In the early days of SaaS22, before we wrote a single line of code, we made a strategic decision: build a community first. This wasn’t just about gathering an audience; it was about deeply understanding the challenges SaaS companies face and validating our thesis before investing heavily in product development.
The Nestlé Playbook: Building a Market Before Selling the Product
One of the most fascinating lessons in go-to-market strategy comes from Nestlé’s approach to cracking the Japanese market for coffee. Rather than trying to change consumer behavior overnight, they took a long-term approach. They started by selling coffee-flavored candies to children, getting them used to the taste. Over the years, those children grew up with a preference for coffee, making it easier for Nestlé to introduce instant coffee products and capture the market.
From China to the world: How Xiaomi Used its Community to Disrupt Consumer Tech Incumbents
Just a few years ago, the Chinese technology major Xiaomi did not exist. And today, they are everywhere, from smartphones, to smart TVs, robotic vacuum cleaners, air fryers and even the fastest electric cars in the world. How did they go from a small six member team in Beijing in 2010 to a global tech powerhouse? Manufacturing prowess aside, Xiaomi or Mi as it is also known kept a tight-leash on marketing budgets and leveraged community and word-of-mouth instead of traditional marketing channels.
Mi rolled out their first smartphone in 2011. But before that in 2010, they rolled out an online community called "Mi Fans." The first 100 users or "fans" tested Xiaomi's MIUI software built on top of Android, provided feedback week on week in exchange for early access to Mi devices. With tight community-based feedback cycles, they rolled out their first near-perfect smartphone in August 2011 and gained 75% marketshare in China. Since then, there's been no looking back. From 100 online fans in 2010 to 10 million in 2014 to about 69 million in 2024, Mi successfully replicated the community playbook globally to take on incumbents even earning it the slightly controversial "Apple of China" moniker.
Similarly, at SaaS22, we knew that jumping straight into building a marketplace without first establishing credibility and demand would be a risky move. Instead of assuming we knew what SaaS vendors needed, we took the time to embed ourselves into their world, positioning SaaS22 as a trusted partner in their growth.
Offering Advisory Services to Strengthen Our Thesis
Nestle took 15 years to build their market, Xiaomi took 4 years to go from China to the world - we obviously don’t have that luxury in the Tech world where Sam Altman keeps pushing out new revolutionary features every week.
So we gave ourselves 12 months.
Before hiring our founding head of engineering, we focused on advisory services. We helped SaaS companies optimize their partner programs, generate demand, and structure their go-to-market strategies. This wasn’t just about monetization—it was our way of getting a front-row seat to the challenges they faced. Through this, we were able to:
- Validate Our Assumptions – Every engagement reinforced or refined our vision for the SaaS22 platform.
- Understand Pain Points Firsthand – Instead of guessing what features would be valuable, we built deep insights into real challenges.
- Refine Our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) – We gained clarity on who our early adopters would be and what problems they were actively looking to solve.
- Build Strong Industry Relationships – By delivering value upfront, we created goodwill with future customers and partners.
Learning from Rocketlane’s Playbook
Sairam Krishnan's blog on how Rocketlane built its marketing engine resonated with us. Rocketlane built credibility through content, community, and thought leadership long before launching its product. By the time they had something to sell, they already had a highly engaged audience eager to try it.
We took a similar approach, creating high-value content, hosting events, and facilitating discussions around AI, GTM, and SaaS partnerships. This positioned us as experts in the space and allowed us to build demand before even having a fully fleshed-out product.
The Rocketship Growth Model: Fast, but Fragile?
Companies like Cursor have aggressively scaled with high VC funding, aggressive hiring, and rapid expansion into new markets. History shows that many hyper-growth companies fail within a few years—think Quibi, WeWork, or even fast-growing SaaS startups that crashed after raising huge rounds.
The survivors are often the ones that balance growth with sustainability, like Atlassian, Notion, and HubSpot.
How This Informed Our Product Roadmap
By the time we were ready to hire our founding engineer, we weren’t operating on assumptions. We had:
- A clear understanding of must-have vs. nice-to-have features.
- Early adopters lined up, ready to test and provide feedback.
- A product roadmap informed by real-world insights, not just theoretical ideas.
Hiring at this stage meant they weren’t building in the dark—they had a well-defined direction, real customer insights, and an engaged community ready to support them.
The Takeaway: Community and Advisory Before Code
Most startups rush to build a product and then scramble to find users. We flipped that model. By building a community and offering advisory services first, we:
- Reduced the risk of building something no one needed.
- Established deep credibility in our space.
- Created demand before launching, ensuring early traction.
SaaS22 isn’t just another SaaS marketplace. It’s a community-driven, insights-powered platform built on real-world experience. And that’s why we’re confident in what we’re building.
Now that you're done with reading the serious stuff, here's a sneak peek into what we've been building with our community
We formally kicked-off our community initiatives with our partners—the beating heart of our community with our first ever Partner Day in sunny, beachy Berlin in June 2024.
An afternoon of intense discussions, peer-to-peer learning, followed by fun networking at the beach set the bar high for our events to follow.
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November 2024 brought us our next community event in the form of SaaS and Stroopwafels at our Partner Day in Amsterdam.
Doubling down on the success of Partner Day in Berlin, we nearly 2x-ed our community in just under 6 months.
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The love from the SaaS and Partner community-alike helped us take audacious steps to enter 2025 with two new community initiatives—our maiden AI/CX Roundtable: bringing high-quality, relevant discussions on the latest in the world of AI, CX, and SaaS to the forefront, and participating in our first-ever large-scale event—CCW Berlin (Customer Contact Week).
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And it isn't just us, we're thankful to have found supportive partners
The beauty of being in a community is that it allows you to connect with people without the fear of making mistakes or talking to the wrong people. - Jan Smulders, Loyally
The community is absolutely vital, it’s something we have to invest time in. It’s the trust, the follow-ups, and the collective effort that truly make it all worthwhile. It’s not just about the fun—it’s about building something meaningful that sustains over time. - Sunil Dutt, DevRev
So What the Friday are we building?
Our Opportunity window
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How we differentiate
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What's next?
As with any early-stage startup, there's a lot going on SaaS22. As we said in the beginning of this blog, we've finally brought on board a founding engineer—Vijayraj who brings with him a wealth of experience courtesy his years at Freshworks having built their first partner portal, Freshteam and taken on challenges like building their unified system of customer records.
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Bringing on a founding engineer means faster velocity, and sharpened focus on product, all of which you'll get to see shortly. We'll continue to build community globally, so expect an exciting line-up of events not just in Europe but across USA and APAC.
If you'd like to be a part of this journey, we'd love to have you on board. Apply to join our growing community here.
Until next time 👋
