SaasRise Enterprise Mastermind Call Recap Nov 4, 2025

Based on the Enterprise SaaS CEO Mastermind meeting, three main topics were discussed:

You can join the weekly call on Tuesdays at 10am PT on Zoom (see events page for details).

Topic 1: Sales Positioning Against Well-Funded Competitors

• Challenges: Competing against a competitor with more data breadth (potentially triple the product inventory), different pricing models (per API call vs. flat rate), and more integrations. The competitor emerged in a previously uncompetitive space, creating positioning difficulties when the prospect specifically wants breadth and data enrichment.
• Advice: Make the prospect a friend and directly ask for the competitor's sales presentation to understand their offering. Build the product to match competitor capabilities within 3-4 months, then compete on price. Consider taking the deal at a slight loss to fund R&D if it opens a new market. Ask what the competitor provides that's absolutely needed, and identify gaps in their offering that could become differentiators.

Topic 2: Paid Advertising Strategy and Partner Conflicts

• Challenges: Business partner resistance to spending on advertising and branding for SaaS products due to opportunity costs and cash flow concerns. The services business needs to support 100 employees while SaaS revenue ramp-up could take 24 months.
• Advice: Start with low-hanging fruit: retargeting ads ($100-1000/month depending on website traffic) and competitor keyword bidding on Google/Bing. Separate P&Ls between services and SaaS businesses. Run SaaS as independent business unit with pre-approved budget to avoid constant decision conflicts.

Topic 3: Department-Level Revenue Budgeting

• Challenges: How to allocate company revenue percentages to different departments (engineering, support, platform, etc.) to create self-regulation and align teams with growth objectives.
• Advice: Don't tie revenue percentages to departments except sales/marketing. Use industry benchmarks for expense ratios instead. Focus teams on overall company revenue for bonuses, plus department-specific KPIs. Avoid arbitrary revenue allocation to engineering since their contribution can't be meaningfully quantified as a percentage.

Several tools and platforms were mentioned during the meeting:

‍Advertising and Marketing Tools:

• Google AdWords/Google Ads - for paid search advertising and competitor keyword bidding
• Bing Ads - for search-based advertising
• Meta (Facebook) ads - for social media advertising and retargeting
• LinkedIn ads - including Thought Leader Ads, Message Ads, and matched audience ads
• YouTube ads - for video advertising
• Google Display Network - for retargeting campaigns
• AdRoll - for retargeting networks

Business and Analytics Platforms:

• HubSpot - CRM with Meta integration for audience creation and retargeting
• ChatGPT - mentioned as replacing Google for search behavior
• Google Analytics - for tracking website visitors
• Microsoft Azure - cloud platform costs

Data and E-commerce Tools:

• Keepa - for product data scraping
• Jungle Scout - for retail data scraping
• SERP API - for search engine results data

Security and Compliance:

• Third-party SOC audit tools
• Penetration testing software

Upcoming Platforms:

• ChatGPT Atlas - new browser in alpha
• OpenAI's planned ad network - expected to launch in 2026

Industry Resources:

• SaaS Capital - for benchmark data and metrics
• Various SaaS CFO resources - for industry benchmarking