My SaaS User Growth System: Get Your First 100 - 1,000+ Users

Summary

This video script outlines a strategic roadmap for SaaS startups to acquire users and scale growth. It emphasizes the importance of understanding user acquisition methods, channels, and costs. The script suggests starting with outreach to close networks for the first five users, then leveraging referrals to reach 100 users. For 500 to 1,000 users, it recommends content creation and inbound marketing. Finally, for continuous growth, it advises using paid advertising and affiliate programs, tailored to whether the startup is in growth or automation mode.

Takeaways

• 💡 Bootstrapped products can achieve significant revenue by mastering user acquisition and growth strategies.
• 🚀 Successful SaaS platforms continuously grow their user base through a combination of tactics rather than relying on luck.
• 🛠️ A roadmap with three strategies is essential for user acquisition at different stages of a SaaS journey.
• 🎯 The first stage focuses on acquiring the initial five users through outgoing methods like personal outreach via email or direct messages.
• 🔄 Building a community with early users and incorporating their feedback is crucial for product refinement and advocacy.
• 🌐 The second stage involves scaling to 100 users by leveraging referrals and creating a sense of exclusivity for early adopters.
• 📈 Stage two for acquiring 500 to 1,000 users requires an incoming acquisition model, emphasizing content creation and public engagement.
• 📊 Content creation on platforms like YouTube, Google, and social media is key for raising awareness and attracting users organically.
• 💸 The cost of user acquisition is tied to the average revenue per user and the desired return on ad spend, which dictates the investment in marketing.
• 🌟 Stage three involves either aggressive growth through advertising or focusing on automation and affiliate programs for user acquisition.
• 🔄 Offering affiliate programs with attractive compensation can significantly boost user acquisition at scale.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video script?

The main focus of the video script is to provide a roadmap for acquiring users at different stages of a SaaS (Software as a Service) product's journey, with an emphasis on strategies that lead to explosive growth.

What are the three simple but mighty strategies mentioned for getting more users?

The script outlines three strategies: 1) Acquiring the first 100 users, 2) Scaling to 500 to 1,000 users, and 3) Continuously growing the user base to new heights.

What does the term 'bootstrapped' imply in the context of the video script?

In the context of the video script, 'bootstrapped' implies that the product has been funded initially using the founders' own resources and has not relied on external investments to grow.

How does the script suggest acquiring the first five users?

The script suggests using an 'outgoing' method, reaching out to close network contacts via email or direct messages, and offering them a free account in exchange for feedback.

What is the significance of turning early users into advocates?

Turning early users into advocates is significant because they can help refer new users, creating a network effect that can lead to exponential growth without additional marketing costs.

What acquisition model is recommended for scaling from five to 100 users?

The script recommends using a 'referral' model, where early users refer new users through referral links, potentially without any monetary incentives, but with the promise of special offers for early joiners.

How does the script propose to acquire 500 to 1,000 users?

The script suggests an 'incoming' acquisition model, focusing on creating content and building in public to attract users organically through social media and search engines.

What are the two acquisition models suggested for the final stage of continuous growth?

The two acquisition models for continuous growth are 'advertising', where proven content is turned into paid ads, and an 'affiliate program', offering a referral method at scale with proper compensation for affiliates.

What is the role of content creation in the user acquisition strategy outlined in the script?

Content creation plays a crucial role as it helps in building awareness and attracting users organically, which is essential for the 'incoming' acquisition model, especially when scaling to larger user bases.

How does the script differentiate between growth mode and automation mode in terms of user acquisition?

In growth mode, the focus is on reinvesting all revenue into acquiring new users without much concern for immediate returns. In automation mode, the aim is to create a system where users come in on autopilot, potentially with lower acquisition costs and a focus on profitability.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 User Acquisition Strategies for SaaS Growth

This paragraph introduces the concept of user acquisition in SaaS businesses, emphasizing that successful startups are not just about having superior products but also about effectively growing their user base. The speaker outlines a roadmap with three strategies to acquire more users at different stages of a SaaS journey. The focus is on understanding the science behind user acquisition and how it can be replicated for explosive results. The paragraph also discusses the importance of the first five users and the need to understand the method, channel, and cost involved in acquiring new users.

05:02

🔗 Building a Referral Model for User Acquisition

The second paragraph delves into the specifics of building a user acquisition model using referrals. It suggests leveraging the first five early users to bring in new ones without offering financial incentives, instead providing them with a sense of ownership and offering new users a discount. The speaker advises on creating a community for these early users to foster a sense of belonging and to turn them into advocates for the product. The paragraph also discusses the importance of serving these early users well to gather valuable feedback and to shape the product according to their needs.

10:03

📈 Scaling User Acquisition Through Content Creation

The third paragraph outlines the next phase of the roadmap, focusing on acquiring 500 to 1,000 users. It suggests shifting to an 'incoming' acquisition model where potential users find the product through content created by the business. The speaker emphasizes the importance of creating long-form video content, blog posts, and social media updates to build awareness and attract users. The paragraph highlights the need for patience and persistence in this stage, as results may not be immediate. It also touches on the financial investment required for content creation and the importance of monitoring and optimizing the acquisition model based on the revenue per user.

Keywords

💡Bootstrapped

Bootstrapped refers to a startup that is initially funded with the founder's own money, loans, or money from family and friends rather than outside investors. In the context of the video, the term is used to highlight that the successful products mentioned are self-funded and have managed to generate significant revenue without external financial support.

💡User Base

The user base refers to the total number of users or customers of a product or service. The video emphasizes the importance of growing the user base as a key factor in the success of a SaaS (Software as a Service) product. Strategies are discussed to increase the user base continuously, which is essential for the product's growth and sustainability.

💡Momentum and Growth

Momentum and growth are concepts that describe the increasing rate of user acquisition and expansion of a business. The video suggests that exceptional products are those that have figured out how to maintain a continuous upward trend in their user base, which is not just a matter of luck but a result of strategic planning and execution.

💡Acquisition Model

An acquisition model in the context of the video is a strategic framework for attracting and gaining new users for a product or service. The script outlines different acquisition models tailored to various stages of a SaaS journey, from acquiring the first five users to scaling up to thousands.

💡Outgoing Method

The outgoing method is one of the four types of user acquisition methods discussed in the video. It involves the business reaching out to potential users, initiating contact, and converting them into customers. An example from the script is using email or direct messages to personally invite users to try a product.

💡Referrals

Referrals are a method of user acquisition where current users bring in new users. The video suggests that turning early users into advocates who can refer others is a cost-effective way to grow the user base. This method is particularly highlighted as a strategy to move from five to 100 users.

💡Content Creation

Content creation is a strategy for user acquisition that involves producing valuable content to attract and engage potential users. The video emphasizes the importance of creating long-form video content, blog posts, and social media updates to build awareness and attract users organically.

💡Incoming Method

The incoming method is another user acquisition strategy where potential users find the product or service and reach out to the business. This method is suggested for scaling user acquisition to 500 to 1,000 users and involves creating content that makes the product discoverable through search engines and social media.

💡Affiliate Program

An affiliate program is a performance-based marketing strategy where affiliates earn a commission for each customer brought by their marketing efforts. In the video, this concept is discussed as a way to scale referrals and involves offering incentives to users who successfully refer new customers to the platform.

💡Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is a metric used to measure the efficiency of advertising by comparing the revenue generated from the ad to the cost of the ad. The video discusses ROAS in the context of deciding how much to invest in advertising for user acquisition, with a 3:1 ROAS being suggested as a goal for a profitable advertising strategy.

Highlights

Product success is not just about superior quality but also about user base growth strategies.

There are three key strategies for growing a SaaS user base at different stages of the business journey.

The first 100 users are crucial and can be acquired through a combination of the right methods, channels, and costs.

User acquisition involves a method, channel, and cost, which can vary widely.

Four types of methods for user acquisition include incoming, outgoing, referrals, and advertising.

The first five users can be acquired through outgoing methods using personal networks without cost.

Early users should be turned into advocates for the product to facilitate organic growth.

Referrals can be a powerful method to grow from five to 100 users, leveraging the satisfaction of early adopters.

For scaling to 500 to 1,000 users, an incoming acquisition model is needed, focusing on content creation and public engagement.

Content creation for user acquisition should be consistent and across multiple platforms like YouTube, Google, and social media.

The cost of content-based acquisition models depends on the average revenue per user and desired return on investment.

Stage three of the roadmap involves either aggressive growth through ads or automation of user acquisition.

Paid advertising can be an effective method for rapid user base expansion, especially if the content has proven successful organically.

An affiliate program can be a scalable way to grow the user base, offering incentives to current users for referrals.

The roadmap is flexible and can be adapted based on the product's stage and the company's growth objectives.

The video assumes the existence of a product and suggests further viewing for those at earlier stages of product development.

Transcripts

this product makes almost a million

dollar a year and it's completely

bootstrapped this product makes almost a

million dollar a month and it's only 2

years old and this product and this

product and this product and this

product they're all killing it but what

do they have in common are they just all

Superior Products they are great

products but the reason they're

exceptional is because they figured out

how to blow up their user base and how

to keep up momentum and growth

continuously month after month this is

not just luck this is science and

fortunately if we break down what these

startups do well we can reproduce it and

Achieve explosive results too in this

video I will give you a road map

containing three simple but Mighty

strategies for getting more users at

every stage of your SAS Journey we'll

take a look at how to get the first 100

users and how to get the next 500 to

1,000 users and finally we'll discover

how successful SAS platforms use these

strategies to blow up and continue to

grow their user base to New Heights OH

okay okay but let's just come back down

to earth how about we start by getting

the first five and probably most

important users on board in order to get

there we need to get a basic

understanding of what it actually means

to acquire a user a user acquisition

simply means the act of gaining a new

user for an app a platform or an online

service every user acquisition has the

following a method a channel and the

cost and depending on the type of

Acquisitions we're going for we need to

plan these out and as you can imagine

combining different forms of these three

elements turns into a whole lot of

different ways we can acquire a user

ranging from completely free

Acquisitions to paying a whole lot just

to get one new user and ways that

require a ton of work and doesn't scale

and other ways that scale almost

automatically without any additional

effort and this is exactly why we need a

road map tailored to the different

stages of your SAS Journey cuz some of

these methods work really well in the

very beginning and others are excellent

for putting your s g into growth mode or

even automation mode where users just

keep coming in but before we can get

users we need to use these elements to

design a user acquisition model and

while these two elements are highly

variable at least we can put the method

into four different types let's have a

look essentially all the different

online marketing channels you can

imagine fall into either one of these

four methods incoming this means that

the user reaches out to you they become

aware of your product and they serve

them El to sign up or makes a request to

your team to get in contact with them so

they can get on board outgoing this

means that you reach out to the user the

initial contact is on your side you

initiate the conversation you make a

sale and you convert them into a paid

user referrals this happens when your

current users will bring in new users

who will in turn bring in more new users

advertising this one is similar to the

incoming method but what's specific with

advertisement is that you pay to get in

front of the user and make them aware of

your product that way all right let's

get busy we need to design two

acquisition models that we want to use

for the first stage of our road map we

want to get our first five early users

on board followed by getting the first

100 real users for the first five users

we're going to design a model that looks

something like this for the method we're

going to use outgoing which means that

we will reach out to the first batch of

users and hopefully get five of them on

board the channel we'll be using is

email or DMS on whatever message app

you're using and the cost is $0 since

we're going to do this ourselves

manually one by one the idea here is

pretty simple you're going to use your

close Network family friends colleagues

Partners people you know personally who

you believe would benefit from your

product you will tell them that you're

launching a product and that you have an

MVP ready and that you're looking for

the first few users to get on board you

will offer them a completely free

account for live and all you will ask

for in return is their feedback of of

course not all users will naturally be a

good fit but if your product solves an

actual problem for some of these early

users it should definitely be possible

to get five of them on board once you

have these first five users in place

make sure to include them all in a small

community either a Discord group a

Facebook group a WhatsApp group or

whatever works for you before going on

to the next step you want to spend a bit

of time with this handful of new users

listen to their feedback fix bugs

Implement some features according to

their wishes and smoothing out some of

the rough edges make sure to serve these

users well let them have a big say in

how the platform should work and which

direction you should take remember how I

said that these users are the most

important ones it'll be clear why in a

moment cuz what we're trying to do here

is to make these users more than just

users we're turning them into Advocates

and this is crucial for the next

acquisition model we're going to design

this model will take us from five up to

100 users for the method we're going to

use referrals and the channel we're

going to be using is referral links that

are current early users can use the cost

of this model depends you could offer

your first users a cut of the revenue

for every new users they refer but in

most cases I actually don't think this

is necessary if you truly did a great

job of serving your first five early

adopters really well and really make

them feel like they're part of this

project chances are they'll be happy to

help refer new users without getting

paid so I would Design This model with

zero cost but instead offer the new

users a big discount for joining early

and for making both your Advocates and

the new users feel a bit special for

being part of something up and cominging

this also greatly helps your Advocates

bring in new users since they now have a

really good offer on their hand most

early users would love to

help all right time to get serious we're

now entering stage two of the road map

at this stage we want to acquire 500 to

1,000 new users none of our current

acquisition model will work for this it

would be very hard to do zeroc cost Cod

emails and DMS at this scale to

realistically get 500 to to 1,000 users

on board we also can expect to keep

incentivizing new users to yet again

refer new users at this scale we need a

completely new model for this let's

design it for the method we're going to

use incoming which means that we will

have users reach out to us or to sign up

themselves by going to a website in

order for this to work at scale we need

to create awareness and I know and

probably you know that what I'm about to

say is going to make me sound like a

completely broken record cuz I've said

this in so many of my videos already the

best way to create an acquisition model

using the incoming method is by creating

content and building in public the

channels we're going to use are social

media and search engines create long

form video content to show up on YouTube

search create blog post to show up on

Google create Tik toks reals and YouTube

shorts to catch people's attentions on

the flight share updates on LinkedIn

your highs and lows new discoveries new

Milestones share your lessons on Hacker

News and Indie hackers and most

importantly keep doing it this stage is

long and hard you're not going to see

results very fast but you need to keep

going this also means that this

acquisition model is going to come with

cost you must expect to invest in good

content and how much you're willing to

pay for an acquisition entirely depends

on the RPO or average revenue per user

your SAS is generating there's going to

be long stretches where your content

won't get much engagement let alone

result in conversions so you need to

closely Monitor and optimize on this

part but I guarantee you this

acquisition model works it just takes

time so keep going let the revenue from

existing users pay for acquiring new

users until you hit at least 500 users

this

way and finally we're ready for the last

stage at stage three we're going to take

our user base from a th users and aim at

continuously growing it this doesn't

mean that stage two is now over you

should definitely keep the incoming

acquisition model going and you should

keep creating content stage three is a

bit special because there are multiple

directions you can take you can aim to

grow your SS as fast and big as you can

which requires reinvesting every dime

into the next acquisition model we're

going to look at or you can choose to

start taking some profit for your hard

work and instead aim to automate

Acquisitions and have new users come in

on autopilot in both cases there are two

acquisition models that are perfectly

suited for this stage let's design them

in the first one we're going to use the

advertisement method this means that

we're going to take some of all the

content that has proven to work well

during stage two and turn them into paid

ads that we can scale and use to reach a

whole new level of awareness of course

this also includes crafting testing and

scaling new ad creatives and trying out

new strategies for the channels I

recommend Google ads for search ads and

video ads on YouTube MAA for image ads

and video ads on Facebook and Instagram

and Tik Tok for video ads on Tik Tok

again the cost of this acquisition model

depends on the average revenue per user

your s is generating and how big of a

return on ad spend you wish if you're in

growth mode you might not care much

about a return at all and instead just

max out the revenue to pay for new

acquisitions if you want to build up a

profit you might aim for a 3:1 return on

ad spend which means that for each $1

you spend on acquiring a new user that

new user earns your SAS $3 then you put

one of those dollars into acquiring yet

a new user and you keep $1 as a profit

in the second acquisition model we're

once again going to use the referal

method but this time we're not just

going to ask a handful of users to refer

new users we're going to offer an

affiliate program where new users can

sign up create referral links and start

spreading the word in order for it to

work at this scale you definitely need

to offer your affiliate Partners a

proper compensation I've seen some

affiliate programs offer 10 20 even a

50% share of all recurring Revenue that

new referrals generate and once again

how much you're willing to offer your

affiliate Partners entirely depends on

your direction if you're in growth mode

you might want to share a big chunk of

Revenue to keep everyone highly

motivated and if you're in automation

mode you can go as low as gift cards or

unlocking new features or increasing

usage limitations for your affiliate

partners and obviously this road map can

take many forms you can start by running

ads from the very early stages and you

can scale cold Outreach in the later

stages too so this particular road map

isn't the only one but it is the one

that I have used to build and scale

three products and it is the one that I

would use again for my next SS now this

whole video obviously assumes that you

already have a product if you need to

take a step even further back I highly

recommend watching this video next if

you got value from this video please

give it a like and consider subscribing

to my channel for more content like this

I will see you soon for another video