438: Reviews.io: From Scrappy SaaS MVP to $82M Exit - with Callum Mckeefery

Summary

Episode 438: Reviews.io: From Scrappy SaaS MVP to $82M Exit - with Callum McKeefery

Podcast Information:

• Title: The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship
• Host: Omar Khan
• Guest: Callum McKeefery, Founder and CEO of Partner IO
• Release Date: April 10, 2025

In this engaging episode of The SaaS Podcast, host Omar Khan delves into the entrepreneurial journey of Callum McKeefery, the visionary behind Reviews.io and Partner IO. Callum shares his experiences of building a successful SaaS business from the ground up, navigating bootstrapping challenges, and making pivotal decisions that led to an impressive $82 million exit.

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1. Introduction to Callum McKeefery and His Journey

[00:00] Omar Khan welcomes listeners and introduces Callum McKeefery, highlighting his remarkable journey from launching Reviews.io to achieving a substantial exit and subsequently founding Partner IO. The episode promises insights into Callum's strategies for building, launching, and scaling a SaaS business without external funding.

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2. Founding Reviews.io: From Idea to MVP

[04:27] Callum discusses his early days in 2012 when he and his wife were financially struggling. He had two startup ideas, both of which failed to secure support from a major mobile phone company. Determined, Callum asked a final question that would pivot his path: "Who does your customer reviews?" This question ignited the idea for Reviews.io.

[07:06] Leveraging an existing price comparison platform, Callum swiftly repurposed it to create a minimal viable product (MVP) for Reviews.io within a week. Despite initial rejection, the positive feedback encouraged him to fully commit to the new venture.

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3. Bootstrapping and Early Growth Strategies

[11:33] Without access to venture capital, Callum employed resourceful tactics to acquire his first customers. He cold-called event organizers, attended expos with unconventional setups like a foosball table, and executed guerrilla marketing campaigns on a tight budget. These efforts culminated in reaching the first million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) within 18 months.

Notable Quote:

Callum McKeefery [04:34]: "The customer always wins. Get as close to your customer as possible. Closest to the customer wins."

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4. Building a Competitive Edge Against Trustpilot

[15:34] Callum identified significant dissatisfaction among users of Trustpilot, a dominant player in the review platform space. He aimed to create a more customer-friendly alternative by focusing on better features and a more personable approach. This differentiation was key to attracting clients who felt underserved by existing solutions.

[17:30] Emphasizing continuous customer engagement, Callum highlighted how regular feedback from clients guided the development of features that truly met their needs, fostering organic growth through a strong referral flywheel.

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5. Marketing and Guerrilla Tactics

[25:50] Without substantial marketing budgets, Callum turned to creative guerrilla marketing strategies. Examples include:

• Bus Wrapping in Seattle: A bus adorned with the Reviews.io logo parked outside a conference center, attracting attention without high costs.
• Tuk Tuk Promotions: Partnering with Tuk Tuk drivers to display posters, ensuring visibility during events.
• Street Stencil Campaigns in London: Stenciling the Reviews.io logo on cleaned streets near event centers to capture passersby’s attention.

[27:22] Additionally, Callum leveraged LinkedIn by posting multiple times a day, highlighting competitors' weaknesses, and positioning Reviews.io as the underdog with a more authentic and personable brand presence.

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6. Overcoming Funding Challenges and Embracing Bootstrapping

[22:45] Callum recounts his unsuccessful attempts to secure venture capital. Despite interest from VC firms, biases such as being a husband-and-wife team impeded progress. This setback reinforced his commitment to bootstrapping, allowing him to maintain control over the company’s direction and avoid the pressures of VC-driven sales tactics.

Notable Quote:

Callum McKeefery [22:45]: "Every time we'd win a couple of clients, we'd always reinvest the money into the product, into the team. So we grew a little bit slower. But that actually meant that we didn't have the crazy growing pains that a lot of VC backed businesses actually have."

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7. Innovative Hiring Practices

[35:39] To build his team without the funds to hire experienced SaaS salespeople, Callum recruited talent from diverse backgrounds such as cafes, bars, and restaurants. He focused on work ethic and potential rather than industry experience, training these individuals to excel in sales and customer service roles. This approach not only fostered a loyal team but also contributed significantly to Reviews.io’s success.

[38:06] Reflecting on this strategy, Callum notes that his non-traditional hires eventually became market leaders, demonstrating the value of looking beyond conventional recruitment practices.

Notable Quote:

Callum McKeefery [35:39]: "The majority of those people were still in the Reviews.io business. And without them, I couldn't have done it. It was their work ethic combined with my work ethic and my wife's work ethic that actually helped us grow Reviews.io into what it was."

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8. The Emotional Decision to Sell Reviews.io

[41:35] In 2022, Callum faced a pivotal moment when his son was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease. This personal crisis necessitated the sale of Reviews.io to secure his family's financial future and fund medical research. Despite the emotional difficulty, the $82 million exit provided the necessary resources to support his son's care and contribute to research efforts.

Notable Quote:

Callum McKeefery [41:35]: "It was a painful decision because me and my wife both loved the business, but we also knew that we had to secure my children's future."

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9. Launching Partner IO: Solving Real-World Problems

[44:39] Returning to entrepreneurship in 2025, Callum founded Partner IO to address challenges he encountered while scaling Reviews.io. Partner IO is a comprehensive partner platform designed to streamline partnership programs, improve revenue attribution, and simplify channel management for tech companies.

[47:16] Callum emphasizes the importance of offering a full-suite solution rather than fragmented tools, aiming to meet the evolving expectations of clients who now demand comprehensive products from day one.

Notable Quote:

Callum McKeefery [47:16]: "You've got to do something that stands out. You've got to be memorable."

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10. Strategies for Idea Collection and Validation

[50:29] Callum advocates for diligently capturing ideas through journaling and digital notes. By identifying recurring themes and validating ideas through customer interactions and quick market tests, he effectively distinguishes valuable concepts from noise.

[53:07] He advises founders to engage directly with their Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP), filtering out unsolicited suggestions that may lead the business astray.

Notable Quote:

Callum McKeefery [50:29]: "If you can just make quick notes, your brain will build out these threads on its own."

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11. Lightning Round: Quick Insights from Callum

• Best Business Advice: Control your finances and avoid overspending. "Don't take venture capital too soon."
  [55:01]

• Book Recommendations:

  • Zero to One by Peter Thiel
  • Impossible to Inevitable by Jason Lemkin
  • Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
    [55:20]

• Attribute of a Successful Founder: Perseverance.
  [56:00]

• Favorite Productivity Tool: Apple Notes, emphasizing its versatility for capturing ideas on the go.
  [56:05]

• Dream Business Idea: Developing a low-cost exoskeleton for children with special needs to support their mobility and physiotherapy.
  [56:32]

• Fun Fact: Enjoys watching the US version of The Office nightly.
  [57:11]

• Passion Outside Work: Family and his children.
  [58:16]

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12. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[58:51] Omar Khan thanks Callum for sharing his inspiring journey, from building a bootstrapped SaaS company to making a life-altering exit and returning to entrepreneurship with Partner IO. Callum expresses his willingness to return for future updates, emphasizing the ongoing nature of his entrepreneurial spirit.

[59:11] Listeners are encouraged to connect with Callum on LinkedIn for further insights and advice.

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Key Takeaways:

• Bootstrapping Success: Building a successful SaaS business without external funding is challenging but achievable through resourcefulness, customer-centric strategies, and disciplined financial management.

• Customer Focus: Continuously engaging with customers to understand their needs and developing features that address those needs can drive organic growth and create a loyal customer base.

• Innovative Marketing: Employing creative and cost-effective marketing tactics can significantly boost brand visibility and lead generation, especially when operating on a limited budget.

• Talent Acquisition: Hiring individuals from diverse backgrounds based on potential and work ethic, rather than industry experience, can foster a strong, dedicated team and drive company success.

• Personal Motivation: Balancing business aspirations with personal responsibilities and challenges is crucial, and making difficult decisions can sometimes align personal and professional goals for greater impact.

This episode offers a comprehensive look into the resilience, creativity, and strategic thinking required to build and scale a SaaS business successfully. Callum McKeefery's story serves as an inspiring blueprint for entrepreneurs navigating the complexities of startup life.

Transcript

[Omar Khan]

Foreign welcome to another episode of the SaaS podcast. I'm your host Omar Khan and this is a show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business. In this episode, I talk to Callum McIfree, the founder and CEO of Partner IO, a platform that helps companies run smoother partner programs and grow revenue faster. Back in 2012, Callum and his wife were broke. He had two startup ideas at the time and pitched both of them to a major mobile phone company. Neither one landed. As he was walking out of the door, he asked one last question. Who does your customer reviews? That short conversation sparked a new idea and within a week he was back with a rough MVP for Reviews IO they still said no to his pitch, but Kalam had seen just enough interest to go all in on the idea. He hustled to get his first customers by cold calling event organizers, showing up to expos with a foosball table, and running guerilla marketing campaigns on a shoestring budget. And he reinvested every dollar into the product and the team. It took 18 months of relentless effort, but he eventually hit his first million in ARR Bootstra, profitable and fighting for every deal against well funded rivals like Trustpilot. Then over the next decade, he scaled reviews IO into a global SaaS business with eight figures in ARR, all without raising a cent of outside funding. But just as the business was thriving, his son was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease and everything changed. Callum made the decision to sell the company for $82 million. On paper, it looked like a dream exit, but he didn't really want to sell. He did it to secure his son's future and fund urgently needed medical research. Today he's back with Partner IO and solving a problem he faced firsthand while scaling his last company. And once again, he's doing it on his own terms. In this episode you'll learn how he used fast validation and simple MVPs to build the right features without wasting time or money. How column went from idea to the first million in ARR without funding, cold emails or a sales team why he avoided traditional SaaS hires and built his early team by recruiting people from cafes, bars and restaurants. What scrappy marketing tactics helped him outmaneuver bigger VC backed competitors and what drove his decision to sell the company and why stepping away was one of the hardest things he's ever done. So I hope you enjoy it. Are you building or scaling a SaaS product? Then you've likely faced Authentication and user management challenges. It's crucial, but let's face it, it's not the core focus or the most exciting part of your business. And think about it. How much time does your team spend on Auth instead of building your core product and features? And as you grow, it only gets more complicated. Enterprise sso, custom security, user analytics. Soon you're drowning in feature requests that have nothing to do with your actual product. This is where Propel Auth comes in. They handle all the authentication heavy lifting from quick integration for devs to built in user management for your customer facing teams. It's everything you need to scale without the headache. Here's an exclusive offer for our listeners. Sign up for a free Propelauth account at propelauth.com no credit card required. And if you decide to Upgrade, use code SAAS24 for 50% off their growth plan for six months. That's Propelauth.com I talk to a lot of founders who have the same challenge. They've got an amazing product idea but need a technical team to build or scale it. If you're looking to develop a B2B SaaS product but don't want to hire and manage in house team, listen up. Gearhart is a product development studio that handles the entire technical side of building your software. They've built over 70 successful products, including SmartSuite. Who's founder trusted Gearhart after his $200 million exit to help build his next big venture. Some of Gearhart's customers have gone through YC and their portfolio companies have won over 10 startup competitions. Until the end of May, they're offering our listeners free strategy sessions with their leadership team. Just visit Gearheart IO to book your session. That's Gearheart IO. Callum, welcome to the show.

[Callum McIfree]

Hi. Thanks for having me on.

[Omar Khan]

My pleasure. Do you have a favorite quote, something that inspires or motivates you that you can share with us?

[Callum McIfree]

I think the quote that I'll mention today is probably closest to the customer always wins. And that's something I try and instill in all my staff and all the companies I work with. You know, get as close to your customer as possible. Closest to the customer wins.

[Omar Khan]

Love that. Nice and simple. So let's we're going to talk about the business that you're building currently, today and then we're going to shift gear a little bit and talk about the business that you spent, you know, a good, good 10 years building before you exited. So tell us about Partner IO. First of all, your current business. What does the product do who's it for and what's the main problem you're helping to solve?

[Callum McIfree]

So Partner IO is basically a new partner platform that helps tech companies partner with agencies and other tech cos. So what we're trying to do is streamline and take away a lot of the tedious tasks that partnership teams are doing on a day to day basis and then record revenue correctly, attribution correctly, and really simplify the channel. You've got three channels. Inbound, Outbound and Partnerships. Inbound and Outbound have actually great attribution technology, but Partnerships is a bit different and there's no real tech there that actually helps partner teams really be better at growing that channel. At my past business, I noticed that we were using two different partner technologies and both of them were pretty awful. And I was, you know, my team spending all day in spreadsheets and everything else. So, you know, that's why I founded Partner IO to get partnership teams out of spreadsheets into a real bit of tech that actually can help them grow their partnership channel.

[Omar Khan]

Awesome. So back in 2012, you started another company, Reviews IO, or as you were telling me earlier, it used to be called reviews.co.uk, because it was started out in England. You started this business with your wife and 10 years later it was an 8 figure ARR business and you ended up selling it for $82 million. And it was a bootstrap business as well, which on its own is a pretty amazing feat. So let's go back to that time in 2012. What were you doing at the time and where did this idea for Reviews IO come from?

[Callum McIfree]

We were pretty broke when we started Reviews IO. I actually was looking at starting two different businesses. I was running them side by side and I went to see a very well known mobile phone company with one not the Reviews IO solution, but actually with another solution. And it was an affiliate attribution solution. And it was too complicated for me to explain. And they were like, callum, we really like you, but we just don't know what you're selling here. I said, how do you. Who does your. Who does your reviews? You know, that was my final question coming out the door. And they said, oh, well, we're looking at a few providers. And I said, do you mind if I come back next week? And I want to present to you this review platform I have an idea for. So I spent the next week, you know, building out an mvp. We kind of had a the bones of it already, but I actually made it a lot better and then went back to them and said, hey, this is really Reviews IO version one. And they said, yeah, we really like it, but you're probably too, too small for us right now. So I. But it was that spark of them saying, actually this is quite good, we like it, but you know, you're not right for us right now. And they've actually made me double down on the reviews piece. A couple of years later, we actually won that mobile phone provider as a client because we, we drone the business and so forth. They saw that we, we got professionalized.

[Omar Khan]

So what was it about reviews that kind of inspired you to go and solve, you know, build a, build a product or, or this mvp, like what kind of problems were you seeing out there?

[Callum McIfree]

There was a couple. So in the review space there was one massive player and there still is. There was a company called trustpilot and they had a really good website that was actually helping brands build trust. But actually their business model was not, what I'd say, friendly. And I thought, you know what, there could be a really nice friendly alternative to trustpilot. There should be. They shouldn't be the only one. So that was why I kind of looked into the business more, spoke a lot to merchants who were actually using vendors who were actually using trustpilot and said, how do you like this? And they were like, oh, we hate trustpilot. We hate trustpilot. We're paying them, but we hate them. I was like, everybody seems to be paying this company but doesn't like them. So what if I could make a company that was similar but they did like. And they did like paying. And that was kind of the spark that led me into reviews.

[Omar Khan]

So you had this meeting with this mobile company and pitched the idea of coming back the following week with showing them this reviews platform. What were you able to build in a week's time to go and show them? Because it was still an idea at the time, right? Or were you building something?

[Callum McIfree]

Yeah, well, I had another platform that was actually live at the time, which was really a price comparison company. And I managed to tweak that, had a review element built into it. So I was able to basically use some of the code from that, strip all off the price comparison element, make a profile page and leave basically just the review element in there. And then we managed to build out a small portal where you could manage your reviews. So it was kind of a stripped down. The first version was really a stripped down version of another product.

[Omar Khan]

And who was building the product? Were you coding yourself or did you have somebody who was helping you with this?

[Callum McIfree]

So I had a small team, two people and actually both of those people stayed with me right throughout the journey, right to exit and you know, they're still in the reviews to IO Business now and they're great, great valued employees. And yeah, we kind of did it hand in hand to be honest.

[Omar Khan]

Okay, so you've got this mvp. You go back to the mobile company, they generally like the idea but they're not ready to invest given where you are in sort of the early stages in small company. But you see some signs of interest here. So where did you go next? What did you decide to do to find that first customer?

[Callum McIfree]

So then we, we spent the next few months just building out the product and getting to really version one of reviews that I.O. and actually we did an expo in Birmingham at the Birmingham nec, the IRX Expo. And I, I called the, the exhibition center up and said, hey, if you've got any spare space, you've got any last minute space. And they said, yeah, we've got a little spot in the corner you can have, it's right near the door. I was like brilliant. And I literally turned up there with a couple of banners, a desk. I took a table football machine with me and you know, me, the developers and my wife, you know, manned this, this expo table. We did really, really well. We had so many inquiries and that got us our first few clients and then it was just about staying in touch with those clients and really building for those first few clients. They helped us build and develop the product and then what we do is really use those customers to get more customers. So we'd hit into a niche and then we'd be like, hey, do you know anybody else who could be interested in this? And really reviews had a really nice flywheel that actually when review we got our logo on that, that customer's site, then their competitors would look at that and generally they contact us and say, hey, what are you doing there? Can we speak to you? So we had this nice flywheel that kept inbound leads coming and it was like a snowball. So as we won bigger clients, our logo was seen more. We'd win bigger and bigger clients and we really made sure we was the friendly alternative to what was currently out there. We had friendlier terms and conditions. You know, we, we really try and help our partners. You know, we passed our customers as our partners to make sure that they were succeeding. We wasn't just treating them like an atm, you know, we'd really, hey, are we doing good? Do you need anything from us, you know, how can we improve? And generally speaking to our clients led us to develop better and better solutions that actually meant we'd win better, more business over time. So that was a big thing for us.

[Omar Khan]

Can you just briefly explain, like, what did the product do at the time? So what was the offer? How would they use reviews.co.uk, i guess.

[Callum McIfree]

So in the early days, we were just really, we were helping brands, online retailers, collect reviews from their past customers via email. So we'd send out an email saying, hey, you've purchased from Interflora, could you please leave them a review? And that was really the basic bit of the solution. That was like kind of V1. And, you know, that evolved to doing, you know, insights analysis on sentiment and really improving segmentation, attributions, all of these complex things that, you know, companies, as we grew, were able to increase our pricing to offer these certain better integrations.

[Omar Khan]

Got it. So you mentioned trustpilot and that you talk to people, and there was a lot of people were unhappy with the experience they were getting there. So how did you figure out. You said, hey, what if I could build something similar, but something that people liked? And so how did you figure out what that was? Was it about particular features in the product? Which is, I think, where most founders tend to go. That's how I'm going to differentiate. But you also talked about other things, like friendlier terms and conditions, like making it easier to work with us and so on. So what was the. If someone said to you, why should I use you instead of trustpilot at the time, what was the answer? What was the offer?

[Callum McIfree]

It was two things, really. Yes, it was features. Features were super important and actually being able to develop features at speed. So I'd always go in with the pitch that we were developer heavy, sales light. Trustpilot was so sales heavy. You know, they were kind of very selling in a very pressurized way at the time. Almost like yellow pages. They were doing a lot of cold calls. And I was like, look, if you. Why don't you. We're the alternatives that we're developer heavy, very sales light. If you want to go with us, go with us out of your own violation, not because we're pressuring you into an annual contract. So part of it was how we approached the customer and part of it was the feature set. So once we had a base, we were able to keep talking to our clients, constantly talking to them, so that we could learn what actually the clients actually wanted and what we could improve. And in, in the end, actually, I think our features were a hell of a lot better than what trustpilots were and a lot more forward thinking. And really we were, we were a lot different in, in many aspects in that they were just so unfriendly, unbusiness friendly. No one really liked paying for that service or very few people at the time. I'm sure that's probably changed. I've not really competed with them in a long time, really, because as we evolved, other gaps emerged in the market. The Shopify ecosystem took off and we leaned into that very heavily and trustpilot didn't. So we kind of did the things that they didn't do. When we leaned into trustpilot and we leaned into selling via partnerships, we leaned into selling via advocates. That was when we saw a really massive growth for us.

[Omar Khan]

Now, I know one of the reasons for the success of Reviews IO was your ability to keep talking to customers, understand what they need, and then quickly translate that into the right type of product or the right solution for them. Maybe give us an example of that. Because one of the things I think that many founders struggle with is they hear a lot of things from customers or potential customers often end up wasting a bunch of time building features that nobody really wants to pay for, but they thought they did. So how did you go about that? How did you capture that feedback? How did you sort of filter? There's some gold here. This is where we should invest our very limited time and money versus a whole bunch of noise that we need to ignore.

[Callum McIfree]

It's a very good question and there's no simple answer. Some of this is common sense. Some of this is listening to your customers as a cohort and actually filtering out the noise and the bad ideas. Well, actually, that's not us. You have to push back on some ideas, but generally they'll give you that theme and you'll hear that theme over and over again. Hey, we just need this. We just need this and that. Those themes generally will start to present themselves. Like I'd always, you know, I, I'm a true believer that a founder should be doing those early calls with all customers. So I'd always be on the call and I'd always be in my notebook writing stuff down. And I'd always go through my notebook every, you know, every week or so, and I'd see a theme, you know, like, hold on, a lot of people are asking for this. How hard would it be to develop? Can it be a quick win? You know, we used to do things where, you know, we'd. I'd put it on the site. I'd literally test what a feature would look like on a site and it wouldn't actually work. We was that small that we was able to do this. And I'd see the clicks and I know actually there's traction there. Or I'd even create a page. You know, it's so easy at the time. I'd create a landing page for a product, put some ads to it, and as soon as people started clicking on it, I'd know, actually, they want that product. Let's work more on that product. I'm not perfect. We did go down the path, the wrong path a couple of times. And, you know, that was a painful lesson. But more often than not, we managed to use common sense by focusing on our icp, you know, building features that actually matched our icp. That was how we built the right roadmap.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah, I think that focus on the customer. But like you said this looking for these recurring themes that you're hearing about repeatedly from different customers and paying attention to that because maybe they don't quite know what the solution is, but they keep talking about a pain or something that they need to solve. Right.

[Callum McIfree]

And you know what? One of the biggest things that I learned is that actually it was the customers who didn't go with us who generally drive you in the wrong direction. They go, oh, if you've got this feature, we'll go with you. And then they don't go with you anyway. But actually they're just driving you in the wrong direction. And they're just saying this because they're probably not going to buy in, and it's just an excuse. So if you're listening to this and you keep getting customers not going with you and it's asking for a certain feature, you know, just validate that a little bit, maybe. Because maybe it's just an excuse. And I've had that several times. We used to get bigger companies say to us, oh, we want Salesforce integration. So we built out Salesforce integration, and when it went live, nobody wanted it because it wasn't our icp. And actually it was our. It was the wrong. It wasn't our icp and they were trying to push us in the wrong direction. So you've got to be. It's not an easy thing to do. Building out the roadmap and knowing what to build and when to build it is not easy. And you've got to be very strict at it. I'm. You Know in my business now we're a new startup and I'm building it, we're building out features and we're building out different elements. And you know, I'm very conscious of not being pushed off track by potential customers that really aren't potential customers. They're not our icp.

[Omar Khan]

You mentioned back then you were broke, you're trying to build bootstrap this business. You choose to go into a market where you're going to compete with a very well funded big player. Did you try to raise money at that time to help you move things along?

[Callum McIfree]

Yeah, yeah I did, very unsuccessfully. Tried to raise money several times. Went out to Sand Hill Road, you know, we went, me and my wife went to San Francisco and spoke to some big, big VC firms, spoke to some small VC firms but ultimately we couldn't get the right deal. Most VC firms loved what we were doing but actually wouldn't work with us because we were husband and wife. Which you know, was a bit disheartening. When me and my wife got married she actually kept her maiden name so that we had different surnames so maybe we could look like on the site that we weren't married. But yeah, it was very difficult with our setup to raise capital. So really that just made us focus more on being profitable. And every time we'd win a couple of clients we'd always like reinvest the money into the product, into the team. So we grew a little bit slower. But that actually meant that we didn't have the crazy growing pains that a lot of VC backed businesses actually have. So it meant I was able to spend more time with each team member, make sure they understood why we exist, who our client is and that kept us really very focused. We wasn't able to do some of the things that our competitors were able to do, you know, and go off track and you know, having people sell your product in the wrong way is very, very dangerous. And I was able to control that a lot more than some of my bigger competitors. And VCs would actually make you sell in an unfriendly way. They're going to want you to jack up prices, have annual contracts and things like that. And that was something we were dead staunchly against. So yeah, we didn't agree with how they're selling methods were and they didn't agree with ours. But we finally got product market fit in a good way and we had great velocity.

[Omar Khan]

I know you were telling me earlier that at the time trustpilot probably had, you know, hundreds of salespeople doing outbound. And for you, most of your leads were coming in through inbound. And I want to talk about some of the stuff around events and guerrilla marketing because I think there's a lot of fun, creative stuff you were doing, but you were also creating a lot of content. So can you speak to a little bit about that? You know, a lot of Bootstrap founders, they don't have the money to invest to go and, you know, do expensive campaigns or ads or so on. And so they look at content as one way to do that. But that can often be a very slow, laborious, kind of painful process. So what did you do? What worked for you? What didn't work?

[Callum McIfree]

LinkedIn was amazing for us. LinkedIn was amazing. I'd post, you know, multiple times a day and I'd really highlight my competitors weaknesses and the way they were treating their clients. And generally those posts went viral. And I positioned, you know, Reviews IO as the underdog, really, and that really helped. We'd also do a lot of blogging, a lot of podcasts, and primarily we couldn't compete on an Outbound Motion with trustpilot or Yacht, which was our other competitor. So we had to do something different. And I really took the challenge to them in an open platform like LinkedIn. And I'd put them in a post and say, hey, I'm confident that Reviews IO has the best delivery rate in the industry and I'd love to prove it. And I call on the other CEOs to actually do a test with us. And nobody would, but it actually got traction. People shared it and it generally bought in business. So being a founder and actually posting and being a personality, bringing personality through. Those businesses couldn't bring personality through because they were VC backed. They were playing a different game to me. So I was actually able to kind of manipulate the do things that they couldn't do. I knew they couldn't compete with me in that space.

[Omar Khan]

Hey, have you heard of SmartSuite? They were just named 2024 SaaS Startup of the Year by Startup Grind. Well, I recently discovered that Gearhart was the development team behind their success. Gearhart is a product development studio that specializes in scaling B2B SaaS. Companies built by serial entrepreneurs, they understand the unique challenges of startups and can plug into your team to accelerate growth. With offices in San Francisco and London, plus a distributed team of 43 experts, they've helped build over 70 successful products. To learn more about how Gearhart can help scale your development, check them out at Gearheart IO. That's Gearheart IO yeah, I think it's pretty clever how you were, you kind of looked at, I think you used this term. I don't know if we were recording or earlier you said you try to be the anti trust pilot, like looking at what they were doing, what you thought didn't resonate with customers or there was an opportunity for you to show some uniqueness or differentiate and just kind of saying, okay, I'm just gonna do the opposite in many ways to stand out. The other thing I just want to kind of just touch on is you mentioned earlier about the ICP and focus on that. But am I right that you didn't just say okay, we're kind of going after trustpilot type, we're going to build a similar product and we're going to go after all the customers that they serve. You actually looked at that customer base and then said I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to focus on the people who are using trustpilot but currently feel like they are underserved. Right. So it was a segment of that larger customer base, is that right?

[Callum McIfree]

We targeted these. Trustpilot is great for bigger brands where they're doing television advertising and trustpilot, they can put trustpilot's logo on their advert. But smaller brands, brands doing 5 million in revenue, e commerce brands doing 5 million in revenue. That was my ICP where they had team members, they had great customer service, but they were being underserved by the competition, being underserved and overcharged by the competition. So then we came in with fairer pricing which was actually correctly priced for the market and that resonated and it kind of spread like wildfire.

[Omar Khan]

Let's talk about events. I know you were kind of looking for these events. You talked about Birmingham and the nec for people who don't know that was a national exhibition center. And it was an opportunity for you to go out and meet potential customers and show up face to face and, and all that. But what were some of the other things that you were doing this, this sort of these guerrilla marketing tactics because you didn't have the money to spend. And so you, you were constantly like trying these. Well, whatever you could think of. Right.

[Callum McIfree]

We tried, you know, any way to get our logo seen without us paying the exorbitant fees. We couldn't, I couldn't afford an, you know, in, in the US conferences are super, super expensive to get a stand at a conference. I just had a quote today and they're quoting over $100,000 for us. A pretty small stand for partner IO and I couldn't afford it. I just couldn't afford it. I would have loved to have done it. So I needed to get my logo out there to get noise out there. And we used to do things like, you know, in Seattle, we purchased a bus and we had it vinyl wrapped with reviews IO and we parked it straight outside the conference center and collected parking tickets all day. At another event, we hired Tuk Tuk drivers to take people from the hotel to the conference center and then later on they took them from the conference center back to their hotel. And what we did, we just put posters on the back of the Tuk Tuk bikes. We were always trying to think outside of the the box. I mean, probably one of my best marketing campaigns was in London where we actually, me and two of my friends who are the employees, two of my best friends, we actually went out and did some. We cleaned the street, we had a stencil made and we actually cleaned the logo into the road actually as you came into the event center. That was quite good. What another one was that we'd actually, I, you know, if we had a standard and expo and we were quite struggling, we would, for visitors, I'd go into the toilets and put leaflets and posters up in the toilets of that and weirdly, nobody ever said anything. But we knew, you know, at least 50% of the attendees were going to visit the toilets, the gents toilets. So I'd make sure if they went in they'd see our logo at least and just things like that, you know, we really didn't have a lot of money and we needed to get our brand out there and the more people who've seen it, the more people who got in touch and, you know, it worked.

[Omar Khan]

At what point did it become reviews? It switched from reviews.co.uk to reviews.IO and what was the change? Were you looking kind of, you were focused initially on customers in the uk Was that when you sort of decided to expand and tackle like the US market?

[Callum McIfree]

It was really as soon as we had product market fit in the uk, I knew that this needed to be a global business to actually be worth anything. So the first stop was the us and then we went to Australia and then into Germany. But to do that I had to rebrand from.co.uk, into.IO and we did that really slowly. We actually ran them both side by side for a bit and then slowly we wouldn't publish anything on IO, we wouldn't use IO on any of our advertising, but the domain actually still lived. A big part of our solution was actually, you know, these profile pages that had amazing SEO. And moving those over very slowly actually was quite challenging.

[Omar Khan]

So you did that slowly because you didn't want to mess up the SEO that was working. Yeah, yeah. That's always a fear, isn't it?

[Callum McIfree]

Well, there was a lot. There was a lot of code, there was a lot of, you know, we were serving widgets on people's pages and, you know, there was a lot to it. That move over was really painful for us. And I probably made. It probably lasted, you know, three years to be fully moved over. But we wasn't in a rush. We knew we had to take our time. You know, it probably if I would have gone and spoke to a consultant, they would have said, oh, do this. You know, we'll do this in a month or a couple of months. But I actually knew that we had to take our time with this, and we had to do it the difficult way, which was to run them both side by side.

[Omar Khan]

You start to get traction, and you're doing all of these creative things to reach customers, get the logo out there. You're having to bootstrap by necessity because you can't get investors to give you any money. And slowly things start to get traction. You start to generate revenue, acquire customers, grow the business. But still, there's a lot of. You're working under a lot of constraints as a bootstrap business. And one of those challenges I know we were talking about earlier was hiring and not being able to kind of hire people from the industry, if you like. So what were some of the challenges there? And then how did you get around that in terms of finding people?

[Callum McIfree]

So literally, we couldn't hire A1 sales team members at the time. So I generally hire people from other industries that I interacted with, and I actually liked those people. And I. I'd watch them and see they had great customer service or they were really good salespeople. And then I'd approach them and say, hey, do you want a career change? I've got this startup. It's a great opportunity. You know, I've hired people who worked in cafes, people who worked in restaurants, bars, nightclubs, estate agents, you know, all backgrounds. But the core thing is, you know, could I work with these people? And were they actually. Did they have the work ethic that's needed? Because that's the important bit. I can train them to be great salespeople. I can train them to be Great customer service, but there's got to be that spark. And that's generally what I'd look for. I mean, I used to hire, you know, I'd have a server in a restaurant and I'd be like, this guy's got something, you know, like you could see something there. And I'd be like, do you want a career change? Here's my telephone number. If you ever want a career change, give me a call. And invariably, you know, some of our best staff came in that way. And because they weren't from the industry, they weren't, you know, ex SaaS salespeople, they. They didn't require these huge wages which were kind of set by the big boys and set by VC money, really. So, you know, a lot of those people, when I exited were still in the business. The majority of those people were still in the reviews IO business. And without them, I couldn't have done it. It was their work ethic combined with my work ethic and my wife's work ethic that actually helped us grow reviews IO into what it was.

[Omar Khan]

So, I mean, that's like super. It's a super creative way to find people because you're looking for, like, the raw talent, right. That there's something about these people that has potential and, you know, hope I can kind of train these people to do those other things. And you were having to. It was necessity again, Right. You couldn't go out there and potentially hire the types of people you would have if you had the money, right?

[Callum McIfree]

Yeah. What's funny is these people are actually the market leaders now. And people are learning from these people who were the early days, people in reviews who didn't come from a tech background. Actually, now tech people are learning from them, which is pretty ironic. You know, I was. I was at an expo in Las Vegas on Monday and, you know, some of the. They were like, oh, you know, the nicest guy in the room, you know, the guy has the most knowledge. The best salesperson in the room is one of your team members from reviews. And I was like, that's amazing to hear that. Because these people weren't, you know, maybe destined for that, but they earned it 100%. They earned it without any doubt. They had that spark. They had an opportunity, they took it and did amazing with it.

[Omar Khan]

Why do you think most more people don't take a chance like that? I would say 99% of companies hiring managers would never do something like that. Right. They would always be about. They got to have the experience, they got to come from the industry, they got to do this. And like we said, part of it was like it wasn't by choice. You were just trying to do whatever you could to find the talent. But it does make me wonder about how many people are out there who have the potential to do some amazing things if someone can just see that potential and give them an opportunity.

[Callum McIfree]

I think a lot of it is in the VC market. You know, there's a playbook and they're just pattern matching. They're just like, right, go and get, you know, some a star players and they're just pattern matching and saying I'll go and you know, go and recruit for this role. And it's not easy. It's not easy. It's got to be done by the founder I think, I don't think it can be done by anybody else because you've got to own that if it goes wrong. But for me it was a necessity. But also looking back, I still like to hire people who aren't from the industry. Even though I can afford those people now, I'd still rather hire from, I'd never hire really from my competitors. I think that's a terrible idea. They come in with these preconceived playbooks and they want to do it. Oh, this is what we did there. I don't want that. I want people who are like sponges, who are like, I want to learn, I want to, you know, it's totally different being a startup, a bootstrap startup to being a VC backed startup. And I think way too many bootstrapped companies copy VC backed companies and the bigger VC backed competitors and actually make fall into traps of thinking they are VC back when they're not.

[Omar Khan]

So this journey, it was a 10 year journey, 2012 to 2022. When you eventually sold the business, it sounds like in an ideal world you would not have sold, sold it, you would have continued to do a lot more with that business. But just tell me about what happened, how did this, this situation come about and why you decided to sell at that time.

[Callum McIfree]

So my son has a very, very rare genetic disease. There's Only ever been 53 children in the world diagnosed with his disease. It took us a long time to get his diagnosis and it's a pretty awful disease and I just didn't have an understanding of what care would need, whether I could fund any research and I really wanted to get into that. You know, I'm a big believer in giving back and you know, I didn't have the funds really to do the Research that I wanted to do and to do the investments into, you know, research. And to be honest, the offer just came at the right time. That that was it. It was just timing. It was a good offer at the right time. It was a difficult decision because me and my wife both loved the business, but we also knew that we had to secure my children's future. You know, we don't know whether Hudson will ever work and things like that, and we don't know how much his care will cost. We don't know how much, you know, gene therapy costs or stem cell therapy or mitochondrial therapy. There's all these different things. And by selling it, de risked us as a family. And without that, I probably wouldn't have sold. If I'm brutally honest, it was a painful thing for me to do. I left a lot behind, a lot of my best friends in the business, and I still felt like I had a lot to give to that business.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah, it sounds like a really sort of a bittersweet moment to sell the company, but it also sounds like it was what you needed and what your family needed. It just the right things appeared at the right time to help you deal with what you were going through.

[Callum McIfree]

Yeah, it's been very tough emotionally, and, you know, it was all part of our journey to get there. And since selling, we've been able to do some amazing things with the money that we've had. We've been able to, like, support, you know, lots of children directly and indirectly with research and even just, you know, I help several children who are just in hospital and need actually special care, and we'll actually fund that for them.

[Omar Khan]

That's awesome. So that was back in 2022, and then obviously you had other things to focus on with your family. And then recently, not that long ago, you launched Partner IO. So what was the impetus for that and what got you back in the game?

[Callum McIfree]

So partner IO launched in. In 2025. January 2025. And I actually probably wasn't that when I left reviews. It was with the intention of that. That's me done. You know, like, I'm just going to do bit, you know, philanthropy. I'm just going to do a bit of property, try and secure, have revenue streams for my son. But no, I missed it. I missed working with developers, I missed working with people, and I missed customers, and I missed solving problems. So I went back to my little, little books. Every year I give myself one of these little diaries, and I write all my notes in there. My ideas. My challenge is the big things that I was struggling with. And at reviews, one of the biggest teams, the fastest growing revenue stream was Partnerships Inbound was actually leveling off, but partnerships was growing really well and it was a tricky team. We had two solutions in place. Both of them were pretty bad and we were still using spreadsheets. It was pretty very manual. We were paying really big wages to partner managers, but actually spending a lot of time doing these tedious tasks. So I thought if I could solve that problem and actually make that channel a lot more efficient and effective and actually drive a lot more revenue and track that revenue, then that'd be a great product. So that's what we started doing. And the first part of the solution that we actually built was the training element, which was training partners and accrediting them how to sell your product, how to use your product, who your product is for. And then it grew from there. We added referral in and we added event management and various other features so we could become this full suite for partnership teams. And it's gone really well. The feedback's been amazing. Again, most of it is inbound, most of what's coming in is inbound. We are doing some marketing but you know, we've had a hell of, a lot of, a lot of, lot of companies reach out and a lot of big companies talking billion, billion and trillion dollar businesses reaching out and doing demos on the solution. And we've got about 100 clients at the moment actually using partner IO and.

[Omar Khan]

I, I would encourage everybody to go and look at the Partner IO website because it doesn't look anything like a traditional SaaS or software product website. It has, it looks fun, it has a lot of personality and it's just, I think there's some, it's a good example of like instead of going out and copying and making your website look like your competitors, doing something which, which.

[Callum McIfree]

Stands out, you've got to do something that stands out. You've got to be memorable. You've got, you know, there is, you know, again, I've entered an industry where there is a few major players that have quite big market shares. But I think they do a, not, I'm going to use a bad word. I think they do a pretty horrible job of serving their customers. So I want to be that alternative and a full suite alternative. I don't want to do part of the partnership solution. I think there needs to be one product that actually does, you know, email marketing automation for partnership teams. Email automation newsletters, partner newsletters, partner payments, partner referral management has to be all in one suite. And I know a lot of the experts out there will tell you you're just, you know, focus on one bit of the problem. But I think that mindset is changing. I think you need to have, if you want to compete now, you need to actually have a complete solution. And it can. No. You know, when I launched reviews in 2012, you was able to have really an MVP that, you know, I could really held together by bits of string almost. Now clients are expecting a lot more and you have to have a fully fledged product when you go to market because they're expecting it to be perfect from day one and they're expecting it to not do one little bit of their problem. They're expecting it to fix the whole problem.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah, especially in this space. It's quite a complex thing that they're trying to do. Before we get on to, we wrap up, I want to just. You mentioned this a couple of times and I just want to just ask you about it. Like this idea about your notebook about collecting these ideas and writing stuff down. And I noticed on your LinkedIn profile you also said, hey, when I'm not working in this business, I love to be journaling and my ideas and collecting these ideas and so on. And it's a trait that I've often found with a lot of successful entrepreneurs and founders who are always writing this stuff down because often we have these great ideas and two minutes later it's gone and you're like, what was that amazing idea that I just had? Right. And so, you know, is that the reason you do it? Is that something you've always done and are you the kind of person who kind of does it? Like, is it kind of spontaneous when you have ideas? You're always like writing stuff down or you make time every day to, to be, you know, just journaling and getting stuff out of your head.

[Callum McIfree]

I wish I could say I make time every day, but I don't. I literally, I'll be on the way to the car park and I'll. If I can't, if I can't get the notebook out or use, you know, Apple notes, I'm putting things in Apple notes non stop as well as doing the, you know, doing them in my actual diary. I don't make time for that. It just comes naturally. And what I'm looking for is common threads. I'm looking for me writing the same things down multiple times. You know, and there is a, there's a funny story here. The business plan for reviews. IO I actually wrote in the cinema While watching Toy Story 2 with my kids, I think it's Toy Story 2, but watching a Disney movie with my kids, they were watching the movie and I actually wrote the whole business plan for reviews IO on my phone. And literally that got us. And it was still relevant 10 years later. And, you know, you've gotta. There's so many great ideas that aren't acted on. And I'm not saying my ideas are any greater than anybody else's, but I think if you can just make quick notes, you can actually build out. Your brain will build out these threads on its own. Some of my best ideas, I always tell everyone, my ideas come to me in the bath when I'm most relaxed, when I've not got a screen in front of me. And I'm just deeply thinking about the problems that my target market is facing. And that's. Generally, I'll try and think about that. And it doesn't come. None of my great good ideas came from staring at a computer.

[Omar Khan]

And I think what was really insightful about what you shared there, similar to what we were talking about earlier about figuring out which features to build for customers, was you're collecting all of these ideas. And I think that I've experienced this as well. The way you sort of have these ideas, you keep writing them down and then you just get so overwhelmed because you're like, I've got like a thousand things here. I don't know which, which one of these are good ideas, which one of these bad ideas, which ones I should act on. And you do. But I personally, I end up doing nothing because it's like, you know, it's easier than having to choose. But the thing that I noticed about users is again, that you look for those themes and if something is coming up over and over again, that's this, the signal for you that you should be doing something about it, or this is where you should be paying attention.

[Callum McIfree]

And then I'll just go, I'll just go and find my target audience and I'll go and have those conversations, hey, is this really a problem? What if there was this? And generally those conversations are the ones that will validate or, you know, not validate your idea. But I want one thing that you've got to be really careful of is you've got to make sure you, when you're speaking to your icp, who you think is your icp, but also speak to multiple people. You know, there's a. And. And try and filter out, you know, there's some people that will tell you you know, everything, every, you know, because they know you, they don't want to offend you. Great idea, great idea. And you've got to filter that out and you know, if you don't, you can go down the wrong path. But generally I'll always build an mvp. I'll do a bit of marketing and I'll see how that marketing resonates. So I'll put a small site up and I'll put some ads to it. I'll see what the click through rate is. I'll see how long they're staying on the page, what they're reading and that'll give me an idea and that will help me validate that idea. That'll give me an idea of, hey, this is working. This isn't working. You know, if someone's clicking an ad and then they're just shooting straight off, you've missed the mark. If they're not clicking the ad, you've missed a mark. So I'll kind of have a set benchmark in my mind what I want to achieve and then I'll go and take it to a few people after that. It's the great thing about the Internet, we can validate ideas really quickly.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a great example of just some simple things that you can do very quickly to figure out. I think it doesn't necessarily replace having the conversations with people, but complements each of those. Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, so we should wrap up. Let's get onto the lightning round. I've got seven quick fire questions for you. What's one of the best pieces of business advice you've received?

[Callum McIfree]

I generally don't listen to most people on business advice. Don't overspend. Probably it's just control your finances. Don't take venture capital too soon. That'd probably be my only one big one. And don't overspend.

[Omar Khan]

What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

[Callum McIfree]

There's loads of books I like 0 to 1 by Peter Thiel. Brilliant book if you're in the SAS space. Impossible to Inevitable by Jason Lemkin's. Jason Lemkin's book from Sasta. That's a great book. Phil Knight, Shoe Dog. Brilliant book. You know, it will get you through, you know, the challenges he faced in that book we all face as entrepreneurs. But they're very well written down and it'll make you feel better about yourself and just carry on.

[Omar Khan]

Love that. What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder?

[Callum McIfree]

Perseverance.

[Omar Khan]

What's your favorite personal productivity tool or.

[Callum McIfree]

Habit notes on Apple Making Notes. It's the best app on your phone.

[Omar Khan]

And now you can record and transcribe as well.

[Callum McIfree]

Right.

[Omar Khan]

So it makes it even easier.

[Callum McIfree]

Yeah, you can record, you can dump them into AI now and work them out, but generally it's just, you know, you've got this great. Your phone is the best tool.

[Omar Khan]

What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the time?

[Callum McIfree]

It'd probably be in the medical space. I'd love to build a low cost exoskeleton for children with special needs who can't use their legs. And actually there's too many young children who are disabled who don't have a physio on hand to make sure they're keeping moving. So I'd love to invest more time building out a solution for that. I think that'd be very worthwhile and a great product.

[Omar Khan]

Sounds amazing. What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

[Callum McIfree]

There's not many. I'm pretty boring. I focus pretty heavily. I'm a very deep thinker about technology and business. Yeah, that's it. I've watched the same TV show every night before I go to bed. The Office, the US version of the Office. That's what relaxes me.

[Omar Khan]

You've defected to the US version?

[Callum McIfree]

Yeah, yeah. I actually, weirdly, I've always preferred the US version to the UK version, but everybody, I tell that to my family and they're like, you're a traitor.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah, I had that. I grew up on the UK version and when I came, when I moved to the us, I didn't find the US version funny. And then after a while, I find the US version of Steve Carell a lot more funny and I go watch the British one. I'm like, oh, Ricky is not that funny. As much as I remember, it's kind of.

[Callum McIfree]

The two are totally different and they've both got the same name. That's the only similarity for me.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah. And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?

[Callum McIfree]

My kids. My family, by far.

[Omar Khan]

Awesome. Kant, thank you for joining me. Thank you for sharing the journey over those 10 last, I guess, 10 last 15 years. Congratulations on the exit, which for many reasons turned out to be the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. And maybe we'll invite you back and talk about Partner IO and what you do in the coming year or two with that business.

[Callum McIfree]

That'd be amazing. I'd love to be back on and give you the update.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah. Yeah, that would be awesome. So if people want to check out Partner IO, it's Partner IO. They can also go to Reviews IO to kind of learn more about what we were just talking about there. And if folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

[Callum McIfree]

Connect with me on LinkedIn. You know, let's, you know, I'm happy to give out any advice. If you need help with anything, hit me up on LinkedIn.

[Omar Khan]

Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Callum McIfree]

Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

[Omar Khan]

Yeah, I wish you the best of success. Cheers. If this episode got you thinking about building or scaling your own SaaS product, let me tell you about a resource that can help. Whether you need a complete technical team or want to scale your existing one, Gearhart might be exactly what you're looking for. They're a product development studio that specializes in building B2B SaaS platforms. What's interesting is that they can act as your fractional CTO and technical team, but with a unique twist. They've built strong connections in Silicon Valley and can even help connect you with VCs when you're ready. Plus, as a proud Ukrainian born company, they deliver Silicon Valley expertise with an offshore pricing model. They're offering our listeners free strategy sessions with their leadership team until the end of May. Visit Gearheart IO to book your session. That's Gearheart IO. Remember those auth and user management headaches we talked about earlier? If you're tired of your dev team getting bogged down with authentication issues, instead of building your core product, it's time to check out Propel auth. They take care of all the complex AUTH stuff from enterprise SSO to user analytics so you can focus on what really matters your product. Propel Auth integrates quickly for devs and provides built in tools for your customer facing teams. It's the full package. And don't forget our special offer. Sign up for a free [e-mail] you don't need a credit card. And when you're ready to scale, use code SAAS24 for 50% off their growth plan for six months. That's Propelauth.com it's time to stop struggling with AUTH and start growing your business.