#47 build in public. grow in public.

  ACQUISITION  ​  from my blog 🧉

1) The Sales Triangle: 80/20 and why your best customers matter most

80% of your SaaS growth comes from just 20% of your efforts.

The problem? Most teams get this wrong.

Not all customers are created equal. In SaaS, a small percentage of accounts generate the majority of revenue. This reflects Pareto's principle (80/20 rule):

• 20% of your customers generate 80% of your revenue.

• The other 80% contribute far less and often require more effort.

Customer selection is a critical part of growth.

Instead of trying to sell to everyone, focus on high-value customers who can generate long-term revenue.

Traditional GTM died last year. But nobody noticed because they were too busy building funnels.

In this post I share my thoughts on how to re-focus your growth efforts, and take the most of your budget.

by mariano martene 🧉

  ACQUISITION  ​ 

2) High-touch SaaS is taking over the AI world

Old Teams:

- Build automated onboarding flows
- Create product tutorials no one watches
- Design fancy activation sequences
- Push for self-serve scaling
- Marketing blasts mass content
- Sales sends automated sequences
- Support relies on help centers
- "We need more automation!"

New Teams:

- We're building a concierge-first AI business
- We won't need mass automation
- We'll grow deeper not wider
- Direct Slack channels with every VIP
- Personally train their AI agents
- Daily customer contact and support
- Growth through expertise and trust
- Everyone focused on 25 perfect customers

In a world of AI automation, PLG motions will struggle to get the job done.

Human connection and expertise is the path to real growth.

by Alex Turnbull

  POSITIONING  ​ 

3) Every startup should have a section like this on their landing page.

It’s clever because it addresses one of the biggest objections people have when they’re on the fence.

You don’t know how hard it is to use the product and you don’t have time to figure it out.

This is the kind of insight that comes from having many conversations with potential customers.

Uncover their fears and find a way to counter them in your messaging.

by Andrea Bossoni

  GROWTH  ​ 

4) Growth at all costs is out; now it's profitability first.

The next questions that go through many CEO's heads, are about reducing expenses. More specifically in our case:

— How do I reduce the cost of our engineering team?

The problem with reducing costs is that there's a hard limit. It's often not sufficient in order to reach profitability.

Open up your mind to this more interesting question, which has no associated hard limit:

— How can I make Engineering more profitable?

Most engineering departments I see are not optimised to generate PROFITS for their companies.

Product departments are more attuned to this, but for many reasons they often end up as overworked order-takers.

Are you a CTO, VP or Dir. of Engineering?
— Can you imagine delivering High Impact Business Outcomes, every sprint?

by Itzchak Sabo

  ACQUISITION  ​ 

Some good answers here, what would you do?

  GROW IN PUBLIC (new section!)  ​ 

I’m introducing a new section in the SaaS-HQ newsletter to track its growth. Every edition will include an update with three key insights.

• this is the first issue of 2025.

• I enriched all my subscribers using nrich.email

• next: understand my audience and talk with them.