Share this page!

TK Kader Profile picture
Twitter logo
Nov 26 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The year was 2016. My high flying SaaS company was declared a “zombie” almost overnight because 3 things happened all at once:
1/ A board member retired
2/ My VP Sales quit after 3 weeks
3/ SaaS multiples crashed

But we survived and exited. Here’s the 3 things we did: 👇🧵
It was the worst year of my life. And it was this year the ethos of Unstoppable came alive for me and my team. “If I don’t quit, I don’t die. And there’s always a way forward so I’ll never quit” became our mantra.

Here’s what I did first….
1/ We were burning too much cash. And the next round looked impossible given public market comps. So we carefully orchestrated two RIFs while ensuring we kept booking revenues. It worked. With half as many employees, we booked just as much revenue.
2/ We mapped out the entire business and made ONE whiteboard marking all the chokepoints we needed to fix categorized by Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Retention and Referral and made a hit list of key things to fix.
3/ We revamped our GTM Strategy with an Ideal Customer Profile, Up-leveled our Strategic Narrative and most importantly how we Priced our product . We brought in new customers at a lower cost and focused hard on renewals and upsells all which drove down CAC.
It was the toughest year of my life. It was also the year I learned the most about operating SaaS companies. By 2017, we had offers for our next round AND term sheets to sell.

We weren’t a Zombie anymore. We were lean and poised for growth. There’s always a way forward in SaaS.
If you’re a SaaS CEO of a Series A, Series B or Series C company and they’re saying you’re a Zombie. F them. There’s a way forward. DM me and I will work with you to re-engineer your company based on my experience. More Details here 👇
getunstoppable.com/scale
As my favorite board member @greggretsch always said: “There’s always a market for a profitable software company.” Truer words could not be said today about the “Zombie” companies that the VCs are leaving for dead today. Keep on 👆. #unstoppable

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with TK Kader

TK Kader Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Tawheed

TK Kader Profile picture
Nov 27
When was the last time you revisited your pricing strategy? Your SaaS Pricing Strategy impacts everything:

💰 It impacts your Ideal Customer Profile.

💴 It impacts your Win Rate.

💶 It impacts Churn.

🤑 It even impacts your competitive dynamics.
And yet so often – we end up undercharging for our products. I've seen companies 5X their pricing and their win rates went UP as a result.

I've seen companies revamp their pricing strategy and realize how they need to dramatically shift their ICP to make their numbers work.
After having helped over a hundred SaaS companies in revamping their pricing strategy, here are the 3 most impactful SaaS Pricing principles I've learned:
Read 5 tweets
TK Kader Profile picture
Sep 2
There are 121 days left in 2022. Here are 12 ways you can kickstart growth and finish this year strong for your B2B/SaaS business:
1/ Get a hold of your Marketing Math. Math never lies. For starters, just look at your Traffic to Lead %, Lead to Oppty %, and your Win %. Go focus on the one that sucks the most.
2/ Find your happiest customers. Ask them for a referral. Referral opportunities have a 70% higher conversion rate.
Read 18 tweets
TK Kader Profile picture
Aug 31
I was at an investment event last night and the folks there asked me what're the top 3 reasons I see Founders fail. Having worked with 250+ Founders and served thousands through my Youtube channel -- I had to pause to think but the answers came quickly:
1) The "One more feature trap" -- Founders who keep building and hoping that they're that one feature away from product market fit and everyone clamoring for their product never quite ever hit product market fit.
Instead, they spent months building the wrong product and then burn out and then die. Start with GTM early instead.
Read 8 tweets
TK Kader Profile picture
Feb 13
I wake up at 4am.

I journal.

Then I meditate.

And then I start my first Zoom call around 12pm.

Just Kidding.

Anyone that is telling you that’s how an Entrepreneur lives is lying.

The truth is… when you’re scaling a company….

It’s like narnia.
The first thing you do is you wake up and check your phone and see if things are still OK. And then you’re doing some sort of dance of skimming emails and showering, and double checking your calendar to make sure you’re not late.

That’s the reality.
And sometimes, just sometimes, we get better at it over time. And find some sense of normalcy.

So here’s the big question…

How do you actually get more done as a Startup CEO?

How do you keep up (without burning out)?
Read 5 tweets
TK Kader Profile picture
Jan 24
If you've built a product.

And you've got some revenues.

But it's not consistent and scalable yet.

Then it's time to double down on your Go-To-Market strategy.

Over the past 15 months, I've worked with about 100 SaaS Founders on building scalable Go-To-Market machines.
Bootstrapped companies drove profitable growth. VC-backed companies raised Series A and Seed+ rounds.

So if you're in the midst of building your GTM Strategy, here are 6-steps you need to follow (based on our experience of what worked vs didn't) 👇 Image
1/ Start with Market (not product, not channels, not hacks) - but instead figure out what segment of the market you're going into.
Read 9 tweets
TK Kader Profile picture
Aug 8, 2021
The ONE secret weapon in startups that not enough VCs nor Founders talk about: Stamina.

But.... here's the BIG question. How do you build stamina as a startup founder?

(a thread) 👇
The definition of Stamina (google) is:
the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort

I believe that in startup culture, we've been done a disservice. We talk about the hustle, and the grind, and the hours as a badge of honor. But we don't talk about Stamina.
Stamina is what makes for great athletes. Stamina is what creates sustained greatness. Stamina is what allows you to overcome the downs and manage the ups that come with startup life.
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(