Laid off
I was laid off today after two years as the sole marketer at a seed-stage startup. In that time, we took it from essentially pre-revenue to 1M ARR in less than 18 months.
During the first two quarters of this year, we were going gangbusters. We were on track to raise at least 20 million and scale this thing up.
Then, the market crashed.
It was like, overnight, everything evaporated.
Our inbound funnel dropped by 50% in a month. Our close rate on deals went from 50% to almost zero.
At that time, our main competitor announced another funding round that brought them to $90 million while we were still surviving off our seed round.
I literally gave this my all.
Including my final few days when I, along with my wife and children, were sick with COVID. I tried everything I could to salvage my position, but someone had to take the fall, and the runway needed to be extended.
So here I am, ready to start something new. Unlike previous situations, my wife is soon to start working and will be able to take care of health insurance for our family. This gives me a lot more freedom to explore all that's possible.
My plan is to take project work while I figure out where to put my focus. I have pretty extensive experience in all areas of B2B SaaS marketing; I've been doing it for over a decade. Given the layoffs, I would imagine there are a lot of things at various companies that need management.
I have had a running list for years of "billion dollar ideas" (I'm sure you all have something similar). Some are great; some are pretty dumb. My lack of dev skills is usually the barrier for me. I have scratched the surface on the no-code movement, but fairly confident that I could master it if given the time.
Anyways, there was no real point to this, but to say - times are tough. A lot of folks are about to be in the same position I am in. But it's pretty clear that this is a great time to try to build something so that when market conditions change in the next 2-3 years, you are well positioned to capitalize.
If anyone wants to chat or has questions about early-stage, organic marketing strategies for SaaS, feel free to reach out.
🔥 Roast My Landing Page
I love that you're seeing this as the opportunity it is — to take everything you've learned and use it to build something for yourself!
My advice is to take on project work like you said, but not full-time. Do only enough of that to scrape by so that you can focus on your new product. Start by building an MVP in no-code, validate it, get some users, and then find a technical co-founder to take it from there.
I bookmarked these two posts about co-founders a while back, maybe they'll be helpful.
I'll probably be posting here and on LinkedIn (once I recover) with updates on my journey, as well as some of the things I learned over the last two years that helped us grow. You can find me on LinkedIn here: https://linkedin.com/in/markzlerner
hey Mark, I'm really sorry to hear about your situation, sounds incredibly disappointing. With your expertise you'll find something else in no time, just focus on getting better from covid and take a few weeks to process the lay off - it can be quite traumatic and it's important not to jump straight into something else immediately if you have that choice!
I've sent a connection request on Linkedin, definitely curious to pick your brains about B2B organic marketing, so feel free to reach out when things are more settled.
Sad to hear that, but also a great opportunity to build something new while you freelance.
It looks like your former company is hiring a Marketing Manager. So what was the point in the layoff? You can't grow without marketing personnel.
Yeh, I think it was a critical mistake and I hope they work with someone. I do think there’s a feeling that they could do my job, like “that’s not so hard.”
We’ll see how that shakes out.
Lol. I wrote that JD. We were looking to hire for a growth role but I was spending so much of my time trying to recruit that it just made more sense to work with a consultant. Eventually I took on all of those tasks. I don’t think they are removing any jobs because of how it might look, but they are not hiring.
Wanted to give a huge thank you to all the kind words and the folks reaching out. I'm still dealing with COVID (my oldest son, the final hold out, finally came down with it this morning), so I haven't been able to start much of anything.
I do plan on doing some version of "building in public," though I am not sure what (if anything) I would build. I know I have some value I could provide for other folks in early stage startups, so I may start documenting that. Still thinking about which medium to use - I'd love to go the route of a YouTube channel. We'll see.
Stay tuned.
hope you recover from covid soon. It is unfortunate that you were laid off while sick but i like your positive attitude. Marketing for saas is a black art not everyone has the chops for it you will find new job easily.
Sorry to hear this.
As a fellow marketer that doesn't have dev skills, I hope we'll both be able to overcome this barrier.
Reading this inspired me to start learning to code recently: https://www.productlessons.xyz/article/learn-to-code-when-no-code-tools-fail
Good luck!
Nice love this! Way to stay positive and to think about this for what it is: An opportunity!
Following along on IH is a good way to get inspired on your next idea for a build. Keep in mind that many of the things on here are for devs and by devs though. there are lots of good news sites too about indie hacker successes and I've found those to be helpful.
cheers on your next adventure!
After failure I try to keep in mind that the only thing that matters is what you do after you lose.
Your loss will soon be irrelevant.
I completely agree with you btw, now is a great time to build something to setup for market conditions.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Thanks for that.
I actually don't see this as a failure at all.
In fact, looking back at what we did, it's something I am really proud of. We were a company of less than 20 people, with a marketing team of one (me) that was going head to head with a Salesforce product and another competitor that was literally 10x the size and had 10x the money.
In Q1 and Q2 we were on a trajectory of really significant growth revenue-wise. During the time I was there, our user base grew something like 10x.
My goal, beyond the company's success (always #1), was to give the impression to the world that we were far bigger than we actually were. Based on peoples' reactions when I told them I was the entire marketing team, I think I was able to accomplish that as well.
So if anything, this may have been one of the most successful periods of my career!
That's so epic. Props to you @molern.
Thanks. I hope I can remain as positive as I feel now. I really feel like there is a lot of opportunities to capitalize on the unfortunate fact that so many companies are letting valuable people go right now. Everyone is going to need someone with experience, such as running a HubSpot instance, to manage those critical tasks. If I could capture even a fraction of that need, I could potentially retain or exceed my previous income while giving myself more time to do the things I want to do.
Maybe that's a pipedream, I have about two months of runway to figure it out.
I'm on my last month of runway so I feel you.
Treat those days like the days of your last week of runway. You got this.
Since you have that much experience, have you ever thought of making a course or small guide for SaaS founders like us?
In my opinion, being a good marketer at the moment is the best skill to have.
I'm working on a SaaS and don't have any idea how to promote it except doing a launch everywhere and maybe running some random paid ads. Do you know a book or course that you can recommend for someone like me?
From your perspective, what are some of the things you'd want from a course, guide, etc... what are the specific challenges you are facing?
The thought of doing something like this has occurred to me, but I am very hesitant.
Here's why:
There are soooo many BS "coaches" trying to sucker folks into their "course." Obviously, some are super valuable, but all I have to do is watch all the YouTube ads that get shown to me to know there's an entire industry of people that are full of it.
That said, I know I have a lot of experience and tangible tips I could provide. So I have to think about how I would frame it. I would want to make sure, upfront, that everyone knew that I made no promises about outcomes. No "you'll make $10,000,000 on LinkedIn ads with this one simple trick." (anyone who promises this to you is a scam artist).
Not the OP but here is what i want
Once i get to the demo stage i can take it further but getting to that stage looks an uphill task to me.
I think you should create a landing page for the course and see the response you get based on that you can decide if you want to pursue it or not. If you need any help on the technical side i am willing to do it for free for the free copy of the course ;-) .
I meant to respond yesterday, but it's still a bit hectic around here with the COVID.
So what you've described here is actually less marketing and more outbound sales/prospectingl; at least #2 and #3.
I like to think of the analogy of nets and spears. With a spear, you can go hunting and kill one animal. One spear, one potential kill. With a net, you have the opportunity to set it and catch many animals.
See the difference?
Here's my take based on what you are asking.
#1: I'd have to know more about the tool, your target market, and the ideal buyer. Though the developer is the end-user, it sounds like they are not the decision maker.
That's not all that uncommon.
I would imagine most developers report to a Head or VP of engineering or CTO, so that might be your best target. You have first to understand what benefit your tool has on them; how it improve their lives, not just the developers. This may be something like reducing errors in code, reducing the time it takes to release a new feature/product, etc.
From a marketing perspective, you should put some focus in creating content that will help the develop be your internal seller. Provide them with the tools to convince their manager that your tool will benefit them both.
#2: This is more of a prospecting/sales outreach function, but I do have some experience with this as well. If you aren't looking to spend a lot of money on something like ZoomInfo - and at your stage I don't think you should - there's a few things you could do.
A. Hunter.io - it's a great tool and has a pretty decent free tier. Hunter does two things: first, it will search the web for the person's email. If it can't find it, it will find email addresses from other people in the same company and make an educated guess on the naming convention (ex: [email protected] vs [email protected]) and provide you with a level of certainty. I have found it to be almost as good as any of those other solutions.
B. This is a hack. Create a Google Sheet with the first name, last name, and company domain of your targets. Have one column be for emails and start iterating on the various permutations: first.last, last.first, first initial.last etc. Once you hit on the right one, you'll see their info being pulled in, like this: https://ibb.co/HgDbJxL
#3: I will approach this as a marketer. Let's go back to the nets vs. spears analogy.
Directly reaching out to your targets as a 1:1 action, such as email, will also have a 1:1 relationship. For every x amount of time you put into your work, you will get x amount of output.
Marketing is a 1 to many function. You put the effort into one initiative and the outcome has the potential of being essentially infinite. One piece of content could generate business for years and years after you publish it.
But you have to strategize, and put in the work.
The trick, especially if you are a team of one, is how to get the maximum output with the minimum amount of resources.
So how do you do that? Well, that's where you separate the people who can provide value from those that are full of hot air.
I plan on putting out more content soon on some of the things I had done to be able to scale a content engine without any additional resources, as well as some other hacks I developed along the way, but what I would suggest for you is to consider where your target spends their time.
While developers were not my main target, I would imagine they spend time in places like Stackoverflow, Github, Newshacker? I would try to consider innovative ways you could engage on there.
But I would really have to know more about the product and existing users to have a better handle on it.
Just remember, Spears vs. Nets. 1:1 vs. one to many.
Good luck!
Thanks that was great explanation now i have some pointers on where to look e.g. hunter.io .
I'm really sorry to hear this.
At the moment I'm also doing marketing for a seed-stage startup and have the same fear.
Wish you the best of luck in finding a new job / building something that will take off.
Yeh, it’s pretty brutal out there. I would do your best but prepare for what comes next.
I would like to support you as I am a colleague (a marketer in a SaaS start-up) and understand the precariousness of your situation. But it is not quite clear why you were fired if you were doing your best? Did you have a budget for promotion? And how are these guys going to further promote their product without a marketer?
The company needed runway. By my estimation, there was 6 months left. This, by the way, was not what I was told a month ago, but I learned the truth more recently. My salary was relatively high for our company and cutting it out was the simplest way to free up more cash.
Just three months ago, I got a bonus and raise with a glowing review. 2 months ago, when I was told we may need to cut back, I was told, verbatim “you have nothing to worry about.”
As a sole marketer, I directly generated $3 mil in pipeline between Q4 and Q2. 99% of that was purely organic. We invested a small amount in SEM that actually was ROI positive, but I was told to shut it off at the beginning of June when it was clear all buyers were cutting budgets.
In my opinion, they made a big mistake. Mainly because of the impression it sends - for better or worse, my role made me the public face of the company. Now everyone, including customers, knows I was laid off. I would imagine they all now have second thoughts about the company’s viability. Not saying that out of spite, it’s just a fact.
Take some time to just decompress then come back hard. At then end of your post you say there is no point in your posts but I disagree. This post is therapeutic for you and for all of us reading. It's a reminder that life isn't all positive, and the way we respond to tough moments define who we are.
You've got the right attitude being long term. It takes time for something good to form, despite everyone saying it only takes a month to validate an idea.
good luck! go take a vacation!
Sorry to hear about the layoff. I'm also in a similar situation after grinding as a PM at a startup for a year. Your view on seeing this time as opportunity to create something new resonate with me. it's a touch time but definitely building on idea gives energy to move on.
I'd love to get some tips on how to find & reach out to the target customers, to get the feedback on MVP and do the early phase of customer interview.
Gladly. I am, at the moment, still sick with COVID. Yep, that's right, I got laid off while sick with COVID. I'll be up and running by next week (I hope) and start taking meetings again.
Sorry to hear that you got laid off, but it was also neat to see your perspective at this new chapter, working on billion dollar ideas (yup, I’ve got a list too), and figuring out what’s next.
What industry were you in?
My entire professional experience has been in the B2B SaaS space. The role I mentioned above was for a Sales Tech company that sold to B, C, D stage SaaS startups. I was able to establish a pretty good name for myself as a "thought leader" in that world as well.