Podcast Summary: "GTM Fund gets better deal flow than you because they think like a Growth Team"

Podcast: SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Host: Nathan Latka
Guest: Mohammad Yunus, Founder & CEO of VFairs
Date: March 11, 2025
Duration: ≈ 15 minutes

Episode Overview

In this episode, Nathan Latka sits down with Mohammad Yunus, Founder and CEO of VFairs, to discuss the company's impressive journey from a point solution provider to an all-in-one event management platform. Mohammad shares the key philosophies, customer-driven strategies, and tactical decisions that propelled VFairs from $1.9M to $17.9M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in under 12 months, and how the company continued to thrive after the COVID-fueled virtual event boom. The conversation is packed with actionable insights on customer relationship building, product expansion, and international growth for SaaS founders.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Initial Motivations & The Foundation of Trust

• Personal Story & Core Philosophy
  • Mohammad opens with a powerful personal experience of suffering financial loss due to a bank's SIM swap fraud while simultaneously launching VFairs. This shaped VFairs’ foundational value: never disappoint customers, especially for critical business events.
    • Quote:

      "I promised to myself that never, ever I want to be in a position where…the customer would tell me that…I trusted you with our critical event, you're disappointed…"
      (Mohammad Yunus, 02:00)

2. Bootstrapping & Entry into the Virtual Event Market

• Starting as a Point Solution
  • VFairs began in 2017 strictly handling virtual job fairs. Mohammad’s deep knowledge of the job board space allowed them to address real inefficiencies in recruitment events.
• Customer-Led Expansion
  • Listening closely to users led to rapid discovery of new use cases—onboarding fairs, open days, trade shows—quickly broadening VFairs’ scope.

3. Rapid Growth During COVID and Strategic Positioning

• Preparedness for the Virtual Boom
  • By 2020, VFairs had already expanded beyond job fairs. When COVID hit, they were “in the perfect position to pretty much handle all the inbound” opportunities.
  • Revenue soared from <$2M ARR to nearly $18M in a single year.
    • Quote:

      "By the time Covid came, we were already doing everything virtual…when COVID came, we were in a perfect position to pretty much handle all the inbound…"
      (Mohammad Yunus, 03:30)

4. Sustaining Growth Post-Pandemic: Customer-Led Product Development

• From Virtual to In-Person Solutions
  • As virtual-only demand subsided, VFairs' close customer relationships paid off. Clients co-developed new tools (badge printing, mobile apps, lead capture, abstract management) for in-person events.
    • Quote:

      "Our customers…helped us figure it out how the batch printing app works…they co-created all of those things with us."
      (Mohammad Yunus, 09:10)

• Diversification of Revenue
  • Shifting from 90% virtual to now 55% in-person event-related revenue saved the company from the "boom to bust" fate of many event-tech peers.

5. International Expansion With Lean Experiments

• Language Localization for Inbound Growth
  • Simple website translations (French, Arabic, Spanish) led to immediate growth in Europe and Canada, increasing revenue by 10–15%.
    • Quote:

      "We just converted our most visited pages within our website into the local languages…overnight it helps us grow our revenue by an extra 10 to 15%."
      (Mohammad Yunus, 14:10)

6. Customer Advocacy & Social Proof as Growth Engines

• Expanding Within Enterprises
  • Directly engaging existing clients yielded expansion into new departments and geographies, sometimes turning $5K starter deals into half-a-million dollar contracts.
  • University of Maryland became an anchor reference client, driving a domino effect with other prestigious universities after case studies and testimonials were shared.
    • Quote:

      "Just see if you can always make use of that strategy, create tons of marketing content in collaboration with them…Some of these case studies helped us capture an account worth half a million dollar."
      (Mohammad Yunus, 18:45)

7. Going Deep With Existing Customers

• Land & Expand Philosophy
  • 20–30% of new sales come from existing customers via cross-sell and upsell into new departments and regions.
    • Quote:

      "Some of these customers started with us with literally four or $5,000 for a point solution…Now…are using us across 100 countries and across 30 different departments."
      (Mohammad Yunus, 19:30)

• Treating Customers as Salespeople
  • By exceeding customer expectations, clients advocate proactively, help pivot in challenging times, and become sustainable sources of growth and retention.

Notable Quotes & Key Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|-----------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:00 | Mohammad Yunus | "I promised…that never, ever I want to be in a position where…the customer would tell me…you're disappointed…"| | 03:30 | Mohammad Yunus | "By the time Covid came, we were already doing everything virtual…in a perfect position…" | | 09:10 | Mohammad Yunus | "Our customers…co-created all of those things with us." | | 14:10 | Mohammad Yunus | "We just converted our most visited pages…into local languages…overnight it helps us grow our revenue…" | | 18:45 | Mohammad Yunus | "Some of these case studies helped us capture an account worth half a million dollar." | | 19:30 | Mohammad Yunus | "Some of these customers started with…$4–5K…now using across 100 countries and 30 departments." |

Structure of VFairs' Growth Flywheel

• Customer Obsession: Deep involvement post-sale led to product co-creation and retention.
• Lean Experimentation: Iterative website/localization changes spurred international adoption.
• Social Proof & Community: Case studies, reference clients, and testimonials fueled inbound demand.
• Expansion Within Accounts: Existing customers offered the biggest growth lever for revenue.

Conclusion

VFairs’ extraordinary growth story, as told by Mohammad Yunus, underscores the fundamental SaaS truths of listening to customers, iterative product expansion, leveraging social proof, and maximizing existing relationships. For SaaS founders, Yunus’ journey offers a playbook for surviving tech booms and busts with customer trust and relentless execution.

For more rapid-fire SaaS growth interviews, visit getlatka.com.