SaasRise Mastermind Recap - Oct 29, 2025

Join us next week!

Topic 1: Offshore hiring for marketing/sales support, program options, and business impact discussions

Challenges:

• Lack of bandwidth to manage marketing platforms like Instantly for email campaigns
• Difficulty executing marketing strategies while maintaining existing customer relationships
• Concerns about finding qualified marketing personnel with right expertise
• Government shutdown affecting business decision-making and proposal timelines
• Communication barriers with offshore development teams

Advice given:

• Use Roocruit agency for hiring South African marketing professionals who have corporate experience and strong English communication skills
• Consider hiring T-shaped marketers with broad experience but specific expertise in areas like:
  • Media buying (Meta ads, LinkedIn ads, Google Ads)
  • Content creation and writing
  • Project management
  • Email campaign management and data list management
• Start with part-time roles (20 hours/week) to test fit before full commitment
• Bring new hires into the Growth Program cohort for proper training alignment
• Begin recruitment process early as it takes several weeks to shortlist and interview candidates
• Consider joining the comprehensive Growth Program for building internal marketing/sales competency

Topic 2: Board of Advisors Formation

Challenges:

• Uncertainty about value proposition of formal advisory boards
• Questions about compensation structure and equity allocation
• Concerns about time investment versus actual benefits received

Advice given:

• Consider informal advisory relationships instead of formal boards
• Offer 0.5–1% equity vesting over 4 years for advisors
• Focus on customer advisory boards for product feedback
• Use business coaches for accountability rather than formal boards

Key Takeaway: Most participants found informal advisory relationships and customer feedback more valuable than formal advisory boards.

Topic 3: Public Product Roadmap Strategy

Challenges:

• Deciding whether to publish roadmaps publicly or keep them private
• Balancing transparency with competitive concerns
• Determining best methods for collecting customer feature requests

Advice given:

• Implement “Request a Feature” buttons in product dashboards
• Use customer voting systems to prioritize features
• Create quarterly customer review sessions for roadmap feedback
• Maintain private roadmaps shared selectively with prospects and customers

Key Takeaway: Most successful companies use internal feature request systems rather than public roadmaps to gather customer input.

Topic 4: Head of Growth Hiring

Challenges:

• Difficulty finding qualified marketing talent within budget constraints
• Uncertainty about hiring domestically versus internationally
• Managing multiple outsourced agencies versus in-house teams

Advice given:

• Consider hiring overseas talent through agencies like Recruit for cost-effectiveness
• Use combination of in-house team members and specialized agencies
• Invest in training overseas team members through structured programs
• Budget $150–200K annually for experienced US-based growth leaders

Key Takeaway: Many successful companies build effective marketing teams using overseas talent combined with strategic agency partnerships.

Topic 5: AI Explainer Video Tools

Challenges:

• Need for efficient internal training video creation
• Balancing quality with time investment for internal communications

Advice given:

• Try NoteGPT for converting text/PDFs into explainer videos
• Consider Storylane for interactive product demonstrations
• Use Synthesia for AI avatar-based training content
• Explore Napkin AI for visual infographic creation

Key Takeaway: Multiple AI tools now exist to create professional explainer content quickly for internal training purposes.

Here are the tools recommended during the call:

• Google Forms – For collecting customer feature requests
• Fresh Desk – Customer service platform with built-in voting system for feature requests
• Bold Desk – Customer support ticketing system for managing product requests
• NoteGPT – Converts text/PDFs into explainer videos (up to 80 pages or 2,000 words)
• Storylane – Creates interactive product demonstrations with data obfuscation capabilities
• Synthesia – AI avatar videos for internal training and HR content
• Napkin AI – Generates visual infographics from text descriptions
• Roocruit.com – South African agency providing experienced B2B marketers ($2,700/month full-time)
• MarketerHire.com – Platform for hiring fractional marketing talent ($150K–$180K annually for half-time)
• Coach One – Business coaching service for accountability and leadership development
• Notion – Used for creating pseudo-private product roadmaps with voting capabilities
• Pulse.bot – AI-powered news filtering application (launching December, currently in beta)
• Marshall Group – LinkedIn connects, email marketing, and calling services
• Growth Program – 16-week comprehensive training system