How This $250K/Month SaaS Got Its First 100 Users
Starter Story
Mar 12, 2026
This is the story of how a $3M/year business got its first 100 paying customers. Every tactic, step by step, so you can do the same.
Get the free $1M Solopreneur MVP guide: https://clickhubspot.com/vgk
Follow Joseph: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhylee/
Check out Supademo: https://supademo.com/
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters:
0:00 - The $3M SaaS
1:29 - App overview and data
2:30 - Founder background
3:38 - Early app validation
4:30 - First 100 customers (part 1)
6:35 - Find your $1M MVP
7:32 - First 100 customers (part 2)
8:03 - Do things that don't scale
9:08 - Be everywhere your users are
10:00 - What early saas founders get wrong
10:52 - App demo
12:38 - Tech stack
13:23 - One piece of advice
14:09 - Pat's reflections
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
No tools listed for this business.
I've
now
scaled
two
separate
products
to
over
three
million
in
annual
recurring
revenue
This
is
Joseph
and
his
SAS
makes
over
250
000
a
month
month
but
this
episode
is
not
how
to
go
viral
on
Tik
TOK
or
get
millions
of
downloads
Nope
This
video
is
about
a
foolproof
way
to
get
your
first
100
paying
SAS
customers
because
if
you
can
get
100
you
can
get
thousands
When
it
comes
to
the
first
100
customers
capture
the
low
hanging
fruits
I
brought
Joseph
onto
the
channel
to
break
down
his
exact
steps
to
go
from
zero
to
100
customers
fast
And
in
this
episode
we'll
dive
into
what
you
can
do
in
the
next
hour
to
rank
on
search
engines
Why
trolling
subreddits
can
actually
turn
into
a
million
dollar
business
and
the
exact
playbook
that
you
can
follow
If
you're
starting
over
with
a
new
SAS
in
2026
if
you're
building
anything
in
SAS
right
now
well
this
is
an
episode
you
cannot
miss
All
right
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
walls
and
this
is
starter
story
All
right
Joseph
welcome
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
Thanks
for
having
me
Pat
I'm
Joe
Joseph
I've
now
scaled
two
separate
products
to
over
3
million
in
annual
current
revenue
And
I'm
currently
building
a
company
called
SuperDemo
an
AI
powered
demo
automation
tool
that
helps
companies
create
better
more
exceptional
product
demos
in
minutes
instead
of
hours
We
launched
SuperDemo
around
two
and
a
half
years
ago
now
And
in
that
time
we've
gone
from
zero
to
150
000
plus
users
over
3
million
in
annual
recurring
revenue
And
we
were
named
G2's
number
five
fastest
growing
product
in
2025
All
right
before
we
get
into
how
you
built
the
SAS
and
how
you
got
all
these
customers
I
want
to
understand
what
this
product
is
Is
it
a
SAS
What
does
it
do
Can
you
explain
that
It
helps
companies
create
interactive
demos
which
are
kind
of
guided
clickable
realistic
versions
of
your
product
that
can
be
embedded
anywhere
on
the
web
whether
it's
on
your
website
or
in
your
documentation
This
is
an
example
of
a
SuperDemo
in
action
And
as
you
can
see
it
looks
and
feels
just
like
your
actual
product
because
it's
a
clone
of
your
product
but
it
allows
people
to
experience
your
aha
moment
and
what
your
product
does
without
having
to
sign
up
for
a
plan
or
talk
to
a
salesperson
We
are
a
product
led
growth
SAS
company
So
most
of
our
traffic
actually
does
come
from
our
starter
or
freemium
tier
And
we
look
at
that
as
our
number
one
engine
for
growth
But
as
you
can
see
here
if
I
go
back
into
the
metrics
tab
here's
our
ARR
It's
slightly
over
3
million
You
can
see
the
number
of
demos
Currently
we're
doing
just
over
250
K
in
MRR
and
we
are
growing
every
month
So
it's
a
pretty
exciting
time
to
be
around
Thanks
for
showing
that
I'm
really
excited
to
talk
about
building
a
SAS
getting
your
first
users
as
a
SAS
especially
in
B2B
I'm
excited
But
before
we
do
I
want
to
understand
a
little
bit
more
about
your
background
How
do
you
even
get
to
the
point
where
you
have
this
SAS
that's
making
multimillion
dollars
per
year
I've
always
growing
up
in
a
builder
by
heart
I
started
my
first
projects
and
businesses
at
the
age
of
14
and
15
not
because
I
wanted
to
be
a
founder
but
I
was
so
enamored
with
the
process
of
building
That
started
with
me
buying
and
selling
electronics
on
Craigslist
I
started
an
organic
soy
candle
business
I
also
started
a
clothing
company
a
digital
agency
all
the
way
to
running
my
first
venture
funded
company
in
college
where
we
built
a
B2B
seafood
marketplace
I
think
throughout
all
of
those
endeavors
one
constant
problem
that
I
ran
into
over
and
over
again
was
it's
really
difficult
to
demonstrate
the
value
of
your
product
the
benefits
And
after
doing
a
lot
of
video
recordings
a
lot
of
looms
having
it
constantly
be
out
of
date
and
not
just
watched
by
the
buyers
themselves
I
figured
there
had
to
be
a
better
way
And
it
was
one
of
those
ideas
that
I
kept
in
my
back
pocket
And
when
I
left
that
company
kind
of
came
back
to
the
drawing
board
This
was
the
one
I
settled
on
Going
off
the
topic
a
little
bit
obviously
this
is
a
huge
business
now
It's
doing
multimillions
in
revenue
What
did
that
first
early
validation
look
like
Was
it
just
good
to
go
right
when
you
first
built
it
Or
what
did
that
early
days
look
like
The
number
one
thing
is
I
knew
that
this
was
a
problem
that
I
had
as
a
business
builder
having
built
businesses
for
a
long
time
And
the
next
step
was
do
other
people
face
the
same
concerns
And
what
are
they
doing
as
a
workaround
to
try
to
solve
that
problem
So
I
ended
up
talking
to
probably
a
hundred
plus
founders
that
were
working
in
the
B2B
SaaS
industry
And
I
think
the
unifying
concern
was
yes
this
was
a
really
painful
problem
People
hated
creating
product
demos
People
hated
the
sounds
of
their
own
voice
And
that's
when
I
realized
hey
there's
something
to
run
with
here
Let's
build
the
one
of
an
experiment
where
we
could
say
hey
can
we
sell
this
thing
Are
people
willing
to
pay
Okay
cool
So
you
have
this
idea
you
know
it
might
be
a
good
problem
to
solve
And
one
of
the
reasons
why
I
wanted
to
bring
you
on
the
channel
is
you
had
an
interesting
strategy
on
how
to
get
your
first
hundred
customers
in
a
SaaS
That's
so
important
If
you
can
find
a
hundred
people
that
want
to
use
and
pay
for
your
product
you're
pretty
much
set
Everything
should
hopefully
keep
growing
after
that
So
I
want
to
dive
into
the
actual
playbook
If
you
were
to
start
over
today
how
would
you
go
about
it
right
now
to
get
those
first
one
hundred
customers
So
I
would
say
when
it
comes
to
the
first
one
hundred
customers
I'd
go
back
to
my
first
step
of
the
playbook
which
is
the
low
hanging
fruit
capturing
the
obvious
demand
first
So
what
we
did
early
on
is
we
focused
on
people
that
were
already
searching
for
a
What
that
meant
was
crafting
valuable
content
and
using
that
as
the
main
engine
across
the
whole
funnel
So
we
ended
up
creating
SEO
pieces
at
the
top
middle
as
well
as
the
bottom
of
the
funnel
funnel
And
in
practice
what
that
meant
in
the
bottom
of
funnel
is
detailed
comparison
pages
pitting
super
demo
against
our
competitors
And
when
I
mean
competitors
I
mean
every
competitor
that
you
can
find
in
your
space
because
that's
the
easiest
way
to
piggyback
off
of
their
traffic
And
we
use
that
to
quickly
establish
an
imperfect
but
live
version
1
0
of
pages
that
would
get
us
ranked
and
mentioned
in
LLMs
early
on
in
the
market
figuring
out
which
competitor
pages
are
actually
being
cited
and
picking
up
traction
And
those
are
the
ones
that
we
would
go
in
and
optimize
Then
it
was
all
about
going
to
the
mid
funnel
people
that
are
a
little
bit
higher
intent
What
we
ended
up
doing
is
we
created
dozens
and
dozens
of
free
tools
in
adjacent
spaces
like
screenshots
SOPs
Our
twist
here
was
instead
of
back
then
when
we
built
these
tools
we
didn't
have
cloud
code
We
made
our
entire
product
experience
ungated
so
people
didn't
have
to
sign
up
for
an
account
or
set
up
a
free
trial
They
could
access
certain
areas
or
sections
of
our
product
that
would
let
people
take
screenshots
or
create
tutorials
The
end
result
here
customers
would
land
on
the
page
and
quickly
find
value
Today
I
think
these
free
tools
bring
in
roughly
20
percent
of
all
of
our
traffic
and
converts
like
15
to
20
percent
of
all
visitors
What
I
love
about
Joseph's
strategy
is
that
it's
not
sexy
It's
the
stuff
that
actually
works
if
you
want
to
build
a
successful
business
So
if
you
have
an
idea
but
you're
still
a
little
stuck
on
how
to
turn
it
into
something
real
stop
building
in
the
dark
Something
that
Joseph
talked
about
was
launching
parts
of
his
app
for
free
I
call
this
free
tool
marketing
And
it's
one
of
the
eight
strategies
I
wrote
about
in
my
million
dollar
MVP
guide
You
can
download
this
guide
for
free
right
now
And
inside
you
will
get
actionable
approaches
ranked
by
how
fast
you
can
ship
them
Over
10
case
studies
of
founders
who
use
these
exact
methods
to
hit
over
a
million
million
dollars
and
the
validation
framework
you
can
use
so
you
don't
waste
months
building
product
nobody
wants
Look
this
stuff
isn't
made
up
This
is
all
the
stuff
that
I
see
from
founders
who
come
on
this
channel
who
built
successful
businesses
And
I
put
it
all
in
one
place
for
you
to
check
out
This
is
the
exact
roadmap
I
would
use
to
validate
my
idea
and
start
building
in
2026
So
click
the
link
in
the
description
to
grab
the
one
million
dollar
MVP
guide
for
free
Now
back
to
the
episode
Finally
on
the
top
of
funnel
what
we
ended
up
doing
is
we
created
step
by
step
interactive
demos
using
super
demo
of
thousands
of
different
workflows
and
keywords
And
we
would
create
SEO
focused
again
programmatic
pages
with
super
demos
embedded
how
to
export
Figma
to
PDF
or
how
to
merge
cells
on
Excel
And
our
bet
was
by
solving
their
question
in
an
interactive
and
engaging
way
and
putting
our
product
front
and
center
Enough
of
them
would
be
within
our
ICP
to
say
hey
this
is
really
cool
for
step
two
of
our
playbook
It
was
all
about
as
cliche
as
it
sounds
doing
things
that
don't
scale
to
remove
friction
for
buyers
So
I
personally
offer
to
create
free
super
demo
for
founders
on
Reddit
as
well
as
indie
hackers
And
what
I
asked
them
to
do
is
post
their
product
URL
I
would
take
that
and
I
would
actually
go
ahead
and
create
the
super
demo
of
their
product
for
them
Then
I
would
comment
in
line
on
their
post
with
the
interactive
demo
so
that
they
can
just
sign
up
duplicate
the
demo
and
start
using
it
right
away
And
the
added
benefit
of
doing
that
publicly
was
that
other
people
who
hadn't
even
commented
would
see
all
of
the
other
products
and
the
links
being
posted
It
would
click
it
interact
with
it
and
say
whoa
this
is
really
cool
I'm
going
to
ask
him
to
create
me
a
demo
or
I'm
just
going
to
sign
up
and
do
it
myself
because
it
looks
easy
We
did
permutations
of
that
across
many
many
different
channels
There's
something
very
common
that
I
see
with
a
lot
of
founders
who
come
on
Starter
Story
I
like
to
call
it
hand
to
hand
combat
just
going
in
and
doing
things
one
by
one
Yeah
you
don't
have
to
do
that
forever
but
if
you
can
do
that
a
hundred
times
a
percentage
percentage
of
those
likely
will
turn
into
customers
just
by
this
new
things
that
don't
scale
So
I
really
like
that
What's
the
third
step
Third
is
just
be
everywhere
where
your
users
are
I
think
the
challenging
thing
about
distribution
nowadays
in
2026
is
there's
no
magic
channel
anymore
There's
no
gotchas
So
for
us
it
was
all
about
how
do
we
get
distribution
density
So
that
was
SEO
and
AI
LLMs
as
I
mentioned
through
content
living
and
breathing
in
communities
and
even
doing
things
like
direct
outreach
through
the
product
updates
building
in
public
in
LinkedIn
and
on
Indie
Hacker
and
just
sharing
our
story
and
being
a
megaphone
as
much
as
you
can
in
places
where
founders
pay
attention
just
like
here
on
Starter
Story
Roughly
30
40
percent
of
our
visitors
come
from
SEO
and
LLMs
A
30
percent
comes
from
word
of
mouth
watermarks
referrals
folks
creating
super
demos
and
sharing
it
with
other
people
and
that
creating
a
viral
loop
And
third
20
percent
building
in
public
on
LinkedIn
OK
well
thanks
for
sharing
that
playbook
That's
amazing
I
think
a
lot
of
people
watching
this
are
hey
I
got
a
SAS
idea
I
have
an
actual
SAS
MVP
I
have
some
customers
I'm
sure
you
get
a
lot
of
people
that
reach
out
to
you
and
go
hey
how
did
you
do
it
How
did
you
do
three
million
ARR
Even
if
you've
given
these
people
some
advice
what
do
you
typically
see
early
SAS
founders
getting
wrong
when
they
start
out
I
think
the
biggest
thing
that
comes
to
mind
for
me
I
would
say
it's
not
launching
yesterday
and
chasing
perfection
earlier
You
can
launch
the
faster
results
compound
and
the
faster
you
find
out
do
I
need
to
kill
this
thing
Can
we
scale
this
thing
with
data
or
do
we
need
to
pivot
and
reorient
The
cliche
advice
that
a
lot
of
people
give
is
if
you're
not
embarrassed
by
the
first
version
of
your
product
you've
launched
too
late
I
don't
think
that
holds
true
in
the
sense
that
every
product
should
have
great
craftsmanship
in
the
AI
first
era
But
as
a
founder
the
only
advantage
you
have
over
an
incumbent
is
urgency
and
speed
Yeah
I
like
that
advice
My
first
question
that
comes
to
mind
is
like
OK
why
would
I
pay
for
this
if
I
could
just
use
Loom
And
there
are
a
lot
of
other
cool
product
demo
tools
out
there
but
yours
is
actually
crushing
it
So
I'd
love
if
you
could
give
me
just
a
quick
demo
how
it
works
So
I'm
going
to
go
right
into
this
banking
app
So
you
can
create
a
super
demo
in
a
variety
of
different
ways
The
easiest
place
to
start
is
our
Chrome
extension
When
you
click
this
button
you're
going
to
get
a
few
different
options
here
that
signify
different
demo
types
I'm
going
to
click
the
guided
HTML
here
and
I'm
going
to
start
the
recording
You
just
need
to
click
through
the
workflow
or
the
features
or
the
pages
that
you
want
to
demonstrate
out
Maybe
I'm
creating
for
this
use
case
an
onboarding
demo
of
how
you
can
go
about
tagging
transactions
directly
here
on
Mercury
I
want
to
show
the
customer
how
to
categorize
transactions
here
So
I'm
just
going
to
emulate
and
walk
through
that
step
And
let's
for
example
put
this
under
venue
rental
Now
that
it's
been
categorized
you'll
notice
that
super
demo
is
recording
all
of
your
clicks
and
actions
And
from
here
you
can
choose
to
stop
the
recording
It's
actually
going
to
clone
all
of
the
steps
You'll
get
things
in
a
modular
kind
of
editable
editor
that
looks
and
feels
like
a
PowerPoint
slide
And
you
can
easily
go
in
and
make
changes
as
you
go
over
time
I'll
just
show
you
what
it
looks
like
to
the
end
viewer
So
you'll
notice
we
created
this
in
like
two
minutes
It
cloned
the
entire
front
end
So
through
a
link
people
can
essentially
access
your
app
or
access
your
product
experience
That's
like
the
super
high
level
TLDR
But
you
can
obviously
go
in
and
do
things
like
adding
chapters
You
can
go
in
and
edit
the
HTML
and
use
one
demo
template
for
hundreds
of
different
leads
You
could
put
in
like
voiceovers
You
can
clone
your
own
voice
And
if
you
do
want
like
a
loom
like
experience
you
could
also
record
your
face
and
camera
here
Wow
Thanks
for
showing
that
Super
cool
It's
like
instead
of
a
video
it's
like
actually
just
saving
all
the
HTML
And
that's
pretty
impressive
How's
this
built
What's
the
tech
stack
here
We're
growing
really
quickly
So
I'd
say
we're
like
rotating
through
like
50
plus
different
tools
every
single
month
But
at
a
high
level
we
obviously
use
SuperDemo
for
demoing
our
product
for
onboarding
for
training
We
use
Cloud
Code
Cursor
Codex
very
very
extensively
So
we
kind
of
switch
between
the
three
depending
on
what's
the
best
model
or
most
performant
We
use
Linear
for
task
management
Linear
is
also
super
powerful
for
like
connecting
to
Slack
and
also
connecting
to
Cloud
We
use
AWS
for
hosting
I
use
Postmark
for
transactional
emails
We
use
Intercom
for
more
triggered
workflows
and
onboarding
and
for
marketing
emails
and
support
A
bunch
of
other
tools
like
Ahrefs
Clay
Zapier
for
a
bunch
of
GTM
and
CS
efforts
Well
thanks
for
sharing
that
Last
question
that
we
ask
everyone
who
comes
on
Starter
Story
or
for
anyone
who's
watching
this
that
wants
to
start
a
SaaS
What
would
be
your
one
piece
of
advice
advice
I'd
say
stop
obsessing
over
the
competition
and
the
idea
and
just
start
building
If
you
identify
the
right
problem
the
world
is
a
very
very
big
place
There's
more
than
enough
market
in
most
places
for
everyone
Most
companies
I
would
say
die
if
they
do
die
by
s**t
and
internal
combustion
than
by
s**t
or
by
competition
So
just
get
going
and
start
building
Well
thanks
Joseph
for
coming
on
and
sharing
all
this
It
is
crazy
to
see
that
very
niche
product
can
do
three
million
dollars
a
year
and
I'm
still
growing
This
is
the
future
This
is
building
an
A
I
This
is
SaaS
It's
not
going
anywhere
So
thanks
for
coming
on
and
sharing
everything
so
transparently
and
inspiring
others
Cool
Thanks
for
having
me
Pat
If
you're
watching
this
far
and
you
want
to
build
a
SaaS
I
think
that
his
playbook
to
100
customers
is
really
good
And
it's
the
right
way
of
thinking
when
you're
starting
a
SaaS
I
don't
want
to
be
thinking
about
how
do
I
get
10
000
customers
How
do
I
get
1
000
customers
How
do
I
get
10
customers
Because
if
you
can
get
10
paying
customers
that
don't
churn
right
away
for
your
SaaS
you
know
you
can
go
get
more
Last
thing
I
want
to
shout
out
if
you
are
looking
for
your
SaaS
idea
and
you
want
to
build
it
and
get
it
in
the
hands
of
customers
in
just
a
few
days
you
can
do
that
with
A
I
Now
you
should
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
Click
that
link
in
the
description
You
can
get
started
You
can
build
and
launch
something
very
quickly
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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