Ask HN: Great SaaS product, but REALLY struggling with Marketing. What do I do?

1 points by stulogy 8 years ago | 4 comments

I'm hitting the same roadblock which I experienced in my last startup (which I sold after trying to grow it for three years).

I have built a great product, which is validated as people pay a lot of money for it, and the company is profitable. However now we're starting to see signs of the dreaded plateau as the churn is kicking in, retention is low, conversion rate is low, and we're starting to not grow any more. I don't want to sell the business yet as it's too early.

I hate marketing and am terrible at it. I spent years trying to market my last product and gave up. I have no trouble building a great product which people love using, I just struggle with the marketing.

What shall I do? I'm tempted to hire an agency or a consultant who specializes in SaaS marketing. I'm pulling my hair out. Can anyone recommend someone? Please help!

pstephenson5 8 years ago |

If it's a great product that people love using why is retention low and churn so high? As a SaaS marketer I can tell you that throwing marketing resources and budget at the problem will not fix anything. The problem will just get bigger and more expensive. You need to really understand what problem your solution solves for customers and why they are churning before scaling your marketing.

billconan 8 years ago |

I think the ways of marketing is closely related to the product itself, without knowing what it is, it's difficult to find ideas. perhaps, you can provide your links as a marketing attempt to this thread.

stulogy 8 years ago | |

It's a productivity app for helping people manage their time and resources. I don't want to post the link because I think there must be some basic principles that can be applied to a variety of B2B SaaS apps which would be helpful to a lot of people. What I'm really after is a leader who can build a strategy for us, someone who knows the space well and how SaaS works.

merrua 8 years ago |

Pay for marketing. Take a marketing course. Read Marketing books. Also look at why your customers are churning.