Pivoting from Consulting to $1M ARR (The AI Agent Strategy) | Cotera
Ibby Syed accidentally built a consulting agency while trying to build software. Then, he executed a SaaS Pivot to AI Agents and hit $1M ARR.
In this episode, Ibby (Co-founder of Cotera) reveals how to escape the "Service Trap." Learn why hitting $150k ARR in consulting revenue was actually a "local maxima" that nearly killed the startup, how his co-founder replaced months of data science work with 100 lines of code, and the specific LinkedIn Outbound Strategy (sending free leads) that books meetings with high-value buyers. He also breaks down why teaching customers to build their own AI Agents is the secret to scaling a horizontal platform.
🔑 Key Lessons
📉 The Consulting Trap: Why early revenue can trick you into building a service business instead of a product.
🤖 The AI Pivot: How 100 lines of OpenAI API code outperformed a massive data science stack.
📧 LinkedIn Outbound: The "Value-First" message script that books 25+ meetings a week.
🛠️ Horizontal vs. Vertical: Why broad tools (like Zapier/Cotera) will outlast niche AI wrappers.
💰 Pricing Strategy: Moving from custom enterprise contracts to a $20/mo usage model to fuel PLG.
📖 Chapters:
Introduction & The "White Collar" Quote
The Y Combinator Journey & The First Idea (Customer Analytics)
Old Outbound vs. New Outbound (LinkedIn Strategy)
The "Consulting Trap": Revenue vs. Scalability
The Wake-Up Call: 100 Lines of Code vs. Data Science
The Pivot: Building an AI Agent Platform (Cotera)
The "Teach, Don't Do" Service Model
Prompt-Based Workflows vs. Drag-and-Drop
Pricing Evolution: From Enterprise Sales to PLG
Why Vertical AI Startups Might Die
Founder Advice: Focus & The "Local Maxima"
This episode is brought to you by:
💖 Gearheart → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free
🚨 NordStellar → Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20
📡 Signal House → Learn more and get a demo
Resources:
🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/463
🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe
💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email
💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus
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57:21
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57:21
Building a 7-Figure SaaS on Slack (Surviving Platform Risk) | Polly
Bilal Aijazi built a multi-million dollar SaaS on Slack despite competing features and clunky onboarding. Here is his 7-figure SaaS growth strategy.
In this episode, Bilal Aijazi (Founder of Polly) breaks down how he navigated the treacherous waters of building a business on top of a major platform. You will learn how Polly achieved viral product-market fit with an 80% completion rate on a difficult 5-step installation process. Bilal reveals the evolution of their Freemium Pricing Model, how a fantasy football user led to enterprise HR contracts, and the critical playbook for surviving when platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams launch features that compete directly with you.
🔑 Key Lessons
🚀 The "Pain Tolerance" Metric: Why 80% of users endured a nightmare install process (and what it proved).
💰 Pricing Evolution: Moving from $8/month fantasy football leagues to 5-figure Enterprise deals.
💡 Suriving "Sherlocking": How to pivot and thrive when the platform builds your core feature.
🔥 Viral Loops: Leveraging "Respondent to Creator" conversion to drive organic growth.
⚖️ The Platform Paradox: The risks and massive rewards of building on Slack, Teams, and Zoom.
📖 Chapters:
The "Punch in the Face" Reality of Startups
Scaling to Millions of Monthly Active Users
Leveraging Product Hunt for Viral Growth
The 5-Step Onboarding Nightmare (That Worked)
Transitioning from Viral Bot to Real Company
The Fantasy Football Customer: Early Pricing Experiments
Freemium Secrets: Converting Free Users to Paid
Platform Risk: What Happens When Slack Copies You?
The Mistake of Slack Workflow Builder
Horizontal vs. Vertical SaaS Strategies
Advice: Why Technical Founders Must Sell
The "Just Don't Die" Philosophy
This episode is brought to you by:
💖 Gearheart → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free
🚨 NordStellar → Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20
📡 Signal House → Learn more and get a demo
Resources:
🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/462
🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe
💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email
💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus
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57:26
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57:26
Selling a Bootstrapped SaaS for 8-Figures (The Exit Strategy) | GoProposal
James Ashford sold his bootstrapped B2B SaaS for an 8-figure exit to Sage. Learn his counter-intuitive SaaS Exit Strategy for founders.
In this episode, James Ashford (Founder of GoProposal) shares the playbook for building a highly sellable asset with zero external funding. Discover his unique SaaS Marketing Strategy, how he used the PATH sales method, and why customer proximity was the secret weapon that allowed a bootstrapped SaaS to defeat competitors with $75M in funding. He breaks down the "Built to Sell" mindset required to achieve an 8-figure exit with just a 12-person team.
🔑 Key Lessons
🚀 MVP Secrets: Building an 8-figure business on a simple WordPress plugin.
💡 Proximity Edge: How speaking to an accountant every single day provided an unbeatable advantage.
💰 Built to Sell: Why systems, playbooks, and exit readiness must come first.
🧠 PATH Method: The 4-step content and sales formula (Pain, Aspiration, Traps, How).
🎁 Extreme Onboarding: The shock-and-awe customer success approach that impressed acquirers.
📖 Chapters:
The GoProposal Problem & Market Overview
Productizing Services: The Consulting MVP
The 10% Deal: Gaining Instant Credibility
Content Marketing: Building Trust Without Domain Expertise
Customer Proximity: Why James Spoke to an Accountant Daily
Built to Sell Mindset & Exit Readiness
Bootstrapping Advantage: Resourcefulness over Resources
The 8-Figure Acquisition Process
Life After Exit: Preparing for the Second Half
This episode is brought to you by:
💖 Gearheart → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free
📡 Signal House → Learn more and get a demo
🚨 NordStellar → Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20
Resources:
🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/461
🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe
💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email
💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus
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1:16:40
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1:16:40
SaaS Growth Strategy: From Zero Revenue to 8-Figures | Assembled
Ryan Wang went from 8 months without revenue to building Assembled, an AI platform doing tens of millions in ARR. Here is his hard-won SaaS Growth Strategy.
In this episode, Ryan Wang (CEO of Assembled) shares the gritty details of surviving a tough launch and scaling an enterprise platform. Learn the pivotal moment of finding Product Market Fit when he discovered the exact same color-coded scheduling spreadsheet at Stripe, Grammarly, and Casper. He explains the high-stakes risk of Usage Based Pricing with no minimums, how a data-driven ICP exercise unlocked growth from 10 to 50 customers, and the critical lessons on deciding which custom deals actually help versus those that generate unmanageable technical debt.
🔑 Key Lessons
💡 Product Market Fit Eureka: The common, messy spreadsheet that revealed a huge pain point.
💰 Pricing Risk: Why usage-based pricing with zero minimums nearly killed the company.
📈 Scaling Leap: The data-driven ICP exercise that unlocked growth from 10 to 50 customers.
✈️ The Custom Deal Filter: How to judge which custom integrations generalize versus those that hamstring the roadmap.
🌱 Founder Mindset: How to keep sowing seeds when there is no immediate harvest (surviving 8 months with $0 revenue).
📖 Chapters
Seeds vs. Harvest: The Founder Mindset
Founding Story: Stripe Origins & Support Ethos
The Workforce Management Problem (WFM)
Landing First Customers & Common Pain
The Color-Coded Spreadsheet Discovery (PMF)
Pandemic Launch Challenges & Slow Growth
Surviving 8 Months Without Revenue
Custom vs. Configurable: The Judgment on Deals
Scaling Past 10 to 50 Customers
Fixing Onboarding & Technical Debt
Growth Through Communities & Mindshare
Defining ICP with Data
This episode is brought to you by:
🔐 Sprinto → Learn more and book a demo today
💖 Gearheart → Book a call + get the first 20 hours of development free
📡 Signal House → Learn more and get a demo
🚨 NordStellar → Book a demo and get 20% off with code blackfriday20
Resources:
🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/460
🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe
💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email
💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus
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54:23
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54:23
459: Everflow: From Selling Just Screenshots to $30M ARR SaaS - with Sam Darawish
Sam Darawish sold his first startup for $50M, then invested a few hundred thousand of his own money into Everflow. He didn't pay himself for two years. Most founders would never show screenshots at a trade show instead of a working product, but that's exactly what Sam did — and it landed his first customers.
Today, Everflow generates nearly $30M ARR with 1,200 customers and a 120-person team across four continents. They've done it all without raising a single dollar of outside funding, proving that capital efficiency beats hypergrowth for building sustainable SaaS companies.
You'll learn:
Why showing screenshots at a trade show led to their first paying customers
How narrowing to a tiny $70M TAM helped them reach $1M ARR faster
What happened when they expanded to a bigger market that looked similar but wasn't
Why spending only $400K to start forced them to focus on what really mattered
How to maintain 25-30% growth while staying profitable from day one
Full show notes → saasclub.io/459
This episode is brought to you by:
💖 Sprinto → Learn more and book a demo today
📡 Signal House → Learn more and get a demo
🚀 SaaS Club Launch → Build your SaaS to $10K MRR
Get weekly SaaS lessons and new founder stories → saasclub.io/email
About The SaaS Podcast: Build, Launch & Scale Your SaaS
Build, launch, and scale your SaaS with real strategies from founders who’ve actually done it.
Honest conversations about what’s working in SaaS growth, recurring revenue, and building products people want.
The SaaS Podcast shares in-depth interviews with proven SaaS founders and entrepreneurs, where we unpack the real stories behind the wins, failures, pivots, and lessons learned along the way.
You’ll discover practical insights you can use to get traction, reach product-market fit, grow your MRR, and scale your SaaS — including how to leverage AI without the hype.
Hosted by Omer Khan — SaaS founder, advisor, and creator of SaaS Club — helping thousands of founders build and grow successful software businesses.
New episodes weekly. Follow the show and start leveling up your SaaS.
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