S4E20 – Building Client-Obsessed SaaS: Insights from a Seasoned Founder With Daan Assen

Wondering how to Build a Client-Obsessed SaaS?

Starting a SaaS company can be a fun and challenging adventure. In this exciting episode of the Grow Your B2B SaaS Podcast, host Joran sits down with the proud founder of SwipeGuide, Daan Assen. SwipeGuide helps big companies like Heineken and Coca-Cola manage their workers better. In this episode, we’ll explore Daan’s story, the smart choices he made, and what he learned along the way.

How SwipeGuide Started

SwipeGuide began with a simple but clever idea. Daan noticed an old and boring airplane safety card while flying. He thought it would be much better if instructions were more interesting and easy to follow. This idea led him to create a prototype, which is a first version of the product, to make instructions more engaging and helpful.

Daan met two software experts at a startup event in Romania. Together, they started working on making their idea a reality. They created a prototype that showed how to do simple tasks, like cutting a mango or cooking. The goal was to make step-by-step guides that anyone could follow easily and quickly.

Getting a Co-Founder

The first version of SwipeGuide was a good start, but Daan needed more help to make it even better. That’s when Willemijn joined as a co-founder. Willemijn had a lot of experience in making things better for customers. With her help, they focused on creating better user manuals for big brands.

Willemijn’s knowledge made the product even more useful and ready for the market. Daan’s skills in e-learning and Willemijn’s expertise in customer experience combined to make SwipeGuide stronger and more user-friendly.

SwipeGuide’s path to Finding Real Customers

SwipeGuide’s path changed when they realized their product was more useful for companies rather than just regular users. Companies like Heineken saw the potential of SwipeGuide for their workers, not just for making guides for everyday tasks. This was a big shift for SwipeGuide, as it meant they would now focus on helping with complex tasks in industries.

This change opened up a new and exciting market. The industrial sector needed digital instructions and skills management, and SwipeGuide was ready to provide that. This new direction allowed SwipeGuide to help companies manage their workers more effectively.

The importance of Making the Right Choices

Timing is really important when running a business. Daan talked about how crucial it is to make smart decisions at the right time. For example, they had to figure out when to grow their sales team or when to add new features like IT security. Making these decisions requires careful planning and balancing what the company needs with what is possible.

Daan admitted that they might have expanded their sales team a bit too soon. This is a common mistake for many new companies. The lesson here is to make sure your product is a good fit for the market before making big changes or investments.

How Listening to Customers Can Shape Your Product: The Key to Success

One of the key strategies for SwipeGuide’s success was working closely with their customers. They listened to feedback and worked with customers to make the product better. They even created a special group called the customer advisory board to give advice and help improve the product.

By involving customers in the development process, SwipeGuide made sure their product was useful and met real needs. This helped them build a product that was well-liked and effective.

Importance of Adding New Features

As customers asked for new features, like managing skills, SwipeGuide listened and added these to their product. They made sure these new features were not just useful for one company but could help many businesses. This approach made their product more valuable and better suited to different customer needs.

SwipeGuide’s Go-to-Market Strategies

SwipeGuide used a mix of strategies to tell people about their product. At first, they focused on online ads and going to industry events to find new customers. This mix of strategies helped them reach more people and build a strong sales pipeline.

In the industrial sector, they used two main approaches. One was talking to high-level executives at events, and the other was working with site managers who could promote the product within their own companies. This way, they reached different people in organizations who could help spread the word about SwipeGuide.

SwipeGuide made sure to use many different methods to reach their audience. They continued using online content marketing, had a team of sales representatives, and met people in person at events. This helped them connect with various stakeholders, from top executives to frontline managers.

SwipeGuide’s Biggest Challenges and How They Overcame Them

Daan’s journey was not always smooth. One big challenge was the burst of the internet bubble around 2002, which affected his previous company. This experience taught him how important it is to stay strong and adapt when things go wrong.

Balancing family life with running a startup was another big challenge. Daan started his first company when his children were young, and he was also finishing his MBA. This was a busy and demanding time, and it taught him how to manage both personal and work responsibilities effectively.

Learning from Failure

Daan believes that failing is an important part of learning and growing. One of his startups didn’t succeed because the funding was pulled. This experience taught him valuable lessons about the need for financial stability and the challenges of changing direction with a product.

How SwipeGuide is Exploring New Tech

SwipeGuide is always looking for new ways to improve their product with technology. They use AI, which stands for artificial intelligence, to help create better guides. They are also exploring other new technologies to make their product even more helpful and advanced.

Daan emphasized that it’s important to use new technology at the right time. They looked at AI and other new tools but waited until better options became available. This approach allowed them to use the best technology without rushing into things.

SwipeGuide’s Frameworks and Processes

SwipeGuide used different business methods to help their company grow. They followed a framework called “Winning by Design” to improve their marketing strategy. They also used agile methods for software development and compliance frameworks to meet enterprise needs.

Daan stressed that it’s important to adapt these methods to fit the specific needs of the company. Using these frameworks as a starting point and adjusting them helps make sure they work well for SwipeGuide.

Tips for New SaaS Founders

Daan’s advice for new SaaS founders is to work closely with customers to develop their ideas. This helps make sure the product truly meets their needs and can lead to valuable feedback. Working with customers can also help secure initial funding and reduce financial risks.

Once a company reaches a certain level, like 10K MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), Daan suggests reflecting on your role in the company. As the business grows, the skills needed may change, and sometimes it’s best to step into a new role or bring in new team members. Hiring people who are experts in their roles can also help the company grow and succeed.

Conclusion

Building a SaaS company is a journey with many lessons along the way. Daan Assen’s story with SwipeGuide shows the importance of working with customers, using technology wisely, and adapting to changes. Whether you are just starting or looking to grow your business, these tips can help guide you toward building a successful SaaS company.

Finding the right balance between new ideas and practical steps, listening to customers, and being flexible are key to success. With these lessons, you can navigate the world of SaaS and build a strong, lasting business.

Key Timecodes

• (0:00) – Show introduction 
• (1:00) – Founding SwipeGuide
• (2:25) – SwipeGuide’s Business Model and Products
• (4:16) – Personal Journey and Early Ventures
• (6:16) – Challenges and Pivots
• (10:41) – Major Milestones and Scaling
• (16:20) – Overcoming Challenges
• (18:20) – Key Decisions and Strategies
• (21:05) – Product Development and Co-Creation
• (28:31) – Frameworks and Technologies
• (32:24) – Advice for SaaS Founders

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Daan

In hindsight, I know we had the discussion on we want to scale when we have product-market fit, which is the thing from the book. But then really identifying the product-market fit was a bit harder. We thought we had it. We had a lot of customers that produced food and beverage goods. But then also the market dynamics are pretty particular. So I think it’s hard, and I think every journey there is different. I think, of course, the pivot was a very prominent moment where we really changed. I still believe I believe also in that consumer space, there could have been an interesting value proposition and maybe even an interesting company or product. But for us, that was very important to grow. Then, of course, there were a lot of decisions over time, but you have all these small steps. The pivot was a big one. The failures are there to learn from. And making the failures very early in the process and also not being afraid to scrap things is, I think, also an issue.

[00:01:00.000] – Joran

In today’s episode, my guest is Daan Assen. Daan is the founder of SwipeGuide, a SaaS that helps companies manage their frontline people. They have clients like Heineke, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and other big international brands. Daan started his career at CNX, where he started as a consultant, moved on to his sales and partnerships, and then left the company as the managing director seven, eight years later. After leaving, he co-founded three companies, a Trevision, Starter Squad, and Squads, exited to where he got bought out by the other founders. In the meantime, he also became a lecturer at two business schools here in the Netherlands. I have no idea how he did all this, but that’s one thing we’re going to find out today. Welcome to the show, Dan.

[00:01:40.640] – Daan

Thanks, Jeroen. Happy to be here.

[00:01:42.710] – Joran

Let’s get to know you and get to know Swarton SwipeGuidee. First of all, with SwipeGuide, when did you start SwipeGuide?

[00:01:49.380] – Daan

Started the company in 2016, in the journey now for eight years.

[00:01:54.350] – Joran

Are you able to share any revenue numbers?

[00:01:56.900] – Daan

No revenue numbers. I can tell a bit on the metrics that give a bit of an understanding of the size of our operation. We have 35 employees in the team. It depends a bit on how you count, but that is more or less the team that we work with. Active in over 90 countries. In manufacturing sites Our total number is around 400 that our software is active to support the frontline workers. That gives a bit of a feel of where we are in our journey.

[00:02:25.370] – Joran

When we talk about your journey, are you guys bootstrapped, funded?

[00:02:30.790] – Daan

We are funded. So first phase, we funded ourselves as founders. Then we had an angel round back in 2016, had a VC round after that, and another VC round later.

[00:02:44.190] – Joran

And 35 people you mentioned. When you guys look at your revenue, is there a separation between service and product revenue for you?

[00:02:53.750] – Daan

There is a slight separation, but the majority is software, so recurring revenue in SaaS subscriptions. We have a slight part of it being service, but it’s mainly the onboarding that is part of that.

[00:03:07.240] – Joran

Yeah, makes sense. So can you explain what does SwipeGuide actually do?

[00:03:12.590] – Daan

Yeah, no, that’s a good question. Of course, to clarify We have a software platform that helps manufacturing companies improve the performance of their frontline workers. So you should imagine the workers that work in factories or in the field working with equipment, producing things. A lot of companies that we work with produce either consumer or industrial products. We help support or improve the performance with solutions that are used for the onboarding. So giving the people the knowledge that they need to do the work. That’s where our SwipeGuide guides part of the platform comes in. So that is visual step-by-step guidance on how to perform work. And we have a skills management solution that then has a skills matrix where you can see who is actually trained or capable in a certain area of the operation. That’s what we do to make sure that the manufacturers can have their people work in a safe way, reliable, efficient, and produce the quality that they want to have as output.

[00:04:16.990] – Joran

We dive into your story, your personal story. May I ask first, how old are you?

[00:04:23.550] – Daan

I’m 52, so I’ve been around in this world for a bit already. Yeah.

[00:04:28.060] – Joran

And one question I always ask is your first startup. I already know it isn’t. You already had three, but were there any more which weren’t on your LinkedIn profile?

[00:04:37.010] – Daan

Yeah, in the times when I was at Starter Squad, we had a venture lab, so we tried to create multiple software startups, and there were some additional ones where I was involved in. One was U-Course, an online learning platform that we developed together with a large publisher. In the end, that failed. So that was a failed startup. Yeah, there There were some others where I had a bit of involvement, but the ones that you had on the list were the major ones.

[00:05:05.260] – Joran

We never see the failed ones. I’m happy to hear this.

[00:05:08.720] – Daan

Yeah, it’s interesting because actually I gave a presentation about that failure at one of the conferences, and I totally not I’m totally not reluctant in telling anything about failures. I think it’s great to have failures because then you start to learn more or less. But it’s indeed not on my profile because in the end, I haven’t been the real founder of that company. I was more or less involved.

[00:05:30.780] – Joran

Makes sense. Have you always wanted to be an entrepreneur?

[00:05:34.230] – Daan

No, that’s also a good question. I think when I started, from my upbringing was more like, Hey, do your best in school, make sure you find a good job and have a nice career, more or less in the corporate world. So entrepreneurship wasn’t really a dream. I think it started a bit in university where I juggled around a bit with the first company selling old computer equipment from university to people living in the countryside. So that was a first experience. But then later in my first job and when I did my MBA, really, I thought, okay, this is what I really want. I want to start my own company. And then later, my actual first company was 2007, Indeed, Atrivision.

[00:06:16.660] – Joran

Yeah. And when we go, I guess, back to SwipeCart, is there an end goal defined for you? Where do you want to take the company?

[00:06:24.420] – Daan

No, I think we’re pretty much in a good spot. So I think when you look at what What company do we want to be? That’s, I think, what we are currently. Of course, we want to grow. If you then talk about end goal is, I think we want to grow the company moving forward, make sure that we get more customers, build the product out with more features, grow the team, but no predefined state like, Hey, this is where we want to be.

[00:06:51.030] – Joran

You mentioned you’re now the company you want to be. I guess I’m curious, what keeps you motivated to keep going every day?

[00:06:59.610] – Daan

I think it’s combination of external and internal. What really drives me is the customers and the problems that we can help them solve, make the impact on the day-to-day of these workers that we support with our software. That is a drive and finding ways to do that better and make sure that we can deliver more value. For me, it is the team. I think on the internal side, the team that we work with gives me a lot of energy. I think we have a great group of people that can do a amazing things, like with even the relatively small size that we have still and the big customers that we work for. This is more or less the combination, the customer side and the team that you work with.

[00:07:41.660] – Joran

Yeah, because you guys have 35 people and huge companies as a client. Cool. Let’s dive deeper. I guess let’s go all the way to the beginning. Can I call it a non-sexy SaaS product in a way?

[00:07:55.620] – Daan

I think you can. I think industrial software, in essence, is pretty non-sexy. I think what we try to do is make it a bit sexier, at least.

[00:08:03.960] – Joran

Yeah, because I’m curious. I guess it’s easy to come up with the sexy SaaS products in a way, but how do you come up with the idea of SwipeGuidee?

[00:08:12.300] – Daan

Yeah, that’s a good one because we started off slightly different. So I think in the journey we ended up here. Idea for SwipeGuidee, my first company was already in e-learning. So I’ve been in the field of technologies for knowledge, learning, skills development for most of my career. At some point, you, of course, build a a lot of ideas in your head on how you can develop solutions for that field. But actually, the original idea for Swipe Guide, I remember when we were in a plane, I was at a startup event, I think it was in Romania, with two software developers from back then Starter Squad. We were looking at that airplane safety card that you, I think, still find in all the planes. We’re thinking like, okay, but instructions are really old fashioned. Can we make something more engaging, more digital, where you have a more powerful solution for everything that needs instruction. Then on the stopover at the Munich airport, I remember we started ideating a bit on, okay, how do we build something for this particular problem or this particular challenge? From there, it started like first designs, prototype, and so on to where we are now.

[00:09:23.430] – Daan

But then you see that over time, of course, an idea becomes more concrete. I think we had our pivots, changes, but in the end, the core idea is still pretty much what it was back then.

[00:09:35.050] – Joran

You were in the market already with a different company. You were just doing your everyday things like flying and then figuring out like, Hey, this actually doesn’t make any sense. Let’s build something else. You had the industry knowledge already, but then from there came up with a new idea on how to tackle a certain problem. Did you know from the beginning it was just going to be such a success as it is right now?

[00:09:57.820] – Daan

You never know, of course, in the I had the feeling that we were on to something because, of course, instruction is a pretty big problem and you have a big market. I think the idea from the start and the name that we swiped guide was, I think, a good name because it exactly tells what it is. You swipe through steps to be guided through a certain process. I think from that, we had a feeling like, Hey, this actually could be something. But we didn’t really have the market yet. I think the first prototypes were things like how to cut a mango and some other more like a private things like cooking and stuff like that. The idea was more and more shaped, of course, over time. But we thought from the beginning, this could be a good idea.

[00:10:41.970] – Joran

I guess when did it go from it could be a good idea to actually good idea, like what happened in the early phase? Because that’s always the most challenging part, getting an idea to actually getting somebody to use it and getting value out of it.

[00:10:56.310] – Daan

Yeah, that’s a good point. I think we struggled with that in the beginning, too. We developed that prototype. We had it in an accelerator to mature the idea a bit, and then we left it on the shelf for a bit. Then actually, I met my co founder, Willemijn, and I think she brought additional perspectives to it. She came from a consumer or a customer experience background. I think from that moment on, we really developed the product into something that is in that first stage, a customer experience solution. We focused in the first, what is it, year and a half, two years, maybe on consumer user manuals. There was a totally different value proposition back then. But she brought an additional perspective and the energy and the power to move it forward because at the time I was also still running a squad, startup squad, so the venture studio. I think she made the difference there. Good learnings in that consumer space, ability to collaborate, co-create with customers back then. We had some major consumer brands that liked the idea that also became a launching customer, helped us develop the product for that market. But then after that initial stage, more or less, it’s not really by chance, but we found out all of a sudden companies, an example, Heineken approached us with, Hey, we really like the solution, but not for consumer manuals, but for our workers.

[00:12:28.150] – Daan

And that happened a few times where companies found us as a solution for digital manuals, but we’re more interested in using it internally. And then at some point we figured, Okay, actually, these customers have way more of a pull. We want this solution than the pushing we need to do in that consumer product space. So let’s pivot the thing and let’s focus on that market from that point on. I think that was a bit of that journey, initial journey in a nutshell.

[00:12:57.900] – Joran

Yeah, it’s really nice listening to your is a great way or a great point to get your pivot done. One question regarding, you mentioned Willa Mey as a co founder. Was she already present at the beginning when you were building the MVP or did she came on when you shelved the MVP and then you wanted to take things further from there?

[00:13:16.070] – Daan

No, the initial MVP and designs were there from that Starter Squad studio moment that we had. But then she was pretty much there from that point on. I think product really matured from there because I think the experience that she brought from a customer experience side of things was very important for the product to take these further steps. I come from that e-learning background, so I had part of the puzzle, but she added the missing part, so to say.

[00:13:45.300] – Joran

Yeah, and this is my point. She brought really new perspectives which took things forward, where you shelved it and then suddenly things took off.

[00:13:53.620] – Daan

No, definitely. And also, I think the first people that joined, I think we had a great CTO in the beginning and marketing. And I think together, the initial team that was grouped around the product made definitely the difference in taking these steps.

[00:14:08.280] – Joran

And you mentioned already you worked in a venture lab before. You had then one failure we talked about briefly in the beginning. What learnings did you take from the other startups, the failure, but also the successes into SwipeGuide?

[00:14:21.630] – Daan

I think the failure, it depends also a bit on the stage. So we had failures where actually the thing was, it seemed like a good idea but took off or we scrapped it already pretty quick in the process. Then you have learnings like, Hey, we don’t really have a good founding setup for this idea. Or I remember we’ve often visited the Web Summit and then we had an idea and then we saw that there were already five similar ideas in the market that were more mature and looked a bit better than what we were doing. That were more or less the early stage failures. With U-Course, particularly, we had the problem that the publishing house that was funding part of it pulled out of it. Then we lost the founder in the journey, tried to get a new founder on board, pivot the product a bit, but that in the end also didn’t really work out. I think there’s a massive amount of factors that can lead to a failed startup journey. I think when you look at SwipeGuidee, I think a lot of these things were good. I think market was good, product was good, founding team was good.

[00:15:26.590] – Daan

I think we had a good place in the market. There was competition, but not very mature. I think the learnings there were more like, what is the right timing for certain things? I think that is the most challenging part where I think that with also the investment rounds coming on board, I think the temptation that we had and also I think some mistakes that we maybe made there is that we were a bit premature in scaling, especially on the sales side, hiring people to sell the product whilst I think we should have, in The hindsight waited a bit longer and be a bit more careful with the resources that you get. But all in all, that was also part of the learning and brought us to the point where we are now. I think in that sense, as said, failures are there to learn from. And making the failures very early in the process and also not being afraid to scrap things. This is, I think, also an important learning.

[00:16:20.810] – Joran

I think that’s a really nice one. To make sure the product, market, and founding team are good, timing is good, and then don’t scale too fast. Yeah. Nice. When we talk about more failures, and then we’re going to talk about positive things, everybody hits rock bottom one moment, either financially or personally. Can you tell about a moment of yourself and how did you overcome that?

[00:16:43.700] – Daan

I think when you look at It was a whole journey, I go back to the 2000s when the Internet came up. I think one of the first moments that was pretty scary is a burst of the Internet bubble. What was it? Around 2002. Because back then, in the company, Scenax, that you referred to. We had investment, a very promising company. The world looked great. We were opening offices in Germany and UK, and company was growing. Then all of a sudden, from day one to day two, everything changed. There It was a pretty hectic and scary situation back then. I think overall, things rationalized, and I think the company also in the end survived, but that was pretty challenging back then. Later, maybe more on a personal level, when I started It was really my first company that I founded, Atrivision, I started in a time where I had really young children, and I remember that was really some moments of juggling with your time, having small children, I think in the end, I was also finishing off my MBA running my own company. When I look back at pictures from myself in that time, I see a very pale face and think, okay, I remember that it was really on a personal level, a pretty challenging period.

[00:17:57.870] – Joran

You were running a startup, doing a study, and also raising a couple of kids.

[00:18:04.170] – Daan

Yeah, that was a very challenging combination, I can tell you.

[00:18:09.150] – Joran

Yeah, we’re definitely going to make sure that people don’t follow that process. Maybe do one or two things at the time.

[00:18:15.570] – Daan

If you like these challenges, you can still do it. But I remember that was a bit too much back then.

[00:18:20.540] – Joran

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[00:18:48.880] – Daan

I think the biggest challenge that we had is what is the right time for certain steps in the journey? Some steps are easier to identify. We knew that at some point we needed an investment round to really mature the product. So that became pretty clear. But to went to hire, for instance, indeed, a head of sales and a sales team and take these steps, I think that has been challenging for the rest of the journey. I think some choices just come up at a point where you say, Okay, we now have to take this decision, so we do this. An example is we knew that at some point when you sell to enterprise customers, we needed to become enterprise ready. So do your SOC or ISO thing to make sure that everything on the The IT security side is covered to be able to have your license to serve these customers. But some of the other choices, especially on the people or on the team side, were a bit harder, I must say.

[00:19:43.170] – Joran

If we turn it around, what advice would you give to other SaaS firms who are listening who have the exact same struggle? How do you deal with these timing challenges? How do you make sure it is the right time? What do you look at? How do you approach these situations? It’s going to It’s different probably for every situation.

[00:20:02.130] – Daan

It is different for every situation. I think, yeah, in hindsight, I know we had the discussion on we want to scale when we have product-market fit, which is the thing from the book. But then really identifying the product market fit was a bit harder. We thought we had it. We had a lot of customers that produced food and beverage goods. But then also the market dynamics are pretty particular. So I think it’s hard. And I think every journey there is different. But I would say on the people side, it’s maybe even more that you really have to get into a situation where you struggle with the capacity and not be too early maybe in handing things over to, for instance, a head of sales. I think in the end, we should have stick to the founder-led sales a bit longer than we did in our journey. But it’s hard. I think it’s different in every startup, although the theories are more or less the same. Do product market fit first and then at some point you start scaling, but it’s easier said than done, I think.

[00:21:05.060] – Joran

You gave an answer. I’ve seen timing is hard when you’re thinking of hiring people, but get yourself to a challenging position. I guess when it’s really challenging, then it probably is the right time to hire Challenging is internally when you feel like things start breaking up or it’s customers that tell you, Hey, it’s time for that IT security, or it’s time for this or that feature, or, Hey, you have to speed up this or that.

[00:21:29.930] – Daan

It’s sometimes customers telling you or giving you pointers, Hey, you have to do something. Sometimes it’s more internal like that. You have an internal struggle, so then you have to take certain decisions.

[00:21:40.530] – Joran

You talked about a little bit already product-market fit. It’s getting to the market, right? When we look at Swipe Guide, what did you guys do? What has been your go-to-market strategy to, first of all, achieve product-market fit? And then, I guess, after that, skill beyond it.

[00:21:55.180] – Daan

I think that also developed over time. Of course, the go-to-market in the beginning was for the consumer products. I think it was a mix of online marketing, and we went to a lot of events like the consumer electronics show, Hi-Fi in Berlin, where you meet all these consumer brands, at least for more like the electronics products. Later on, when we pivoted more to industrial, it was also a mix. Again, we did the events, we did online content marketing, so that generated inbound. We had our SDR, so an outbound motion. In the end, For us, it’s always been a mix of things and trying to find the right mix moving forward to have both deals that come inbound that might be a bit more competitive but can close quicker and outbound that takes a bit longer, but where situations sometimes are a bit less competitive.

[00:22:46.420] – Joran

When you look now at your strategy, is it still a mix of everything or have you found one channel which is particularly working well for you?

[00:22:54.230] – Daan

No, it’s still a mix. We still do events, we still do quite some content. It’s online. It’s still a mix. We also believe that the mix is important because the one channel also supports the other. For us, it’s definitely still a mix of things.

[00:23:10.940] – Joran

I guess one other question regarding this because you guys focus more on the enterprise clients, the big companies. Do you think the mix is super important in your case where you always have the face-to-face meetings as well at events where you can’t go fully digital?

[00:23:25.320] – Daan

No, not necessarily. I think it’s still there. The channel Sales are slightly different. At the events, you mostly meet sea-level people and then have to do more like a top-down sales. And online, you find it a bit more bottom-up. So there we find people from individual sites, expressing an interest. Then we can have, of course, like in enterprise, two motions. You could either go top-down in and then from there find your way to the individual sites. But you can also start from an individual site and then find your up when you’re successful in one site to show, Hey, we’re bringing value here. How can we extrapolate that and scale that within your company? That’s where in the end, the two also support each other, the bottom-up and top-down approach.

[00:24:13.890] – Joran

Yeah, and I guess in your case, you’re going to have multiple stakeholders. That’s why the mix is probably working well for you guys.

[00:24:19.880] – Daan

Yeah, the sales cycles normally are a bit longer. You have multiple people involved. The steps to take, initial problem owner, then always IT is involved, purchasing legal. That is a bit of the trajectory for getting to a close to deal in our business.

[00:24:37.180] – Joran

When you look at, I guess, your journey, sometimes you have these critical decisions. If I haven’t done X, Y, Z, we wouldn’t be here now in a comfortable position, 35 employees. Are there moments when you look back, Hey, if we haven’t done this, we wouldn’t have gotten this far?

[00:24:53.270] – Daan

Yeah, I think, of course, the pivot was a very prominent moment where we really changed. I still believe also in that consumer space, there could have been an interesting value proposition and maybe even an interesting company or product. But for us, that was very important to grow. Then, of course, there were a lot of decisions over time, but you have all these small steps. The pivot was a big one. I think a more reason big one was that we developed that skills management products because we saw in the sales processes that it came up more and more as a question. And also existing customers started asking for functionality in that domain. And what is it now? A year and a half ago, we really decided, yeah, we’re going to build it and we’re going to build it again in co-creation. That was a more reason, very important decision, I think, that we took that brings us in the position that we are now.

[00:25:44.500] – Joran

Yeah. And this is really interesting. So build products in co-creation with customers. So they brought it up, the customers brought it up. In the sales process, they brought it up. So you knew that there was a problem that you guys need to fix. How does it work in building in co-creation? How did you guys approach this?

[00:26:02.580] – Daan

Of course, you need to have a person that can actually tell you what their business problem is. Luckily, we had some customers that were able to explain that and show that because they had for every team a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Excel is, of course, a great tool, but not for skills management, I can tell you. I think having a clear sight on the problem and then, of course, a good idea on how you can solve it. I’ve been also in that skills area in my career for quite a bit, so I had a bit of knowledge on how to solve these issues. Then, of course, with the engineering and design team, you need to be able to translate that into something that the customers are. I have the feeling like, Hey, this is great. We want to jump on this ship and we want to do a pre-commit because then you get, of course, the question about money. How are we going to fund this? We need customers that want to pre-commit to our idea on how we’re going to solve this. Then you have to continue to engagement, so collaborating with the customers. We had a customer advisory board of these launching customers that helped us in the journey, giving feedback on designs, the questions that we had.

[00:27:12.010] – Daan

From that end of last year, we were able to launch this product. Then, of course, from first use, you need to continue to listen to the customers and develop the product moving forward.

[00:27:23.590] – Joran

You mentioned now that first you had one client who showed that they had problems, then you had this client advisory board. You have multiple your clients, because I guess this is also listening to your clients is great, but listening to one client is, of course, can be tricky, right?

[00:28:06.820] – Daan

So you made sure that you’re not listening to one person’s problem, but you also had multiple where you’re fixing an industry problem then rather than just one company problem.

[00:28:16.110] – Joran

Yeah, that is, of course, critical because otherwise you’re building a custom software solution. That’s not what the intention was. Intention was, and also of the companies, they didn’t want to have a custom software product that in the end landed on their responsibility to pay for maintenance or continued development.

[00:28:31.130] – Daan

They wanted us to build a product that could go into the market. That is then, of course, very important that you keep an eye on, are we building something that is solving the generic problem? When you look at how Are you building Swipeguide, the company, the products, are you guys using any processes, frameworks, anything you can share? How are you building SwipeGuidee where other people can learn from it? Yeah, good point. I think we’ve We’ve been looking at a lot of blueprints, frameworks, of course, to learn from and see how that can help us optimize the business. I think on the go-to-market side, winning by design. We worked with Jaco van der Kuyte to see how we can implement that. I think what we learned is that blueprints and frameworks are great, but you have to tailor them more or less to your situation a bit. That’s in the end what we also did on that side. The core of that is how we operate, from top funnel to the customer success side with that bow-tie model. On the technology side, we have a mix of agile software development practices. We’re not 100% Scrum, but we have our sprint We have our Kanban boards.

[00:29:34.160] – Daan

Of course, then on the technology side, we have the framework for SOC, so for compliance that we implemented. In the end, you use a lot of frameworks except for SOC. That is pretty strict, But the others you can adapt a bit to how you think you want to operate.

[00:29:49.650] – Joran

People in the team have a good idea on, Okay, this works, this doesn’t. So let’s use it as an inspiration and a template and adjust it to where needed. But we You get it at least a lot from things that you can leverage in the market. So don’t reinvent the wheel, but don’t copy the wheel as it’s being delivered.

[00:30:08.390] – Daan

So make sure you tailor it and actually make it work for you. That’s a good summary. When we look at new technologies, AI, machine learning, how do you guys leverage that? Maybe within the app, maybe within your organization. Can you tell a little bit more about that? Yeah. No, that’s, of course, very exciting point. I remember that we were at the CES in Las Vegas. So back then we had the idea like, Hey, the AI, augmented reality, there’s so much exciting technology out there that we have to jump on it and develop our own solution. In AR, we made a prototype. I think in AI, we did some work back then. But we left it at that point as a prototype. I think in hindsight, we were lucky because if we would have invested a lot and we came to the point that all of a sudden, ChatGPT and all these new technologies hit the market, we would be very disappointed about the products that we would have built. Now we’re more in the mode, what are the technologies that we can leverage for our product? I think generative AI has a lot to offer when you think about a more like content platform that we are on the guide side and also on the on the sales side.

[00:31:16.040] – Daan

There’s a lot of technologies that we can use. The team is working on implementing parts of it. For the instructions, we already have a recommendation engine that helps customers create better instructions. We have a model where we incorporated all the instructional design knowledge that we have on the team to make sure that that is automated into an assistant that helps you create better instructions. We are looking into technologies that help customers transform existing content into swipe guides, a material on the skills side, generating skills profiles automatically.

[00:31:43.380] – Joran

Give us a job, give us a company type so we can generate what are the normal out-of-the-box skills that could be relevant for a person there. I think it’s really important what you said, don’t invent the wheel, just use existing technologies. You create your own prototypes, as you mentioned, but now you’re just wheeling them into your product and then use it to drive value for clients, like speeding things up and making sure that they are being worked.

[00:32:07.620] – Daan

It’s also, again, a timing thing because we could have invested a lot of our money in developing an AI product ourselves. At some point in time, I think a lot of companies did. But then when companies start hitting the market that have a way better product, then that’s a lot of waste of money.

[00:32:24.800] – Joran

It’s again a bit of luck in the decisions and the timing that plays a very important role here. When we dive into the final two questions, these are revenue stage related. What advice would you give a B2B SaaS founder who’s just starting out and growing to 10K monthly recurring revenue?

[00:32:40.340] – Daan

I think at the first stages, finding customers that you can co-create or at least validate with is very vertical. So I think in a lot of the B2B startups, like even with Ucores that in the end failed, we tried to work with customers because I think at the early stage, as a founder, you’re also trying to manage your risk. Of course, you can put in a lot of your own money in the beginning, but you want to reduce the risk for yourself. I think co-creating with customers would be definitely an advice. And it’s possible in the B2B space, of course, in small and medium enterprises, it’s a bit more tricky. But in enterprise, all of these big companies have a digital innovation department that you can connect with and see if there’s a way of collaborating on a business problem that they face that you can solve. I think in that stage, that would be my advice. I think that’s really good advice.

[00:33:31.330] – Joran

If I take it one step further, so they all have this innovation department, I guess if we take it really practical, would you then just simply reach out to them, ask them what challenges they have, and then see if you can How would you create a product or how would you practically take it forward? If you would have to start from zero now today.

[00:33:51.560] – Daan

If it’s really zero and you have no idea, yeah, I think then as a founder, you have to look for problems that you can solve. I would definitely look at… For us, it It’s also lucky that we had a problem that was relatively big. So digitizing instructions is a pretty big problem. You could do that indeed for consumers that buy a piece of electronic equipment and need to understand it. You could do it in health care, you could do it like we do now for manufacturing companies. So find a big problem and try to find companies that you can collaborate, work with, would be my advice. If you don’t have any clues or no idea, you can even ask companies like, What are the biggest challenges that you have and can we help you solve it? But then I think you need to have a bit of a track record to earn the trust that you are the person that can actually do that. But definitely good opportunities there.

[00:34:44.330] – Joran

Might not always be the best idea either, because I guess if it’s not your problem, it’s probably not your passion either. You’re going to work in your startup for quite a long time, but it could be an idea for people listening. Let’s assume now we hit 10K MRR and we’re going to grow towards 10 million ARR. What advice would you give SaaS founders here?

[00:35:03.990] – Daan

Yeah, I think advice is always a bit challenging because every journey is different. But maybe more from a personal perspective, I think it’s important when the company grows to ask yourself the question, Am I still the right person or am I still in the right role? Maybe I experienced that a couple of times in my career. Back then at my eLearning company, found that I was more the person generating new ideas and starting to bring up new things. For the company, it was better to just focus on the same thing and get into a more repetitive business motion. At that point, I already did a bit of harm to the company, but I eventually stepped out more or less still in time. My advice would be more like, look at yourself at this stage, because then at growing to 10 million, you already have a bit of your journey behind you. It’s good to reflect on what do I want, am I still working out of position of strength? Maybe that can be a more generic advice. Nice. I think it’s a good, especially the first part, like having always questioning yourself, am I still the right person?

[00:36:05.400] – Joran

Am I still the most knowledgeable person to do certain things? Or can I hire somebody who’s better than me? Yeah. Nice. Let me try to summarize. I guess first of all, being in a market will give you new ideas on how to solve problems, and you can take inspiration from day-to-day things like the airplane fight guides. Listen to your customers and challenges. They’re a great indicator for doing a pivot. When launching a product, make sure the product, market, founding team are good and the timing is good, and definitely don’t scale too fast. Timing is hard when thinking of hiring people. Get yourself to a challenging position when things are breaking or customers are asking for it, it’s probably the right time. Make sure you go to market. It’s a mix of everything. Different channels will have different approaches. If you’re going to build new products or expansion products, do it in co-creation with your customers. Have clients show their problems discussing a solution which can solve it. Have clients pre-commit to the solution, and then create a client advisory board so you make sure you build the product they want. Frameworks and blueprints are great, but tail them them to your own business.

[00:37:07.970] – Joran

We’re going to link towards winning by design, the bow-time model, which is a great one to check out. And regarding new technologies, don’t invent the wheel. Leverage existing tools. Use it to deliver value for clients. When we talk about the last steps, 10K MR. Find customers where you can co-create a product or validate your ID and make sure the problem is big enough. And then when you’re past 10K MR, keep asking if you’re still in the right role as a founder to do certain things. Amazing summary. Nice. It’s all your information. So thank you very much for sharing this. If people want to get in contact with you, Dan, how can they do that? You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn, or you can contact me directly on dan@swipeguide. Com if you want. Feel free.

[00:37:51.250] – Daan

Always happy to help other founders and collaborate. Nice. You’re going to be soon live at SASE Amsterdam. I know. So I’ll see you there on stage so people can meet you in person as well if they’re listening to this. We’re going to link to your LinkedIn profile to the bow-time model, and then people can reach out.

[00:38:08.780] – Joran

For people listening, if you haven’t done so, please leave us a review so we can beat the algorithms to put us higher. And we’re going to add a poll to this podcast. So please leave a comment so we know what you like, because this is the end of season 4, so we are deciding now how to move forward with season 5. Thanks again for coming on, Daan. Yeah, thank you very much, Jeroen, for having me. Thank you for watching this show of the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast.

[00:38:36.430] – Joran

You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you like this content.

[00:38:41.340] – Joran

If you did, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you like this content, feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show. If you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to know more about Reditus, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your B2B SaaS.