I'll never forget the moment a founder told me, "I'll just take these transcripts and tell ChatGPT to spit out jobs to be done." We were in the middle of a jobs-to-be-done research project. We were mapping customer interviews, identifying patterns, understanding the...

 Marketing is the most critical growth lever in the early days—sub-$1M ARR especially. But once you stabilize? It's not your best lever anymore. And I think this is a really hard concept for especially first-time CEOs and founders of SaaS companies to wrap their...

I'm going to use a term that probably doesn't have a formal name in any textbook: value decline. I'm calling it that because it's the easiest way to communicate what it is. And once you see it, you can't unsee it in almost every SaaS business that's stuck. Here's the...

Every SaaS founder I talk to thinks they've handled activation. They've got an onboarding checklist. Maybe a welcome email sequence. A tooltip or two on the complicated screens. They've "done activation" and moved on to what feels more important: marketing, features,...

  Theme of 2025: Alignment DemandMaven turned eight years old on February 4th. Eight years. I've been running this business longer than I've been at any full-time, in-house role. Almost as long as my entire career before starting it. That kind of hit me this year...

 Here's something most founders don't want to hear: that "winning strategy" you copied from your competitor? It might not work for you at all. I know, I know. You've been watching what the big players do, following their playbooks, trying to replicate their success....

A few weeks ago at Spark Together, I found myself in the same conversation I've had dozens of times with other consultants and researchers: "How do you make sure clients actually do something with the research?" "What do you do when they hire you, you deliver great...

Here's something most founders don't want to hear: that slow growth you're experiencing? It might not be a marketing problem. I know, I know. You've been grinding on acquisition, tweaking your messaging, testing new channels. But when we troubleshoot growth with SaaS...

 I've lost count of how many times I've heard this from founders: "We have product-market fit." Me: "Oh awesome! How many customers do you have?" Them: "Three." Me: "..." I'm not saying you don't have product-market fit with three customers. I'm saying you can't...

You know the growth levers by now. Get your activation rates up. Fix your revenue cohort retention. Stop guessing on pricing. Improve your go-to-market strategy. These are the usual suspects when founders think about unlocking growth — and for good reason. They're...

I've been having this conversation a lot lately with founders: "Why isn't this channel working for us?" And honestly? Sometimes the answer isn't that the channel doesn't work. It's that you're too early. Let me explain what I mean by that, because I think this is one...

 Why spinning off a SaaS from your non-SaaS business is harder than you think Every year, I have around 10 to 15 calls with non-SaaS companies that have decided to create a SaaS product. Usually it's a consulting firm, an agency, or some kind of services business...