Achieving Escape Velocity
When I sat down to write this book, I sketched out a long list of topics. It quickly became apparent that topics relevant at one stage of a startup are less relevant at another. For example, if you’ve just launched, you should approach finding customers differently than if you’re making $100,000 in MRR.
To that end, I decided to focus this book on topics that will help a business with some semblance of product-market fit take its company to the next level.
My mental shorthand for product-market fit is: you’ve built something businesses want and are willing to pay for. With SaaS, product-market fit starts very weak and often begins to strengthen when you’re around $10,000 or $20,000 MRR. It then transitions to the next level, what I call escape velocity, once you’ve built one or more repeatable growth channels.
The process of moving from “a product people love”
(product-market fit) to “a product people love, and you can find
more of them every week” (escape velocity) involves building
your product for your ideal customer, finding one or more
marketing channels that work, building moats, reevaluating
pricing, building your team, unlocking SaaS Cheat Codes, and
finding and fixing bottlenecks in your funnel.
The strategies in this book are arranged into six parts:
- Market: How to understand your market and beat your competition
- Pricing: Structuring pricing for maximum growth
- Marketing: Finding and scaling the right marketing channels
- Team: How to get the right people working with you
- 80/20 Metrics: The highest-impact SaaS metrics you should be watching
- Mindset: The psychological factors that can help you become a successful founder
Although all of the strategies, tools, and frameworks in this book will help your business grow, keep an eye out for four super-strategies, which I call the SaaS Cheat Codes.
These Cheat Codes—expansion revenue, virality, net negative churn, and dual funnels—can grow your business at an incredible pace if you get them right.
Let’s dive in!