Super confidential, internal only self-running SaaS business plan and roadmap

Based on the activity from my post about Goto Tools’ company stack, I see there are a lot of people trying to figure out how to start a SaaS, what it takes, how to make the decision, etc. So in an effort to help, here is a little more history and my raw business plan for Goto Tools Links with ALL the confidential information that nobody would dare share like financial model, break even point, anticipated fixed and variable costs, potential market share, etc.

I’ve spent a lot of time in sales and sales related roles, and I feel very bad for any sales rep sitting on the other side of the table from me. I forget the exact date, but I remember the negotiation vividly.

We were talking with a sales rep from a company that offers go style links and their quote was > $10k/year for our company of about 100 people. I did some back of envelope calculations and expected their non SG&A (Selling, General and Administrative) costs for us to be about < $150/year ($30 in infra costs, $100 in manual tickets/one time off like setting up billing, etc.) but I like to ensure my business partners are able to make money, so we countered with “If you can make it $2k we will buy. Anything greater than $2k and we will probably build it ourselves. Knowing myself, I’d probably create a SAAS out of it.”

The poor rep, of course, was unable to secure a 75% discount. Interestingly enough, they have since lowered their price to hit the $2k mark. So over a few…