The SaaS Podcast - Building SaaS in the AI Era
Omer Khan
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Product-Market Fit: Why Excited Customers Still Said No | Salto
A customer wanted to hug him after the pitch. Six months later, she rejected the product. Rami Tamir learned that enthusiastic early feedback can be the most dangerous product-market fit signal. In this episode, founders will learn how Salto navigated misleading validation, created a new category, and rebuilt their go-to-market to reach 8-figure ARR. Rami shares why he refuses design partners, how he targets discretionary budgets to close enterprise deals faster, and what forced Salto to reprice and shift upmarket during the 2023 downturn. Salto has raised $69M from Bessemer, Lightspeed, Excel, and Salesforce Ventures and serves hundreds of enterprise customers. ==================================== ❤️ This episode is powered by Gearheart https://saasclub.io/gearheart Book a free 1:1 consultation: https://saasclub.io/gearheart/book ==================================== 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 Early enthusiasm is not product-market fit validation: Customers fill gaps with imagination when you pitch vague ideas. A prospect who wanted to hug Rami rejected the actual product six months later. 📉 Design partners can overfit your go-to-market: Rami turned down a $500K partnership that led nowhere. At another startup, a $1M first customer distorted strategy for a year. 💰 Price for discretionary budgets: Salto priced for director-level approval without procurement, enabling fast initial deals and expanding from there. 🔄 Reprice and move upmarket during downturns: When 2023 killed discretionary budgets, Salto raised prices and shifted to larger companies. 🏢 Two-layer event qualification: Filter for persona and ICP first, then engage. Medium-sized events outperform Dreamforce. ⚡ Automate event follow-up: Automated follow-up as the default ensures no hot leads fall through the cracks. Chapters What Salto does Three previous exits Revenue and funding Origin of the idea The misleading feedback trap Getting the first 10 customers Creating a new category Why design partners are dangerous Events that actually work Automating event follow-up Content marketing challenges Free tier for enterprise Outbound in 2025 Targeting discretionary budgets The 2023 downturn pivot Lightning round 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email SaaS Club Programs Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch Scale to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind 1:1 async coaching: https://saasclub.io/accelerate Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/440 Subscribe: https://saasclub.io/subscribe
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