Yaroslav Stepanenko
Product Marketing Manager, MacPaw, Ukraine
PhD., marketing and customer acquisition professional with 10+ years experience in developing and executing marketing programs for SaaS businesses. Now he works for MacPaw, one of the most successful Mac software developers, on a product called Setapp. Setapp.com is a fast growing SaaS business that was launched by MacPaw in 2017. Currently, Setapp has 18k paying customers and $1.8m ARR.
Presentation
9 LESSONS LEARNED FROM SCALING A NEW PRODUCT TO $1M ARR (ANNUAL RECURRING REVENUE) IN 6 MONTHS
On 25 January 2017, we went ahead with the public launch of Setapp. In six months, we had already achieved $1 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), reaching over $1.8 million ARR now, in April 2018. Revenue didn’t start rolling in until late February. Everyone got a 30-day free trial, which meant it was another month after the launch before we started generating any revenue from new customers.To go from a standing start to over $1 million in 6 months is, as most in the product community would agree, a positive sign that we’re offering a product that customers around the world want. Achieving this sort of growth in a relatively short space of time – only 6 months – is challenging. We have learned A LOT from this journey, so we wanted to share with you 9 of the most valuable lessons:
Lesson 1: Make a Product Launch EXCLUSIVE
Lesson 2: Work with Innovators and Early Adopters First, every time. No exceptions
Lesson 3: Build a community before aiming for revenue
Lesson 4: Winning new customers is only half the battle
Lesson 5: Not all metrics carry the same importance
Lesson 6: Create a referral program
Lesson 7: Decide when to go global
Lesson 8: Segment packages around customer needs
Lesson 9: Plan and deploy resources and teams effectively. Increase collaborative opportunities
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