Joseph Anderson > Quotes

“It's a bit embarrassing but we actually met at a strip club. I was one of her favorite dancers.”
― Joseph Anderson

“Avoid pricing yourself out of business In 2013, I charged just $29 and $49 per month for my product. There was no activation fee or annual commitment. I failed to gain money quickly enough to survive. I added a $199 activation fee in 2014 and held my breath. What if I no longer get subscribers? Luckily, I was able to charge more. Everyone paid the fee! Not only did I get more money, but I also received more subscribers. I find that customers believe your software is better if you charge more. Furthermore, you can offer better support with a higher price.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“How to provide awesome technical support Most back and forth happens because customers fail to explain their problem, or the support rep fails to understand the issue. Ask these questions: What is the error? What are the steps to reproduce the error? What are the desired results? Your software should have a public and a private facing log. The log should detail successful syncs and sync failures. Users should have an option to receive the log by email and view it on your website. In our log, we have code that checks for error messages. If the message contains a phrase, then a help article appears next to the error. This article is not only good for end-users but also for your support staff. Your employees can better understand the error and follow the standard operating procedures to resolve it. This system reduced our support costs by half.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“discontinued the Xero integration. It hurts to build something that no one needs or wants, but that is the risk of building software. The Xero app generated $12,000 while the QuickBooks integration generated well over half a million dollars. If you can turn off a product and it has little effect on the bottom line, then you should deactivate it. I worked with Xero for about two years, and it was a distraction. You want to sell a thousand copies of one product, instead of one copy of a thousand products.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Why did Connex for QuickBooks Online succeed? Here are the reasons: I received free app store listings on Intuit’s website. My app was even on the first page of their store briefly. This drove large amounts of traffic to my site. I received free listings on many other sites before they started asking for a commission. I later pulled those listings, since the cost to advertise exceeded the revenue they brought to the company. These stores failed to show how many installs and conversions they generated. I had many positive and real reviews on my app store listings. I noticed competitors had hundreds of five-star reviews that mostly looked fake. QuickBooks Online had few integrations at the time. I was one of the first companies to get listed. For QuickBooks Canada and QuickBooks U.K., my app was one of the first system integrators. I had almost no competitors who serviced QuickBooks outside of the U.S. Shopify, BigCommerce, ShipStation and other companies had no native integration. Mine was one of the first. I recorded videos and added landing pages that ranked high on Google with minimal effort. Since I had a shoestring marketing budget, this was very important. The issue I had with other products was that they didn’t offer free promotion. Since my company was one of the first, we had ample time to add features and fix problems. We have a solution that is light years ahead of competitors. Why would someone want to compete with us? In the words of one of my partner companies, “We could build one, but yours would be a lot better.” My app required no desktop apps or website plugins to install. Since my audience was small business owners, the easier the install the better. Most business users have a limited understanding of websites. Asking them to change a bunch of settings or configure something on their own is daunting. We set up Connex for qualified users. Many competitors just let users go through a self-guided trial. We received feedback from many customers that they would purchase if they could make Connex work. I added a talk-to-sales component, and our conversion ratio increased. Connex was successful because I added a personal touch in a world where SaaS owners expect users to just “figure it out” on their own. Software that requires no support and maintenance is a pipe dream.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Why I was successful In 2014, I was 29 years old. I was selling against companies that had been in the QuickBooks integration business for five years or more. Some competitors had millions of dollars in venture capital. Their websites were the equivalent of a five-star hotel. These competitors had large sales and marketing teams that could easily show the value of their solution. The companies had a team of programmers. I had my pajamas, a corded phone, a cookie-cutter website, and a laptop computer. I signed up about three hundred new accounts because I was the first person to pick up the phone and I spoke English. I could answer questions on what my software can automate. If there was a problem, I called the customer and we did a screenshare. You need to talk to customers on the phone and you cannot email customers to death. Many customers later told me they reached out to competitors and received no response to sales or support inquiries. These customers said they chose my company because I was responsive. Potential customers want to speak to someone in their area who understands their language. You need to connect with them. Many people signed up for Connex because they liked me over the phone. We attract many small business owners. I had similar interests and I owned a business, just like them.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Bad fit customers and technical support There is a line between helping a customer and building custom software for them. You want to avoid one-off features because the effort to build one custom feature is the same effort to help ten good fit customers. If a customer requires custom work, then they are usually a poor fit. These bad customers will drain the life from your team and these customers redirect resources from critical tasks, such as mandatory upgrades, and helping good fit customers succeed. Enough bad customers can cause low employee morale and high turn-over in any department. Here are the differences between good and bad fit customers: Good Customer Traits Bad Customer Traits Software performs the features that he needs Constantly emails about missing features An attractor that leaves reviews, case studies Rude or unpleasant over the phone, a detractor Entry level staff members provide support Senior level staff provides technical support Requires a short call to set-up and configure Requires coding changes and tons of phone support Company is organized Company is a mess Fits into an ideal customer profile Fits into no customer profile Feels like a good fit You get a bad feeling about the company”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Paying for partnerships This is different from revenue share. One company wanted us to pay $3,000 to get listed on their website. I told them I would pass. You should never have to pay for a partnership unless they are offering some developer support. How many visitors visit the site? How many converted to sales? If a partner needs your technology, then no fee is necessary. I would avoid these types of paid partnerships. I built a seven-figure company without paid partnerships.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Even if you show the full value, some customers will never pay. When I first started selling Connex for QuickBooks, one of my first trial users was a small startup that barely made $2,000 per month. He hammered me for support through multiple phone calls. He was trying to negotiate me down from $20 per month to an even lower price. I told him to hit the road. I learned a couple of lessons: Avoid getting too invested in trial users. Unless you have qualified a prospect, do not spend too much time with her. A common negotiating tactic is to make you invest a lot of time before trying to talk you down. Prospects figure you will not give up because you have invested so much. Avoid pricing yourself out of business. If you price your product low, people fail to see the value. They think there are hidden fees. As I raised prices, we attracted higher-value clients that were less troublesome. Avoid features. The small business and I discussed a QuickBooks sync, instead of the money we saved on data-entry. I could have asked how many hours he spent hand entering sales or how much he paid someone else for data entry.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“In the book ‘That Will Never Work’ by Marc Randolph, Reed Hastings gives Marc advice on starting a new company: You need the same people to return and use your product. You need something that is consumed; once a movie is done you need another one. The market of new customers is limited. There is no way you can succeed if you must keep finding new customers. - Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Learn the power of “no” I was so busy working inside my company that I failed to work on it. I was answering support tickets, posting app store listings, making landing pages, writing low-level code, and doing other tasks that employees could’ve performed. If you can delegate work, do it. I should have said “no” to busywork and “yes” to growing my company. When I delegated work, I had time for professional development. Reading books on business and focusing on professional development were two reasons why my company grew into a mid-sized company. Too many founders focus on their day-to-day responsibilities. When I started, my issues were funding and product development. When my company became mid-sized, the issues centered around alignment, time-management, technical support, marketing, and automation. I learned how to set boundaries with customers and employees. Neglecting the power of “no” was why my company failed to reach the next level at certain stages. My boss at the software company was overwhelmed because he tried to perform the same work as his employees. He had hundreds of emails that remained unread. He once said he would wake up at 4am, but he still failed to complete all his tasks. Unlike him, I decided which problems were the most important to focus on. I transformed from a technician to an executive with a grand vision for the company.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“You can ask other qualifying questions, but ask only 3–5. We used to have a 3-page questionnaire with 17 questions, and many users failed to complete the form. We had success with a chatbot asking one question at a time. Users will get anxious if they have to scroll and complete a big form.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Why people churn Most churn occurs at the time of the sale. In 2017, my churn was over 60%. I signed up customers who were a poor fit for my solution. Many customers thought Connex was an inventory management tool and others thought we built custom software. We had no onboarding process and we expected users to figure out Connex on their own. Many users failed to choose the right settings, since they are small business owners and not accountants. Since the software failed to work as expected, they quickly cancelled. From experience, most users churn in the first 30 days. It is critical that you reach out to them and ensure the software works correctly. My staff performs an onboarding and ensures Connex works to the customer’s satisfaction. Users churned because my software lacked features that it has today. We noticed a dramatic shift in churn, after implementing a sales and marketing process. In the first quarter of 2021, we had only a handful of refunds out of 100 purchases. People churn because they fail to achieve their desired result or experience. People buy Connex because they want accurate financial information, better order fulfillment, or protection from overselling. If the sync were inaccurate and unreliable then we would lose customers. In other cases, your software may become superfluous. For example, I used the excellent meeting automation tool Calendly. When I migrated to HubSpot, however, I no longer needed Calendly because HubSpot offered meeting automation as part of its suite of offerings. Even if your tool works, your customer’s desired situation or desired outcomes may change. I churned from my ticketing system because I was unhappy with the customer service and experienced technical issues with their chat and phone system. Companies often tack on features that are nowhere near as usable as their core offering.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Mobile phone apps – 2012 Before building a QuickBooks app, I decided to try iPhone and Android apps. This my first experience entering an app store. Unfortunately, the apps failed for many reasons: User base too small: There are millions of mobile phone users, but that does not translate to millions of users for your software. There is a subsection of a user base that matters most. Too many competitors: The app stores were oversaturated. There were over a million apps, literally. There was no way to stand out from the rest. My apps became me-too apps. The Intuit app stores were just getting started at the time and there were far fewer apps. Difficult to gain entry: I tried game development, and good games are expensive to produce. You need a soundtrack and graphic designers. The cost of making an exceptional game is outrageous. There was no way I could afford it. Failed to show value: Since most apps were free, users refused to pay me. I tried in-app purchases, but most users were uninterested. I learned that businesses were a better target because I could show them how to save time. Failed to solve a problem: In my eyes, app stores were the only way to advertise my game. I failed to tap into my potential user base. Businesses have a clear data entry problem that I can fix, but consumers were too difficult to sell to. Technical issues: I submitted one app to the Windows Marketplace, and it failed 15 times. I had to wait for Apple to publish updates to my app weekly. I learned that my next plugin must receive updates in a few hours, instead of a few days. Users simply cannot wait this long for an issue to get fixed. This was the most important lesson that I learned, and it inspired me to make a cloud-based system. Different devices:”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Whatever profits are left over are added to your personal income. Your accountant should ask you to pay estimated tax quarterly, based on last year’s profits. Your accountant will send you invoices with an amount for state and federal tax, which you pay electronically.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Companies tend to sell on Amazon longer they stay with a 3rd party system integrator.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“The prospect is discussing pricing with you. She wants to own the product, and they want to figure out the cost to achieve their goal. The prospect is examining your product closely. For example, the user may spend a lot of time setting it up or contacting support for help. Make sure that your prospect knows what service level to purchase. Many customers fail to purchase because they are unsure how and what to buy. A customer might get a discount by buying a higher service level than they need, but if you try to upsell the customer next time, they may not trust you. I would rather start with an entry-level plan, show value, and then ask the customer to upgrade.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Avoidable churn You can avoid signing up bad fit customers and ensure good fit customers get the attention that they deserve. Ensure your customer has a path to achieve their desired outcome. We sync sales from Shopify to QuickBooks. If we failed to map discounts, then our tool would fail. Ensure users can reach support and understand the difference between a bug and a feature request. Some will ask to pause your service and return when business picks up again. We had many users that were seasonal. We would have several users cancel and then return during the holiday season. You should allow users to pause their plans, instead of canceling.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Salesforce and QuickBooks integration: the wrong audience I built many integrations for Connex, and Salesforce was one of my first. Intuit built one on their app store, but they later discontinued it. Here is why mine failed: Connex syncs ecommerce solutions. Amazon was one of our best sellers. Salesforce.com is a CRM, and this was a bad product fit for us. I had no understanding of the target audience. What features did they require? How much would they pay? Salesforce is geared towards medium and enterprise-level companies. We focused primarily on small businesses. The integration was difficult to build. Salesforce could hold orders, but users often added or removed fields. Our software had no logic to handle dynamically mapping fields. Each user’s Salesforce was different. Almost every user required a great deal of hand-holding. This is bad for a SaaS company. There were many technical issues. Users wanted features that I could not build. I built the integration because Salesforce has a large following, but my audience was just a subset of that group. How big your audience is, is anyone’s guess. We had a listing on Salesforce’s app store, but the listing failed to gather any traffic. I was unsure how many QuickBooks users required a Salesforce integration. There was a limited audience for this tool. The tool became a distraction because other products were selling much better. I had to raise the price of the integration because it took longer to set it up. This idea made my pricing more complicated, while my company is all about simplicity.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Take advantage of marketing, such as: Listings on the Intuit App Center. Intuit offers two app stores, and I posted about 20 listings. The links from QuickBooks boosted my SEO considerably. Other app store listings that are free. If these became paid channels, you can simply delist. YouTube videos. I paid $200 for Camtasia Studio and recorded a video for each integration that I sold. I made about 15–20 videos and asked the user to start a trial at the end of each. Landing pages. I looked at competing products and used similar language on my landing pages. Content in help centers. I wrote several knowledgebase articles that were indexed on Google. These articles later linked back to my website.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Crossroads On the call, use this checklist: Do you perform a demo for this prospect and spend 30–60 minutes with him or her? Do you add the user to a drip campaign and follow up later? Do you disqualify the user? Is the user willing to change their business requirements to make this software work? Some of our users change how they process orders to make Connex work for them. Avoid scope creep with the 15-minute call. Trial users are usually disrespectful of your company’s time. Find a way to “yes” If your software lacks a feature and there is a workaround, suggest it. For example, customers would ask us if we had an Etsy integration. We said we can sync with it if the they purchase a 3rd party add-on. If your company plans to build a feature, alert the trial user. Systems like UserVoice and UpVoty can ask users to subscribe to a feature request and receive an alert when it is made.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Technology partners What kind of customers are you trying to attract? If you give API access, then you attract software developers. Can you provide the support that they need, and is it worth your time? Most companies that built for us were very small, and we failed to generate significant revenue from API access. Almost all companies use a commercial website, and custom websites are rare. Here are the pros and cons of technology partners: Pros: You place 3rd party developers on the hook for support and maintenance. You free up developer time. You can expand your customer base. You lack developers to connect to a 3rd party system. When I built a QuickBooks integration for Kentico CMS, I asked them why they never built one themselves. Their response was that QuickBooks was not their business model. Connecting to QuickBooks is challenging and it requires a heavy lift for software developers. Cons: Building an integration could take several hours. Instead of building API access, can they integrate with you in another way? We pull orders from a variety of 3rd party shipping tools. Can the customer pull their sales into the shipping tool? Some developers fail to properly maintain and support their plugin. Your customers will call you and ask your company for help. If the 3rd party fails to respond, then you are in trouble. I advise gating your developer API to legitimate software companies only. Your company must provide developer support, which is also expensive and time-consuming. We had several instances where companies required multiple calls. It is difficult for some 3rd parties to follow developer guides and estimate costs. The 3rd party may have few clients and the cost to onboard the developer exceeds the sales.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Hire a marketing manager after two to three years. Read StoryBrand by Donald Miller. If your business is going to survive, you need to perform many tasks well at the same time.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Your software developers can get bogged down in answering tickets by changing code. This will prevent you from assigning them to projects that will have a bigger impact. In 2021, QuickBooks made an update to how we sync with QuickBooks Desktop. The change allowed us to sync faster and more reliably, and would reduce our support tickets. Since our goal was reducing tickets by 10% and reducing churn, I assigned the project to my team. How does this project relate to the company’s overall goals? Will making this change adversely affect other people? What is the cost and benefit analysis? Some product management tools can link your CRM and feature requests together. They can show the total cost to build the feature and the amount of revenue you will gain, a cost and benefits analysis.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital

“Sell a feeling to your target audience Start with the negative emotions that your target audience feels. What keeps them up at night? Our audience feels frustrated and overwhelmed with manual data entry. I sold peace of mind. We installed, configured, and supported the software. There was no need to hire an expensive firm to build and maintain custom software. Our product performed the function of many apps combined. If there was an issue, we were the point of contact.”
― Joseph Anderson, The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital