Welcome to the latest installment of SaaSlife SPOTLIGHT, where we shine a light on innovative SaaS companies and their leaders. Today, we are thrilled to feature Frank Sondors, Founder and CEO - Salesforge.
Frank shared insights into his founder journey, the challenges of establishing product market fit, the exciting future of Salesforge....plus lots more!
Welcome and Introductions
Dan: Welcome to the latest edition of SaaSlife Spotlight. It's my pleasure to welcome Frank Sondors, CEO and founder of Salesforge. Hey, Frank, how are you doing?
Frank: Very good. It's 10 a.m. I'm in Barcelona today, so quite early.
Dan: Nice. Better weather than what we're getting in the UK, I'm certain.
Busy Life in SaaS
Dan: From what I can see on LinkedIn, I think you're the busiest man in SaaS at the moment, aren't you?
Frank: It's definitely busy. Typically averaging out anywhere between 10 to 20 meetings a day, so there's a lot going on. And yeah, just working quite crazy hours as well these days. I've been doing this all since the beginning of the year, so yeah.
Dan: Brilliant. And congratulations as well for being named as one of the top startups from Focal, Focal 100 list.
Frank: Thank you. Yeah, we applied for Focal, but unfortunately didn't get in the end to demo ourselves on the product. But it's fine. It created, I would say, enough buzz about the business, so that's why you want to get into top 100. But yeah, it's a very tough competition. There's, I think, over 2,000 startups that applied, actually.
The Journey to Salesforge
Dan: For anybody listening that isn't aware of the business, can you give a brief overview of Salesforge, the company, the product suite? What really, as if you're speaking to a five-year-old, in its simplest form, what is it that you do and the benefit that you bring?
Frank: Yeah, so when you're a business, a B2B business in particular, and you're looking to contact another business, typically you do that through three main different means. One is you can send an email to another business. B is you can send a LinkedIn message, so something on social. And then C is you can give them a call. We just help B2B companies, particularly startups that are looking to scale, to reach out to a lot of different businesses and send them a uniquely crafted email. We look at what it is that you sell, then we check the internet to see what we know about every single one of your prospects. We check out the website, LinkedIn profile, and based on that, we craft a unique email to every single individual. That's what Salesforge does. We have a couple of other products, Mailforge and Infoforge, which help you build up the necessary infrastructure or mailbox to reach out to prospects. And that's it.
Tackling the Email Market
Dan: Cool. So for any of the naysayers on LinkedIn that say that email is dead, your message to them is it's not dead. You're just doing it wrong.
Frank: Email has evolved over the years, and it's still evolving. There are a few problems in email that we're solving. But yeah, there's a whole topic of email durability, making sure that emails land in the primary inbox. There's a lot of bad actors sending ransomware, phishing attempts, and other bad stuff. Gmail and Outlook are introducing various restrictions to tackle that, which harms both the bad and good guys. Good guys often don't have an email durability expert or an engineering team specializing in durability. This creates a conundrum.
Origin Story
Dan: What led you to set up Salesforge? Was there a particular challenge you found in the marketplace?
Frank: I spent over a decade in tech sales, working for companies like Google and various SaaS companies. I observed a common problem, especially in my last gig as VP of Sales leading a team of 50. The only way to attain targets was to hire more people. Hiring more people to attain the target seemed wrong to me. Instead, you want a leaner and meaner team, making the software scale. We're starting with email, then expanding to LinkedIn and voice, helping reach out to prospects in a clever way using big data.
Product Market Fit and Customer Engagement
Dan: What would you say have been the biggest challenges from inception to now?
Frank: The biggest challenge is typically achieving product market fit. We're solving email durability first. This problem can be solved in multiple ways, and persistence is key. Talking to users on a daily basis is crucial. Many founders don't do that. It's important to engage with your ideal customer on a weekly basis. If you have less than 10 meetings with your ideal customer weekly, you're not close enough to your customers. We talk to over 100 customers daily, giving us a good sense of direction for our product.
Eureka Moments
Dan: Was there a particular conversation where you felt you were onto something big?
Frank: It was about seeing if multiple people said the same thing. If seven or eight out of 10 prospects mention the same problem, that's the problem to solve. Speaking to people from different verticals and targeting a global market helps understand patterns. If multiple people mention a similar solution, that's what you want to build.
Building the Product
Dan: I've seen people spend a lot of time and money building an MVP without proper market fit. How did you approach this?
Frank: Before shipping a single line of code, we had four people paying for the product. We even had someone in a Berlin bar subscribe after overhearing a conversation. Asking someone to pull out a credit card for something that doesn't exist yet is the best form of validation. We also did 40 to 50 user interviews.
Future Plans
Dan: Looking at the next 12 months, where do you see the business?
Frank: In 12 months, we'll probably triple as a business. We plan to release two more products, building an Apple-like experience for sales execution. All products will be fully integrated within the ecosystem, similar to Salesforce and HubSpot. We're not focused on growing headcount but optimizing revenue per employee. We're currently a team of 20, and we plan to double to around 40 in 12 months.
Leadership and Culture
Dan: What growth do you want to see in yourself as a leader?
Frank: Just being a better leader. Being a CEO is tough, with multitasking and context switching being significant challenges. Equipping people with the right skills and competency is essential so they can act autonomously. We don't want to babysit people but empower them to be better employees, more competent, more knowledgeable, and better paid over time.
Describing the Culture
Dan: How would you describe the culture at Salesforge?
Frank: We're looking for culture add rather than culture fit, enriching culture with different perspectives and backgrounds. We don't have corporate culture; we're very much a startup-like business and plan to stay that way. We're looking for people who want to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, and make an impact. We move 10x the speed of a typical startup, so you need to buckle up. We want people with a hunger for professional development, success, ambition, and passion. In sales, there's also a hunger for commission. For every 10 people we interview, maybe one is truly hungry and motivated.
Hiring Process
Dan: How can interested individuals get in contact with you?
Frank: Typically through LinkedIn, but even if there's no current role, our hiring is evergreen. If you want to work at Salesforge and are good at something, send an email to hey@salesforge.ai. Preferably include a video of yourself, explaining your background, what you can do for us, and the impact you can make. This is the best way to get hired. If you can contribute significantly, we can find a role and budget for it.
Advice for Aspiring SaaS Founders
Dan: Any advice for budding SaaS founders?
Frank: Start today. If you're contemplating starting your own company, just do it. Through failure, you will succeed. Keep failing until you get that aha moment. Speak to your users as early as possible. The more you speak to your users, the less likely you are to go wrong. Despite the grim market, this is one of the best times to build a SaaS business.
Closing
Dan: That's brilliant. Thanks very much, Frank. And that's it for us today. Thank you very much for your time. It's much appreciated. Looking forward to seeing Salesforge's growth and continued success.
Frank: Thanks, Dan. Have a good one.
Dan: Cheers.
Conclusion
Effectively using email for sales/ marketing is still an absolute must for any scaling business! I think what we have seen is that with new rules coming to effect using tools like Salesforge has never been so integral to any email campaign strategy!
To listen to the full interview - please check it out!
Stay tuned for more insights from SaaSlife SPOTLIGHT as we continue to shine a light on the brightest stars in the industry.