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Rob Walling

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
3342 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

When I launched Drip, I remember being like, yeah, I've got to find that one or two thing, one or two, and it never happened. It was just a bunch of things. I don't think there was a single kind of traffic source, so to speak, that was more than 15% of our monthly trials. Oh, wow. I was dealing with Facebook ads. I was paying somebody to run those. We were doing SEO. I was doing podcast tours.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

When I launched Drip, I remember being like, yeah, I've got to find that one or two thing, one or two, and it never happened. It was just a bunch of things. I don't think there was a single kind of traffic source, so to speak, that was more than 15% of our monthly trials. Oh, wow. I was dealing with Facebook ads. I was paying somebody to run those. We were doing SEO. I was doing podcast tours.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

We had an affiliate program. There was all kinds of stuff. That's great for diversification so that no single source can crush you. It also kind of sucks because I had to manage all of that. At the time, we were like a four-person team, five-person team. By the time we sold, we were 10 people. But, oh, and we were doing cold outbound as well.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

We had an affiliate program. There was all kinds of stuff. That's great for diversification so that no single source can crush you. It also kind of sucks because I had to manage all of that. At the time, we were like a four-person team, five-person team. By the time we sold, we were 10 people. But, oh, and we were doing cold outbound as well.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

I mean, we were doing all of it, and it was all kind of working, it was all working well enough, and as a big, like, it got the snowball going, and the growth was really good. I mean, that's one of the reasons we got acquired, was we were picking up market share so fast. But I found it frustrating to be on this small team and be like, I don't want to manage all this crap. Like, I needed...

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

I mean, we were doing all of it, and it was all kind of working, it was all working well enough, and as a big, like, it got the snowball going, and the growth was really good. I mean, that's one of the reasons we got acquired, was we were picking up market share so fast. But I found it frustrating to be on this small team and be like, I don't want to manage all this crap. Like, I needed...

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

I needed a marketing team of like six or eight people probably. And it was, it was me halftime and a full-time junior marketer, you know, and then like our customer success person halftime. And it just, it was always frustrating. It is, it's not a myth to be like, Ooh, you're going to find one or two things that work, but it's really hard. Like it takes a lot.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

I needed a marketing team of like six or eight people probably. And it was, it was me halftime and a full-time junior marketer, you know, and then like our customer success person halftime. And it just, it was always frustrating. It is, it's not a myth to be like, Ooh, you're going to find one or two things that work, but it's really hard. Like it takes a lot.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

It doesn't just take a lot of trial and error. It just doesn't work in all spaces or with all categories where you're just going to find that single silver bullet, so to speak. Yeah.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

It doesn't just take a lot of trial and error. It just doesn't work in all spaces or with all categories where you're just going to find that single silver bullet, so to speak. Yeah.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

Yeah, it's definitely helpful to learn from those who came before you. That's whether if you're in tiny seed, you know how to do that. If you're in the microconf orbit, that's microconf connect or even listening to this podcast and hearing the experience of folks and reading the books and all that.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

Yeah, it's definitely helpful to learn from those who came before you. That's whether if you're in tiny seed, you know how to do that. If you're in the microconf orbit, that's microconf connect or even listening to this podcast and hearing the experience of folks and reading the books and all that.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

Hiring senior developers can really move the needle in your business, but if you bring on the wrong person, you can quickly burn through your runway. If you need help finding a vetted, senior, results-oriented developer, you should reach out to today's sponsor, Lemon.io. For years, they've been helping our audience find high-quality, global talent at competitive rates, and they can help you too.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

Hiring senior developers can really move the needle in your business, but if you bring on the wrong person, you can quickly burn through your runway. If you need help finding a vetted, senior, results-oriented developer, you should reach out to today's sponsor, Lemon.io. For years, they've been helping our audience find high-quality, global talent at competitive rates, and they can help you too.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

Don't just take my word for it. Listener Dylan Pierce had this to say about working with Lemon.io. The machine learning engineer they helped me hire was very professional and even learned a new tech stack to set up an environment to train and deploy machine learning models. He documented his work clearly so I could train it in the future with additional data. I'm super happy with the results.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

Don't just take my word for it. Listener Dylan Pierce had this to say about working with Lemon.io. The machine learning engineer they helped me hire was very professional and even learned a new tech stack to set up an environment to train and deploy machine learning models. He documented his work clearly so I could train it in the future with additional data. I'm super happy with the results.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

And longtime listener Chaz Yoon hired a senior developer from Lemon.io and said his hire, quote, definitely knew his stuff, provided appropriate feedback and pushback, and had great communication, including very fluent English. He really exceeded my expectations. Chaz said he'd definitely use Lemon.io again when he's looking for a senior level engineer.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

And longtime listener Chaz Yoon hired a senior developer from Lemon.io and said his hire, quote, definitely knew his stuff, provided appropriate feedback and pushback, and had great communication, including very fluent English. He really exceeded my expectations. Chaz said he'd definitely use Lemon.io again when he's looking for a senior level engineer.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

To learn more and get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer, head to Lemon.io slash startups. That's Lemon.io slash startups. So I want to switch it up a little bit and ask you about the, I'd say the unorthodox way that you came about being a co-founder of this company. So your co-founder, John, built it and got a first big customer in 2020.

Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 739 | Selling SaaS to Customers Who Don't Know They Have a Problem

To learn more and get a 15% discount on your first four weeks of working with a developer, head to Lemon.io slash startups. That's Lemon.io slash startups. So I want to switch it up a little bit and ask you about the, I'd say the unorthodox way that you came about being a co-founder of this company. So your co-founder, John, built it and got a first big customer in 2020.