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If I wanted to build a micro SaaS that generates more ARR/FTE than a $50M+ SaaS company and more EBITDA/FTE than a $5-$20M ARR firm, this would be the step-by-step process... Step 1: Find your niche Pick a vertical with fewer than 250K businesses that's behind on digital transformation. The weirder, the better - you want a market too small for VC-backed players. // Target mature industries with: • No dominance or concentration among a few large enterprises • Growth rates under 20% (avoids any bubble risk) • Complex problems that justify premium pricing Step 2: Build your moat Focus on problems complex enough that domain expertise creates real barriers to entry. Your specialized knowledge should be your competitive advantage. // Create defensive positions through: • Specialized integrations with industry-specific tools • Deep workflow automation that's hard to replicate • Features that solve unique vertical challenges Step 3: Set up your operations Design every process to scale without adding headcount. Automate support, sales, and success from day one. Your goal: $350K+ ARR per employee. // Implement from the start: • Self-serve onboarding with embedded video tutorials • AI-powered support handling 80% of tickets • Automated success playbooks for common scenarios • Programmatic expansion campaigns (e.g if a user / customer does this, they are a candidate for up/cross-sell) Step 4: Structure your pricing Build for high LTV customers with low support needs. Price based on value delivered, not market averages. This drives both margins and retention. // Design pricing that: • Aligns with industry-specific ROI metrics • Creates natural expansion paths • Rewards self-serve behavior • Captures value from integrations Step 5: Optimize for efficiency Focus ruthlessly on metrics that matter: • 40%+ EBITDA margins • Low CAC through targeted channels • High cash conversion • Predictable, recurring revenue // Achieve this through: • Zero-touch sales for smaller accounts • Automated expansion triggers • Industry-focused content that drives organic growth • Integration-driven network effects The reality? You don't need a massive TAM to build an exceptional business. Sometimes, the most profitable opportunities are in the niches everyone else thinks are too small. I broke down this entire operating concept here >> If you're exploring an exit or have someone in your world who might be, I am 100% available to discuss performance metrics and opportunities to enhance valuation (so the convo is productive no matter the outcome). For the love of the game 🏴‍☠️ ⚡️ #MicroSaaS #Entrepreneurship #SaaS #Growth

Follow my Substack for more real talk on what's working (and what's not) in our micro-SaaS acquisitions → For the love of the game 🏴‍☠️⚡

One of the most dangerous debts in SaaS isn't on your balance sheet, it's hiding in your GTM strategy. Wayne Morris's post about GTM debt resonated big time. His image perfectly captures what I see daily: companies operating like they've found GTM-fit when they really haven't. That gap? Pure GTM debt. And it compounds fast. After years in CRO roles and now evaluating MicroSaaS companies, here's what I've learned about spotting GTM debt: 🚩 Volatile MRR. It usually means it's founder-led sales without a repeatable process. When your revenue depends entirely on founder hustle, you're accumulating GTM debt with every deal. (Seeing $1-5M ARR companies struggle to maintain $15k ACV? Classic sign.) 🚩 Scattered Channels. I see this constantly: trying every marketing channel without mastering any. Jumping from content to paid ads to outbound, chasing quick wins and virality instead of building sustainable channels and growth loops. Having an amazing product isn't enough. 🚩 Missing Metrics. Gaps in customer data, sales metrics, or acquisition costs? It's rarely just messy documentation. It usually means growth is more accidental than intentional. The market's shifted. Growth at all costs is out. Sustainable, profitable growth is in. And GTM debt kills exactly that. Here's what to do if you have GTM debt: - Pick your strongest channel and double down. - Document your sales process, even (especially) if it's founder-driven. - Start measuring everything. You can't fix what you can't measure. The good news? Unlike technical debt, GTM debt can often be resolved with the right expertise and focus. Sometimes, that means bringing in operational help. Sometimes, it means considering an exit to a partner who can take your product to the next level. (If you're thinking about the latter, let's talk) What's your experience with GTM debt? Have you seen these patterns in your business or others you've worked with? P.S. We build micro-SaaS companies in public. Follow our journey on Substack:

"We'll burn $50 billion a year, I don't care" - Sam Altman  Well, well, well... how's that working out? Look, OpenAI revolutionized the world with ChatGPT. No question there. But while they were burning through cash like a tech bro at Burning Man, DeepSeek just crashed the party with 97% lower costs (still very much to be verified!) and comparable performance. DeepSeek: $0.55 per million tokens  OpenAI: $15 per million tokens  Market's verdict: NVIDIA down 17% in a day and the tech bubble got a quick lesson in gravity. The irony? This is exactly what happens in micro-SaaS all the time:  Over-funded giants burn cash chasing "unlimited TAM." Lean, focused teams build better solutions at a fraction of the cost. Market realizes maybe billions in VC funding isn't a moat after all. Remember when everyone said there was "no moat" in foundation models but kept throwing billions at astronomical valuations anyway? DeepSeek just proved it with:  Training costs at 3% of the "industry standard." Open-source accessibility vs. $200/month walled gardens. (a price point Sam admits they picked because "it seemed like a good number") Innovation through efficiency, not endless capital. Here's the thing about sustainable growth:  It's not sexy until it's saving your business. For most founders, the path to success isn't raising billions – it's building something valuable and sustainable that actually... you know... makes money. P.S. Sam, if you're reading this – my substack has some great tips on how we built sustainable growth >> I'm kidding.... mostly.

Instead of hiring more managers, try hiring a Chief of Staff. They align teams, streamline workflows, and free up CEO bandwidth for high-impact decisions. Here’s why this role is a game-changer: #Growth #Leadership

Quick hack for operational clarity: identify 3 things on your plate that a Chief of Staff could take off your hands today. What would you delegate first? #Leadership #Efficiency

An easy way to unlock CEO bandwidth: hire a Chief of Staff. A CoS isn’t just an assistant—they’re your execution engine for streamlining operations and aligning teams. Discover the role and responsibilities here: #Growth #Leadership

When I talk to founders, I hear 4 big challenges: Operational bottlenecks. Cross-team misalignment. Too much on the CEO’s plate. Vision-to-execution gaps. A Chief of Staff solves all 4. Curious if you utilize a Chief of Staff or have navigated differently... #Leadership #Scaling

Want to 2x your productivity? Fire half your processes. As a PE operating partner and former CRO, there's one thing I've seen kill efficiency faster than anything else: It's not what companies fail to do. It's what they need to stop doing. This is where the Power Law Audit comes in. The framework is built on a simple truth: Everything in your business follows a power law distribution. Look at your team: The square root of your people drive 50% of output (e.g 10 people on a team of 100) Look at your customers: Only 20% drive 80% of revenue. Look at your features: A small subset drives most of your engagement. Every process, meeting, and initiative you add is actively diluting that core productivity. Here's how to run your own Power Law Audit: // Step 1: Define Your Value Metrics Revenue by customer/product Gross margin per offering Response times and cost-to-serve Strategic alignment scores // Step 2: Find Your Power Laws Map which 20% of customers drive 80% of revenue Track which features consume the most support time Identify high-time, low-impact processes Spot your power law performers // Step 3: Kill Your Darlings Sunset bottom-performing features Streamline bloated processes Eliminate redundant meetings Focus resources on core drivers Mastery is the act of subtraction. I share every tactical framework we use to build lean, efficient, profitable micro saas operations >>

RT @johncoogan: Of course that’s your contention. You just heard about DeepSeek two days ago. Just got done watching some 40-minute deep di…

Nothing consumes more energy than emotions. Thinking is next up, and physical activity is a distant 3rd. With this in mind, promptly regulating emotion is critical to preserving energy for sound decision-making and performance in general. Thank goodness for breathwork...

Nadella is right: The era of traditional SaaS is ending. The next generation of "SaaS" companies won't sell software at all. They'll sell intelligent agents. AI will become the central driver of enterprise software. Here's how: // Software interfaces are disappearing. What used to need complex UIs and endless menus will become conversations with AI agents. "Generate Q4 forecast" replaces clicking through 15 spreadsheets. // Business logic is being compressed. Entire workflows that require custom code will become simple commands. AI agents will handle the complexity behind the scenes. // The backend is becoming invisible. These agents won't be tied to single databases or systems. They'll work across your entire tech stack seamlessly. This is bigger than just adding AI features. It's rebuilding enterprise software from the ground up. The big horizontal players (Microsoft, Google) are positioned to own the entire stack - from infrastructure to enterprise applications. They'll own the general-purpose agents everyone needs. But here's what everyone's missing: While the giants fight for the horizontal space, there's a bigger opportunity in the niches. Why? Because users don't want a generic AI that "kind of" understands their industry. They want agents that know their workflows, understand their business, and solve their specific problems. And that's the strongest moat you can build. At least for now. P.S. I share more of my musings on acquiring and operating micro-SaaS on my Substack >> ttps://t2m.io/4aDyNCpu For the love of the game 🏴‍☠️⚡ #ai #futureofwork #innovation #saas

Everyone's raving about Sam Altman's one person and 10,000 GPUs vision. 🚀 But remember, solo success isn't new. Pieter Levels crafted million-dollar products alone. Bitcoin, a one-person brainchild, created a trillion in value. WhatsApp? Just 50 people hit a $19B jackpot. What's changed? Tech now makes this more accessible than ever. A staggering 38% of new startups are solo-founded, leveraging AI that can reason, plan, and execute almost everything. Yet, don't confuse accessibility with automation. Your AI's choices mirror yours. Weak in marketing? Automate poor decisions and they multiply rapidly. Misunderstand sales? AI will mimic your mistakes. The harsh truth? AI intensifies the need for human judgment, not diminishes it. Every decision becomes a high-stakes play. Building a one-person empire is feasible—more than ever. But automating success? That's a myth. Want to see how we run lean, profitable micro-SaaS operations? We build in public on Substack >>

'AI-first' is the biggest distraction in business right now. While everyone's obsessing over transformation roadmaps, they're missing the actual opportunity: Instead of wholesale restructuring to establish an AI-based operating model, commit to slow integration of AI agents based on high time intensity low impact jobs to be done... Think about it: Would you rebuild your entire company around a new hire? Or would you give them a clear role and let them drive results? For example, customer service: You don't need to overhaul your entire support system. Deploy an AI agent to handle one specific task (like categorizing and routing tickets 24/7) Your team keeps their workflow Your customers get faster responses. Your AI has one job it does really well. The companies winning with AI aren't the ones with the biggest transformation budgets. They're the ones treating it like any other business asset: Define the job. Deploy. Measure results. Repeat. Simple beats sexy. Practical beats "transformative." Results beat roadmaps. Stop trying to transform your business for AI. Use AI to transform (explicit) jobs to be done in your business If you're curious how I operate lean microsaas, I build in public on substack >> For the love of the game 🏴‍☠️⚡️ Credit to Haris Odobasic for the inspo! #ai #automation #futureofwork #innovation #futurism

When I talk to founders, they often face these challenges: - Bloat in products or processes. - High-maintenance, low-value customers. - Meetings with minimal ROI. - Difficulty prioritizing high-impact work. The solution? Power law audit your biz... Start here: #Leadership #Efficiency

Why did Yahoo miss every big opportunity? In 1999, they were the internet. But market dominance created dangerous tunnel vision. They only valued what they already understood. They couldn't see beyond their current business model. Missing Google at $1M and Facebook at $1B. Understanding true value isn't just about what you're worth today. It's about seeing tomorrow's potential. Today's tech giants could be tomorrow's Yahoo. The pace of change is only getting faster. That's why I always say: Every SaaS founder needs to know their worth. Not just for exits. But for every strategic decision. Here's practical ways how I determine true value: 1. Determine Net Present Value (NPV) to anchor your valuation 2. Utilize benchmarks to establish a RELATIVE POV 3. Blend methods to triangulate your SaaS business' valuation I break down each of these points on my Substack (with my own valuation calculator and video walkthrough) → Don't forget to subscribe — I share operating concepts and insights for micro-SaaS founders. For the love of the game 🏴‍☠️⚡️️ #data #markets #saas #entrepreneurship

You achieve clarity and sustainable growth by focusing on fewer, higher-impact activities. Adopt a Power Law mindset: 20% of what you do drives 80% of the results. Here’s how to simplify: #GrowthStrategy #Efficiency

Want to know the most overlooked metric in business? Return on effort. Everyone's obsessed with revenue targets and growth rates. But after years as a SaaS operator, I've learned something counterintuitive: The highest ROI often comes from the smallest effort applied to the right place. Let me explain... Mark talks about how soon there will be more AI agents than people. And everyone can create their own AI assistant. While the tech world debates if he's right, I'm already seeing this play out in real businesses today. Take CS for example. Traditional wisdom says to keep hiring as you grow. More customers = more support staff. But now, with AI, a single support person can handle dramatically more customers by letting AI agents handle the routine questions. Here's what has worked for our firms: > AI agents handling basic customer questions (aka 'how to') > Automated initial lead screening > Basic process automation for admin tasks The beauty? These tools are now accessible to even the smallest businesses. But here's where most people get it wrong... They try to automate everything at once. Or they overcomplicate their tech stack chasing marginal gains. The real wins come from identifying your highest-friction, lowest-value tasks and eliminating them first. It's not about fully automating your whole business. It's about using available tools to maximize return on (human) effort. Want to know more about building lean micro SaaS businesses? I build in public >>  For the love of the game 🏴‍☠️⚡ Video credit: Andreas Anding #startups #ai #automation #futureofwork