Episode 722 | Bootstrapping a Vertical SaaS to 7-Figures in 18 Months

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Entrepreneurship, Management, Business, Marketing

4.9 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In episode 722, Rob Walling interviews James Mooring, co-founder of Astalty, a SaaS serving Australia's NDIS market. James reveals how they bootstrapped from zero to seven figures in just 18 months and then they explore the strategic decisions, clever pricing, and deep industry knowledge that propelled Astalty's remarkable growth, proving their success was far more than just a lucky break. Episode Sponsor: If you need help hiring great talent from Latin America and the Philippines, but don’t want to pay ongoing recruitment fees, check out Outwork Staffing. Outwork Staffing can help you hire customer support, virtual assistants, developers - or whoever you need! You pay a one-time hiring fee after they find your ideal candidate, and that’s it- there’s no additional costs, even if your new hire stays for years. If your new hire doesn’t work out, Outwork Staffing will find you a replacement, free of charge within the first 6 months of their employment. They also provide coaching to help you find, manage, and grow your global team efficiently. Visit outworkstaffing.com/startups to book a call and get $500 off your first placement by mentioning Startups For the Rest of Us. Topics we cover: 2:44 – NDIS software for providers of disability care 4:23 – Astalty’s rapid growth 6:34 – Finding success with a strong co-founder pairing 8:39 – Deciding to tailor the Astalty MVP 12:25 – Building a free Chrome extension, smart or lucky? 17:18 – Launching a paid plan and nailing the pricing 21:57 – Explosive word of mouth growth 25:19 – Selling at in-person events and in Facebook groups 31:02 – A clever way of raising prices 35:00 – Learning from fast iteration Links from the Show: The SaaS Playbook TinySeed James Mooring | LinkedIn Astalty How Ben Chestnut Bootstrapped Mailchimp to a $12 Billion Exit Question & Answer with Jason Fried, Co-Founder, Basecamp – MicroConf Growth 2019 If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you need help recruiting great global talent for your startup?
0:05.3	Check out today's sponsor, Outwork Staffing.
0:07.8	Outwork Staffing can help you hire customer support, virtual assistance, developers, or whoever you need.
0:14.2	You pay a one-time hiring fee after they find your ideal candidate, and that's it.
0:19.2	No additional costs, even if your new hire stays
0:22.1	for years. If they don't work out in the first six months, Outwork Staffing will find you a replacement
0:27.2	free of charge. Interested? Visit Outworkstaffing.com slash startups to book a call and get $500
0:33.6	off your first placement by mentioning this podcast.
0:44.8	It's another episode of Startups for the Rest of Us. I am your host, Rob Walling, and today I talk with James Mooring, the co-founder of Aestalti. James and his co-founder have a pretty incredible
0:50.8	story of bootstrapping a vertical SaaS app to seven figures in ARR in 18 months.
0:57.6	A lot of things went right for them, but it's obvious that James and his co-founder are very smart
1:03.1	and executed exceptionally well. I know that sometimes it's helpful to hear founder stories of
1:09.7	people failing, making mistakes, picking
1:12.9	themselves back up, and sometimes it's inspiring and you can learn a lot from the tactics,
1:20.4	the strategies, and the approaches that someone used to achieve relatively fast success and quick growth. And as James and his co-founder have done,
1:31.7	they've built an enviable business by all measures. And one thing I like about this conversation
1:37.5	is it's not just the headline of how they bootstrap the seven-figure business in 18 months,
1:42.9	but James is very thoughtful about how
1:45.4	they did it. And sometimes when you talk to folks, they don't really know how they did it.
1:49.9	They lucked into it and they claimed it was all word of mouth and virality. You know, these things
1:54.0	that it's like, well, that's, A, that's not helpful to me if I want to grow a business. And B, I don't actually think that's what happened. With James, he's given it a lot of thought. And I think directionally, he's pretty correct with why they were successful, which is even
2:06.7	more helpful for you listening to this podcast, because now you can potentially take some
	...

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