SaaStr Annual Day #1 Recap: Learnings Getting to 100,000 Paid Subscribers
Hi we’re Point Nine and we are currently in SF for the awesome SaaStr ’16.
Hi we’re Point Nine and we are currently in SF for the awesome SaaStr ’16.
Learnings Getting to 100,000 Paid Subscribers
Charley Moore — Rocket Lawyer CEO
Rocket Lawyer was founded in 2008, bootstrapped until its first 25k paid subscribers. The mission of Rocket Lawyer is to enable more people to have access to legal services.
From 0 to 1000 paid subscribers
1000 first customers = enjoy the moment for a moment. Don’t get too high but don’t get too low. Enjoy the present
customers were mostly individuals
From 1k to 10k paid subscribers
freemium was a big factor in the first explosive growth. They provided legal document for free. Traffic really picked up.
Customers were mostly individuals and not SMBs
From 10k to 25k paid subscribers
This was a turning point in the way that if you break something you make a lot of people mad.
At that point they needed to raise capital to build the platform because the “proof of concept” code was breaking and had too many corners.
This is also when they started to realise that their best customers were businesses (self employed or small business operators) => added an inside sales team
Not only tech needed to be re-built / scaled but also customer support: hired a VP of customer success and opened a customer service center in Utah (today = 50 people completely dedicated to support)
From 25k to 50k paid subscribers
At 50K watch your back, now they will come after you => many people saw now Rocket Lawyer as a threat. You have to be ready (law compliancy, strong processes, be ready to fight when you are pushing the envelop of law, get ready to be sued by competitors)
Double down on your winners. =>Rocket Lawyers started before smartphone took off, it was a desktop app first. When mobile got big they saw a big demand from their users so they had to double down on at.
From 50k to 100k paid subscribers
If you’re not profitable remind yourself why not. Everyday.
You’re not that big yet. Get to a million