The SaaS Podcast: Build, Launch & Scale Your SaaS
Episode Title: Product-Market Fit: From a School Project to $20M ARR
Host: Omer Khan
Guest: Gilles Bertout, Co-founder & CEO of Livestorm
Release Date: February 12, 2026
Episode Overview
In this insightful episode, Omer Khan interviews Gilles Bertout, the co-founder and CEO of Livestorm—a European webinar platform now generating nearly $20M ARR. Gilles recounts Livestorm’s unexpected journey: launched as a student project, weathering a disastrous product debut, experiencing explosive pandemic-driven growth, struggling with infrastructure and churn, repositioning in a crowded market, and ultimately transitioning from product-led growth (PLG) to enterprise sales.
The episode is a masterclass for SaaS founders, featuring hard-won lessons about product-market fit, iterative launches, using organic growth levers like SEO and Quora, and knowing when and how to redefine your go-to-market approach.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Origins: From University Project to Startup
- Challenge: Livestorm began as a final exam project in 2016, built by Gilles and his three co-founders at university.
- Problem Identified: Existing webinar solutions were cumbersome, IT-heavy, and not browser-based.
- Solution: They used new browser technology (WebRTC) to build a simple but robust webinar tool optimized for marketers.
"At one point we were like, whoa, we built something people like, what are we going to do with it? ...the risk is so minimal. Let's just roll with it and see what happens."
— Gilles [09:20]
2. The Infamous Launch: Turning Disaster into Loyalty
- Event: Their highly-anticipated launch webinar suffered an embarrassing technical glitch—when trying to invite a VIP guest, the CTO was accidentally shown on screen and openly announced a bug.
- Lesson: Even a disastrous first impression doesn’t doom a company if the core value resonates.
- Outcome: The “botched” launch attendee became a customer for five years.
“It’s a proof, actually, that you can actually do a very bad first impression and still make it in this world.”
— Gilles [10:48]
"I think launches is more of a timeline than a specific day. ...Just building up the engine, building up, you know, whatever sales or PLG motion you're building and getting those first 10, 15 customers... that's the product launch."
— Gilles [12:16]
3. Early Growth: Organic Engines & PLG
- Strategies:
- SEO: Wrote 3–4 articles per day, relentlessly targeting low-competition, high-intent keywords.
- Quora: Provided thoughtful, high-value answers where competitors were absent; drove 10–15% of organic traffic for five years.
- Co-marketing: Partnered with larger companies to piggyback on their audience.
- PLG (“Product-Led Growth”): 100% inbound early on—no outbound sales for the first 5–6 years; product demoed itself via usage.
"The first 10 was basic word of mouth inbound through different things we posted online and that was it... whoever is hosting webinars is hosting with participants. So they are basically soft demoing the product."
— Gilles [16:22]
4. Positioning: The Value of Focus and Niche
- Initial Differentiators:
- Browser-based, frictionless experience
- Not just video—integrated tools (landing pages, emails, analytics)
- Firm positioning for marketing & lead gen
- After COVID: Experimented with expanding into meetings and sales demos, which diluted the differentiation against Zoom, Teams, and other competitors.
- Pivot: Doubled down on their strongest vertical—enterprise marketers in Europe, especially in banking, pharma, and professional services.
"At one point we had a meeting product inside Livestorm...the longer the conversations, the lower the conversion rate...Now that the positioning is so narrow, you go straight to demoing the product."
— Gilles [21:09]
5. Surviving—and Thriving—During COVID
- Pandemic Surge: Revenue jumped from €2M to €9M ARR in 2020; support tickets soared from 200 to 20,000/month.
- Chaos Management: Infrastructure nearly buckled. The team threw cash at AWS to keep up, causing gross margins to nosedive temporarily—from 90% to 20%.
- Aftershocks: As the world reopened, customers who used Livestorm as a “virtual event” workaround for in-person events churned. But the core webinar use-case was resilient.
"I had like three people...they were used to have 200 tickets...and all of a sudden they have like 20,000 per month...One full day where we couldn't actually get the servers up from so much load."
— Gilles [23:39]
6. Shrinking to Win: Narrowing Focus After Growth
- Virtual Event Downturn: Recognized 15% of customers were using the product as a stopgap—and proactively repositioned, planning for those customers to churn post-pandemic.
- Lucky Break: Churn was limited to non-core users, and the specialized webinar use-case remained sticky.
"We knew that some people were actually using us and hacking the product for doing something else...Turns out we lost actually almost all of them. ...We were more comfortable afterwards."
— Gilles [30:56]
7. Going Upmarket: From PLG to Enterprise Sales
- Trigger: Attempted a Series C in 2022, but VC appetite had dried up. Decided to reach profitability and sell to bigger, stickier customers.
- Challenges: The existing sales team was adapted only to inbound, not outbound. Most revenue came from monthly self-serve customers—risky for churn.
- Overhaul: Rebuilt the sales team with more traditional outbound, enterprise-focused staff. Merged roles, streamlined for efficiency, hired AEs adept at pipeline creation.
"We had to reset the entire, almost entire sales team at some point...It was a big struggle to be very fair. But I think we're there. Yeah, we're there now."
— Gilles [50:10]
8. Product Philosophy: User Experience & Speed to Value
- Commodity Realization: Video is now a commodity; differentiation is in workflow and engagement.
- Guiding Metric: Reduced time to first event and time-to-value—median is now four minutes from signup to published event.
- Automation: Uses AI and integrated tooling to drive engagement, qualification, and ROI out of every webinar.
"The tipping point between choosing one or the other is not going to be on the video anymore because we're all using the same technology. It's going to be on the experience...making sure that anyone...can host in 1000 people event."
— Gilles [37:43]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On Doubt and Decision-Making:
"When there is a doubt, there is no doubt. ...It defaults you to certitudes, which I think is a good thing on some level."
— Gilles [05:17] -
On Launches:
"Product launch is more of a timeline than a specific day."
— Gilles [12:16] -
On PLG and Inbound Roots:
"I probably am one of the worst salesperson that you can find...so my knowledge was on building PLG motions."
— Gilles [14:09] -
On Surviving Explosive Growth:
"Honestly, looking back, it was probably the time where I never felt so connected to the team...when you act as one."
— Gilles [23:39] -
On Narrowing Positioning:
"The more we provide to the organizer, the happy they are...the happier they get."
— Gilles [37:43]
Timestamps of Key Segments
- 00:09 — Introduction to Livestorm and Gilles' background
- 07:45 — Livestorm's university project origins
- 10:48 — The buggy first launch webinar
- 12:16 — Philosophy of launching: it's a timeline
- 14:09 — Early growth tactics: SEO, Quora, and partnerships
- 19:30 — Initial differentiators from incumbents
- 21:09 — How niche positioning improved conversion and clarity
- 23:39 — Surviving and scaling through the COVID tidal wave
- 27:13 — Navigating the post-COVID downturn in virtual events
- 33:36 — Zoom competition and redefining Livestorm's market
- 37:43 — Product strategy: optimizing for marketer autonomy
- 45:52 — Transition from PLG to outbound sales
- 50:10 — Rebuilding the sales team and going enterprise
- 53:56 — Reflections on entrepreneurial motivation
- 55:14 — Lightning round: favorite advice, books, productivity, etc.
Episode Takeaways
- Your launch will probably be messy—and that’s okay. Product-market fit is forged over time.
- Organic growth channels (SEO, Quora) can produce lasting results if you go where competitors won’t.
- Surviving rocketship growth means making quick, sometimes expensive decisions—but maintaining a clear sense of core value and market focus.
- Narrow, deeply relevant positioning converts more effectively than broad, diluted messaging.
- Shifting from PLG to enterprise sales is a profound cultural shift requiring new skills and team structures.
- User experience, time-to-value, and workflow matter more than raw features in crowded, commoditized markets.
Livestorm Website: livestorm.co / livestorm.com
Connect with Gilles: LinkedIn
Highly recommended episode for SaaS founders seeking practical, unvarnished guidance through the chaos of scaling and repositioning a SaaS business. Gilles is candid, practical, and generously shares both wins and scars.