Tessera

You need to know when you're thrashing. When you're spending a lot of energy doing a whole lot of nothing. When you're wasting energy over something that's not actually crucial. That's self-awareness. And it's critical for leadership.

A founder fed customer interviews into ChatGPT to get jobs-to-be-done. Output wasn't wrong. Just goofy. Missed all the nuance. The AI tension: incredibly useful, incredibly easy to misuse when you're not the expert. AI-assisted ✅ speeds up your work AI-led ❌ replaces your judgment

It’s fascinating to me how marketing is the center of the universe for an up-and-coming SaaS business despite it being the least efficient lever to pull. It makes sense — customers pay the bills and you need as many as possible to survive.

Product is the center of the universe for PLG SaaS. Marketing depends more on product than product depends on marketing. You can't put lipstick on a pig. And if people don't want the pig, they're not buying it. Latest In Demand: demandmaven.io/ep58-why-ma...

Customers can't tell you what to build. They can tell you bugs and quality of life fixes. But value generators? The features that extend how long they stay? You have to discover those yourself. demandmaven.io/ep57-why-yo...

EP57: Why your SaaS product is losing value (and what to do about it) | DemandMaven: Strategic growth partner for SaaS & Software Companies

Value decline is why your NRR is stuck at 70%. Learn the three causes of preventable value decline and the discovery process to actually fix it.

demandmaven.io

Monthly churn: 3-4%. Looks fine. NRR at 12 months: 70%. Not fine. This is value decline. Your product isn't getting worse — it just stopped growing with your customers. Three causes, all preventable. New In Demand ep - demandmaven.io/ep57-why-yo...

In most of the growth troubleshooting I do — which spans qualitative research and a deep dive into product, marketing, and subscription analytics — activation is almost always where the opportunity is hiding. And the #1 mistake I see? Teams treating activation like a box to check.

Asia Orangio @asiaorangio.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Your customers are survivors. They made it through whatever friction exists in your product. They're not representative of the people who left. That's why UX research with strangers beats research with customers every time. New In Demand episode on activation:

Watching your competitor crush it with community, content or sales-led growth? Before you copy their playbook, ask yourself: -Do we have their funding? -Their team structure? -Their stage of growth? -Their customer base? Context is everything. Copying without it is a waste of time.

"You can't do research for everything." Agreed. But if you're changing pricing without interviewing a single customer, you're wasting your time. Data can show you patterns. Only customers can tell you what they actually value and will pay for. demandmaven.io/ep53-why-re...

Here's the thing about research projects: Clients aren't paying you because research is "cool" or "fun" (even though it is). They're paying for the outcome research unlocks — better activation, smarter pricing, stronger retention. Research = 1/3 Translation = 1/3 Execution enablement = 1/3

That slow growth you're experiencing? It might not be a marketing problem. When we troubleshoot growth with SaaS companies, pricing is often one of the first things we look at. At DemandMaven, we start by talking to customers then running a survey. demandmaven.io/ep52-the-bu...

Stop shouting "we have product-market fit!" when you've got 5 customers and 6 months in business. It's way more accurate (and honest) to say: "I have early intuition that we might have PMF, but I won't know for sure until I see 12+ months of retention data."

IYKYK sooo many founders collect growth tactics like Pokemon cards. LinkedIn ads, influencers, referrals. But our client 4x'd revenue by optimizing 3 areas: messaging, pricing, onboarding. Each reinforced the others. Ready to build your growth system? demandmaven.io/contact/

Book a discovery call today and learn more about how we can help you grow.

demandmaven.io

You can feel like you have product-market fit, but your Net Revenue Retention will tell you the truth. I talk to founders all the time who are convinced they've nailed PMF because they have some paying customers and good feedback, but they haven't looked at their NRR.

You may not think about operations, but operations is thinking about you. You're executing processes every day whether you've documented them or not. The question is: are they good processes? And are you aware of them? That awareness is what unlocks growth.

Your churn might *look* healthy at 3% but what if you're losing 55% of revenue every 12 months? With stats like that, no wonder growth feels impossible. Step 1: A free growth audit (with me), so we can identify missing metrics. Let’s chat: demandmaven.io/contact

Book a discovery call today and learn more about how we can help you grow.

demandmaven.io

Partnerships and community programs launched too early rarely hit the scale you want. Not because they're bad strategies — but because the network effects haven't had time to mature yet. Timing matters.

True story – I worked with a translation software company with a 10% activation rate. After our research sprint, they redesigned their UI around the actual "jobs" customers hired the product for and DOUBLED activation. Is your activation where you want? I can help demandmaven.io/contact

Book a discovery call today and learn more about how we can help you grow.

demandmaven.io

The more founders I work with, the more I realize: most teams write off entire marketing channels based on one failed campaign. The channel isn't broken. You're just not looking at the campaign-level data that actually matters. demandmaven.io/ep49-can-yo...

Check out my latest episode of the In Demand Podcast, where I talk about why a non-SaaS business spinning off a SaaS business is harder than you might think. demandmaven.io/ep48-why-sp...

EP48: Why spinning off a SaaS from your non-SaaS business is harder than you think | DemandMaven: Strategic growth partner for SaaS & Software Companies

Every year, I have around 10 to 15 calls with non-SaaS companies that have decided to create a SaaS product. Usually it's a consulting firm, an agency, or some kind of services business that's built internal software to deliver their work faster and cheaper.

demandmaven.io

Founder stuck at $40k MRR: "We didn't have time for customer interviews." 12 interviews and 3 weeks later: We identified why 99% of free accounts never converted AND uncovered 2 new profitable features. 😮‍💨 Ready to pull your greatest growth levers? demandmaven.io/

DemandMaven || Strategic growth partner for PLG SaaS & Startups

We use qualitative insights and quantitative analysis to help you better understand your customers, identify gaps in their journey, and ultimately grow your business.

demandmaven.io

every year i talk to 10-15 consulting firms trying to spin off a SaaS and the pattern is always the same: they think their brand equity will translate to the new product it won't you're selling to strangers now, and your product needs to stand on its own two feet demandmaven.io/ep48-why-sp...

The harsh truth about agencies at early-stage: You're paying them to learn. Just like any new hire, they won't hit their stride until month 3-4. If you're pre-PMF, that's a very expensive education for everyone involved. Consider contractors and freelancers first to de-risk.

"What's the ONE thing that will 10x our growth?" It’s never just one thing. Our client went $20k→$80k MRR by fixing activation, clarifying ICP, and adding expansion revenue. Each improvement compounded the others. Need help identifying your highest-leverage growth opps? demandmaven.io/

DemandMaven || Strategic growth partner for PLG SaaS & Startups

We use qualitative insights and quantitative analysis to help you better understand your customers, identify gaps in their journey, and ultimately grow your business.

demandmaven.io