Twenty years ago, it was really hard to build software, but it was relatively easy to find open markets with people eager to buy from you. It’s the opposite now.
It’s much easier to build software now, but it’s more difficult and expensive to find open markets or niches with ready buyers who clap when you show up.
Product is still important, but the SaaS scale-up game is mostly about sales and marketing: your Go-To-Market (GTM).
Technical founders who have grown big and valuable companies always say their biggest learning that paid off was learning to market and sell.
John Stewart created and sold an engineering services business before starting a Salesforce integration services company that built some early software products.
One of their software experiments allowed Salesforce customers to see and interact with their customer data on a map. When customers paid for it and revenue grew, he and his co-founder wound down their services and focused on their mapping product.
MapAnything grew quickly to over $2M ARR as a bootstrapped software company, with some revenue-based financing to help test their growth plans.
When he proved their small GTM investments paid off, John raised several rounds of venture capital to grow faster by focusing their efforts within the Salesforce ecosystem.
MapAnything reached $22 million in ARR in three years before Salesforce acquired the company for $250 million. John stayed on with Salesforce for six months before moving on.
As John explains it on the Practical Founders Podcast:
“I tell founders most often that you really need to focus on sales and distribution. As the CEO of a startup in the tech space or SaaS, the only thing that really matters is revenue growth.
“Technology is technology. Even if you have unique IP right now, it won’t be unique soon enough.
“So you need to figure out your go-to-market motion. Revenue cures all ills. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the company as long as revenue is growing. It’s all about revenue growth more than anything.”
John Stewart, founder of MapAnything
Three years after selling MapAnything, John and a co-founder launched Fastbreak.ai, a sports schedule optimization platform for professional and amateur sports leagues.
They have a great new product but are great at marketing and selling.
Check out this interview with John Stewart on the Practical Founders Podcast.
John also shares advice on working with and selling your company to Salesforce.
