Running a SaaS company is tough, and only a few manage to scale successfully. After 25 years of working with SaaS founders, it’s clear: the top founders approach growth differently from the average ones. Here’s how.
1. They Know Their Weaknesses
Top founders are brutally honest with themselves. They understand where they excel and where they fall short, and they don’t try to master everything. Instead, they focus on amplifying their strengths and addressing their weaknesses through smart hiring.
2. They Hire Strategically
Rather than wearing every hat, top SaaS founders bring in specialists to fill their gaps. Weak in finance? They hire a finance expert. Strong in engineering but weak in sales? They find a top sales leader. This strategic hiring ensures the company has full functional coverage.
3. They Shift Focus as the Company Grows
In the early days, product development is everything. But as the product stabilizes, the focus must shift to sales and marketing. Great founders recognize these critical inflection points and pivot their attention accordingly, rather than clinging to the “just build more features” mindset.
4. They Upgrade Talent Early
As companies scale, not every early team member can keep up. Top founders recognize when their team has outgrown the current leadership or staff and make the tough calls to upgrade talent early—often years ahead of their average counterparts.
5. They Make Data-Driven Decisions
While intuition is vital early on, scaling beyond $5M in ARR requires a data-first mindset. Top SaaS founders rely on analytics to guide decisions, reduce risk, and optimize returns. In their world, debates are settled not by opinion, but by cold, hard data.
Want to scale your SaaS business like the top 1%? Learn from these practices and apply them at every stage of growth!
Additional Resources
If you enjoyed this article, I recommend joining my email newsletter. You’ll be notified when I publish other articles and helpful guides for improving your SaaS business. Submit the form below to sign up. Also, use the email icon below to share this article with someone else who might find it useful.
If you’re the founder and CEO of a SaaS company looking for help in developing a distribution channel strategy, please Click Here for more info.
How to Scale and Grow a SaaS Business
