The SaaS Podcast: Build, Launch & Scale Your SaaS

He lived in his first customer's basement for a year. Nate Baker found Qualia's first customer by wearing a Stanford sweatshirt to a conference. That customer, Barry Feingold, didn't just sign up—he taught them the industry, made intros to competitors, and let the team live in his basement. In this episode, founders will learn how to find their first customers through network-based selling and multi-year upfront contracts.

Nate shares the brutal early days: building for months without talking to customers, getting their first customer's software shut off overnight, and plateauing at $45K ARR because they didn't respect sales as a skill. Their VP of Sales told them: "I've never seen such a gap between great product and incompetent sales execution." Within 12 months, they went from $45K to $3.5M ARR.

Today, Qualia generates over $100 million in ARR with 600 employees and has raised more than $200 million to transform the home buying process.

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free

🔑 Key Lessons

🎯 First Customers Must Come From Your Network: Nate says your first 10 customers must come from in-network sales—cold outreach rarely closes when you're asking someone to trust an unproven system of record.

💰 Multi-Year Upfront Contracts Bring Cash Forward: Qualia offered 5-year contracts paid upfront at 80% discounts, aligning incentives and generating meaningful early revenue.

🏠 Embed Yourself With Your First Customer: The first 25 Qualia employees rotated through Barry's basement learning the industry—"you have to be so in it" to build great software.

🗺️ Geographic Focus Beats National Expansion Early: Qualia stayed focused on Massachusetts for the first year, building deep relationships before expanding state by state.

⚡ Crisis Creates Your Most Productive Moments: When Barry's vendor shut him off overnight, Qualia had to deliver—it became their most productive month ever.

🔧 Engineers Must Respect Sales as a Skill: At $45K ARR, the founders thought product would speak for itself. Hiring a VP of Sales unlocked $3.5M ARR in 12 months.

Chapters

Introduction and what Qualia does

How Nate picked the title software market at 21 with no experience

The academic approach to market selection (and why it was a mistake)

The real problem: coordination across multiple stakeholders

Finding first customer Barry Feingold at a conference

Living in Barry's basement for a year

When Barry's vendor shut him off overnight

How long it took to ship the first version

Why narrow geographic focus beats national expansion early

Early customer conversations and what they actually needed

How to get customers to pay before you've built the product

The multi-year upfront contract strategy

Network-based selling vs cold outreach for first customers

The wake-up call: "Great product, incompetent sales execution"

Moving upmarket and the "you don't understand Texas" objection

Strategy for geographic expansion state by state

When Nate realized they had real traction

How the opportunity looks today with AI

Lightning round

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SaaS Club Programs

Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus

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Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind

Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate

Resources

Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/467

Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Nine months. Zero revenue. One cold text to a CMO. Yosef Peterseil landed McDonald's as Blings' first enterprise sales customer while bootstrapping—and learned why charging for POCs changes everything. In this episode, founders will learn how to close enterprise sales deals without a playbook, why free POCs kill your priority, and when you're actually ready to hire salespeople.

Yosef shares how he validated the wrong ICP for months before discovering customer success managers had no budget, why a 13-month contract structure eliminates double negotiations, and the $30,000 event mistake that taught him to build follow-up systems first.

Blings now serves McDonald's, Mercedes, Meta, and Rocket Mortgage—hitting $1M ARR in 2023 with just 19 people.

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free

🔑 Key Lessons

🎯 Always Charge for Enterprise Sales POCs: Even $3,000-$5,000 forces customers to prioritize you and starts vendor onboarding—free trials put you at the bottom of the list.

💰 Use 13-Month Contracts: Yosef lost months negotiating POC terms then negotiating again for commercial deals—a first-month exit clause eliminates double negotiations.

🚀 Validate ICP Budget First: Dozens of customer success interviews revealed they had no budget—pivot to where the money actually is before building.

🤝 Build Follow-Up Systems Before Events: 70 leads from a $30K event went cold because they had no HubSpot sequences or lead scoring in place.

🧠 Don't Hire Salespeople Without a Playbook: A great rep closing deals proves their skill, not your product—wait until a mediocre rep can follow your process.

📈 Scale Enterprise Sales with Channel Partners: Recruiting industry veterans to open doors for commission scaled Blings faster than direct sales.

Chapters

Introduction and Favorite Quote

What Blings Does - The MP5 Video Format

Company Metrics and Enterprise Customers

The Origin Story and Co-Founder Relationship

Validating the ICP Through Customer Interviews

Pivoting from Customer Success to Marketing

Landing McDonald's Through a Cold Text

Closing the First Enterprise Sales POC

Lessons from POC Agreements

Why You Should Always Charge for POCs

Event Marketing Mistakes - 70 Lost Leads

Building a Lead Follow-Up System

Hiring Salespeople Too Early

Building Channel Partner Relationships

Scaling with 19 People

Launching PLG Motion

Lightning Round

💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email

SaaS Club Programs

Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus

Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch

Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind

Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate

Resources

Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/466

Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Bassem Hamdy closes enterprise sales deals in 9 days—not 6 months. After scaling Procore from $10M to $100M as EVP of Marketing, he built Briq to an 8-figure ARR by selling AI automation to CFOs in construction. In this episode, early-stage B2B SaaS founders will learn the enterprise sales playbook that bypasses long procurement cycles.

Bassem breaks down exactly how to close enterprise sales fast by focusing on "vision and value" instead of product demos. You will learn why you should never do free POCs, how to identify when you're wasting time with "Innovation Teams," and the land-and-expand strategy that grew Briq from $15K deals to $100K+ contracts.

In this episode, Bassem also shares why he made the controversial call to fire bad enterprise clients, and how partnering with industry associations gave Briq the social proof to earn trust with risk-averse CFOs before they had logos.

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free

🔑 Key Lessons

🎯 Sell Vision and Value, Not Features: Bassem closes enterprise sales in 9 days by confirming vision alignment and ROI before ever demoing the product.

💰 Never Do Free POCs: Free work attracts time-wasters from innovation teams. Even a dollar creates commitment and filters for real buyers.

🤝 Land and Expand for Enterprise Sales: Start with a small paid implementation that proves ROI, then expand across departments.

🏢 Target the Economic Buyer: CFOs write checks; innovation VPs waste your time. Always qualify whether your contact controls budget.

📉 Fire Bad Enterprise Clients: Large companies can drag you into dark alleys with endless requests. Cut them loose to protect your resources.

🛠️ Partner for Early Credibility: Before you have enterprise logos, partner with trade associations to earn the social proof CFOs need.

Chapters

Why SaaS Founders Should Ignore Feature Requests

Introduction & Welcome

Is AI "Human Replacement" Software?

The "Construction Data Cloud" Idea (And Why It Failed)

Finding the Wrong ICP

The "Agile" Trap: Why Most Product Teams Are Waterfall

The Investor-Forced Pivot to Forecasting

How to Close Enterprise Sales Deals in 9 Days

Selling on "Vision & Value" vs. Features

SaaS Pricing: Moving to Tokenization & Consumption

First Price Was $15K—And It Was Too Cheap

CFO Sales: Overcoming Risk Aversion

Building Trust with Industry Associations

Firing Bad Enterprise Clients

Land and Expand Strategy

Lightning Round

💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email

SaaS Club Programs

Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus

Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch

Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind

Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate

Resources

Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/465

Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Saket Saurabh closed Instacart by live-coding a fix during the pitch—and that "magical moment" became the foundation of his founder-led sales playbook. In this episode, early-stage B2B SaaS founders will learn how Saket closed the first 15 enterprise customers himself using a consultative founder-led sales approach.

Saket breaks down exactly how to navigate complex corporate buy-cycles without a sales background. You will learn why he went "enterprise first" instead of starting with SMBs, how to overcome the "we can build it ourselves" objection by creating magical demo moments, and why founder-led sales is essential for connecting product, market, and customer needs.

In this episode, Saket also shares the "zero salary" pivot that made Nexla cash flow positive before their Series A—and why founders must do sales themselves before hiring a team.

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free

🚨 NordStellar → Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20

🔑 Key Lessons

🎯 Founder-Led Sales Connects the Dots: Unless founders sell deals themselves, they can't fully understand how product, market, and customer needs intersect.

🪄 Create "Magical Moments" in Demos: Saket's co-founder live-coded a fix during the Instacart pitch—solving problems on the spot closes enterprise deals.

🏢 Go Enterprise First: Architecting for SMBs first prevents you from understanding enterprise-grade complexity. Nexla went straight to Fortune 500.

🤝 Consultative Founder-Led Sales Builds Trust: Don't pitch—listen. Saket's first goal in meetings was to understand if the prospect saw the same problem.

📉 The "Zero Salary" Pivot: Saket and his co-founders cut salaries to zero to reach cash flow positivity before their Series A.

💰 Price Against Internal Cost: Calculate what it costs the prospect to solve the problem internally, then price at a fraction.

Chapters

Introduction & The "Profit" Quote

What is Nexla? (Solving the Data Fragmentation Problem)

The Origin: From Ad Tech to Data Infrastructure

The Contrarian Strategy: Why "Enterprise First"?

Landing the First Customer (Instacart)

The "Live Code" Founder-Led Sales Demo Strategy

Figuring Out Enterprise Pricing & POs

Founder-Led Sales: Closing the First 15 Customers

Overcoming the "We Can Build It Ourselves" Objection

The Pivot: Going "Zero Salary" to Hit Cash Flow Positive

The Impact of AI on Data Engineering

Lightning Round: Best Advice & Productivity Tools

💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email

SaaS Club Programs

Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus

Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch

Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind

Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate

Resources

Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/464

Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe

Ibby Syed built his AI SaaS to $150K ARR—then realized he'd accidentally built a consulting business. Customers weren't logging in. They'd call with questions, get answers, and disappear. In this episode, early-stage B2B SaaS founders will learn how Cotera escaped the services trap and pivoted to an AI SaaS agent platform to hit $1M ARR.

Ibby breaks down exactly how to recognize you're stuck in a consulting trap and escape it. You will learn why his co-founder's 100-line OpenAI experiment outperformed months of data science work, and the painful decision to fire legacy customers to focus on building a real AI SaaS product.

In this episode, Ibby also reveals his "value-first" LinkedIn outbound strategy that books 25+ meetings a week, why AI SaaS products need ongoing utility (not one-time insights), and how teaching customers to build their own AI agents made the business scale.

This episode is brought to you by:

💖 Gearheart → Book a free consult and get the first 20 hours free

🚨 NordStellar → Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20

🔑 Key Lessons

🚨 Early AI SaaS Revenue Can Be a Trap: Ibby hit $150K ARR but customers weren't logging in. The business looked like software but operated like an agency—a dangerous signal he almost ignored.

🔄 The Consulting Trap Kills AI SaaS Scalability: When every customer needs custom work, you're not building a product. If customers call for answers instead of logging in, you've built a services business.

💡 Let API Breakthroughs Trigger Your Pivot: Ibby's co-founder solved a customer problem with 100 lines of OpenAI code that outperformed a complex data science solution. That contrast made the AI SaaS opportunity obvious.

🎯 Deliver Value Upfront in Outbound: Instead of pitching, Ibby sends actual leads from a Reddit monitoring agent. "If you actually show value, people go crazy for it."

📉 Analytics Products Lack Stickiness: Dashboards answer questions, but once answered, there's no reason to return. AI SaaS products need ongoing utility, not one-time insights.

🛠️ Teach Customers to Build, Don't Build for Them: After the pivot, Cotera stopped doing custom implementations. They showed customers how to build their own AI agents—that's what made the AI SaaS business scale.

Chapters

Introduction

Favorite Quote & Mindset

What is Cotera?

Ideal Customer & Revenue Snapshot

Founding Story & YC Entry

Early Product & Customer Interviews

Outbound Strategies on LinkedIn

Effective Outbound Today

Common Mistakes with AI Outreach

Realizing the Need to Pivot

OpenAI API "Wake Up" Moment

Transitioning to AI SaaS Agent Builder

Product Differentiation & Competition

Prompt-Based Workflow Approach

Traction Before & After Pivot

Evolving Pricing Model

How to Contact Ibby

💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email

SaaS Club Programs

Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus

Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch

Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind

Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate

Resources

Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/463

Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe