10 years of SaaS Sales Exp. looking for bootstrapped project to join.
UPDATE: (14.07.2023) Thanks to IH, I actually found a great parter & project to joins. Had my last day at my previous job at the end of June. We will most likely write a post about the story soon :-)
Hi there,
this is Andreas and I've been in SaaS Sales for almost 10 years by now. Based in Berlin I've mostly worked as Account Executive, but never let go of the idea to join a small bootstrapped project again.
I've been the first hire at such a project as my first job and I miss everything about that. Worked for venture backed companies since, and never found that sort of fulfillment again. I've also tried to build my own software product and failed miserably.
Happy to share more about these experiences and my learnings in a call if you are interested.
Here's what I am looking for:
- project with some minor traction (thinking 1 customer or even just a handful of users without revenue would be fine)
- Niche market, niche problem -> some good reasoning why the problem is properly understood and can be addressed
- Project where I can contribute 10-15 hours/week in the beginning until we see where it goes (I will have to keep my job for the time being)
- Preferrably SaaS, as I have the most eperience there, but I am open for everything.
- Language: German and/or English -> markets accordingly
Here's what I am good at:
- Full Sales Cycle: Prospecting, Outreach, Demos, Closing
- Set up sales & marketing operations and processes (CRM, Newsletters, Affilate etc.)
- Understanding customer needs: What is it that customers really want and would pay for?
- Translate those needs into product specs and work either directly with the dev team or with the product owner
Here's what I am not good at:
- Performance marketing: I've worked with performance marketer as a project manager, but as of now, I couldn't do that on my own.
- Cold Calling: I don't like it and in a lot of cases it doesn't work. There are of course markets/products, where that's useful -> I'm not the right guy for it
Feel free to leave a comment to connect.
All the best!
Hi Andreas,
We are a Seattle-based SAAS B2B solution in HR tech with a few paying customers. https://recocards.com/business
We are looking for someone who can manage the EU market for us and expand. The funding team is from FAANG. Happy to chat if you are interested. Just emailed you.
Best,
Mona
Hey Mona,
just sent you a connection request via LinkedIN.
Cheers!
Andreas
Hi there! I developed a product aimed mainly at VCs ( https://everyrole.com ), and would love to have a sales expert as a cofounder. Let me know if you’re interested, thanks!
Hi Sorin,
have you specifically built this for a VC? Or are you still verifying if this is something that VCs need?
Cheers!
I only had 1 client so far on a free trial. Based on my research, about 25% of them already use a competitor's product. Their prices start at 200$/m, up to 800$/m
Hello Andreas,
What are you looking for in terms of compensation?
I am not really looking to join solely as a Sales Rep, if that's what this question is aimed at. I would like to find a project that we can grow together as co-founders.
I have a full time Account Executive job atm with roughly 50 hours atm. Dependent on what the project generates in revenue I can gradually become more involved.
Don't nail me down on exact numbers, but at 1.000 - 2.000 $/€ a month, I would probably be able to get a part time job on top and would already be able to put in 20-30 hours a week, pluse I would have more availability slots during business hours.
At around 3.000 - 4.000 $/€ I would most like be able to get on it full-time.
As I said, this depends very much on the project and how we are able to grow it.
I think it's of great value to be only able to spend what you really make in revenue. (cash-flow is a topic in bootstrapped SaaS, but still)
Hey Andreas, I think we have an interesting product for you to sell: https://www.zigpoll.com it's a flexible survey platform that can be use on-site (embedded or as a widget) or off-site (email, sms, etc...). Our niche is currently in eCommerce with a focus on Shopify stores as a Post Purchase Survey solution but it's a long-tail solution so the applications can be very broad. See here for a quick demo of the Post Purchase Survey use-case: https://www.zigpoll.com/demo/post-purchase .
We actually have a lot of traction (relatively) in Germany and Europe due to their strict privacy laws and our high-quality translation features. Could be a great fit if you're looking for something part time! Please reach out via our contact form here: https://www.zigpoll.com/contact if you're interested.
Hey Jason,
sounds really interesting. Would love to hear more about it. Message is on its way.
Awesome, thanks! 🚀
Hi Andreas,
We could be a good fit if you like our SaaS (https://www.iaphub.com/).
Don't hesitate to reach me by email (available on my profile) if you're interested.
Love to get connected, Andreas. Let's chat.
Hi Andreas,
we're looking for a third cofounder with your background. We're working on a niche B2B SaaS, have acquired two customers, just got accepted into an incubator program, and we've both got a great background. Here's information on our project: https://join.com/companies/roboreimburse/7811178-co-founder-in
Hi,
Interesting project you have there! But it feels like it's a bit out of my expertise in terms of product and market.
All the best :)
Andreas
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Hey Andreas, I'd be interested to have a chat. I launched sif'd a few weeks ago. We connected brands with content creators for doing paid promotions. I have a lot of competition, but I've underpriced them all by a mile, and my platform has some unique differences. I've managed to grind my way to 4 paying customers (brands) and about 20 creators.
My time is starting to become consumed by marketing and I really want to shift my focus back to the product. Would love to hear your ideas and see if there's a way we could work together.
Sounds interesting. Sent you a connection request on LI. :)
We have built TalentMama (https://talentmama.com). It is basically ChatGPT for initial candidate screening. We have just started talking to a customer in the US.
If we could go on a call and discuss to see if we fit well, it would be great. We are 4 co-founders, 3 technical and 1 Talent Acquisition background.
Hi there,
thank you for your message. That domain gives me a 403.
I'm also personally a bit sceptical on projects that are primarily based on ChatGPT rn. (Absolutely not saying that it can't be amazing)
Would love to follow what you come up with though!
I missed that you are from the EU region. That is the reason you are getting a 403. We are not yet GDPR compliant so we have blocked EU traffic.
We will open it up for EU and UK once we get enough customers in the US and we have the resources to become GDPR compliant.
Hi Andreas, I have a music app I'm currently developing and need bootstrap developers to get onboard!. I can do a teams call if you like to show you the project. its a really innovative app and will be an exciting project to work on.
ohhh sales! The bleeding wound of a technical solo founder :)
I'm Faruk, the founder of https://www.monitup.com. MonitUp measures the productivity of teams and individuals and offers them suggestions to be more productive with artificial intelligence.
We have a few clients and yet an MRR of $300. I've given up on everything for the past few months and I've been learning sales and trying what I've learned.
I'm trying to reach CEOs, founders, HR or IT executives who have 11 to 500 employees who love or need control.
We have clients in 11 different countries (10 of which are Lifetime deals).
How does it sound?
Hi Faruk,
amazing what you've already achived! I don't think however that I can personally identify with the product in this case. One of the reasons I want out of Sales in venture backed companies is, that I feel it just becomes more and more soul-less. Employees are seen as a resource that needs to be geared towards a certain output. Everything you do becomes standardized and repetitive.
Not saying that your product doesn't have other great use cases, but I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable with it.
All the best for you!
Andreas
Hey Andreas,
Working with passion, believing in the project and wanting to do good is really important.
Over time, MonitUp started to bother me a lot when it started to turn into an application that is purely control-oriented, looking for people's vulnerabilities.
On top of that, instead of showing the raw data, we aim to show the processed, summary form and only suggestions. Thus, we will help people to increase their productivity and this turns into a useful business.
What would you recommend for a technical guy who doesn't understand sales yet?
Thanks
That depends a lot on your challenges. In general, in the beginning, you should start with the smallest possible niche to try to get into. If you are passionate about your product, you will naturally think that a lot of companies can benefit for it. But what's the 1% of that group that will currently benefit most from it? Focus all your Marketing, Sales, Product efforts on that 1%. Be successful with them, then move on. It can of course be hard to indentify them, but if you have 10 paying customers already, you should be able to find what they have in common.
Make that assumption, do a lot of direct outreach and confirm your assumption. Send 3 E-Mails to each relevant persona in every company of that 1% and use the social proof of your clients (I can't find any on your website).
Again.. not sure if that fits your stage, but those are some general things I've learned over the years.
Andreas,
Thank you for your very valuable suggestions. I think I am on the right way.
MonitUp is not a popular application by employees (not yet), so I think companies will want them to be added to my website as a reference.
My biggest client for the last 4 months is a law firm. They had some suggestions at first and we added them as features, they have been using it this way for a long time. So I decided to focus on law firms.
I started using LinkedIn Sales Navigator this week. I filtered out the CEOs, founders, co-founders in all countries with 11 to 500 employees, except for Germany (personal data subject is very problematic), and a total of 8.5K people appeared before me. I sent a connection request to these ordinary people with a short promotional message, after 100 people, my weekly limit was reached, I reached the remaining 50 people via InMail and that limit was reached. 100 out of 150 people added me to their network, 2 said they didn't need such an app, and 2 asked for more information. I'm thinking of texting those who don't respond a few times next week and next week. After 3 or 4 messages, assuming they have no interest in the products, I'll send them a goodbye message and say I won't bother you again.
This method seems to work, but it's limited. I have to find a way to reach 400, 500 people one-on-one in a week. I can find and send mails one by one, but people generally don't read them much.
Is the way I'm going right? Do you want to add something?
Thanks.
So another nanny cam app?
Hi Andreas,
I'm David.
Mine is a Video Editing API SaaS solution, with a few tens of customers and incipient MRR.
Happy to explore collaborations :-)
Will send you an email :-)
Please do
Hi Andreas,
We have $40000 in MRR, and an interesting niche
We are in the middle of a pivot after finding a fast growing but underserved niche (like 10% of LI reach outs become calls)
We have a full product team and one growth marketer (who is quite good at the early reps!) But we could absolutely use a more seasoned hand when it comes to sales, pricing, and extracting the minimal viable feature sets from prospects
Would love to chat!
Hi there,
that almost sounds too good to be true. Would of course like to learn more about it. How can we get in touch?
What's your handle on twitter or linkedin
How did you hit 40K MRR with a single growth marketer!?
Our NRR is like 900% and big ticket
Can we chat? I am so curious as to what that product could be.
Hi Andreas, I have a small project called Spurr (spurrapp.com). It has a few paying customers (~$70 MRR) and some free ones. If it's an interesting topic for you let me know at [email protected].
If any, what would be your method of cold outreach?
Depends very much on the market and product of course. If you have a gigantic market it might make sense to use classic mass-prospecting and e-mail outreach + LinkedIn. Especially if you are still Pre-Product-Market fit.
I would however prefer smaller markets, where the ICP may be already organised in some sort of community or use certain market places to look for solutions. Much easier to get a foothold if you have 1-2 satisfied customers/users in a smaller community that can help you with introductions and social proof.
Makes sense
Hey Andres
I'm Ruban, founder of Click Connector - https://clickconnector.com/ - $100K+ ARR.
If you are interested in the space, let's connect
Sent you a conneciton request on LinkedIN.
Interesting product, would love to learn more about it. :-)
Bootstrapped B2B SAAS in edtech/LMS market: https://academyofmine.com
We want to expand in European Market (currently we have 15% of customers from Europe but we could do a lot more). If you are interested in learning more, hit me up.
Hi,
sent you a LinkedIN request. Cool project you have there. Also because I am currently working for an edtech/LMS solution myself (but venture funded).
Let's chat. :)
Hey Andreas, just joined indiehackers! I have an event ticketing platform based in Portugal that is growing really well built to scale and on it's first steps to other Countries. Looking for people to do the business by thesemselves as a franchisee model or just the sales part or however discussed. I am also living in Berlin now btw if you'd like to just grab a beer and connect \o/
Hi there,
unsure if that's a vertical where I can really add much value, plus I don't really look for franchise opportunities.
But why don't we still meet up for a beer in Berlin some time? Feel free to send me a mail to get in touch personally.
I am running an early bootstrapped project - business productivity+AI, based in London, UK. Looking for sales/growth/marketing co-founder. Would you be interested to take a look?
Max
Hey Andreas,
I'm in the process of validating so I don't even have a website or anything lol but I'm working on an AI tool to help webcomic artists save a lot of time when creating.
I've had conversations with art directors, studios owners and artists. So far the perceived value is high. Here are some direct quotes from those calls:
Studio Owner: "[Accomplishing Task Z] takes me about 15 hours per week. Would save at least half of the time. [ ... ] We have a person who's full time job is just doing that so we could eliminate that position and re-assign that artist to other projects"
Artist: "It takes me months to complete a chapter and I'm desperately trying to improve so it doesn't me as much time. I wish AI could help me [ABC] which I struggle with"
Artist: "If the tool worked as you described and I could have it exported into Clip Studio, it would be a massive benefit. [ ... ] what would be 12 hours could be down to 4 hours"
Artist: "If I had this tool I could go from working 8 clients per week to 12 clients per week"
Studio Owner: "The main benefit I can see this bring is to take away the tedious & repetitive tasks for my artists and apply their skills where it matters. [ ... ] This would save our team A LOT of time"
Hi there,
sounds like a great idea, you should certainly try to build what these people have told you. Maybe even ask them for commitment beforehand.
I'm personally however a bit sceptical about AI-based business ideas atm. Could of course be amazing to get in early and ride the wave, but at the same time, there's gonna be massive competition, and it will be insanely hard to differentiate yourself.
This shouldn't discourage you from doing it of course! But I see my expertise in other areas.
All the best :)
I can give you a free prospecting tool
I'm curious as to how you're prospecting if you're not doing cold outreach? Or is it just literally phoning someone up that doesn't work?
Hi Iain,
yes of course there needs to be some way of cold outreach. Early on to get in front of potential clients and to understand what they need (an potentially create some revenue already) and later as a reliable scalable channel.
I‘m personally not a good and/or passionate cold caller.
Cheers!
Hi Andreas!
I'm impressed with your expertise in SaaS Sales and your interest in joining a small bootstrapped project.
At Pily, I'm building the founding team and I'm looking for talented individuals who can contribute to our mission of streamlining business operations and improving customer engagement through AI-powered tools. I'm interested in your profile and would like to learn more about your skills and how they can be applied to this project.
I would love to schedule a meeting with you to discuss this further and see if we're a match. Please let me know if you're available in the coming days for a call.
Stats: Launched landing a week ago, 38 total new visits, and 5 users subscribed for beta
Link to our landing https://meetpily.com
Link to my calendar: https://calendar.app.google/kv7Tacn779DTJdih7
Hi Javier,
sounds like a really cool project. I am however sceptical about the feasabilty of these tools in terms of a sustainable business case. (I assume it's based on some kind of third party AI tool like ChatGPT?)
The product can of course be very useful and you have a massive market.
But at the same time, you will have to compete with major platforms, that companies already use (HCMs, Knowledge bases, ERPs, Service desks, Communication tools and more)
Not saying that it can't be done if done great, but it feels like a project that's almost impossible to bootstrap and that doesn't quite fit my passions.
I wish you all the best!
Cheers!
Hi Andreas, thanks a lot for the feedback! I wish the best on your search.
Cheers
Want to come help sell http://www.snippets.ai which is a sales outreach tool plugin for Chrome that prospects emails, writes emails with AI, and enriches contacts all in one platform?
Hi Eric,
looks like a cool product. Worked with a lot of similar tools in the past and it seems like there is endless demand for great tools in that regards.
For me personally, I don't think salestech is a field I am personally passionate about.
All the best for you!
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.