How to Find the Right SaaS Distribution Channel to Grow Your Startup Fast
Matthew Bellows is the co-founder & CEO of Yesware, a platform that helps sales people connect with prospects, track engagement and close more deals.
Yesware serves more than 750,000 salespeople at companies like Adroll, Groupon, Salesforce, Twilio and Yelp. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
To date the company has raised over $35 million in funding.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- How Matthew had the idea for his startup when he was working as VP of sales at another startup. He was frustrated that he was having to use guess-work to develop his sales pipeline forecasts.
- How the co-founders initially bootstrapped their business and learned a valuable lesson about niching down, both from a technology and market perspective.
- Why the co-founders wish they had charged more for their product in the early days and why getting fewer customers would have been a smarter long-term decision.
- A lucky break the team had when they discovered a distribution channel which drove thousands of leads every month. And why a distribution strategy is just as important as your product.
- An important lesson the founders learned about ONE feature that immediately resonated with the market, drove positive reviews and increased engagement.
- How the team built a ‘trojan horse' strategy (in the good way) that helped open the door to enterprise sales.
- How the founders raised $35 million in funding, hired over 100 employees and grew to an annual run rate of over $10 million.
Book Recommendation
- “The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million” by Mark Roberge
The Show Notes
- Yesware
- Chrome Web Store
- “The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million” by Mark Roberge
- A Leader Struggles to Sell Software Meant to Aid Sales (New York Times)
- Cashman Andrus on Twitter
- Matthew on Twitter
- Omer on Twitter
Recommended Podcast Episodes
- Banzai: Pivoting from a Near Collapse to 8 Figure ARR SaaS - with Joe Davy [371]
- Airbase: From Solo Founder to 8-Figure ARR SaaS - with Thejo Kote [381]
- Tilled: How Firing Customers Helped Build a 7-Figure SaaS - with Caleb Avery [412]
- PSPDFKit: Bootstrapping a SaaS $20K to $1M ARR in 8 Months - with Jonathan Rhyne [407]
- How Carrd's Founder Turned a Side Project into a Profitable SaaS - with AJ [225]
- From Bootstrapping Struggles to a $60M Exit and Beyond - with Bob Moore [396]
- How Vishal Sunak Took His SaaS From Zero to $10 Million ARR - with Vishal Sunak [281]
- Airplane: The Importance of Founder-Market Fit in SaaS - with Josh Ma [370]
- lempire: From $1K Launch to $26M ARR Profitable SaaS - with Guillaume Moubeche [405]
- Trackier: How 3 Guys in India Bootstrapped a $2M SaaS Startup - with Udit Verma [255]