Podcast
saas.unbound
Hosted by Anna Nadeina · EN
saas.unbound is a podcast where inspiring founders and experts share their stories of founding and scaling their businesses all the way to success and eternal love from their customers.
At saas.unbound we have casual chats with entrepreneurs who have already walked from 0 to 1, to 10, and sometimes to a life-changing exit.
They share their experiences, actionable insights, and mistakes to avoid.
Your host is Anna Nadeina, Head of Growth at saas.group, passionate Growth Marketer, and a big believer in sustainable growth and the power of networking.
saas.unbound is brought to you by saas.group
18episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Why vibe coding is a slot machine (and what to do instead) | Eric Ries @ Lean Startup Co.
2w ago00:57:53Tap to summarizeEric Ries wrote The Lean Startup and then spent a decade realizing he forgot to say "for the better." In this one he breaks down what's actually missing from the way founders build companies, and what to do about it before it's too late.We get into why it's always too early to set up governance until suddenly it's too late, the two-page legal filing most founders skip for no good reason, the study showing AI made developers 19% less productive while feeling 20% more, and what Samsung's refrigerator strategy says about cycle time.For founders, operators, and anyone building something they actually want to protect.In this episode: → Why governance is always "too early" until it's too late → The two-page filing that protects mission (and why founders skip it) → How surrogation destroys great companies — and why mission is the cure → The study: AI made developers 19% less productive (they thought they were 20% faster) → What Samsung's refrigerator strategy teaches about lean startup → Why "just give people what they want" is harder than it sounds----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Why Lean Startup Still Matters After a Decade3:47 — What Lean Startup Left Out (and Why Eric Wrote Incorruptible)8:25 — The Danger of "Change the World" Without Saying "For the Better"14:51 — Why It's Never the Right Time to Protect Your Mission (Until It's Too Late)17:51 — The Gruff Founder Who Secretly Had a Mission All Along20:22 — The Builder's Intuition vs. Shareholder Primacy22:03 — How to Structurally Protect Your Company's Values from Day One28:26 — Surrogation: When Metrics Replace the Mission35:56 — The AI Mania: Demos Without Products and LLM Psychosis44:51 — How Leaders Actually Learn to Use AI (The Two-Week Hack)54:09 — The Real Hack: Just Give People What They Want🎙️ Eric Ries - linkedin.com/in/eries Lean Startup - theleanstartup.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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How we doubled prices twice without losing customers | J.Y. Delmotte @BuddiesHR
4w ago01:00:02Tap to summarizeJ.Y. Delmotte co-founded six startups, went through YC, and is now running BuddiesHR — a suite of Slack apps doing $56K MRR. In this one he gets unusually specific about what's working, what flopped, and what could kill the business.We get into the Slack Marketplace SEO play that captured 90%+ of inbound (and why it's nearly impossible to replicate now), what happened when he doubled the price twice, the existential risk of building on Slack, and the co-founder split that got lawyers involved.For SaaS founders thinking about growth channels, pricing leverage, and building a business that can actually be sold.In this episode: → The Slack Marketplace SEO play that captured 90%+ of inbound → Why doubling the price twice barely lost any customers → The platform risk of building on Slack — and the escape plan → Why 40 founder interviews shaped the roadmap before any code → The co-founder split that got lawyers involved → Selling KarmaLinks and TalkFluence: two acquisitions, smooth handoffs----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & Guest Background1:18 — Why J.Y Built Buddies HR2:00 — What Is Buddies HR?4:14 — Platform Risk & Slack Dependency14:18 — Growth Channels & Acquisition Strategy22:32 — Building in Public — Does It Backfire?27:42 — Revenue, Pricing & Predictability34:06 — Selling Car Links & Acquisition Lessons43:57 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Lessons Learned54:31 — Founder Hack: Monthly Self-Reflection🎙️ J.Y. Delmotte - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jydelmotte 🌐 BuddiesHR - buddieshr.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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5 years of 100%+ growth with zero funding | Adnan Malik @ SoftwareFinder
May 400:39:29Tap to summarizeAdnan Malik bootstrapped Software Finder from two people in 2019 to 340 employees with 100%+ growth every year — without ever taking outside funding.The engine: a human matchmaking layer between confused software buyers and overwhelmed vendors. We get into why 70-80% of B2B software buyers end up unhappy, how a 120-person content team drove 300% organic growth while competitors collapsed, and the mid-market sales mistake costing SaaS founders their margin.For SaaS founders, operators, and marketers who want to understand how marketplaces actually scale.In this episode: → Why most B2B software buyers end up dissatisfied → The chicken-and-egg problem and the first-mover edge of starting in health IT → How content scaled to 300% organic growth while competitors dropped → Why 90% sales / 10% marketing is the costly default for mid-size SaaS → AEO in practice — and why Adnan calls it "glorified SEO" → The personal cost of scaling from 100 to 340 employees----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & Guest Welcome0:49 — What Software Finder Does & How It Started2:01 — The Business Model: Free for Buyers, Paid by Vendors5:58 — Solving the Chicken & Egg Problem9:21 — 5 Years of 100% Growth — What's Driving It14:43 — SEO Investment & Organic Traffic Wins17:04 — AEO & How LLMs Are Changing Buyer Search20:48 — Biggest Mistakes Vendors Make with Buyers25:22 — Why Brand & Reviews Matter Before the Sale26:32 — Review Manipulation & How to Build Trust30:49 — Founder Burnout & Managing Rapid Growth33:49 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Lessons Learned36:38 — Advice for Bootstrapped Founders TodayAdnan Malik - linkedin.com/in/adnanmalik1 Software Finder - https://softwarefinder.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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A serial bootstrapped SaaS founder's framework | Aaron Gibson @ Hurree
Apr 2700:44:34Tap to summarizesaas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #17 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Aaron Gibson has exited two companies, turned down VC funding, and built Hurree — a data analytics platform — by obsessing over one thing: showing users value before they quit.In this episode: → Why Aaron thinks moats are "a lot slimmer than they used to be" in the AI era → How anonymous pulse surveys exposed a culture problem he didn't know he had → Initiatives that changed team retention → His framework for knowing when to double down on a growth channel — and when to kill it → Why he doesn't expect his team to love their jobs, and what he expects instead → What serial founders actually build toward when they're "not building for acquisition"For bootstrapped founders, operators, and anyone building a team-first SaaS business in a crowded market.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & What Hurry Solves3:20 — Aaron's Background & Journey into Tech4:45 — The Origin Story of Hurry6:38 — Showing Monster Value Before Users Churn10:12 — Using AI Internally & in the Product11:55 — Measuring AI Success14:04 — AI & Hiring: Is It Changing the Team?17:20 — Building a Strong Culture as a Startup29:22 — Growth Strategy: Bootstrapped & Customer-Obsessed30:37 — Account-Based Marketing & Go-to-Market Strategy34:30 — Building for an Exit — Lessons from Two Acquisitions37:50 — Biggest Win, Biggest Failure & Founder Hacks🎙️ Aaron Gibson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronhurree/ Huree - https://www.hurree.co/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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The wrong way to bring AI into your company | Leo Goldfarb @ Albato
Apr 2000:58:52Tap to summarizesaas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #16 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Leo Goldfarb, co-founder of Albato — a 100% bootstrapped automation and integration platform with 200,000 users and 80 people — after years at Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Booking.com. This episode gets into what it actually takes to build an AI-first product when you're competing with Zapier and nobody on your team has formal AI experience.In this episode: → Why Albato deliberately pivoted away from competing with Zapier head-on — and what they built instead → The AI copilot that kept crashing, and the API redesign they had to do before it could work → How to spot an AI skeptic on your team before they slow everything down → Why 95% of enterprise AI investments fail — and the metric mistake behind it → The case for decentralizing AI across every team, not siloing it in an innovation lab → What "pump your tires before tuning your car" means for founders bringing AI into legacy productsThis one's for founders and operators navigating the gap between AI hype and what it actually takes to ship something that works.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction: Meet Leo from Albato1:35 — From Corporate Life to Co-Founding a Startup6:30 — What Albato Does & 7 Years Bootstrapped10:44 — The B2B Pivot: Albato Embedded18:53 — Building AI Without Dedicated AI Engineers27:38 — Mistake #1: The AI Skeptic on Your Team35:54 — How to Actually Measure AI ROI42:27 — Biggest Win & Biggest Failure at Albato49:07 — Founder Hack: Trust Your Team, Let Go54:10 — Fix Your Foundation Before Adding AILeo Goldfarb - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-goldfarb-7b743449/ Albato - albato.com Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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From open source side project to bootstrapped solo business | David Boyne @EventCatalog
Apr 1300:46:00Tap to summarizesaas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.In episode #15 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with David Boyne, founder of EventCatalog, an open-source documentation tool specifically designed for event-driven architectures (EDAs), allowing teams to document, visualize, and discover services, events, schemas, and producers/consumers.Dave Boyne left a senior AWS developer advocate role — the highest salary he'd ever earned — and jumped into bootstrapping with 12 months of runway, a self-hosted documentation tool, and no clear business model. Fourteen months later, Event Catalog has crossed $300K in revenue, and Dave reached personal sustainability in just 8 months.In this episode:→ Why Dave chose a self-hosted license key model over SaaS — and why it made procurement 10x easier→ How he reached sustainability in 8 months without raising a single dollar→ His AI-powered content and coding workflows as a solo founder→ The post-sale mistake he almost didn't catch: ignoring renewals while chasing new sales→ Why he raised prices twice — and the 20% drop-off rule he uses to know when pricing is right→ How he uses LinkedIn to build trust with developers without ever leading with the product----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:00 — Introduction & Guest Background1:55 — From AWS to Bootstrapping5:00 — Marketing on LinkedIn7:25 — What is Event Catalog?9:39 — Business Model: Open Core Over SaaS14:23 — Building with AI as a Solo Founder38:08 — Biggest Win & Biggest Failure41:46 — Founder Hacks & Closing ThoughtsThis one's for solo founders and technical builders who want to see what the zero-to-$300K journey actually looks like.David - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-boyne/EventCatalog - https://www.eventcatalog.dev/
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Why building inside your competitor is a better strategy | Pieter Boon @ImpactPilotv
Apr 600:46:14Tap to summarizesaas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #14 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Pieter Boon, co-founder of ImpactPilot, a Customer Success (CS) platform designed specifically as an add-on for HubSpot.Pieter spent his career in post-sale roles — from Google's ads team to a SaaS startup he helped sell to a unicorn. Now he's building Impact Pilot, a customer success tool that lives inside HubSpot, not next to it. Three months after launch, HubSpot announced a competing feature. Here's what happened next.In this episode: → Why standalone CS platforms create "ghost towns" of stale data → The difference between customer support and customer success (and why it matters for retention) → The classic first-hire mistake that sets CS teams up to fail → How to use AI in customer success without damaging real customer relationships → Why Pieter raised only $500K — and what he used it for → The one tactic that keeps customers renewing: celebrate their wins with themThis episode is for B2B SaaS founders and revenue leaders thinking seriously about post-sale growth, churn, and when (and how) to build a CS function.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:00 — Introduction & Welcome0:34 — Pieter's Background: From Google to SaaS Startup Founder2:04 — Customer Support vs. Customer Success Explained3:11 — Do All SaaS Companies Need a CS Team?5:05 — Why Impact Pilot is Built Inside HubSpot (Not Standalone)10:09 — Why HubSpot Over Salesforce? Narrowing the ICP12:21 — Bootstrapping to Angel Round: The Fundraising Mindset Shift15:04 — How to Start Customer Success as a SaaS Founder19:07 — Using AI in Customer Success: Use Cases & Guardrails31:02 — What "Being Active on LinkedIn" Actually Means34:42 — Building Your First CS Team the Right Way39:51 — Biggest Win, Biggest Challenge & One Founder HackPieter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pieter-boon/ImpactPilot - https://impactpilot.io/Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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The anti-hypergrowth SaaS: build a business you want to run | Joel Griffith @browserless
Mar 3000:58:49Tap to summarize•saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #13 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Joel Griffith, founder of browserless, a cloud-based headless browser-as-a-service platform that allows developers to run automated browser tasks.Joel Griffith didn’t start in tech, he was a professional jazz musician.Today, he runs browserless, a browser automation infrastructure powering AI agents, bots, scraping systems, and developer tools worldwide.In this episode, we cover:• What “headless browser” actually means (without jargon)• Why Joel chose to bootstrap instead of raising VC• Growing to $1M ARR without a marketer• Open source as a growth engine• Rewriting the entire product to eliminate technical debt• AI, automation, and whether bots are good or bad• The emotional reality of hiring, firing, and founder lifeIf you're building a devtool, infra SaaS, or considering rewriting your codebase - this one’s for you.Joel Griffith - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-griffith-93933332/Browserless - https://www.browserless.ioSubscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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Reputation management in SaaS: how to build trust | Pius Binder @ subsig
Mar 2300:50:59Tap to summarizesaas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #12 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Pius Binder, co-founder of subsig, a B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that helps companies manage their reputation and monitor brand mentions across social media, review sites, and AI-driven platforms.We break down what’s fundamentally broken in SaaS reputation management and why it matters even more now that LLMs shape software discovery.Pius shares:Why first wow (landing page + onboarding) is non-negotiable in 2026PLG vs enterprise: how much product you should show before chargingWhy “unbiased reviews” are complicated—and how to design better research + incentivesThe new reputation stack: G2/Capterra + Reddit/X/LinkedIn + your own contentHow smaller SaaS teams can exploit the current AI search chaos faster than incumbentsIf you’re building a SaaS and want to win discovery, trust, and conversions, this is the playbook.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & Guest Background3:06 — From Facebook to Canva: Career Journey5:07 — Building Subscribed FYI7:31 — First Impressions & Onboarding Philosophy10:09 — Pricing & Monetization Strategy16:29 — Getting Unbiased Reviews & User Research20:48 — Cultural Nuances in Review Ratings27:56 — AI-Powered Discovery & Content Strategy32:21 — How Subscribed FYI Grows40:23 — Biggest Wins & Failures48:22 — Founder Advice & Reputation HacksPius Binder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/piusb/Subscribed - https://www.subsig.comSubscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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How to keep churn under 4% while multiplying revenue with Marko Saric @Plausible Analytics
Mar 1600:50:26Tap to summarizesaas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #11 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Marko from Plausible Analytics. He joins the podcast for a refreshingly honest conversation about what seven years of bootstrapped growth actually looks like.Plausible started with one visitor from Google in an entire day. Today it has 16,000 paying customers, a team of 10, and a churn rate that's stayed below 4% for four years running. And it was all built on what Marko calls "boring marketing."In this episode: → The single blog post that drove more traffic in 4 hours than the previous year combined → Why going open source almost became their biggest threat → What ChatGPT traffic actually converts like vs. Google → How word of mouth becomes a growth engine you don't have to manage → Why Plausible ignores every acquisition and investor email----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Intro & Plausible Overview4:49 — Going Open Source: Lessons & Pitfalls8:58 — SEO, Content Marketing & AI Discovery17:04 — Building Brand & Trust Over Time20:24 — The Early Plateau & How Marko Joined22:18 — Spotting & Solving Growth Plateaus29:33 — The Boring Marketing Strategy & Growth Loop32:36 — Metrics, Churn & Support as a Marketing Tool38:56 — What Worries a Bootstrapped Founder42:13 — Biggest Win & Biggest Failure45:01 — Founder Hack: Async, Autonomous Team CultureMarko - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markosaric/Plausible Analytics - https://plausible.ioSubscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796
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