Is outreach sales the difference between indie and normal SaaS?
I've been thinking for a while that most funded SaaS generate way more revenue than most indie SaaS and I was trying to figure out the real reason why. We've all seen how long it takes to get a SaaS to generate revenue, yet VC funded SaaS don't seem to take that long to start getting customers.
I thought back about previous companies I was at, and how it was normally revealed at some point that a large percentage of the company's money comes from key accounts. They have account managers who work closely and there are onboarding and launch plans for clients. And these normally came from the business developers. And I've started to think, maybe the main difference isn't just funding can pay for more marketing and stuff. But these companies are doing outreach sales. And I honestly can only think of a few indie hackers that even try to do outreach sales.
Everyone seems to be focusing on the inbound sales of people just converting on their site. But for most companies, inbound leads are often few and far between. They spend time doing outreach.
What do you folks think? Should indie hackers spend more time doing outreach?
I agree with you. An outbound approach would require more resources and personnel to support. This makes it a little less likely to be adopted by companies with solo founders. If you don't have dedicated personnel to support cold calling and other outbound procedures, including these as part of your day-to-day work as a solo founder can significantly eat into time spent on developing the product and supporting users. On the other hand, an inbound approach is one that inherently lends itself to the skill set of indie hackers - SEO optimization, building lead generation features and tools, e.t.c.
I think most indiehackers do inbound b/c it's easier and more comfortable than outbound. But depends on your business/market, and your price point. Even for indiehackers, doing outbound sales only works if your $/hr makes sense.