The SaaS GTM Mega Series: Field of possibilities

This is a complete guide to SaaS go-to-market strategy.

Whether you have zero customers or 500, if:

1. You haven’t been able to acquire and retain customers predictably, or
2. You are not the software of choice in the market segment you operate

…then this series is for you.

But why a new series when the internet is brimming with podcasts, interviews, and case studies on the growth strategies of top unicorns?

Case studies and examples of the world’s top 25 unicorns are good, but they have three shortcomings:

1. They tell you what other companies have done, but they don’t tell you how to solve your problems systematically; they don’t give you any framework to rely upon.
2. They usually lack the context in which those businesses have succeeded. There are many hidden contextual things without which results would have been different.
3. Marketing changes and most profitable paths remain secret at any given point in time. Tactics get outdated, but underlying strategies stay the same.

As always, the focus of this series is on actionable organic growth strategies and tactics instead of high-level boardroom strategies. My aim here is to share an approach to growth that you as a SaaS founder can readily adopt, implement and benefit from.

My only assumption in all of the above is that you either have or can bring together the skills, time, and other resources needed to implement these strategies, for strategies work only to the extent of their execution.

At the same time, here are the things that I am NOT assuming:

1. You are based in silicon valley with an unfair network advantage and the ability to walk to a unicorn’s HQ and hand over discount coupons to your ideal customers.
2. You are a seasoned entrepreneur with two exits having enough funds to live in stealth/private beta/always-free mode for four years.
3. You have spent years networking with social media ninjas to pull a clubhouse.

You can use this approach irrespective of your location, social influence, or funding if you have a product and a minimum level of resources for implementing strategies.

Guy Kawasaki famously said you should not listen to bozos, and I don’t want to waste your time on underdog hogwash. Availability of money, network, and location do affect one’s success but its correlation, not causation. There are ample examples of companies located in the heart of silicon valley and sitting on a pile of money, losing the game.

Organic SaaS Growth Newsletter | Thoughtlytics

With the context in place, here’s is what I will cover in this series:

1. Scoping the Field of Possibilities (this article)
2. The Mysterious Loop of Market Growth
3. Product ABC: Best Product Always Wins
4. A Gentleman’s Evangelism: The Forced Multiplier
5. Man & Machine: The Design of Cohesive Weaponry
6. Economics: Maximizing the Value Creation
7. The SaaS Analytics Stack
8. Funnels: Empowering Prospects Fight the Confusion
9. The Lean Distribution
10. Experiments: Conquering Bewilderment
11. Cracking the Enigma of Leaky Bucket
12. The Alchemy of Stickiness
13. The Unfair Advantage of Competitive Moats

I will publish this series over the next couple of months, one post at a time.

Today, in the first part of this series, I am going to discuss five essential concepts that will help you build a point of view (POV) unique to your business. The quality of your POV decides the quality of your business decisions. Bad decisions lead to bad results. And hence they determine your field of possibilities.

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