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\n\n Sneak Peak Inside Helply\nWe just launched our latest feature: Knowledge Bridge. \nKnowledge Bridge captures insights from support tickets, continuously monitors your knowledge base for changes, and automatically fills content gaps for accurate and reliable support. \n\n\"Zendesk’s AI required so much manual training. It just wasn’t worth the time. Helply is a completely different experience.\" - Helply VIP Customer\n Book your private, 1-on-1 demo today. 👇 \n \n
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\n | \n Helply's Vitals\n↓\nEvery week, I'm laying out the do-or-die numbers for Helply–these are what I consider the make-or-break metrics for a B2B SaaS company. \nAs we evolve through the stages of a B2B SaaS lifecycle, so will the metrics. These are the numbers I obsess over as we push Helply to the next level. \nWhere we are: \n🎯Development and MVP Stage\nGoal: Build and validate the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). For this stage, our goal is to book 100 Helply demos and generate 35 pre-sales of Helply. \nFocus: Testing the MVP with early adopters, gathering feedback, and iterating using a sales-led motion via live demos. \nCurrent Stats:\n💡Insights: \n\n \nOur demo pipeline is showing solid top-funnel activity with 22 demos booked (44% to quarterly goal). Conversion metrics need attention, with only 1 demo completed and 1 closed out of targets of 30 and 15 respectively. \n \nOn the customer growth front, we've onboarded 41 customers, tracking at 48% of our Q1 target of 85. Solid start to the new year. \n \nPre-launch financial indicators are encouraging, with both MRR and ARR at 64% of quarterly goals ($6,760/$10,500 and $81,120/$126,000 respectively). \n \nOur focus for Q1 will be on accelerating demo completion rates, improving demo-to-close conversion, and maintaining strong customer onboarding momentum. \n\n
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\n | \n Weekly Beats\n↓\nHere's the recap of Helply's most important \"A Ha\" moments and \"Oh Sh*t\" challenges from the last week. In the spirit of full transparency, every week we pull back the curtain on everything we do and leave no stone unturned. \n👉 Follow along as we grow from $0 to $10M ARR in real-time via our Journey Page. \n | \n\n |
\n | January , 2025 | \n\n |
\n | 2024 in Review : Breaking Down Our Viral LinkedIn Posts of 2024 | \n\n |
\n | \n Spent a couple hours analyzing our top 5 LinkedIn posts since we started posting 5x/week in August of 2024. \n \nThe numbers tell a story: 569K views, 2.7K likes, and 823 comments. \n \nThe $16M acquisition rejection post hit 177K views – turns out people love specific numbers and contrarian decisions. \n \nEven our \"small team\" story sparked our highest engagement at 1.73% (and over 100k+ views). \n \nWe also grew from 2,000 followers to 12,000 in 5 months of posting. \n \nHere's what we learned: bold statements land, personal stories connect, and \"PSA\" style content with actionable advice get shared. \n \nTelling real stories that tap into what SaaS founders are actually feeling in 2024 is what led to the most valuable content. \n \nThe bootstrapper's revolution is real, and we're just getting started. \n \nThe blueprint for 2025 is clear: keep it real, keep it specific, and never shy away from saying what others are thinking. \n | \n\n |
\n | \n Deep Dive\n↓\nThe End of the Blitzscaling Era: Welcome to the Revenue First Era\nThe SaaS landscape is experiencing a massive shift. \nThe Blitzscaling era that defined the last decade is dead, and a new blueprint is emerging. I'll break down what this means for founders, investors, and the entire ecosystem 👇 \n | \n\n |
\n | \n The Blitzscaling Era (2010-2022): A Post-Mortem\nFor over a decade, most SaaS founders operated under a singular playbook: grow at all costs. \nLooking back, it's almost surreal how we convinced ourselves this made sense. \nRevenue was treated as merely another slide in the pitch deck, a metric to justify the next round of funding. \nStartups built bloated products where 80% of features collected dust, unused and unnecessary. \nThe symptoms were everywhere: \n
Founders convinced themselves this was normal. \nIt wasn't. \nThe Revenue First Era (2023-????): A New Paradigm\nThe market correction didn't just changed valuations, it fundamentally reshaped how we build and scale software companies. \nWelcome to the Revenue First Era, where the rules of the game have been turned on their head. \nHere's what's different: \n1. Revenue as Fuel, Not a Metric\nRevenue isn't just another KPI anymore, it's the actual fuel that powers sustainable growth. \nWhen your customers fund your growth, you build differently. You optimize differently. You think differently. \n2. The Rise of Autonomous Unit Economics\nThe best businesses today are built on unit economics that work from day one. \nWe're seeing companies achieve exponential growth through systems that generate cash flow and compound value on their own, not through endless fundraising rounds. \n3. The Efficiency Multiplier Effect\nInstead of just adding headcount, successful companies are building solutions that multiply efficiency. \nWe're teams of <10 people accomplish what used to require 100. \nDoing more with less is an understatement. Most companies never needed \"more\" in the first place–it's about rethinking what's possible with the right systems and focus. \n4. The New ROI Metrics\nRIP vanity metrics. The metrics that matter now are revenue per employee and EBITDA margins. These aren't just numbers – they're indicators of business health that actually mean something. \nThe $3.5 Trillion Shift\nThis won't be a temporary adjustment. Yes, unicorn chasers will still exist, but we're witnessing a $3.5 trillion shift in how software companies are built, scaled, and funded. \nThe most profound change? The funding source itself. Your customers, not VCs, become your primary source of growth capital. \nI can already hear the pushback: \"But how will you scale?\" cries the VC used to the old playbook. \nThe answer is beautifully simple: build businesses that don't burn capital but generate it. \nLooking Ahead to 2025\nThe path forward is clear, even if it's uncomfortable for those clinging to the old way of doing things. \nIn 2025, profitable efficiency isn't an advantage, it's the price of admission. \nThis is the Revenue First Era, and there's no going back. \nThe only way out is through. \nAnd for those who adapt, the opportunities have never been bigger. \nThe companies that will dominate the next decade aren't being built on pitch decks and burn rates. \nThey're being built on profitable, sustainable, customer-funded growth. That's not just a prediction, it's already happening. \nWelcome to the Revenue First Era. 🎯 \n | \n\n |
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\n | \n Alright, that does it for issue #28 of the Zero to $10M ARR Newsletter!\nI hope you enjoyed today's newsletter. \nAnd don't forget: \n
See you next week! \n \nAlex Turnbull \n \n | \n\n |
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$0 to $5M ARR bootstrapped, solo founder. My new challenge: bootstrapping a new SaaS in public from $0 to $10M ARR in 3 years w/ 50%+ profit margins. Founder & CEO @ GrooveHQ.com & Helply.com 👋 I'm Alex, and here's my story in a nutshell: - Founded 3 businesses: one sold for 8-figures, the other valued at $40M+, and my latest is just starting up - Early #buildinpublic founder with Groove’s Journey to 100K blog - Featured in 100+ media outlets 📈 $0-$5M ARR without funding with Groove 🎯My new challenge: Bootstrapping a new SaaS in public from Zero to $10M ARR in 3 years w/ 50%+ EBITDA 💸 Sharing my learnings on building highly profitable, capital efficient, lean, bootstrapped SaaS business What you'll get by subscribing to my newsletter: 🚀 Actionable tips to grow a profitable SaaS business 📚 Education around the future of AI in customer service 🔥 Transparent & actionable advice, no fluff 💼 Exclusive updates on growth Ready to build the highly profitable, capital-efficient, bootstrapped SaaS of your dreams? I’ll be sending a weekly newsletter documenting my journey from Zero to $10M ARR with Helply and business growth tips + tricks - so hit that “Subscribe” button!
Hey Reader, Most AI agents fall short because the data behind them is weak. You don’t know what to train them on. Or you add what you have, but aren’t sure if it’s sufficient. And that’s where it breaks. It’s a data source problem. When we set out to build Helply, that was one of our biggest findings; lack of optimized data was killing AI agents. We went out and solved that problem with Knowledge Bridge™. Knowledge Bridge™ runs your support tickets against your knowledge base, finds the gaps,...
The Zero to $10M ARR Newsletter The Zero to $10M ARR Newsletter is powered by Helply. Helply answers customer questions 24/7 so you can focus on more important work. Join the VIP program and we'll guarantee 50% resolution rate in less than 60 days. $180K VP of Sales. Zero sales. $200K dev. No product shipped. My $2M lesson in hiring backwards. I burned millions trying to ‘look like a real company’: Here are some of the expensive hires that killed my runway: VP Sales ($180K base) when we had...
Today, I walked the founder of a Y Combinator unicorn company through a fascinating a-ha moment. I was setting his company up in Helply and he discovered something most companies never find: A way to autonomously identify and fill knowledge gaps. Instead of the usual generic AI setup where you “crawl your website and call it a day,” something different happened. Helply’s AI: analyzed their support history identified 50 specific knowledge gaps and filled them systematically. For the first...