- If you're in that journey where
for your SaaS business you got to a million ARR
or beyond and now you're navigating to 10 million ARR.
The 10 million ARR which is considered
the unstoppable level for a SaaS business.
In this video, I'm gonna to walk you through some
of the counterintuitive things that you need to understand
as a founder, as you're approaching 10 million ARR,
on the path to 10 million ARR.
Because, the path
is not always one straight shot, not always.
There's some ups and downs and I'm gonna walk you
through some counteractive things that you need
to know intro.
(dramatic music)
What's up everybody, welcome to Unstoppable
on this channel.
I help SaaS startup founders get to that next stage
of growth, using an unstoppable strategy.
So if you're new to this channel, welcome.
Be sure to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon,
'cause I bring a video every single Sunday, Wednesday
and Friday with the TK energy.
Also if you're thinking member and you're back, it's great
to have you back, welcome back.
Now before we dig into the topic
at hand today which is the path
to 10 million ARR, let me just highlight something.
If you are actually a SaaS founder, you're navigating to
the 10 million ARR mark, that's your next stage of growth.
I run a SaaS Go-To-Market Program.
In the SaaS Go-To-Market Program I coach founders like you
to navigate this path of going from
a million ARR or 10 million ARR.
We are accepting new members into this program now
so I'll share more details about it through a link below.
And I'll tell you more about it at the end of this video
if we have time.
Now, let's dig in.
As you're navigating the path from a million ARR
to 10 million ARR, no matter where you are in
this journey right here.
There's gonna be plenty of ups and downs.
One of the things that you'll likely realize
is the crazy grit.
The crazy number of experiments that you did
to get to that million ARR.
That same mindset isn't gonna be the thing that gets you
to 10 million ARR.
Now while there are nuggets in your existing business
that you're gonna be doubling down on.
If you're just operating the same way that you did
to get to a million ARR or to get
to 10 million ARR, you'll likely get stuck.
It's one of these counterintuitive things, you think
that you need to do more, you would think that you need
to actually spin up more experiments, but
it's quite the opposite.
So if you're excited to dig in on what the three principles
to follow are, be sure to smash that like button
and let's get into it.
Now, the first thing you need to understand
as you're navigating the path to 10 million ARR,
is you've gotta simplify your one strategic narrative.
When you're starting out your business, you're kind
of unsure about your ICP, kinda unsure about the product.
You do a bunch of features, you experiment with
a bunch of channels, you talk to a bunch of people.
But once you get to a million ARR what you wanna really
be doing is simplifying your strategic narrative.
We have this a ToutApp and TautAppp in the early days
was copy and paste you saw in 1990s
when email templates, tracking and templates.
You know templates tracking and analytics, for anyone
that is sending a lot of emails, that
was our strategic narrative or
if you even wanna call that, before we hit a million ARR.
However, once we got past a million ARR
what we started to understand was what people really used us
for, was to send a sequence of emails so that it
could be effective and actually generating pipeline.
We understood, that it was for salespeople going after
a very specific outcome.
And so we simplified our strategic narrative
to a much simpler sentence instead of features, instead
of talking about anyone and everyone, instead of hedging.
We said Look, we help salespeople close more deals.
That strategic narrative got even more refined
as time went on.
But we spent a serious amount of time
to actually narrow down our strategic narrative.
The second thing that we did
was actually think about our core a-ha moment
and our core use-case.
As we were building out the business to get to
a million ARR, we tried a whole lot of different features.
There was templates, there was tracking, there
was analytics, there's scheduling all bunch of stuff.
But ultimately, we realized that there
was a core a-ha moment.
There was a core value feature said that really mattered
to the people that were paying the most attention,
most engaged and was paying us the most money.
And so we actually put in a lot of effort
to actually simplify our platform and focus
on the a-ha moment and the core-se case.
Ultimately, it became pretty clear for ToutApp.
We did one thing, we helped you send emails.
We have to be effective in helping you send emails
and then follow up again with the same email
and follow up again with the same email.
That was super powerful for us to understand.
And we instrumented the entire company around it.
So that's why it's important for you to understand as well,
what is your core a-ha moment and what
is your core-use case.
And as you dig more into this, they'll
also help you really refine your
strategic narrative as well.
Now before I go into number three let me just pause here
for a second.
If you start to see the pattern over here.
The pattern is not once you get to a million ARR
or 2 million or 3 million do more and spit out more things
and add more features and go bigger and bigger and bigger.
This is one of the most counterintuitive things
that I learned.
In order to get to that 10 million ARR
what you actually really need to do is coalesce into
a core-use case, a core strategic narrative.
Are you starting to get this?
If you starting to get this go smash that like button
if you haven't already.
And let me just hear a yes, in the comments below
so that I know you're with me.
Now, let's go on to number three.
The third principle that you need to start looking
at after you start to look at your strategic narrative.
After you really hone in your a-ha moment
and your core-use case, is your core go to market
and growth engine.
Here's the thing, in order to get to
a million ARR, you probably tried a billion things.
Probably tried blogging, you probably tried ads.
You probably tried different social networks.
You tried hacking different SEO tactics.
You tried different communities, you probably tried
a billion things, I know I did too when I
was building TuotApp.
We weren't really sure who the ICP was, where we
could find them, what would resonate.
We were trying to be everything to everyone.
But, even before
a million ARR we started realize we needed
to get more focused on What was working, instead
of scattering and doing all the things that are possible
to do, when it came to sales and marketing.
That simple tactic of coalescing into one growth engine.
One core growth engine actually helped us get.
Not only get us to one million ARR faster, we got
to a one million ARR with a six person team
and we're cashflow positive.
Even before we raised our series A.
Not only did we get there faster, it helped us get
to $3 million ARR and beyond even faster as well.
So, once you
have your strategic narrative, your core use case
the third thing you need to be doing is coalescing
into one growth engine.
Now you know, as you're navigating the past from
a million ARR to 10 million ARR,
how to actually navigate the pitfalls, the common pitfalls.
How to actually navigate the curve balls.
What you really need to be doing is to constantly looking
to double down on what's working.
One of the sayings that I had is we got to focus
on what's moving.
There may be things we may want, but we gotta focus
on what the market is telling us.
And we did that by constantly looking
at our core growth engine, constantly looking at
what is our a-ha moment and core-use case
and constantly refining our strategic narrative.
And that's how you can actually accelerate your path
to 10 million ARR as well.
Now, if you are actually actively navigating this path.
And you start thinking well, how do I do this?
How do I actually refine my strategic narrative?
How do I figure out what my core-use cases are?
How do I get to one growth engine
that really drives my growth?
This is exactly the set of things we teach
in my SaaS Go-To-Market Program.
Inside my SaaS go to market program, we give you a framework
that you can follow to actually assess your business
in terms of where it is.
And then build that one growth engine,
that unstoppable sales funnel
to actually help you accelerate your path
to 10 million ARR.
There is a coaching program and a training program
and I work directly with founders.
So if you're navigating that path
and you actually wanna dig more into these concepts.
Go ahead and go to TKKADER.COM/GTM.
Go to TKKADER.COM/GTM, you'll get all
the details our SaaS Go-To-Market Program.
We are accepting new members right now for
a short period of time.
So I encourage you to go check that out
and figure out we can work together.
Lastly, if you got value from this video, please smash
that like button it'll mean the world to me
and my team.
Also, if you have a friend or
a co-founder, another SaaS founder that will get value
from this video, please share it with them
it'll mean the world to us.
And also we drop a video like
this every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
So, if you're building a SaaS business be sure
to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon,
so that you get notified every single time I drop a video.
And remember, everyone needs a strategy for their life
and their business but when you are with us, yours
is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK and I'll see you in the next episode.
(gentle music)