relationships → Why Pieter raised only $500K — and what he used it for → The one tactic that keeps customers renewing: celebrate their wins with them This episode is for B2B SaaS founders and revenue leaders thinking seriously about post-sale growth, churn, and when (and how) to build a CS function. ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:00 — Introduction & Welcome 0:34 — Pieter's Background: From Google to SaaS Startup Founder 2:04 — Customer Support vs. Customer Success Explained 3:11 — Do All SaaS Companies Need a CS Team? 5:05 — Why Impact Pilot is Built Inside HubSpot (Not Standalone) 10:09 — Why HubSpot Over Salesforce? Narrowing the ICP 12:21 — Bootstrapping to Angel Round: The Fundraising Mindset Shift 15:04 — How to Start Customer Success as a SaaS Founder 19:07 — Using AI in Customer Success: Use Cases & Guardrails 31:02 — What "Being Active on LinkedIn" Actually Means 34:42 — Building Your First CS Team the Right Way 39:51 — Biggest Win, Biggest Challenge & One Founder Hack Pieter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pieter-boon/ ImpactPilot - https://impactpilot.io/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
S6 · E14
Apr 6, 2026
46:14
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