Unstoppable founder TK Kader can help you build a thriving SaaS business. Over the last fifteen years, he’s built three successful SaaS companies himself. Two were acquired; one of ’em he still runs, profitably, to this very day. So he knows a thing or two about winning with software as a service, right? And he says there are three principles you absolutely need to know before launching your own SaaS startup. Keep reading to see what they are.
The ex-engineer in TK is all about the product, but he’s learned over time, you actually shouldn’t start there. See, principle one is to focus on the market first. As in, Who actually needs this? What problem are you solving? How big is that market? Do you know enough about that market? TK says you obviously wanna address an urgent and important problem. You gotta have real knowledge in that domain. And, believe it or not, you wanna find competition. If there isn’t any, there’s probably a reason for that.
Once you’ve nailed the market, principle two is to then figure out your product. There’s a spectrum you need to think about. On one end, you’ve got MVP or minimum viable product. On the other, you’ve got full features, all the bells and whistles, right? You wanna be somewhere in between those extremes when you go to market, TK says. Because if it’s not far enough along, it’s not gonna be compelling. But if you shoot for perfection, you may fall into the “one more feature” trap, and never get it done.
Principle three, of course, is to actually go to market. GTM. So, marketing and sales, right? How do you get people actually paying for your software? Well, you need to be building your audience from day zero. Blog, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, all the above, doesn’t matter. Get in front of the market you identified in the first principle. Get ’em on your email list. Get their feedback as you build out the software. Let them tell you what your value proposition really is.
“The best value propositions come from how your prospects describe it, and they put it in their own words,” TK explains. “So they’re gonna help you develop your product, make sure it’s a fit with the market, and out of that, you’re gonna get pilots, meaning people will prepay for the product so they can actually pilot it. Or you get beta users, they use it and you get real feedback. Doing this from day zero will de-risk you from building the wrong product.”
“It’ll ensure that you’re actually amassing a group of people that are in the market you’re targeting and you’re validating that you’re building the right product and that the market is real, and that way you’re not wasting any time. There’s no sequencing to this. And when done right, it’s a full loop where everything gets iterated on, over and over, based on these three pillars that you are doing. And that, if you approach it that way, you will be able to build a successful SaaS company.”
TK has three different B2B SaaS coaching programs to assist you in your journey. Launch is for beginners and costs two grand. GTM is for seed-stage or bootstrapped SaaS companies. Cost is unknown; enrollment is by application only. Scale is for SaaS businesses that are further along, looking to grow exponentially. Again, no pricing details listed on TK’s website; must apply to join. I think TK’s as real as they come, he’s clearly qualified to teach this stuff, and yeah, no concerns here.
