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

Hewitt Tomlin, co-founder of TeamBuildr and builder of a bootstrapped vertical SaaS for strength coaches, grew to $10M ARR with a flat-pricing approach. He explains pivoting from a social app to coach-focused software. He discusses why building for a job function unlocked everyone from high schools to the NFL, why flat pricing favored growth, and why he waits for customer demand before adding AI.

Sarah Ahmad, co-founder of Stable, built an AI-powered virtual mailbox, scaling to 10,000+ customers and eight-figure ARR while leading product and ops. She recounts validating demand before code, selling 100 customers with a manual Google Drive + Stripe workflow, why SEO faded, and how AI and physical logistics shaped growth.

Zhong Xu, co-founder of Deliverect who scaled integrations to tens of thousands of restaurants and nearly $100M ARR. He explains launching with a Wizard of Oz MVP, turning integrations into a distribution channel, convincing competitors to distribute his product, opening many offices fast to block incumbents, and why AI could commoditize connectivity unless you own the intelligence layer.

Joel Griffith, founder of Browserless — a bootstrapped browsers-as-a-service company — grew to nearly $4M ARR by solving his own engineering pains. He explains finding first customers on GitHub and Stack Overflow. He describes eight years of content and OSS that now drive inbound. He also covers competing with funded players and how AI created new demand for his product.

Vineet Jain, co-founder and CEO of Egnyte who built a hybrid cloud, enterprise-first file platform to hundreds of millions in ARR with modest funding. He explains rejecting freemium for paid enterprise sales. He talks about the hybrid cloud bet, starting pipeline with SEM and low-cost inside sales, winning compliance-focused customers, and decision-making with small accountable teams.

Adam Markowitz, co-founder and CEO of Drata and former founder of Portfolium, built a compliance automation powerhouse. He recounts shifting from slow edtech wins to urgent buyer demand at Drata. Topics include discovering product-market fit by solving real compliance pain, dogfooding before selling, partner-first growth on AWS Marketplace, and scaling operations through rapid enterprise adoption.

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.

Adam Fard, founder of UX Pilot and former agency lead, bootstrapped a design-first AI tool to $5M+ ARR. He talks about discovering fake-AI competitors, solving the hard tech of real wireframe generation, leaning on agency revenue instead of VC, using SEO and content for growth, and the hiring mistake of growing too slowly.

Tito Goldstein, co-founder of TeamBridge and ex-Uber product designer who researched drivers, shares the journey from two years of near-zero revenue to a rebuild that uncovered product-market fit. He explains why composable “lego” building blocks beat cookie-cutter scheduling, how customer discovery revealed hidden pains, and why throwing out sunk costs and staying lean unlocked rapid growth.

Nate Baker, Co-founder and CEO of Qualia, shares his unconventional journey to success, including living in his first customer's basement to understand the title software market. He emphasizes the importance of network-based selling for initial customers and how multi-year upfront contracts provided early cash flow. Nate discusses the mistakes made during product development without customer input and highlights the pivotal role of sales execution in scaling from $45K to over $100M in ARR.