In Demand: How to Grow Your SaaS and Stay In Demand – Details, episodes & analysis

Growth isn’t just marketing. And if you’re stuck and growth isn’t happening, you’ll need to look beyond marketing and acquisition. 

In this episode of the In Demand Podcast, Asia and Kim break down what it means to troubleshoot growth. They explain how growth work goes beyond campaigns and into retention, expansion, pricing, onboarding, and more.

Plus, they dive into how product marketing overlaps and differs from growth and why founders often under-invest in the real levers that move growth.

Got a question you'd like Asia to unpack on the podcast? Record a voicemail here. 

• (00:01:44) - Growth marketing vs. head of growth: very different roles.
• (00:04:47) - A head of growth looks across the whole business, not just marketing.
• (00:05:40) - An early mistake founders often make is to focus only on marketing and acquisition when they are trying to solve growth problems.
• (00:08:07) - The moment Asia realized marketing wasn’t enough and how that led her into growth.
• (00:12:40) - Troubleshooting growth means identifying why growth is slow or stuck.
• (00:15:00) - Step by step on troubleshooting growth and benchmarks that matter.
• (00:22:45) - Troubleshooting = identifying root causes and giving you a clear plan to fix them.
• (00:30:30) - Product marketing overlaps with growth, but it's not the same job.
• (00:35:56) - Recap of what differences exist between a product marketer, a VP of growth, and a marketer.

Most SaaS companies hit growth plateaus, and too many founders assume the problem is either unsolvable or too complex to fix. In reality, that's rarely true.

In this episode of In Demand, Asia and Kim unpack how to shift your mindset from "This can't be solved" to "Who's already solved this, and how can I learn from them?"

They also introduce CUES, a prioritization framework that helps you focus on the right growth ideas instead of spinning your wheels.

Got a question you'd like Asia to unpack on the podcast? Record a voicemail here.

• (00:00:55) - Why founders often treat growth problems like they’re unsolvable.
• (00:05:22) - There are a lot of founders creating pain for themselves by trying to reinvent the wheel.
• (00:08:02) - Almost every single growth problem has been solved before, you just need to find the people who did it.
• (00:09:00) - Books, articles, and experts: where to actually look for answers.
• (00:14:10) - Learning enough to get started and putting your knowledge into practice.
• (00:19:15) - One of the things founders need to be able to do at a high level is understand trade offs.
• (00:24:00) - What does the process look like for troubleshooting growth?
• (00:25:00) - What net revenue retention tells you and how to find and use it in ProfitWell.
• (00:34:00) - Spotting the levers: activation, positioning, and pricing.
• (00:39:00) - Prioritization traps: why common frameworks like ICE often fail.
• (00:42:55) - Try CUES instead: Confidence, Understanding, Ease, and Speed.
• (00:55:05) - Recapping what was covered on this episode.

When it comes to building a business there is a big difference between focusing and niching.

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down how you can achieve focus by niching, but why you don't have niche to achieve focus. 

TL;DL: 

• 2:00 - When we talk about focusing, it is a founder really dedicating for a period of time to a specific part of the market. Niching is going to market saying that you only serve a specific segment. An example of a niched product is a CRM that is for trucking companies. An example of focus could be a CRM for small businesses that is investing over 12 months in focusing on marketing agencies and then the next 12 months focused on design firms.
• 5:00 - If you're focusing, you probably wouldn't turn away a customer that is outside of your focus. If you're in niche, you would turn away a customer that is outside of the niche.
• 9:10 - Focusing is not necessarily a forever thing, but it is important as you think about go to market. Start by thinking about who your raving fans are and who will get the most value out of the product. That is how you identify who to focus on first.
• 11:00- Hubspot is a great example of a company that focused, but did not niche.   
• 12:30 - When you are niching, what's important is targeting a niche that has enough market turnover to create opportunity over the long-term. Then it is critical to have a plan for identifying  when to expand or pivot out of that niche.
• 20:00 - When you are niching, you want to make sure that you are focusing on long-term macro trends and not short-term micro trends. For example, Blockbuster was niched, but missed the macro trend towards streaming.
• 24:00 - As a recap, focusing is a temporary effort focused on specific segments. For example a small business CRM where you are focusing your product and marketing efforts for 6 months on marketing agencies. Niching is a defining your product as being for a specific segment. For example defining your product as the CRM for marketing agencies and turning away other customers. 

What are the best areas to focus on when you’re trying to drive growth in your company? 

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the top five growth drivers for SaaS businesses. 

1. Growing Awareness
2. Growing Traffic
3. Capturing More Leads
4. Increasing Sales
5. Increasing Business Capacity

TL;DL

• 1:00 - What are the top 5 growth drivers?
• 1:55 - Growing awareness simply means more people knowing about your brand. This is tough to measure, but usually you can look at behaviors like testimonials or referrals.
• 4:15 - Growing traffic to your website is huge and easy to track, but it is very competitive in 2023 using traditional channels to grow traffic.
• 5:20 - Capturing more leads means increasing the number of leads, but also increasing your conversion rate, so that you are getting a bigger percentage out of all your traffic converting.
• 7:05 - Increasing sales. This is about improving the conversion rate, but also accelerating the sales cycle and increasing profitability.
• 9:45 - Increasing business capacity is where you are making hires and removing bottlenecks from your business that are slowing growth. Most of the time, growth is a function of how well your team is functioning.
• 17:30 - In early stage companies, you will often find it most valuable to focus on growing traffic, capturing more leads, and increasing sales. In more mature companies, all 5 are important to focus on.
• 19:00 - If you think through these five growth factors as it relates to your business, what are the top 2 most important for your business? And then within those 2 what are the 3–5 projects that you can do to make an impact on those growth factors? 

Check out Katelyn Bourgoin on twitter at https://twitter.com/KateBour

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the strategies successful companies have used to survive and grow through downturns and how to apply it to your business.

TL;DL: 

•  1:00 - A lot of companies simply over-hired during the past couple years of growth and the layoffs now are correcting for that as opposed to a greater market downturn.
• 5:30 - In a true economic downturn, layoffs and cuts might not be your best strategy for future survival.
• 6:45 - There are lots of different levers that can lead to growth. Increasing leads and traffic, increasing in sales, increasing retained customers, increasing in upsells or cross sales, and increasing revenue by optimizing pricing.
• 8:05 - In an economic downturn the first step to take is to get default alive, meaning that you get to a position of not needing future investment to continue operating.
• 9:34 - The second step is checking for gaps. That means looking at your business from a product, market, model, and channel perspective. In an economic downturn big changes are happening in the market and that likely means your business needs to change.
• 13:15 - Step number three is refocusing on growth. The companies that succeed during a downturn are companies that tighten their belts, focus on leadership, and then refocus on growth before the market at large.
• 17:00 - If you're experiencing slowness with growth right now, there are likely root causes beyond just the economic downturn. You should be looking at and focusing on your highest LTV customers and identifying opportunities that create higher LTV long-term. 

Are you building a SaaS product but have not yet got your first paying customers? You might be in or about to go into the SaaS Black Hole. 

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the SaaS black hole and covers how to think about pivoting, building your team, and bringing in outside help when you’re in this phase of building your company. 

TL;DR:

• 3:40 - The SaaS black hole is the time when you are going from having trial users to charging for your product and working on getting your first 10 paying customers. 
• 8:30 - The black hole phase looks different for every company. Sometimes, in rare cases, you nail the product and people want to sign up and pay right away. More often a few people convert, but there is real hesitation about paying and the value of the product. Depending on what happens in the black hole, you might need to go all the way back to customer discovery and really make sure you understand your audience and problem.
• 14:20 - The black hole can lead you to decide you need to totally pivot your product, to change focus to a new audience, or to realize that there is a problem or audience you didn't plan for, but that loves your product.
• 17:30 - It is very difficult to build a team while you're in the black hole because you don't know the answers to a lot of fundamental questions about your business.
• 20:45 - Most bootstrap founders don't plan big launches and instead choose to just go live. You don't need to feel like something big needs to happen when you start asking for your users to pay for the product.
• 24:30 - It makes sense to have a small team in this phase because you want to be able to make decisions quickly and take fast action when you need to pivot. When you have someone in marketing at this stage, they are going to have whiplash and struggle with the change of direction.
• 26:30 - From a growth consulting perspective, it makes sense to work with a company in the planning and preparation phase, pre-black hole or once a company is out of the black hole and has their first 10 paying customers. 

Are you investing in marketing, but not seeing the growth you were aiming for? It might be because you’re overlooking another key growth area.

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the top five areas to look at first when it comes to growth. 

You’ll learn why marketing might not be the best lever to pull in your business right now and how focusing on operations, retention, and activation can drive your growth. 

TL;DR

• 0:45 - Putting more dollars into marketing won't be the best growth investment if you haven't taken care of the core areas of the business yet.
• 1:50 - Area #1 is the activation and onboarding part of the customer experience. The benchmarks to look at depending on your model are below and if you're not reaching these benchmarks it's likely there is a lot of space for you to improve activation.
  • Demo to paying customer, aim for 30%
  • Free trial to paying customer, aim for 30 to 50%
  • Freemium free account to paying customer, aim for 2 to 3%
• 7:45 - Area # 2 is retention. If you don't have any or don't have an efficient process for retaining customers who would otherwise churn it is likely a big opportunity for growth.
• 11:02 - Area # 3 is expansion. Upselling or cross-selling into existing plans you have or creating add ons. To do expansion well you need to have a strong product innovation process and good customer marketing to sell the value of expanded plans or add ons.
• 13:40 - Area # 4 is looking at your L.T.V./Average Revenue per User. If these aren't increasing over time it points to an issue with customer retention or a lack of expansion revenue. LTV will also vary between markets and you might be able to target a higher LTV market.
• 16:35 - Area # 5 is operations. If you are stuck on growth, but don't have good systems and processes in place for operations, then plans and strategies for marketing aren't going to create results. If you recognize this as an issue in your business it likely makes sense to invest in operations first by making a hire or improving processes. 

Are you building a painkiller or a vitamin? 

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the two categories of products and how you can use the concept in marketing your SAAS business. 

You’ll learn why most successful SAAS businesses are pain killers, examples of both types of business, and how your messaging and positioning should adapt to the product your building. 

TL;DR

• 0:48 - Breking down the concept of painkiller vs. vitamin as it applies to your product.
• 1:51 - What is a painkiller solution? It is a product that is solving a very specific problem directly. For example, Loom is a painkiller product for giving feedback and training to your team. A good test is if your product is relieving frustration or annoyance for your customers.
• 3:37- What is a vitamin solution? It is a product that fulfills a desire and aims for a better version of your customers organization.
• 4:45 - When it comes to building a SAAS business, you almost always want to focus on building a painkiller, solving a direct pain point for your customers.
• 7:08 - Why you can think of Zoom and Notion as examples of painkiller SAAS products. Zoom solved the pain point of friction and reliability with other video conferencing tools. Notion did what you formally needed multiple tools to do.
• 9:30 - A SAAS vitamin is rare because what motivates people and be willing to more money is experiencing a pain point
• 14:30 - Security and insurance products can be a painkiller for those who have already experienced the problem and a vitamin for those who haven't yet.
• 15:20 - The reason why understanding if you're building a painkiller or a vitamin matters is that it informs your messaging. 

Every long-term customer your business has went through a series of decision and said yes at each step along the way. 

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down the 8 customer yeses and how you can create an environment that makes it easier to get a yes each step of the way. 

TL;DR

• 2:30 - There is a series of 8 yeses that a prospect needs to go through to become and stay a customer.
• 3:10 - #1 Yes, I have a problem. A the start comes an initial recognition of the problem.
• 3:40 - #2 Yes, I want to solve that problem. Realizing you have a problem doesn't mean you are ready to take action to solve it. A customer needs to be motivated or ready to take action and often only a customer can take this step.
• 5:13 - #3 Yes, I want to try your solution. Out of all the solutions that exist, a customer needs to be aware of your solution and view it at the top of their possible options.
• 6:10 - #4 Yes, I understand why this is valuable. Typically in SAAS this will happen through a free trial or an initial round of research.
• 6:50 - #5 Yes, I want to become a customer. The prospect is ready to pay and use the product.
• 8:10 - #6 Yes, I want to renew. Every month, quarter, or year your customer needs to continue paying and not churn.
• 10:15 - #7 Yes, I think that new plan or add on will be valuable for me.
• 12:45 - #8 Yes, I recommend this product. Ultimately you want any customer to be happy enough that they would recommend the product to someone who asks about it.
• 14:00 - There is an also a bonus 9th yes. Yes, I'm okay paying more. You want most of your customers to be so happy with the product that they would stay if you raised the price.
• 15:45 - It is worth going through the different yeses so that you can put yourself in the mindset of a prospect or a customer and all the steps they need to go through for your to have a thriving business.
• 20:30 - When you only focus on KPI's you can lose focus on creating an environment that makes it easy to say yes at each of these steps. A no at any of these steps means you are losing money.
• 21:30 - Ask yourself and tune in to your intuition about where your customers today stop saying yes? 

Your business growth feels like it’s plateauing and so you’re thinking about focusing on a less aware audience is that a bad idea? 

In this episode of In Demand, Asia Orangio, CEO of DemandMaven, breaks down 5 levels of audience awareness and where it makes sense to place your marketing attention and budget. 

TL;DR

• 3:00 - Going after unaware audiences is the last thing you should plan to do when you're growing your company, but there are lots of marketing agencies that will recommend you do just that.
• 6:20 - Going through an example of why a founder might get to a place where they want to go after unaware audiences.
• 7:30 - "Unaware audience" comes form Eugene Schwartz's idea on 5 levels of awareness:
  • Unaware - people don't even think they have a problem or a pain point.
  • Problem Aware - people who experience the pain, but don't know there is a solution to it.
  • Solution Aware - people who have decided that they want to find a solution to the problem they've faced or pain they're experiencing and are beginning a search.
  • Product Aware - people that have become specifically aware of your product and have likely started engaging with your marketing.
  • Most Aware - people that have done their research, watch reviews and tutorials, downloaded a guide, attended a webinar, etc.
• 13:45 - You should not focus on an unaware audience because convincing someone they have a problem, when they don't care is an incredibly difficult and costly challenge.
• 18:00 - If you get to a position where you are a market leader and feel that the marketed is capped, it may make sense to allocate resources to unaware audiences, but is likely a better strategy to look at other problems and paint points you could solve for a different problem aware audience. Hubspot starting in marketing automation and expanding into sales and customer success is a great example of this.