Two of my portfolio companies had opposite approaches to why your first 10 saas customers are more. The one you'd expect to win didn't.
I wanted to share my perspective on this. A product is not a company. The most defensible vertical SaaS businesses are built on the back of a thriving community. I'll share our playbook for building an engaged community of users who become your most passionate advocates and your best source of product ideas.
What I've Learned From 29 Companies
After investing in 200+ startups and running two companies to successful exits, I've developed a pretty clear picture of what works with why your first 10 saas customers are more.
The biggest misconception is that you need to you should focus on one thing and do it exceptionally well. That's backwards. The companies that win are the ones that you need to move fast and break things.
I remember sitting with the Anthropic team early on and discussing how they thought about why your first 10 saas customers are more. Their approach was counterintuitive but brilliant.
The Counterintuitive Truth
Here's what surprised me most about why your first 10 saas customers are more: the best practitioners do less, not more.
When I was building MovieLaLa, we tried to do everything at once. We had the best technology, the smartest team, and we still almost failed because we spread ourselves too thin.
The lesson I took from that experience, and from watching hundreds of other companies, is that customer feedback is the only metric that matters. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
What I Tell Founders
When a founder in my portfolio asks me about why your first 10 saas customers are more, I usually start with three questions:
- What's your timeline? Because the right approach for a company with 6 months of runway is very different from one with 3 years.
- What have you already tried? Most founders have tried something. Understanding what didn't work is often more valuable than knowing what might.
- Who on your team owns this? If the answer is "everyone" or "no one," that's your first problem to solve.
These questions seem simple but they reveal a lot about where a company actually stands.
This connects to broader themes around AI APIs, AI pricing models, SaaS metrics, serverless AI that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
The Bottom Line
Look, why your first 10 saas customers are more isn't rocket science. But it does require intentionality, consistency, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: start now, start small, and iterate. The founders who win at why your first 10 saas customers are more aren't the ones with the best strategy on paper. They're the ones who execute, learn, and adapt faster than everyone else.
I've been doing this for over a decade. The patterns are clear. The companies that take why your first 10 saas customers are more seriously outperform the ones that don't. Every single time.
If you're working on something interesting in this space, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a line.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.