DeepSummary
Jeff Roberts, co-founder of Outseta, shares the journey of building an all-in-one platform to help creators launch and manage SaaS and membership businesses. It took them four and a half years to achieve significant traction, as they initially struggled selling to developers with an underwhelming product. The business saw growth after pivoting to target no-code entrepreneurs and improving the core features like payments and authentication.
A key challenge Outseta faced was deciding which features to prioritize, as they aimed to build a comprehensive solution encompassing billing, authentication, CRM, email, and help desk tools. Roberts emphasizes the importance of focusing on the core offerings that every SaaS business needs, rather than expanding scope prematurely. He also discusses the benefits of staying small and having the entire team involved in customer support.
One unique aspect of Outseta is their "choose your own adventure" compensation model, where all employees earn the same $210,000 salary but can choose to work between 1-5 days per week, with the remaining days dedicated to earning equity in the business. This approach aims to attract talent who value work-life balance and align incentives with the company's long-term success.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Building a successful SaaS business often requires immense patience, perseverance, and a long-term mindset, as Outseta's journey took over four years to achieve significant traction.
- Prioritizing and focusing on the core features that address the fundamental needs of the target audience is crucial, rather than expanding scope prematurely.
- Involving the entire team, including developers and designers, in customer support can foster a deeper understanding of user needs and drive product improvements.
- Outseta's unique "choose your own adventure" compensation model, offering a high base salary, flexible work schedules, and equity ownership, is an innovative approach to attracting and retaining top talent.
- Successful founders adopt a problem-solving mindset, finding creative ways to overcome obstacles rather than getting stuck or discouraged.
- Building a strong, aligned co-founding team with complementary skills and shared long-term vision is critical for navigating the challenges of a bootstrapped business.
- Targeting the no-code entrepreneur market can be a viable strategy for SaaS companies, as it enables a broader audience to build and launch digital businesses.
- Maintaining a relatively small team can be an intentional choice, allowing for agility and focus while still achieving significant growth and success.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “We want to keep the company relatively small in terms of headcount by design. We don't want to put an artificial cap on anything, but we've always said, let's see how far we can push outside of 20 people. And I think we can push it pretty darn far with 20 people.“ by Jeff Roberts
- “The question is always, does this scale? And my response is always, it doesn't need to. We want to keep the company relatively small in terms of headcount by design. We don't want to put an artificial cap on anything, but we've always said, let's see how far we can push outside of 20 people. And I think we can push it pretty darn far with 20 people.“ by Jeff Roberts
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Episode Information
The Bootstrapped Founder
Arvid Kahl
6/26/24
Geoff Roberts (@GeoffTRoberts) is the co-founder of Outseta, and he's halfway there, 7 years in. Outseta —the SaaS starter kit and the business behind it— is built and operated on a multi-decade timeline, and it's not been easy to achieve profitability. Geoff shares the ups and downs of a long and painful story; what it means to think and operate both in the here and now as well as focusing on the birds-eye view when it comes to bootstrapping a SaaS business.
We also dive into Outseta's choose-your-won adventure compensation model: a full-time salary of $210,000 for everyone with massive flexibility and choice.
Enjoy this conversation with a veteran of self-funded software.
00:00:00 Building a Platform for SaaS Businesses
00:11:39 The Journey of Building Outsetta
00:17:47 Founding Team Alignment and Bootstrapping
00:26:01 Revolutionizing Compensation and Company Culture
This episode is sponsored by Acquire.com
The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/geoff-roberts-playing-the-long-game/
The podcast episode: https://tbf.fm/episodes/333-geoff-roberts-playing-the-long-game
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