Navigating Go-To-Market for SaaS Startups

The clock was ticking at Dreamforce 2015 as Prakhar Jain, head of Sales at Indian SaaS startup WhatFix, watched another potential customer approach their modest booth. While WhatFix is valued at over $900 million today, in 2015, it was a fledgling startup, and attending…

Imagine you’re pitching your cyber security software to a large Indian bank. You’ve prepared a detailed ROI analysis, cost-saving calculations, and competitive landscape. But the CIO barely glances at it. Instead, she asks about your educational background,…

In recent years, the role of the Chief Financial Officer has undergone a dramatic transformation. No longer confined to the realms of bookkeeping and financial reporting, today’s CFOs are increasingly expected to act as strategic business partners, leveraging…

Rahul Sasi, CEO of CloudSEK, a cybersecurity startup, is a trained magician. He learned a golden rule early in life: You must make the audience like you before showing a magic trick. Skilled illusionists spend considerable effort in building rapport…

Did you know that one of the earliest success stories of an Account-Based Marketing motion, or ABM motion, was so successful that it ended up in an antitrust lawsuit? In 1884, John Henry Patterson acquired a small cash register company in Dayton,…

Selling SaaS in India requires a nuanced understanding of local market dynamics, emphasizing the importance of face-to-face interactions over digital communications, leveraging personal networks for introductions, and aligning product offerings with the specific needs and…

“Sell me this pen.” In the final scene of The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort walks around a large conference room, asking everyone to sell him a pen. The attendees look puzzled and mumble…

Imagine you’re a B2B SaaS founder looking to sell to enterprise clients in the US. You’re building your product and Go-To-Market (GTM) motion while acquiring early customers. You’ve heard of Airtable, Zapier, and Notion successfully using PLG-led GTM. But you aren’t…

You have an idea and a prototype or a minimum viable product. Now, you want to talk to customers to get them to use or buy your product. What do you do next? Many founders, especially technical ones, get stuck at this stage. This…

In the last two decades, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry has reshaped how enterprises operate, communicate, and grow, becoming the backbone of modern enterprises. Today, software accounts for ~20 percent of the total enterprise spending on technology but has a value…

Srikrishnan Ganesan, also known as Sri, is a seasoned founder and a staunch advocate of the power of community in helping fellow founders through their business journeys. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Rocketlane, a SaaS tool that streamlines onboarding projects,…

Avlesh: ​“But what people don’t understand very well is pivoting products, of course, is hard. But what is harder is actually pivoting the entire engine below it. So your sales, your marketing, your documentation, and your support need to pivot. Forget everything, your…

Shashank: ​“You can’t take back any features that you’ve already given. For example, if I said support is free, unlimited support tickets because my UI is bad, my product is still in development, but I can offer unlimited support to a customer with real people…

Shruti: ​“When you are starting up, particularly from a B2B perspective, you’re essentially striving to persuade someone within a business to take a bet on you as a founder. Regardless of your product or the caliber of your tech team, there will be product failures.…

Scaling a cross-border SaaS startup from $0 to $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) is a formidable challenge, yet it remains a crucial milestone for Indian SaaS startups.