Starting a SaaS: 3 Years to First Customers, Then 70 Countries

Three PhDs in Greece spent two years building a self-funded SaaS product in a bunker. When they emerged, nobody wanted to buy it. It took another full year before they found their first customers. Starting a SaaS during Greece's worst financial crisis meant European prospects questioned whether the company would survive.

Panos Siozos reveals how LearnWorlds broke through by targeting the US market where decisions took 4-5 days instead of 4-5 weeks, manually creating free trials for 3.5 years, and doing unscalable code customizations for the first 100 customers. Those customers taught them e-commerce lessons no PhD could - and starting a SaaS finally started paying off.

He shares how COVID accelerated growth to 15% month-over-month, why building a SaaS in a bunker cost them a year of learning, and why personal availability at 2 AM builds more trust than polished marketing when starting a SaaS.

Key Lessons

• 🎯 Target the US market early when starting a SaaS: LearnWorlds wasted months on European customers who took 4-5 weeks to decide. US customers made decisions in 4-5 days and cared about product quality.
• 💰 Co-founders funding each other enables self-funded SaaS survival: Two founders kept day jobs and paid the third's salary for over two years, keeping the product alive without outside investment.
• 📉 Building in a bunker for 2 years costs learning when starting a SaaS: Panos admits they should have shown the product to customers much earlier. PhD expertise did not teach e-commerce and selling.
• 🛠️ Do unscalable customizations until your bootstrapped SaaS hits 100 customers: LearnWorlds modified code in individual instances. The merge nightmares were worth the product lessons from real users.
• 🤝 Personal availability builds trust when starting a SaaS: Panos gave customers his personal phone number and took calls at 2-3 AM for US time zones. A four-person team appearing "always on" converted skeptical prospects.

Chapters

• Introduction
• Panos' quote - getting better every single day
• What LearnWorlds does - Shopify for online courses
• Multi-seven-figure business, bootstrapped with 1M euro raised
• 10 years of PhD research before starting a SaaS business
• Three co-founders in a bunker - two years building the platform
• Two founders paid the third's salary from day jobs
• Two years without talking to customers - the bunker mistake
• Launching into Greece's financial crisis
• Pivoting to the US market where decisions take 4-5 days
• One year to find first customers after launch
• Overcoming objections - product love vs. startup skepticism
• Personal phone numbers and 2 AM support calls
• Manual trial creation for 3.5 years
• Unscalable customizations for the first 100 customers
• COVID as an accelerator - 15% month-over-month growth
• Lightning round
• Where to find Panos and LearnWorlds

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/264
• Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email