The Power of Purpose in Building a SaaS Business

Calvin Correli is the founder and CEO of Simplero. Simplero is a SaaS platform that makes it easy for topic matter experts to market, sell and deliver their information online. It combines email marketing, invoicing and billing, and digital delivery into one complete package to help you run your entire business.

This is the story of a freelance developer who always wanted to build a product business. He tried and failed several times. So he kept working as a freelancer.

One day, a major client that generated the majority of his income told him that they'd decided to outsource the work he was doing to a company in India.

He and his wife had just bought a new house and had their second child. To say that this was bad timing would be an understatement.

He had a new sense of urgency to make money. But everything he did fell flat.

Out of frustration, he sat down one night and did something that changed the course of his life. It sounds a bit dramatic, but it really was a pivotal moment for him.

And that's when things seemed to start going his way. He built a SaaS product for himself and as word spread, he started letting other people use his product for free.

Eventually he started charging for his product. He spent a lot of money on marketing, but nothing seemed to work. So he focused on building a great product and hoped that the marketing would work itself out through word of mouth.

And that bet paid off. Today his company generates over $2 million a year in recurring revenue.

It's a great story and there are a ton of useful lessons to learn.

I hope you enjoy it.