Stop chasing traffic, fix your SaaS funnel first — Simonida Jovanovic
Episode notes
Simonida has made a career out of figuring out why SaaS users don't pay—and she doesn't think throwing more AI, more emails, or more traffic at the problem is the answer. She focuses on one of the most valuable parts of the SaaS funnel: the gap between someone starting a trial and deciding the product is worth paying for.
Sometimes moving that conversion rate by just a few percentage points can create more revenue than another expensive push at the top of the funnel. We talked about what actually makes trial users convert, why "best practices" can be dangerously misleading, how behavioral segmentation can go too far, and why copy should be one of the last things you work on—not the first.
Plus: founder voice, no-reply emails, suppression rules, and why product, sales, support, and marketing need to actually talk to each other before anyone writes another lifecycle sequence. And, inevitably, AI.
Why Simonida thinks outsourcing strategy to an LLM is a terrible idea, why AI-generated content increasingly feels like "plastic fruit," what she does use AI for, and why firing your marketing team because ChatGPT can do the job might be an experiment you regret six months later.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Can AI actually replace people?
03:07 - Why AI is dangerous for strategy
05:20 - AI won't kill work—it'll change it
06:23 - LinkedIn's AI bubble
08:52 - Why tech companies are humanizing AI
12:57 - Are we overhyping AI?
15:03 - Turning SaaS trials into paying customers
17:35 - The revenue hiding inside your existing funnel
19:40 - The problem with marketing best practices
21:09 - Why human judgment still matters
23:39 - Can AI run your marketing without humans?
28:04 - Why AI strategy still falls short
32:38 - The car wash test for AI
34:09 - Fire your marketing team for AI? Go ahead.
35:36 - What makes a great SaaS email?
38:13 - Every email needs one job
40:13 - Why emails should come from a real person
42:14 - Why no-reply emails need to die
44:48 - Stop emailing people who don't care
47:03 - Behavioral emails and knowing when to stop
49:37 - How Simonida audits a SaaS funnel
52:05 - What product, sales, and support know that marketing doesn't
55:14 - Why copy comes last
56:14 - Can you segment too much?
58:13 - When better onboarding hurts conversion
59:51 - Who should send your SaaS emails?
62:31 - Founder voice as a competitive advantage
67:17 - Cyberdecks, hedgehogs, and the internet beyond AI
Simonida - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonida-jovanovic-29778244/
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