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S7E22 – Zero to 10K MRR: The Most Practical Advice from Founders and Operators

S7E22 – Zero to 10K MRR: The Most Practical Advice from Founders and Operators

Joran Hofman

Dec 23, 2025

Zero to 10K MRR: The Most Practical Advice from Founders and Operators

Every episode of season seven asked the same question: what advice would you give a SaaS founder who is just starting out and aiming to go from zero to 10K MRR? This summary brings together the most practical and battle-tested suggestions from dozens of founders, operators, and go-to-market leaders. The focus is squarely on what works early on—how to find your first customers, validate demand, price correctly, and build momentum without burning too much cash. Across the conversations, certain patterns emerged repeatedly, alongside a few conflicting insights that provide nuance. The episodes cover founder-led growth, go-to-market motion, pricing tactics, product-market fit, and building early traction, all directly from people who have done it. If your goal is 10K MRR for a B2B SaaS, this is the guidance they shared. And once you get there, the next episode in the series digs into the leap from 10K MRR to 10 million ARR. For now, here is the zero-to-10K playbook, as told by the guests.

Season 7 Full Episode list

Episode 1: How to Build SaaS Partnerships That Actually Drive Revenue with KaraLynn Lewis

KaraLynn Lewis emphasized the power of relationships in the early stages. For a real startup, the priority is to focus on the relationships you already have, use them where possible, and resist the urge to systemize too early. Instead of forcing a process where it does not yet belong, look for the gaps you can fill—not just for customers, but also for potential partners and peers. Buddy up wherever there is alignment, and use those early relationships to find product-market fit. The emphasis is on being close to the people around you and solving meaningful problems for them before building out processes at scale.

Episode 2: Why 80% of Outbound Sales Fails, and how to Fix It with Besnik Vrellaku

Besnik Vrellaku shared a recurring pattern he used across multiple ventures: interview-style outreach as a way to validate quickly and build trust. He described reaching out on LinkedIn and email to invite people into short interviews about their pain points. These conversations do more than gather insights—they often convert into customers. By packaging responses into a report and giving people something to look good with, he found that most people engaged and many shared the content. In one example, he and his team interviewed forty creators and saw strong engagement. The approach works because it relies on grit and genuine tactics rather than fancy systems. For those with some seed money, he also pointed to paid ads as a fast, if expensive, way to validate demand and get early revenue. In his words, getting from zero to your first few thousand in MRR usually comes from either proactive interview-led outbound or investing in ads to drive traffic and revenue.

Episode 3: Hugo Pereira on Proving Value Before Scale

Hugo Pereira reflected on a mistake many founders make: trying to prove scale too early. In the zero to 10K MRR stage, he realized he should have been focused on proving value and finding product-market fit rather than optimizing for efficiency. He cautioned against obsessing over conversion rates when the sample size is still small. Instead of worrying about website visits, demo-to-trial conversion, or activation metrics, he recommended prioritizing deep conversations with the best-fit prospects. The goal is to identify the five to ten best potential customers and to work closely with them to learn. He described how he got caught up in conversions and efficiency, when this phase is really about conversations and insights. The advice is to trade efficiency for understanding until you have the right foundation.

Episode 4: Karek Robinson on Go-to-Market and Operational Discipline

Karek Robinson encouraged founders to talk directly to their markets and buyers—not just product users—and to understand what is happening in real-time. He warned against trying to automate relationships too early or relying on signals from tools alone, as this can drown out gut instincts. Developing one-to-one relationships in the first 12 to 18 months is what will ultimately scale the business. He also stressed the importance of focusing on making one motion work instead of juggling too many tactics. Rather than splitting attention between outbound, inbound, PLG, and other motions, nail the one that matters most for your business and build from there.

Episode 5: Joey Gilke on Going All-In on Product-Market Fit

Joey Gilke advocated for an intense focus on product-market fit. Before building too much, he suggested identifying who you want to sell to and then speaking to those people with no sales agenda beyond learning. He has used the same practice across multiple companies: find about twenty people in the market, pay for a short, honest conversation, and invite them to shoot holes in your proposed solution, including the delivery and price. Start with three or four conversations, iterate the offer or product, then repeat with the next group. After a few cycles, you end up with a solid solution people want to buy. As a bonus, many of those who helped will ask to be contacted when you launch, often becoming your first seven or eight customers.

Episode 6: Maia Voyer on Early Sales, Pilots, and Pricing Predictability

Maia Voyer advised founders to learn how to sell because initial traction often comes from warm outreach and introductions from investors or friends. If you can, use outbound on LinkedIn or email to secure pilots. She also shared that pricing is becoming more complex, especially with credit-based systems where buyers struggle to predict costs. She believes that result-based and outcome-based pricing, as well as predictability, will shape conversations in the coming year. In the meantime, present implementations as pilots with a clear price. Deploy a pilot so the buyer can see the value, and once they do, negotiate a larger deal. Her advice is to make pilots your pricing logic, keep the sell simple, and avoid large buying committees early on. She also cautioned against giving up too quickly, since many things will not work at first. With AI-saturated channels like LinkedIn, playbooks that worked before might not work now. Keep your mind open and go where the audience is, whether that means cold calling, events, or even old-school media like printed newspapers, if that is what it takes.

Episode 7: Desiree Jessica Paley on Psychology, Sequencing, and Expansion

Desiree Jessica Paley suggested breaking down the journey into clear stages: your first three customers, then 500K, then one to three million, and then to ten. For the first three, rely on your network. To get to your first 500, focus on your heavy users and identify their twin companies and competitors. Narrow your focus to those lookalikes, then scale by honing in on the specific signals and pain points they share. Moving from three to ten is about opening up the market thoughtfully and using tools and AI to go faster with a strong strategy. She views the first three million as a period of experimentation. Try new things, keep what works, drop what does not, and use each result as data to inform the next test.

Episode 8: Andrew Kaplan on One Acquisition Channel and One Retention Channel

Andrew Kaplan’s advice was to keep it basic in the early stage. Find one channel that works well for acquisition and one communication channel that drives retention. In the beginning, you will not have strong conviction on positioning or enough data for optimization, so keep it simple and grounded. Get customers in through one reliable channel, and keep them engaged through a single, consistent communication loop. The discipline of focus at this stage is part of what gets you moving.

Episode 9: Ricardo Cacri on Growing Without Marketing Spend

Ricardo Cacri recommended not spending on marketing from zero to 10K MRR and focusing on validating one channel. Your channel depends on what you are building, but the principle stays the same: pick one and go deep. Whether it is SEO, affiliate marketing, YouTube, or something else, make it your only growth lever at first. In his own company, partner sales were the only motion for a long time—even with funding—until validation was clear. Only then did they stack on additional activities like events and round tables. In the beginning, it is all about nailing one channel and moving forward from there.

Episode 10: Christopher Gannon on Commitment and Finding a Founder Network

Christopher Gannon emphasized personal commitment and discipline. The early journey is hard, and often no one else will care, so it is critical to push through and get things done. He also urged founders to find a network of people who are going through the same thing. Friends and family may not understand what you are building or why, and that can be isolating. Surround yourself with others who get it, because that shared understanding helps you sustain the commitment required to reach early milestones.

A Quick Note on Affiliate and Referral Growth for SaaS

If you are already running an affiliate or referral program and not seeing results, the episode highlighted a platform built exclusively for B2B SaaS that combines in-app referrals, a large affiliate network, and AI-powered recruitment to find relevant affiliates. With migration support, unified management, tracking, payouts, and fraud detection handled for you, the goal is to build a scalable growth channel without high upfront costs.

Episode 11: Marc Appel on Flipping the Funnel and Starting with Intent

Marc Appel’s advice was to flip the funnel and start at the bottom. Focus on in-market audiences first so you can work with intent. In practice, this means running search campaigns where people are actively signaling interest. This approach lets you collect data and observe how real buyers respond to your campaigns and proposition. By starting where intent is highest, you get insights that can shape the rest of your motion.

Episode 12: Chitte Joosten on Pricing: Separate Deals and Package Smart

Chitte Joosten encouraged founders to treat each big deal separately rather than anchoring to what you proposed elsewhere. In each instance, ask how you can lower the barrier to entry while still maintaining skin in the game. Always charge something so there is commitment, but avoid giving things away for free indefinitely. Include value metrics that can scale with usage over time so accounts can grow. He recommended playing with packaging early on rather than price. Price comes later once you know which package structure makes sense for your customers and product. The principle is simple: charge a bit to start, keep value aligned, and expand over time.

Episode 13: Hotske Wesselius on Scale, Talent, and AI Support

Hotske Wesselius noted that if you have already found product-market fit and can drive growth without sacrificing your life, you are in a strong position. To double from there, think carefully about what success requires. You may choose to add someone next to you, perhaps in revenue generation, especially if your customer is clear. Alternatively, consider building an AI agent to take over part of your work. The core question is how to sustain growth without burning out, and whether headcount or technology is the best way to do that.

Episode 14: Romy de Groot on Costs, Innovation, and Decisive Strategy

Romy de Groot focused on the realities of scaling toward and beyond 10 million ARR. Early on, reduce costs and keep reserves, especially in uncertain markets with changing buyer behavior. You do not want to be forced to raise when conditions are not right. Hiring less but better helps, since a senior hire who can do multiple jobs can be more efficient than many junior hires. She stressed focusing on innovation and technology because the environment is changing rapidly. Partnerships can also be powerful, especially where larger companies can amplify your reach. As you scale, decide if you want to become an enterprise company or remain a scale-up, because the requirements diverge sharply. Operationally, many companies grow fast with broken internal systems, exposing legal and process risk. Fix internal operations, automate more, reduce costs, and maintain speed while clarifying your next horizon. Be explicit about where you are going in the next two years, which markets you will enter, where your customers are, and what acquisitions are on the roadmap. If those answers are unclear, trouble will follow. Her closing push was to keep costs low, innovate quickly, build the right go-to-market with partners and references, scale fast, take big risks, and think big.

Episode 15: Christoff Sikiewicz on Pricing as a Process and the Power of Differentiation

Christoff Sikiewicz simplified early pricing: make it okay, but use it to learn. Avoid a single all-in-one plan with one price, because you will not learn enough. Instead, differentiate across at least two plans, such as good and better, each aligned to different use cases or ICPs. Set one plan at price X and the other at 120% of X. Over time, you will see which plan customers choose and why. If nearly everyone chooses the most expensive plan, you may be too cheap. If they mostly choose the cheapest plan, you might be giving too much away there. Treat pricing as an ongoing process of differentiation and experimentation.

Episode 16: Richard Schenzel on Obsessing Over Your Buyer Persona

Richard Schenzel advocated a laser focus on your market and buyer persona. He acknowledged how tempting it is to take any customer early on, but insisted on digging into intent and understanding why they buy. Be in research mode. Talk to as many people as possible and learn quickly from their feedback. At the same time, build a scalable product rather than bending everything to a single large customer. If you tailor your tool to one massive client, you risk becoming a one-trick pony. Stay agile, keep scalability in mind, and look at your niche carefully. If you only chase enterprise, your total addressable market may be too small, and the feature demands and maintenance can become unmanageable. Feedback is a gift, but keep it aligned with the market you want to grow in.

Episode 17: Rudolf Otein on Founder-Led Learning Before PLG

Rudolf Otein recommended a founder-led, sales-led approach for the first twenty customers. He suggested getting them on calls and using frameworks like jobs-to-be-done to uncover what they want your product for. Ask them to describe your product in their words and learn how they see it. This will strengthen your messaging, positioning, and pricing. While PLG has a place later, the earliest stage is about learning directly from your buyers.

Episode 18: Rene de Jong on Learning, Mentorship, and the Long Game

Rene de Jong shared a broader perspective on the journey. Enjoy the ride and learn from every step. Looking back on launching his first company at age twenty-five, everything seemed possible, but the most important thing was to constantly reflect and learn from what you are doing. He urged founders to gather people around them who have already done it, who can hold up a mirror and offer practical tips. He highlighted how conferences and communities can help founders avoid common mistakes by learning from others’ experiences.

Episode 19: Glenn Miseroy on Lean Growth, LinkedIn, and Founder-Led Motion

Glenn Miseroy’s advice was to grow as lean as possible and make the most of LinkedIn. He called LinkedIn a strong go-to-market channel because buyers are present there, and thought leadership costs time, not cash. Being a little vulnerable about what you are building and which problems you solve can generate impressions and interest, though it is a long game. He encouraged founders to capture intent signals and learn from them, and to treat the first stretch as founder-led above all. From zero to ten, the founder should be in every client call.

Episode 20: Kunstam on Focused Offering and Doing Less, Better

Kunstam shared a lesson learned the hard way: too much focus on recurring revenue can distract from what truly moves the needle early. He described how coaching work reinforced a key insight—have one offering for one audience and deliver exceptional value. This is true for the product and for the service around it so that customers feel the real impact. Doing less but doing it better is difficult for founders and revenue leaders alike, but consistency compounds. With strong focus, he believes reaching 10K in three to six months is realistic, and possibly even 20K, creating a sustainable foundation to build on.

Episode 21: Jaco from De Kuy on Real-Time Data Infrastructure

Jaco advised founders to build a real-time data system early because it is costly and problematic to fix later. Start with a strong infrastructure provider that offers a real-time data lake from the outset. Getting this right at the beginning sets you up to operate with better visibility and faster decision-making as you grow.

The Common Threads: Relationships, Focus, Learning, and Momentum

While the guests brought different perspectives and tactics, certain themes cropped up repeatedly across the conversations. Relationships matter more than systems in the early stages. Founders should talk to buyers, not just users, and they should speak directly to the market rather than leaning on tools and automation too early. Focus is essential—on one motion, one channel, one acquisition loop, one retention loop, one offering, or one audience. Multiple guests emphasized finding product-market fit first, even at the expense of efficiency, and treating the earliest phase as a learning engine powered by deep conversations. Pricing should be practical and iterative, using pilots, simple packages, and value metrics that expand with usage. Go-to-market motions should prioritize channels that match intent and lean tactics that the founder can run personally. Founders should surround themselves with people who understand the journey and can provide honest feedback. And in the background of all this, infrastructure decisions like data systems deserve early attention because they become hard to unwind later.

From Zero to 10K MRR: What This Stage Is Really About

The journey from zero to 10K MRR is not about building at scale or optimizing for conversion rates. It is about uncovering real pain, finding the customers who feel it most acutely, and earning their trust by delivering true value. It is about choosing one channel and one motion, keeping costs low, and avoiding distractions from the shiny objects of growth tactics you do not yet need. It is about pilots, interviews, and willingness to hear exactly what is wrong with your offer so you can fix it while it is still small. The path is gritty, personal, and relational. Many of the people who take a few minutes to help will become your first customers, and many of the insights you gain will become the spine of your product and go-to-market strategy.

What Comes Next

Once you cross 10K MRR, the next chapter opens. The show follows this episode with a deep dive into how to grow toward 10 million ARR, where challenges change and stakes rise. But that next leap is built on what you learn now. Keep your costs low, your mind open, and your conversations honest. Speak directly to your buyers, iterate your product in public if you can, build early partnerships that create value, choose one channel and nail it, and treat pricing and packaging as a process. Most importantly, keep moving, keep listening, and keep learning. If this episode resonates, reach out, share your ideas, and explore more of the show. The path to 10K MRR is within reach when you combine discipline, focus, and a relentless commitment to understanding the market you serve.

Key Timecodes

(0:00) – 10K MRR summary, founder-led growth, product-market fit, go-to-market
(1:20) – Ep1 Caroline Lewis: SaaS partnerships, partner marketing, revenue growth
(2:25) – Ep2 Besteenik Vreljku: outbound sales, customer interviews, paid ads validation
(3:31) – Ep3 Hugo Pereira: product-market fit, founder-led sales, customer conversations
(4:38) – Ep4 Karek Robinson: go-to-market, operational discipline, single motion focus
(5:53) – Ep5 Joey Gilke: ICP, offer iteration, pricing, product-market fit
(7:48) – Ep6 Maia Voyer: AI go-to-market, pilots, outcome-based pricing
(10:15) – Ep7 Desiree Jessica Paley: B2B sales psychology, ICP, market signals
(11:37) – Ep8 Andrew Kaplan: growth operating system, acquisition channel, retention channel
(12:39) – Ep9 Ricardo Cacri: zero to 10K MRR, one channel focus, partner sales
(13:46) – Ep10 Christopher Gannon: founder discipline, network, early-stage SaaS
(15:03) – Ep11 Marc Appel: bottom-of-funnel, search ads, in-market demand
(16:11) – Ep12 Chitte Joosten: SaaS pricing, value-based pricing, packaging
(17:18) – Ep14 Romy de Groot: cost reduction, innovation, partnerships, enterprise strategy
(18:16) – Ep14 continued: operations, legal risk, systems, go-to-market strategy
(19:08) – Ep14 wrap: keep costs low, innovate fast, partner-led growth
(20:20) – Ep15 Christoff Sikiewicz: monetization, tiered pricing, pricing experiments
(21:38) – Ep16 Richard Schenzel: ICP, buyer persona, scalable product, feedback
(22:52) – Ep17 Rudolf Otein: sales-led, JTBD, messaging, pricing signals
(24:01) – Ep18 Rene de Jong: SaaS exit, valuation drivers, advisors, lessons learned
(25:08) – Ep19 Glenn Miseroy: LinkedIn, thought leadership, intent signals, founder-led growth
(26:13) – Ep20 Kunstam: go-to-market efficiency, one offer, one audience, focus
(27:18) – Ep21 Jaco de Kuy: AI data infrastructure, real-time data, Snowflake

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.

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