The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders

SaaS Product-Market Fit Lost at $9M ARR Then Rebuilt

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Feb 12, 2026

Gilles Bertaux, co-founder and CEO of Livestorm — built the browser-based webinar platform from a university project to ~$20M ARR. He recounts explosive COVID growth, losing product-market fit by turning into a smaller Zoom, and the strategic refocus on marketers, European security-conscious buyers, and specific industries. He also explains rebuilding the sales org to sell enterprise and why monthly self-serve was a hidden risk.

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ANECDOTE

University Project Turned Startup

Gilles built Livestorm as a two-month university project and streamed hundreds of student presentations live.
That demo convinced him and others to pursue the product full-time despite early uncertainty.

ANECDOTE

Buggy Launch Still Won Customers

Their first public launch webinar had a bug where the CTO accidentally appeared and announced a problem live.
Despite the messy debut, that lead became a multi-year customer and validated product-market interest.

INSIGHT

Content-Driven Early Traction

Early growth came from sustained SEO, Quora answers, and co-marketing rather than outbound sales.
Gilles wrote multiple articles daily and Quora drove 10–15% of organic traffic for years.

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Livestorm went from $2M to $9M ARR in one year during COVID - then lost SaaS product-market fit. Gilles Bertaux expanded into meetings and sales demos, turning Livestorm into a smaller Zoom. After a failed Series C, he rebuilt SaaS product-market fit by narrowing to enterprise webinars for European marketers in banking and pharma.

You will learn why explosive growth can mask fragile SaaS product-market fit, how to rebuild PMF by narrowing positioning instead of expanding features, and why shifting from PLG to enterprise sales required replacing almost the entire sales team.

Gilles Bertaux is the co-founder and CEO of Livestorm, a webinar platform for enterprise marketers. The company generates nearly $20M ARR with 3,500 customers and has raised $35M. Gilles built Livestorm as a university project in 2016, grew it through SEO and Quora, then navigated the product-market alignment challenge of post-COVID market validation.

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🔑 Key Lessons

🎯 SaaS product-market fit can be lost by expanding too broadly: Livestorm added meetings and sales demos after COVID, becoming a smaller Zoom with no clear differentiator and declining conversion rates.
📉 Explosive growth can mask fragile PMF: Going from $2M to $9M ARR felt like traction, but 85% of customers were on monthly plans - one click away from churning overnight.
🏢 Narrow positioning wins against giants: Livestorm stopped competing feature-for-feature with Zoom and differentiated on three dimensions - European company for security, marketers only, and specific industries.
🔄 Enterprise sales requires rebuilding, not retraining: Reps who closed inbound leads could not cold-call 10,000-person companies. Gilles replaced almost the entire sales team with enterprise outbound specialists.
💰 A failed fundraise can force the right strategic shift: When Series C investors said no, Livestorm had to become profitable - pushing toward enterprise customers on annual contracts who pay more and stay longer.

Chapters

Introduction
What Livestorm does and revenue milestones
Building Livestorm as a university project
The disastrous first webinar launch
SEO, Quora, and co-marketing as early growth engines
How SaaS product-market fit shifted after COVID
Going from $2M to $9M ARR in one year
Post-COVID churn and the virtual event collapse
Losing SaaS product-market fit by becoming a smaller Zoom
Rebuilding positioning around Europe, marketers, and industries
The painful shift from PLG to enterprise sales
Lightning round

Resources

Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/470
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