S7E21 – How AI Will Rewrite SaaS GTM in 2026: Pricing, Efficiency & Sales Automation with Jacco van der Kooij

In this episode of the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast, host Joran welcomes back Jacco van der Kooij, founder of Winning by Design, to unpack how AI-native SaaS companies are changing the rules of growth, pricing, and go-to-market in 2026. The conversation covers why real-time user-level data is becoming the defining competitive advantage, the pitfalls and promise of usage-based pricing for AI products, the existential challenge of inference costs for freemium models, and the enduring importance of subscriptions with smart hybrid elements. It also dives into how AI will replace the majority of sales tasks, the 30 percent of human expertise that remains essential, and why advocacy and community-driven growth loops will shape pipeline generation. From early-stage foundations to scaling to $10 million ARR, Jacco breaks down what founders need to get right now to thrive in the years ahead.

The Defining Trait of 2026 Winners: Real-Time, User-Level Data Infrastructure

According to Jacco, the most critical differentiator for successful SaaS companies in 2026 is a real-time data-based infrastructure. This means the ability to analyze in detail, from cohorts down to the individual user, what they are doing, how they are using the product, why they are successful, and what outcomes they are achieving. This is very much aligned with a product-led mindset, but it goes beyond surface-level tracking. It is about deeply understanding usage patterns and tying them directly to desired outcomes.

AI-native companies excel at leveraging this type of data to generate new pipeline from their happiest users. In an environment where people are overloaded with emails, messages, and outreach across channels, buyers prefer to talk to peers and learn from the experience of other users rather than engage in traditional sales motions. AI-native companies have designed their businesses around this reality. They do not just collect data; they use it to identify success, amplify it through advocacy, and turn it into sustainable pipeline.

From Logos to Users: Why AI Natives Grow Faster

A core contrast between traditional SaaS companies and AI-native companies lies in how they define and manage customers. Many SaaS companies focus on winning logos. They hang them on walls, put them on slides, and report them in board meetings alongside metrics like average contract value. AI natives, in contrast, are obsessed with users. They track average revenue per user, login frequency, and usage habits to understand what creates value and where expansion can happen.

This difference is profound. In traditional SaaS, the buyers, champions, and deciders are often not the actual end users. In AI-native products, the users are frequently the deciders, champions, and buyers themselves. That alignment of usage with decision-making drives an accelerated level of growth. It also changes how products are built, priced, and marketed because the path to value is shorter and more directly in the hands of the user.

Rethinking Pricing in an AI-Native World

Pricing in AI-native SaaS is still evolving, and Jacco emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. For younger companies earlier in their development, usage-based pricing can be a powerful way to disrupt the market and lower the barrier to adoption. However, larger companies often prefer commitment models, such as annual contracts, because pure usage-based approaches come with high exposure to churn risk. That does not mean usage-based pricing has no place. It can be an element in a broader pricing strategy rather than the strategy itself.

The key is to be thoughtful about what pricing model serves the business stage, customer expectations, and cost structure. Big companies need predictability, and the ability to rely on multi-month commitments is integral to that. Early-stage companies may benefit from the flexibility and attractiveness of usage-based options to draw in users and test market fit. This is not a binary decision but rather a strategic toolkit, where the role of usage-based or outcome-based elements varies by context.

The Freemium Dilemma and the Achilles Heel of Inference Costs

AI-native companies face a unique cost challenge: inference costs. These are the costs incurred each time an AI system generates or processes an output. In products with significant AI usage, such costs can quickly add up. As a result, freemium becomes a high-risk strategy. If a freemium AI product takes off, the cost of serving free users can become unsustainable. Even with ample funding, building a large free user base only postpones the toughest conversion in SaaS: moving freemium users to paid plans.

This creates a complex trade-off. Freemium can drive adoption, but it may undercut the cost structure of AI-native offerings. Limiting what free users can do to control costs is one possible response, but the fundamental reality remains that freemium in AI products carries unique risks due to the cost of each inference. Founders must weigh this carefully and consider how and when to introduce monetization before they are overwhelmed by non-recoverable expenses.

Subscription Remains the Backbone, With Hybrids as Specialized Tools

Jacco makes it clear that consumption-based and usage-based pricing are not new ideas. Markets often cycle through phases. He points to how telecommunications went from pay-per-use to minute plans and then back to stable subscription models once the market matured. The lesson is to avoid treating consumption-based pricing as a novel panacea. It is a specialized tool and should be used with intention, not as a default.

Subscription pricing still offers the best foundation for most AI SaaS businesses. Hybrid approaches can add value in specific contexts. For example, a company might charge a base subscription and include a usage-based component tied to resolutions or interactions. The analogy Jacco gives is a car wash membership. If you are the provider and you have customers on a monthly plan with unlimited washes, trying to revert to a pay-per-use model is not desirable or practical once the system is established. The same principle applies in SaaS. Use usage-based and outcome-based pricing as part of a holistic strategy, not as the entire approach.

Efficient Growth and the Fundamentals of GTM Efficiency

Winning by Design has long advocated for efficient growth and has formalized it through the concept of GTM efficiency: the dollars required to generate one dollar of growth. A practical rule of thumb is that the total cost of customer acquisition must be earned back about five times over the lifetime of a customer. If it costs two dollars to acquire a customer, and they stay for three years, you need roughly ten dollars in return over that period.

Whether the product is sold through consumption-based or subscription-based pricing, this core unit economic law still applies. That means retention is vital. To retain customers, companies must deliver outcomes. None of this is new in principle, but it becomes even more critical when AI costs and hybrid models complicate margins. The outdated model in today’s climate is building a business around raising funds to achieve high valuations as a proxy for success. The durable approach is to focus on customer outcomes and long-term value creation.

What AI Will Replace—and What Humans Must Own

AI is already replacing people in certain tasks, and it will continue to do so. The belief that it will not happen is simply not aligned with reality. At the same time, Jacco argues that many of the tasks being replaced should never have been performed by humans in the first place. The analogy is simple. Historically, massive real-world projects were executed by hand. Today, we use machines because they are the right tools for the job. The same shift is occurring in sales and go-to-market operations.

Jacco previously predicted that by 2025, 70 percent of the tasks performed by field salespeople would be replaced or questioned by AI. This has sometimes been misunderstood as saying 70 percent of sellers will be replaced. The nuance is important. It is the tasks, not necessarily the roles, that are being automated. Tasks such as entering CRM data, processing expense reports, scheduling, following up, and writing summaries are all better handled by systems. The conversation should not dwell on what is being replaced but should instead focus on the 30 percent that remains fundamentally human.

Redefining Trust and the Human Role in Sales

The 30 percent that remains is where human expertise truly matters. People still want to meet other people. When they meet an expert, they want expert advice. The example Jacco uses is a restaurant interaction. You can ask an AI which wine pairs best with your dish, and it can provide an accurate and comprehensive answer. Yet, when the waiter recommends a pairing based on experience, people still value that advice. Business interactions follow a similar logic.

Trust is often misunderstood. If trust is defined by accuracy and comprehensiveness of answers, AI can outperform humans. But the trust buyers actually seek is different. It is the confidence that if something does not work as hoped, there will be a person to back them up, to make it right, or to help them succeed. That dimension of trust still requires human-to-human connection. Sales and customer success teams will be redesigned around providing this type of support and expertise while AI handles the bulk of administrative and routine tasks.

Designing a 2026 Go-To-Market From Scratch

If Jacco were to rebuild a company’s go-to-market motion from scratch for 2026, he would fully automate what can be automated while elevating expert human moments. He would codify five or six key moments in the customer journey that must be exceptional experiences. One or two of those would be AI-driven moments such as instant responses and high-quality summaries. The others would be human-driven moments that deliver standout experiences.

He would also make in-person human experiences a planned part of the journey. Rather than treating events as ad hoc or optional, they would be embedded in the operating model. This aligns with the fact that customers today are very willing to meet their suppliers at conferences. This expectation provides a strong foundation for a balanced AI-plus-human go-to-market motion that feels natural and customer-centric.

The Growth Loop to Prioritize: Usage-to-Advocacy Pipeline

When asked for a single growth loop to prioritize in 2026, Jacco’s answer is simple and pointed. Use your understanding of how customers are using your product to create pipeline. That means not just analyzing usage patterns but activating them. Word of mouth and advocacy are at the heart of this approach. None of this is new; it is how earlier SaaS category leaders grew. What has changed is that teams drifted away from it during the period where sequencing tools and volume tactics promised easy pipeline.

The task now is to operationalize advocacy by focusing on happy users, enabling them to be successful, and providing them with platforms and touchpoints to share their experiences. This can happen at user conferences, online events, or through public sharing of best practices. Even tactical changes help. For example, deploy SDRs not on dormant leads from a nurture database but on active users with the goal of helping them become even more successful and turning that success into public advocacy.

Correcting a Decade of Shortcuts: Back to User Communities

Jacco explains that in 2012 and 2013, communities and user-driven growth motions were more common. People went to vendor conferences, learned from other users, and built pipelines through peer-to-peer exchange. That was a durable model. But the industry took a shortcut with sequencing tools and brute-force outreach. SEO also became an overused crutch. These tactics worked for a while, but they created a dependency that many teams now need to unwind.

The correction is clear. Return to sustainable, usage-pattern-based growth where users talk to users. Build communities and encourage sharing of real-world practices. Modern examples include users openly sharing their workflows and results on platforms like LinkedIn. The underlying principle is to foster environments where authentic user advocacy can flourish, supported by data that identifies where the strongest stories are happening.

Practical Advice for Early-Stage Founders: Build Real-Time Data From Day One

For founders aiming to reach their first $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue, Jacco’s advice is to build a real-time data system from the beginning. This is not a nice-to-have; it is an essential foundation for everything that follows. Retrofitting data infrastructure later is costly and fraught with challenges. Start with a quality infrastructure provider that can deliver a real-time data lake so you can track cohorts and user-level activity in a way that supports decision-making, product improvement, and go-to-market planning.

This early investment pays dividends when the company begins to scale. It enables precise understanding of what features lead to outcomes, who is most successful, and how to replicate that success through product, marketing, and community. It also supports smarter pricing decisions and allows leaders to control unit economics with confidence.

Practical Advice for Scaling to $10 Million ARR: Align the Team to the System

For companies moving beyond the early stage and targeting $10 million in ARR, the advice shifts to organizational alignment. The way your team operates internally is a reflection of the closed loops in your go-to-market system. If marketing does not communicate with sales, if customer success is not an integral part of the customer journey, or if cross-functional collaboration is ad hoc, the system will not perform as intended.

Leaders often assume there is a shared understanding of how recurring revenue works, but that is rarely the case. Jacco compares it to running form. People assume everyone knows how to run because it is natural, but proper form requires training. Recurring revenue is similar. It is based on scientific principles, and without shared training and clarity, teams cannot interoperate effectively. Many executives, even experienced ones, hold misperceptions about where growth truly comes from. Correcting this requires deliberate education and operating models that codify how the system should work.

Where to Learn More: The Growth Institute by Winning by Design

To help leaders develop the necessary understanding and repetitions in building modern go-to-market systems, Winning by Design launched the Growth Institute. It is a $2,500 annual subscription that provides classes, events, and community access focused on growth topics. This year, they added quarterly case studies that give executives more at-bats to learn. Many leaders only get one chance to try things at their current company, and the additional repetitions from external case studies can accelerate learning. Interested readers can find more information at winningbydesign.com by clicking on Growth Institute.

Closing Thoughts: A Fantastic Time to Build Durable Growth

The next few years will test assumptions and reshape how B2B SaaS companies operate. AI-native approaches are forcing clarity about what drives outcomes, who the true champions are, and how data should guide decisions. Pricing models will mature, with subscriptions remaining the backbone and usage or outcome-based elements playing specialized roles. Freemium will face renewed scrutiny due to inference costs, and efficient growth will demand tangible, retained value. AI will automate the majority of repetitive tasks, but the human role will become even more meaningful where expert advice and real trust matter.

Founders should build real-time data systems now, design journeys that balance automated excellence with human expertise, and reactivate the growth loop that turns successful users into advocates. Teams must align around a shared understanding of how recurring revenue works and operate as a cohesive system. With these elements in place, 2026 will not be a threat but an opportunity. As Jacco closes, it is a fantastic time in the life that we are living, and it is worth enjoying the process of building durable, outcome-driven businesses that serve users and communities first.

Key Timecodes

• (0:00) – B2B SaaS podcast intro, AI native SaaS, pricing, GTM strategy 2026
• (1:01) – Jacco van der Kooij intro, Winning by Design
• (1:14) – 2026 success factors: real-time data, PLG, cohort analytics
• (2:31) – AI native buyer journey, user-led growth, usage patterns
• (3:48) – SaaS pricing: usage-based vs subscription, outcome-based pricing
• (4:23) – AI inference costs, freemium risk, monetization challenges
• (5:05) – Freemium in AI tools, limits, value gating
• (5:23) – Consumption-based pricing vs subscription, hybrid pricing
• (6:12) – Hybrid pricing example, membership + per-resolution fees
• (7:03) – Efficient growth, GTM efficiency, LTV:CAC, retention, outcomes
• (8:36) – AI for customer insights, demand gen, lookalike users
• (9:36) – Ad: B2B SaaS affiliate referral platform, AI-powered recruitment
• (9:47) – AI and jobs: replace vs enable, workforce impact
• (11:19) – GTM with AI: 70% sales tasks automated, CRM, scheduling, summaries
• (12:56) – Trust, human expertise, advocacy, risk mitigation
• (13:59) – Rebuilding GTM 2026: automation, expert touchpoints, events
• (15:00) – Growth loop: usage patterns, word of mouth, advocacy pipeline
• (16:26) – Community-led growth: user conferences, LinkedIn sharing, Clay example
• (17:02) – SDR strategy: activate users, customer success advocacy
• (17:11) – Early-stage advice: real-time data system, analytics
• (17:25) – Data stack recommendation: Snowflake, realtime data lake
• (17:32) – Scaling to $10M ARR: team alignment, closed-loop GTM
• (18:04) – Shared system understanding: recurring revenue, training
• (19:01) – Growth Institute by Winning by Design: courses, community, case studies
• (19:39) – Where to find: winningbydesign.com, Growth Institute
• (19:45) – Closing thoughts, optimism, AI era
• (19:54) – Outro: like, subscribe, sponsor, guest/topic requests
• (20:17) – Reditus mention, B2B SaaS affiliate program

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – 10k mrr Summary

Every episode of season seven of podcast, I’ve asked my guests the exact same question. What advice would you give a SaaS founder who’s just starting out and going from zero to 10K MRR? In this summary episode, we combine all their answers. You will receive the most practical, battle-tested advice from dozens of founders, operators, and go-to-market leaders in one single episode. No theory, no fluff, just real guidance on how to find your first customers, validate demand, price correctly, and build momentum without burning too much cash. You’re going to hear recurring patterns, some conflicting insights, but overall, sharp insights on founder-led growth, go-to-market, pricing, product-market fit, and early traction, all from people who’ve actually done it already. So if you’re building a B2B SaaS and your goal is to grow to 10K MRR, this episode is for you. Good news. Once you reach 10K MRR, we’re also going to have an episode on how to grow to 10 million ARR. So that’s going to be the next episode. But without further ado, let’s dive in. In episode one, I chatted with Caroline Lewis on how to build SaaS partnerships that actually drive revenue. The real true startup, I would say, focus on the relationships that you have Leverage those where you can and don’t necessarily try to systemize yet.

[00:01:20.230] – 10k mrr Summary

And also those gaps, really see what, not just customer, but what potential partner or peer am I solving a problem for or a gap for and try to buddy up with them wherever possible, and find the product market fit. That’s also a good one as well. In episode 2, I chatted with Besteenik Vreljku, why 80% of outbound sales fails and how to fix it. It just depends what product you have. There’s so many. But obviously, the best way, the quicker to validate if you’re on pre-product-market fit is… One of the key things I did in multiple of my ventures in the past, because it’s not my first rodeo at Salesforce. I’ve had quite a A few different ones is that we do a lot of… I would reach out on LinkedIn, email and beyond, and just get an interview course. Say, What’s your pain point? I understand them. The majority of the time, those interviews will end up as potential customers. Because it’ll be incredibly high, incredibly high rate to interview them, put them part of a report, an adjustment, a field who doesn’t like to look good and beyond. We did 40 creators that we put together.

[00:02:25.000] – 10k mrr Summary

Every single one of them shared what we did. Well, actually, no, that’s not true. The majority of them did. But all of them engaged with us is my question. I would say just how are you… That’s why our bond becomes so easy, especially at the beginning, because the investment is more in your grit and your genuine tactics that you want to use. Anyone that’s just growing and validating is either that or naturally, you find a way to just… If you have got the budget seed money, the best way to quickly validate your concept is zero to 100. It’s actually driving traffic, paid ads. Actually, the The great way to validate it, and it’s expensive as well, is ads to get to zero to 100. Those two would be zero to 100. It’s really proactive, outbound of interview style. And B, is just you actually spend money on advertisement to get a few grand in M&R. In episode 3, I chatted with Hugo Pereira, building SaaS partnerships that actually drive revenue. I can talk about my own mistake. I was trying at 0-10K M&R, which was the first stage, I was trying to prove scale, and I realized I’m not even at a scale stage.

[00:03:31.520] – 10k mrr Summary

I should have been proving value. So that means the cliché of male product market fit first period. And that’s the most cliché. There’s not even an advice, it’s just none. I think building in public is definitely something that if you’re comfortable with, is It’s not worth it for accountability. One major mistake is to prioritize conversations over conversions. I was caught up on conversion rates because that’s when I came from a mindset point of view. At such an early stage, it is not worth it. I was like, Oh, website visits, conversion, demo trials, activation. Oh, the conversion is not good. I was trying to activate for conversions, but there was just like 100 demos in three, four months. It’s not a big number. Why I was so caught up on conversions? Rather than having deep conversations to figure out which are the best 5, 10 potential customers and really understand working with those. That prioritize deep conversations with the right fit over conversion, because that’s definitely one that I mishap completely. I was looking at efficiency rather than insights. From zero to 10K, MRR is all about conversations and insights and not convergence and efficiency, and that was a massive error on my side.

[00:04:38.940] – 10k mrr Summary

In episode four, I chatted with Karek Robinson, why your SaaS go-to-market isn’t working and how to fix it with operational discipline. Talk to your market. Talk to your buyers, not just the people using your product. Figure out what’s happening in real-time. Figure out what perceptions are changing in real-time. And don’t just get into this Again, don’t just get into this place where you’re seeing signals in Apollo or you’re seeing signals in clay, and you’re trying to automate those relationships. You’re trying to automate that. Really, what you’re doing there is you’re rowning your gut instincts. I think the focus needs to be on how do we develop one-to-one relationships and understanding that after 12 or 18 months, those one-to-one relationships will really scale your business. And focusing on getting one motion to work really versus trying to have outbound, inbound, PLG, all these different tactics and all these different motions that eventually just bog down your time, your energy, and your resources. Focus on nailing the one thing that’s going to work for your business. Get to a good spot for you and then build out from there. In episode 5, I chatted with Joey Gilke on B2B SaaS sales, outbound strategies to skill your revenue.

[00:05:53.410] – 10k mrr Summary

Product-market fit all day, every day. Don’t focus on anything except for the customer and what you sell to them. The practice that I have run in multiple companies now that has always worked out well for me is figure out who you want to sell to first before you build too much. Obviously, you got to have some MVP type of product to sell, but maybe not. My belief is, I want to identify the people I want to sell to. I want to identify the pain that they have. Then I want to go talk to them with zero strings attached outside of, Will they be helpful to me? I’ve done this on three companies. Every company had great product-market fit after this. I try to find about 20 people in the market. I’m willing to pay for their time. I’d be like, Hey, John, I’ll pay you whatever your hourly rate for just 10 minutes of your time. I’ll give you an hour for 10 minutes. All I’m asking for you, John, is I have nothing to sell you. Not today. I hope I do in the future. It’s why I want to talk. I think I know your market very well.

[00:06:43.920] – 10k mrr Summary

I think I have a solution to this specific problem. All I want to do is get 10 minutes where I can tell you exactly what I think I’m going to bring to the market. I’m going to give you a permission to shoot it. You get a license to shoot. I’m going to shoot as many holes in that as possible to make me better, including what I’m going to charge for the solution, how I’m going to deliver it. Have three or four of those conversations. Recreate the offer or product. Go to the next three or four, do it again. Iterate. Go to the next three or four. By the time you do about three rounds of that, you have a really solid product that people want to buy. And ironically, the people you asked for help and said, I have nothing to sell, will inevitably tell you half of them, Hey, when you actually launch this, hit me back up. And there’s your first seven, eight customers. In episode six, I chatted with Maia Voyer on how AI is transforming go-to-market for B2B SaaS. Learn how to sell. Because the first control prototypes. You will probably have to either acquire from warm outreach or beat introductions from investors, friends, or just if you have the possibility to do outbound in your industry, either on LinkedIn or email, that would be amazing.

[00:07:48.160] – 10k mrr Summary

Usually, this is the fastest and the most secure way how we can just get our foot in the door to do some pilots. The second one is that pricing is getting increasingly interesting. Now everybody is doing this credit system. But then when you think about this from the buyer perspective, I don’t know how much exactly it’s going to cost me to book 50 meetings. With human, I know, with these AI agents burning random credits, If it is working or not, I believe that result-based pricing, outcome-based pricing, as well as just the predictability of the costs will dominate the conversations in the next year. For now, you will be able to present your implementation as a pilot. You can say there is a price per pilot. This is what’s going to be deployed. This is how they can see if it provides value for it. After they experience the value, you can negotiate a higher deal. Use the pilot logic for your pricing. It’s an easier sell than if you are selling them something which is super far fetch and need 13 people in the decision-making units to buy. Last but not least, don’t give up to fast because as always, there will be many things that are not working.

[00:09:05.660] – 10k mrr Summary

It’s increasingly hard now on AI-saturated LinkedIn to have a fair share of organic human attention. Some of the playbooks that have been working decently well before no longer work. You can either play the game, which was the punch of AI, to simplify your life a little bit, or find something that is working. Maybe it’s going to be an old-school channel. Maybe you will have to cold call customers. Maybe you will have to go and present something in the fair. Maybe you will have to advertise in a freaking newsletter. A newsletter? How is it called? Newspaper, the media, the printed stuff. Just keep your mind open and go where the audience is. This is the best advice I can give. In episode seven, I chatted with Desiree Jessica Paley, why human psychology still wins in B2B SaaS sales, even in the age of AI. I would break it down. What are your first three customers? And then how do you get to 500K to 1 million to 3 and to 10? And really think along the line, Okay, how do you get your first three? Maybe through the network. Then how do you get to your first 500?

[00:10:15.620] – 10k mrr Summary

Just double down on the heavy users that you have from your first three. Who are their twin companies? Who are their competitors? Really just narrow down on them. Then going from one to three, We are not there yet, so I can just share what I’m working with from our customers. Maybe what is working is okay. Now, from having exploited the twin companies, now really hone into the signals those companies were showing the pain points and scale that. Going from 3 to 10 is opening up the market, focused on the sum, and use tools, tech, and AI to penetrate those markets faster. Always have a good strategy for it. I think the first 3 million is a lot of experimentation. Try new things and always hone what is working and forget what is not working. Just use it as information to inform your next experiment. In episode 8, I chatted with Andrew Kaplant on the growth operating system and building teams that deliver real value. At this stage, I’ve been looking for one channel that works really well for acquisition and one communication channel that drives retention. I would keep it very basic. In the early stages, that’s what you need.

[00:11:37.360] – 10k mrr Summary

Obviously, you’re not going to really have a lot of conviction on the right way to position the product. You’re not going to have a ton of data on A/B. None of that stuff, right? If we can get customers in, leverage one channel in the early days. There’s different channels. Part of the early process is finding the one. Then really see if you can perfect one acquisition channel, one retention channel, and that’ll get you going. In episode nine, I tell it with Ricardo Cacri on growing a B2B SaaS without recurring revenue? Zero to 10, don’t spend anything on marketing, honestly. Spend thing on marketing, but you’re in the validation of one channel, basically. You only have to get one channel. Depending on what the hell you’re building, your channel will change or whatever you do. So focus on one channel from zero to 10, one channel and one channel only, basically. That could be SEO, that could be affiliate marketing, that could be YouTube, could be whatever the hell is. But just focus on that one channel to grow your business and then add, stack up basically as you grow, basically. That would be my advice.

[00:12:39.870] – 10k mrr Summary

Looking back also for a new company, the only thing we’re doing is partner sales. We have a for a better studio, we don’t run ads, we don’t have big things. Even if we’re heavily funded, we just do one thing, one channel very well. Now we’re adding things. Now that we’ve validated certain things, we’re adding stuff. We’re doing a big event next year, Basically, we’re doing round tables next year as well. So now we’re just stacking things off, basically. In the beginning, it’s just one channel you want to nail moving forward. In episode 10, I chatted with Christopher Gannon on how to build a ride go-to-market engine, hiring structure and growth for BV SaaS founders. It’s back to that commitment, that level of commitment and desire to achieve something resonates through all levels. At that stage, you have to have that personal commitment and discipline. You have to understand what doing is hard and no one’s going to care, but you have to get it done. Finding a network is really important for that early stage founder. It’s something that I didn’t do early on that I wish I did earlier is finding a group of people like me or like yourself that will maybe understand that because you go home, your family might not get it.

[00:13:46.820] – 10k mrr Summary

Your friends that you had in primary school are probably going to understand it unless they’re doing the same thing. It’s really important you understand the commitment you have to go through and maybe find a network of other people that will understand that. Are you already running an affiliate or referral program, but it’s not really driving growth? Reditus is the affiliate and referral platform built exclusively for BTB SaaS. Combining an in-app referral program, an affiliate network of over 20,000 SaaS affiliates, and AI-powered recruitment that finds new relevant affiliates for you. Migrate for free with our white glove service. Affiliates can keep their link, and you can start managing both programs from one single place. With tracking, payouts, and fraud detection all handled for you, you can start building a scalable growth channel that compounds without high upfront cost. Want to learn more? Check out getveritus. Com. In episode 11, I chatted with Marc Appel on B2B SaaS growth strategy for 2026 and scaling with AI agents and growth loops. I always tell people, if they start, they flip the funnel. So start at the bottom of funnel. So mainly focus on those audiences which are in market.

[00:15:03.580] – 10k mrr Summary

To make it very practical talking about the type of campaigns that you need to run, it is really search campaigns because these are the people who show intent. And then you can start to collect data, gather data, and have some real-life examples of how people respond to your campaigns, to your proposition, et cetera. In episode 12, I chatted with Chitte Joosten on SaaS pricing strategy for 2026 about hybrid models, AI cost and value-based pricing. I would advise you to see every single big deal as separate or in a vacuum. Don’t look at what you propose to other companies. Just every single time think, how can I optimize for this particular client? One, how can I lower the barrier to entry a little bit while still having skin in the game? You want to always charge a little bit to start. But then make sure that you’re not giving everything for free in perpetuity. How can I already add some value metric in there that I know or at least I assume over time, they’re going to use more of, and therefore, I’m going to grow this account? Always ask yourself this question and think as every single deal separate.

[00:16:11.360] – 10k mrr Summary

I think that’s the number one advice. And play a lot with packaging, not with price. Price comes later once you’ve figured out what the packaging is. Yeah, in the end. So don’t give things for free, but just have them to pay something and then grow them over time. In episode 13, I chatted with Hotske and Wesselius about scaling a SaaS in 2026, AI, talent, and the future of people operations. Well, if you already found your product market fit and you can do it yourself, it doesn’t cost you your whole life, then I would say, wow, that’s already amazing if you’re already there. If you want to grow it to doubling it, then you need to think like, Okay, where’s the success? Should I add someone next to me? I don’t know, in finding more revenue because it’s already pretty clear who’s our customer or Should I build an AI agent that can take over part of my job? In episode 14, I chatted with Romy de Groot about scaling SaaS in 2026, AI adoption, pricing shifts, and efficient growth. It’s a complicated question because at a 10 million AR, you have so many things running, but you’re still not a big enough player.

[00:17:18.830] – 10k mrr Summary

So many things can still go wrong and you’re out. So what I would advise in the first period is, one, reduce cost. I keep on saying this to everybody because people are anxious We don’t know if there’s not a stock market crash happening. People are not spending the same way. You want to have your reserves and you don’t want to raise funding when you can’t raise funding yet. It’s a delicate dance. Try to figure out, and of course, cost us people. I would say, hire less, hire better. What I mean by that is I’d rather have someone more senior that I pay a bit more money for but can do 2-3 jobs than one person alone. That’s one. Two, what I would tell them to focus on is innovation and technology. It’s such a cliché, but things are rapidly are really changing so fast. Can you do partnerships? Can you leverage big companies where you can be an asset and they can sell things for you? I think the sales part is going to be extremely dynamic. Yes, you’re already improving your track record because you’ve got clients, you’ve got 10 million ARR, but then comes the next piece.

[00:18:16.260] – 10k mrr Summary

You’re scaling. Do you want to become an enterprise company or do you want to say a scale up? When you want to become an enterprise company, a lot of different elements will need to be there. Then thirdly, it’s more operations. Often these companies, you walk in and they’re like, Oh, my God, guys, I can’t believe we’re What do you mean? This is a huge risk from legal. This is not set up right. You’ve scaled so fast, but you’re still a broken house. So internally, fix your systems, make them more automated, reduce cost, and make sure you can actually still have that speed, but that you know what’s your next horizon. Is it 100 million? Are you becoming an enterprise customer? Well, that means you have to build your strategy now. Where are you going? And that’s often the question that I would ask my C-suite leaders of, What are we doing? Not now, but in two years, where are we? Are we in the US? Where is your go-to-market? Where is the biggest customer is coming from? What acquisitions have we done? And if you cannot answer those questions, you’re in trouble. So that’s what I would focus on.

[00:19:08.020] – 10k mrr Summary

Keep costs low, innovate fast, build your right go-to-market with partners and references and scale as fast as you can. Take big risks, be bold. That’s what I often see a lack. Think big. In episode 15, I tell it with Christoff Sikiewicz on SaaS monetisation in 2026, tiering, usage, AI add-ons, and pricing experiments. Pretty simple. Differentiate, right? At the very beginning, I think that your one and only goal with pricing, it needs to be okay pricing, but it shouldn’t be that hard. But I think you should make yourself a favor and learn as much as possible, which means that if you have all in one solution and only one price for one plan, after a year, you are just in the same spot where you’ve started with regards to pricing-related knowledge. I would say that if you’re starting, think how you can differentiate your solution, how to make it at least good, better, how to respond to the use case, ICPs that you are targeting. Try to think one price that is X, the other price is 120% X. After a year, you will see which plan your customers are choosing, why they are choosing this plan.

[00:20:20.940] – 10k mrr Summary

Maybe if 95% of your customers are choosing the most expensive plan, maybe you are too cheap. If 95% of your customers are using the cheapest plan, you are giving too much value in this cheapest plan. I would say that if your solution is rich enough, where in most of the cases the solutions are rich enough, would be to differentiate and experiment a bit. Treat pricing as a process. In episode 16, I chatted with Richard Schenzel about SaaS go-to-market in 2026, AI, hybrid sales, and high performance revenue engines. Laser-focused on your market, be obsessed with your buyer persona. First of all, try to figure out who is my real ICP. Especially in the beginning, that’s hard because you just take whatever you want, but you need to get intent from them why they buy from me. So be obsessed with the market at that stage. Learn and test fast or test and feel fast, basically, but try to learn as much as possible from your buyer persona. How is the market reacting to it? Because you need to build that ICP or the buyer persona up quite quickly after this stage. But it’s research mode. So speak to as many people as possible, try to get as much input as possible, but make sure that you build a scalable product as well.

[00:21:38.030] – 10k mrr Summary

If you have one massive customer and you build your tool around this customer, then you’re stuck. Then you’re like a one freak pony. So stay agile, make sure that everything you build is scalable, try to get as much feedback as possible from the market, but look at your own niche market where you want to grow. Because if you only go after the enterprise companies, your total restaurant market is most probably way too small. And if you need to build features for all the 24 customers that you got to have in the enterprise segment, it’s unscalable. It’s very hard to maintain, and it’s very hard to sell in the end as well. So feedback, that’s a gift, and that’s something you need to seek at the beginning of this cycle. In episode 17, I chatted with Rudolf Otein on how PLG will change in 2026. Ai agents, onboarding, and hybrid go-to-market. I would go for the founder-led, sales-led approach. I could say, Well, you have to go product-led, but in this case, they are too early, or at least they need to learn. So for example, your first 20 customers, get them on a call, try to answer the job to be done questions, for example, get to know what is it that they wanted your product for, let them describe your product in their words.

[00:22:52.600] – 10k mrr Summary

That will help you on the messaging, on the positioning, and the pricing, of course, that will be if you really want to test that, you have to do other elements as well. That would be my advice. In episode 18, I chatted with Rene de Jong about preparing your SaaS for an exit. We talked about valuation drivers, buyers, and metrics that matter. Well, first of all, I think if you’re in that field, then enjoy the ride and keep learning from every step that you take. Because if I look back at when I started my company, my first company, I was 25 years old. Yeah, Everything was possible, of course. Then I think what’s really important is to constantly look at what are you doing and learn from the things that you do. Also, gather some people around you who have already done it. In the past, I’ve had many people who helped me within the whole journey of my entrepreneurship. So have people on board who can show you the mirror and show you, Hey, this is what I see that you’re doing, but also give you tips and tricks. That’s why I love also this conference.

[00:24:01.730] – 10k mrr Summary

I mean, I’ve been a fan of the SaaS base when it was still called SaaS base. Now it’s we love SaaS, but I think it will help those entrepreneurs to not make the mistakes as many others did. In episode 19, I chatted with Glenn Miseroy on how SaaS go-to-market will change in 2026, thought leadership, intense signals, and AI-powered growth. Try to do it as lean as possible. Try to get your, let’s say, amount of impressions. I would say LinkedIn is a very good go-to-market channel, not because we offer LinkedIn automation and skill, but more in general. Linkedin is a very good go-to-market channel. I mean, your buyers are there. The only thing is you have to be a little bit vulnerable in how you set up yourself and actually showcase what you’re doing, which problem you are solving. It’s a long game. It will take a little bit longer. But I do believe this is one of the best, let’s say, not expensive at all. You just need to invest your time. Same if you’re bootstrapping a company. Are we talking, by the way, about bootstrapping companies? It could be anything. Yeah, okay. Regardless, LinkedIn is a good channel.

[00:25:08.770] – 10k mrr Summary

It’s cheap. Total leadership is actually free. The only thing is you need to invest your time. I think this is one of the best things to kick off with. Then properly try to catch all those intense signals and learn from them. If you ask me what growth this is, is this product-led, sales-led? I think it’s still founder-led. From 0 to 10, you should be doing founder-led, founder-led motion. Also, you have to dive into every call with your clients as well. In episode 20, I chatted with Kunstam on how SaaS companies will scale in 2026, go-to-market efficiency, RevOps, and word of mouth growth. I made this mistake myself as well when I was briefly a startup founder, but I also think to some extent everyone is, in the old school days of SaaS, so fixed on this recurring revenue piece. But I think if you really want to get to our 10K15K. I mean, on the site, I also have some coaching, and I’m not yet there on 10K a month, but I’m getting there more than halfway. Really have, and I learned it because I work very closely with a content design coach who said, I couldn’t be clear.

[00:26:13.980] – 10k mrr Summary

You have one offering for one audience and focus there and really deliver exceptional value on that matter. And that’s both on potentially your product, your service, whatever your opening or your product, but definitely as well like your service component towards that they really actually see that the impact you will bring. And I think that in combination can really actually nowadays quite easily get you towards 10K and then maybe even do 20K a month, which is a sustainable foundation to build something on, right? But I think, again, there the focus doing less but better. And that’s the most difficult thing for everyone, for a founder, for a revenue leader, for myself, definitely. But doing less but better, I think, and that compounds over time. But you need to be consistent and you need to hold on strong to that one. Not easy, But then I think 10K, to be honest, in three, six months, you can easily reach that number. In episode 21, I interviewed Jaco from De Kuy on how AI will rewrite SaaS go-to-market in 2026. We talked about pricing, efficiency, and sales automation. Build the data system in real, build a real-time data system.

[00:27:18.760] – 10k mrr Summary

Make sure that you have that right because it’s really costly and problematic to fix that later on. Any recommendations, I guess? Because it sounds big, right? Where do they start? What should they do as a minimum? Get a real good infrastructure provider, like something like Snowflake that provides from the get go, a real-time data lake. Thank you for watching this show of the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast. You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you like this content. If you did, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you like this content, feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show. If you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to more about what it is, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your BTB SaaS.

Meet the author

Joran Hofman

Back in 2020 I was an affiliate for 80+ SaaS tools and I was generating an average of 30k in organic visits each month with my site. Due to the issues I experienced with the current affiliate management software tools, it never resulted in the passive income I was hoping for. Many clunky affiliate management tools lost me probably more than $20,000+ in affiliate revenue. So I decided to build my own software with a high focus on the affiliates, as in the end, they generate more money for SaaS companies.