How to stay close to your customers as a Founder – Chris Ronzio @ Trainual

Masters of SaaS

As a startup CEO, where do you spend most of your time as the company grows?
Common answer: in meetings;
Ideal answer: prioritising your customer base more

Chris Ronzio, CEO and founder of Trainual walks us through the lessons and key decisions that took the company from 0 to 5 Million ARR in just two and a half years.
By our standards, that's pretty impressive.
We also cover:
- how to approach unit economics as a SaaS startup
- the simple practice that helps him answer all the common messages he gets on his channels
- how to use customer feedback to drive your business
Links >>
Upraw media: https://uprawmedia.com/
Episode highlights: https://uprawmedia.com/blog/customers-trainual

If you are keen to know more about Upraw Media or be a Masters of SaaS guest speaker, visit uprawmedia.com or DM us on LinkedIn. We are also on Youtube if you'd like to put a face to the names and voices of the best in SaaS. Thanks for tuning in!

Chapters

1. How to stay close to your customers as a Founder – Chris Ronzio @ Trainual (00:00:00)

2. Introduction (00:01:40)

3. From 0 to 5 Million ARR in 30 months (00:02:45)

4. On growing your company efficiently (00:03:56)

5. How Trainual started (00:04:45)

6. On shifting from a consulting service to a full-fledged SaaS product (00:06:32)

7. Why you should treat services as paid R&D (00:07:24)

8. Trainual's product launch strategy (00:09:55)

9. How to approach unit economics as a SaaS startup (00:11:49)

10. Chris Ronzio's take on funding (00:18:07)

11. On determining a realistic growth rate for your company (00:21:15)

12. On product-led vs. human-led activation strategies (00:24:31)

13. On building an effective organisational structure (00:26:11)

14. Why you should spend more time with customers (00:28:10)

15. On managing customer feedback for your SaaS (00:29:10)

16. On leveraging other people's networks (00:33:25)

17. On adapting to the challenges of COVID-19 (00:38:19)

18. How Chris Ronzio protects his time (00:41:20)

19. On finding mentors (00:43:09)