The SaaS Podcast - Building SaaS in the AI Era
Omer Khan
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Bootstrapped SaaS: 5 Years of Nights & Weekends to $10M ARR | Accelevents
Jonathan Kazarian built Accelevents to $10 million ARR working nights and weekends for five years while keeping his hedge fund day job. But when COVID hit just as he went full-time, every event worldwide got canceled and revenue dropped to zero – forcing him to borrow $75,000 from his father's retirement to survive. In this episode, Jonathan reveals the reality of bootstrapping a global platform without quitting your day job. He shares the brutal truth about hiring remote developers (firing 21 Upwork contractors to find one good one), the "19-Second Support" strategy that wins enterprise deals, and how they survived their entire revenue stream vanishing overnight during COVID by pivoting to virtual events. This episode is brought to you by: 💖 Gearheart → Book a free strategy session + get 20% off select services 🚀 SaaS Club Launch → Build your SaaS to $10K MRR 🔑 Key Lessons ⏰ The 5-Year Grind: Balancing a hedge fund job with a growing SaaS (and why he didn't quit sooner). 📉 The COVID Crisis: Losing 100% of revenue in March 2020 and 10X'ing it by December. 🛠️ Hiring Mistakes: Why he had to fire 21 remote developers to build a stable product. 🍽️ Event-Led Growth: Hosting intimate dinners to close high-value customers without pitching. ⚡ 19-Second Support: The customer success metric that beats competitors with bigger budgets. 📖 Chapters Introduction & The Charlie Munger Quote The Origin Story: A Cancer Fundraiser Event The 5-Year Grind: Nights & Weekends Hiring Disasters: Going Through 21 Upwork Contractors The COVID Crisis: Revenue Going to Zero The Pivot: Pre-Selling Virtual Features Before Building Them Event-Led Growth: Hosting Dinners to Win Customers B2B Sales Strategy & Consolidating Tech Stacks The "19-Second" Customer Support Standard Advice for Founders on Focus 💌 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 from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/455 Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe
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