# I've Coached 300+ SaaS Founders Past $1 Million ARR

Channel: Rob Walling
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfEcGeqOVjk
Duration: 19 min
Language: English
Words: 3220
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/RfEcGeqOVjk

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[0:00] Getting a SaaS company to a million in ARR is hard, but getting from one to 10 million breaks founders in a completely different way, and most of them never see it coming. I'm Rob Walling. I've invested in more than 240 SaaS companies, both personally and through TinySeed. And today, I'm talking with Julian Marzouki, one of our coaches at the TinySeed SaaS Institute. Julian has coached hundreds of seven- and eight-figure SaaS founders, and across all of those engagements, he sees the same six patterns show up again and again. His pattern number three is the one I was most guilty of when I was running my last startup. It burned me

[0:36] out, and I'll tell you that story when we get there. But to get started, I asked Julian why founders doing seven figures even look for a coach. These are people who have already won, so what's driving them? Usually, they're like done going about it alone. At this stage, they usually feel pretty lonely if they're around one to three million, isolated, and they want a thinking partner. They need help because usually their lives has become miserable, and overall, they need to change something. They realize that the way they've been doing it is not working anymore. In one sentence, they even though they don't say it like that, but

[1:16] what they feel is what got me here won't get me there, to 10 plus million. Now, if you're in a mastermind, you might figure that has you covered cuz I've been in masterminds for 15, 16 plus years, and I'm a big believer. But I asked Julian, what does a coach offer beyond that? A coach, ideally, a good coach, someone who's actually going to help you at this stage, has both domain expertise and coaching expertise. Meaning that they are able to both ask you the right questions based on what's going on in the business, but they're also able to recognize patterns. Patterns that they've seen because they've talked to

[1:56] dozens, as you said, or hundreds of people in that same situation. That's number one. Number two is a coach is not an operator, not just an operator. Meaning that usually when, you know, you're mentored by an operator, they're super strong technically and, you know, they're going to be able to help you basically do what they did. But, if you want to help someone play to their strength, then that's a little bit of a different game because the path that worked for you might not work for someone else because we have different strengths and you come to entrepreneurship from different journeys. Some are sales experts, some are great marketers, some are amazing

[2:38] product people and developers. So, if you have [snorts] someone that is exactly like you, then great. But, for all the other cases, having this actual skill of coaching is actually it is going to unleash much more. All right. So, onto the six patterns that Julian recognizes from the hundreds of founders he's coached. A few of these

[3:00] are going to sting. Pattern number one. The first one, which is really like at this stage, the defining moment, is the operator who hasn't become yet a leader. So, basically, at 1 to 3 million, the founder is the growth engine. They're the ones who built the growth, who've been doing it all. The problem is that, in order to get to 10 million, it needs to change. And they need to be able to remove themselves from the equation to build the system, to empower their team in order for the business to run without them, ideally. That's the goal. And so, what's tricky is you have, very often,

[3:42] an identity shift that needs to happen because what got them here, being a great salesperson, being a great developer, being a great marketer, there is self-worth tied to it. And so, you're basically asking them what's been your greatest strength, what got you all this success, now actually get rid of it. We don't want it anymore. You need to be able to put your focus on a different system, and to your people, and to build a machine that can run without you. And that's a big deal. That's a big deal for them because it's basically who they are at this point. It takes a second. This is something that you can surface very

[4:25] often. In the first session, I do a time audit. Very big picture, you know, but like I take the six functions, and I'm like, "Okay, how much of your time do you spend in each function?" You know, just a rough percentage. Every time there's a function that's beyond 40% in time spent in sales, product, marketing, you know it's going to be a topic, and it's going to take some work for them to

[4:46] actually let go. I like that lens. If 40% of your time is going into one function, that's probably the thing you need to start delegating. On to pattern number two, and this is one I see across Tiny Seed constantly. Number two, I think a lot of people will recognize the pattern, and not just founders, but founders at this stage specifically is doing too many things at once, right? So, you get on a on the session, one of the first sessions, and you realize that founders run five growth initiatives in parallel. And when you start, you know, questioning like, "But are you sure that you will be able

[5:23] to bring them all to fruition, and how come it's taking so long?" It's very difficult for them to let go because they think that it's saying no. No, I'm not going to do this. And actually, the reframe is we're not saying no, we're just saying not now. It's about sequencing, right? And, you know, very often you see like many different ICPs, different type of clients that founders are pursuing, even sometimes different sales motions, different acquisition channels. And there's one tool that I want to share with your audience that I found very helpful to focus and to help them focus. And the way it's useful is because there's no subjectivity about

[6:02] it. It's basically math. It's the sales velocity equation. I don't know if you've used that before, but basically, you take every segment, so let's say like I have this client for example, compliance SAS that sells into banks. It was going after national banks, regional banks, and community banks. And mostly regional and community. And the thing is, when we compare the sales velocity, the pipeline, the conversion rate, the sales cycle, and the deal size, like he spent a lot of time on the regional banks because they were 70K per deal versus the community banks that had, I think, like something like 30K per deal. The thing is, the sales cycle for the

[6:40] regional banks was 7 months versus 1 month for the community banks. So, basically, spending more time on the community banks after 6 months means basically 10 times the revenue. It's just math. And so, we're not saying we're never going to do the regional banks. We're just saying right now, the best use of your time is on these channel, these ICP, these motion, and

[7:02] these are the numbers to back it up. All right, on to pattern number three. This is the one I warned you about. The rescuing founder. The rescuing founder is basically team members come to him with problems, him or her, and they think it's faster, and it very often it is, short-term, to just take

[7:23] the problem and solve it themselves. They're not going to take time to actually work the problem with the team member in order for them to still own the problem. And the thing is, when you do that, what you're actually doing is you're teaching your team members, bring me problems instead of solutions. And so, you cannot grow like that. Basically, you are just in this loop where you are still the bottleneck. And so a few things that are extremely helpful here, the first one that I love, that I use very often, is the 10 80 10 rule. Probably know, basically just get involved in the first 10% of the task

[8:00] and the last 10% of the task. The 80% in the middle are your team members' responsibility. So be there to help frame, scope it out, share, be clear on the standards of expectation, and then be there at the end to actually get the project, the deliverable where you want it to be. This one has been helpful with clients. The second one is basically creating a system that fosters accountability. And that requires an operating rhythm, right? So weekly cadence. I like the model of one priority per week, three commitments on this priority, and and then a scorecard

[8:38] to measure it. Very simple, very clear. And you do need tools in order to create delegation. Otherwise, it's very hard for a founder from nothing to create a new system. So those tools actually I very much rely on them when I in my work with clients because it gives them something that they can do to start, you

[8:57] know, the the transition. Of all six patterns, this is the one I fell into the most while growing my last startup, Drip. I like helping people. I like solving problems. Gives me energy. In my personal life, one of my kids' car batteries died the other day, and I genuinely enjoyed walking them through calling AAA. It's just who I am. In

[9:16] business, that same instinct wrecked me. At Drip, I was Mr. Swoop-in, Mr. Fix-it. I figured, I'm the founder, obviously I should solve all the problems. And by the time we were 10 people, I was still making every decision. The default for everything became, "Well, let's see what Rob thinks." It was my fault. I taught my team to work that way, and it burned me out. On to pattern number four. This one is actually maybe the actually I think it might be the most common one I see. It's the visibility problem disguised as a lead problem. Let me tell you more. How many clients come to a

[9:51] session and say, "We need more leads. We need more leads." Everyone. Most, right? And then you ask a few questions and you realize they don't know which channel produces the best customers. They don't know, you know, how, you know, the percentage that convert. They don't know where prospect drop in the funnel. Who expands, who churn. So, they actually don't know where is the bottleneck, what's to fix. And it's understandable when growth slows, the instinct is just to add, you know, more marketing, more sales, more tools. Actually, in most cases, it's getting the information where things break, where do we need to focus. And um just today talked to a a

[10:33] client and uh we've been working together for many months. Uh but he came, same thing, I need more leads, growth has stalled. We start working together and uh realized that, you know, he has a churn issue, turnover issue within his sales teams. Yeah, sales conversion rate. And you know, we start popping up the hood and uh he actually needs more technician to deliver on on his product to to avoid churn. The scripts of his sales teams are not good, you know, they need to be improved. The compensation of his sales team is not ad hoc. So, in just 6 months cuz I I actually asked him to um find out those

[11:08] data. Uh recently, you know, the LTV to CAC ratio went from high twos to four in 6 months just by doing the work on those. And so, those were actually the highest priorities for him, not more leads. And when you're that close to the metal, you usually can't see this yourself. I still deal with it today. I've been a founder for more than two decades, and the reason I get away without a coach right now is that I've gotten pretty good at knowing when I need outside eyes. Most founders haven't built that muscle yet. Without a standing session where someone asks, "Do you need a different point of view on this?" you

[11:43] can get stuck without knowing you're stuck. 100% and I'm obviously sharing this from a place of love and it's not about pointing fingers here. I've done all those things. Uh you know, had my uh business in New York for 6 years. I've been the bottleneck, been focused on the leads, been lecturing teammates. I've I've done them all. So, it's exactly how you said it. When you're close to the action, when you just have your nose in it day in day out, the pressure, you know, the expectations, it's difficult to have that visibility. Almost impossible if

[12:22] you don't have the right forum for it. Number five is the emotional reality of it all. All right. Something that comes up very often, founders tell me, "Most days I feel both encouraged and discouraged." This is something that comes back very often. And I think that's a very important reframe is you don't solve uncertainty with more thinking. You solve uncertainty through action. The founders who keep moving, they try to stick with momentum, keep executing, and that's how the emotional regulation happens in the best way and the fastest way. The ones that stop executing because of uncertainty and just get caught up in the thinking loop, it's usually getting worse. And I

[13:16] thought that was worth actually one spot in this list. This matches exactly with what we see at the Tiny Seed Accelerator. When people ask me which founders succeed, the answer is the ones who do a lot of things with a sense of urgency, and they're right more often than they're not. You don't have to be right 100% of the time or 90% of the time. If you're right 60% of the time, you're going to be doing pretty well. And these founders take action to gather data, act on that data, then gather more. Analysis paralysis hits builders especially hard because writing one more feature feels safe. It's fun. It's why we got into

[13:50] this. If you're a builder, if you're a maker, that's the fun part. Sending the cold DMs, putting yourself out there. That's the scary part. And it's the part that actually moves the needle. 100% short learning loops. Short learning loops, right? Do something, result, let's iterate. And it's very useful. I think founders at this stage,

[14:09] they don't want like general advice. They are drowning in advice. They want to be able to have something actionable. And usually to identify like what the highest leverage path to their next stage. And that's usually like action. Short learning loops. The last pattern is the most 2026 of them all. If you've been feeling the urge to bolt AI agents into every aspect

[14:31] of your business, listen up. Number six, I wanted to pick something that was related to this new AI era. And it's tricky because obviously there's so much going on. And it's in every conversation that I have. One thing that I wanted to highlight is the shiny object syndrome. So, very often the response to AI with the founders I work with is, I'm going to build a ton of agents. I'm going to build agents to do

[14:59] this, to do that. Agents, agents. Make no mistakes. Agents are great. I love them. But it's just like there are a number of things that sometimes need to happen before. And the first biggest challenge that I see at this stage is if you don't have clarity on your ICP, the use case that works for you, how your GTM is designed, you're going to be crushed by AI. The AI punishes fuzzy positioning, rewards clarity, rewards like ROI, clear deliverable. And some founders don't have that yet. And they can't capture the right data if they don't have clarity on their ICP on their use case. So they they cannot leverage

[15:41] AI for their own product. So there's a lot of work already there to be done. GTM first. Number two, like a lot depend on SEO still. And you probably saw SEO is declining like across the board. So usually before setting up a new agent, just what channel do you want to develop to counterbalance the the decrease of SEO? This needs to be intentional. And then last but not least is really like the information flow, right? So there is an opportunity to simplify everything with

[16:14] AI before adding more agents. You know, a lot of how a good GTM organizations have their structured is, you know, you will have SDR, AE, manager, you will have some rev up, some enablement. The thing is, if everybody is connected to the same information in real time and leveraging AI, well, there is a lot you don't need anymore actually because information is just flowing. And so I think it it impacts how

[16:40] organizations work. That's a big deal. It's really like you can really keep a tight team and get a lot done. And agents, they're they're there for everybody. Just make sure that like those fundamentals of your business are secure before like adding complexity. Before we wrapped, I asked Julian what working with him at SAS Institute

[17:02] actually looks like. Yeah, it's one session every two weeks plus the community. We get started with the first priority that's going to have an outsize impact on your business. We create one priority, three involvements until the next session. And if we need to add more, if we need to involve more team members, we can do that. But the relationship with the founder bi-weekly, that's the foundation of the coaching together with obviously the community of

[17:32] the SAS Institute. If you saw yourself in any of these six patterns, that's exactly what SAS Institute was built for. It's our coaching program for B2B SAS founders doing at least a million dollars in ARR. You get one-on-one coaching from people like Julian who've seen hundreds of companies at your stage, a community of peers wrestling with the same challenges, and high-end in-person events exclusively for seven-figure plus founders. Because surrounding yourself with other people at your level is often the unlock to breaking through the next plateau. To learn more and apply, head

[18:02] to SASinstitute.com. Every pattern Julian shared maps to a specific stage of growth, and knowing which stage you're in tells you which of these traps you're most likely standing in right now. I made a video breaking down the five phases of product-market fit, including the actual metrics that tell you where you are. Most founders doing more than a million are in phase four and don't realize what's between them and phase five. Watch that one next. If you found this video helpful,

[18:27] please give it a like and subscribe. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.

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