Guest: Patrick Campbell - Founder and CEO of ProfitWell. Patrick bootstrapped ProfitWell and sold it for over $200 million without any external funding. He is highly regarded for his insights on pricing, retention, and team building in SaaS businesses. Key Takeaways: Team Building: Focus on defining who you are for and who you are not for. Values should include trade-offs to ensure alignment and effectiveness within the team. Bootstrapping vs. Funding: Bootstrapping is ideal for lifestyle businesses, but if aiming for a billion-dollar exit, consider raising funds to accelerate growth. Pricing Strategy: Implement a pricing committee and make changes at least once a quarter. Focus on the pricing metric/value metric as it significantly impacts revenue and retention. Retention Tactics: Differentiate between strategic and tactical retention. Simple improvements in payment failures and cancellation flows can reduce churn by 25-40%. Shipping and Tempo: Establish a clear tempo framework for shipping products. Define what good looks like in terms of frequency and align teams around this. Topics Covered: Team building, bootstrapping, pricing strategy, retention tactics, shipping and tempo, first principles thinking, customer research, competitive intelligence, local strategies, middle-of-the-funnel strategies.
“Team is everything, but we don't actually focus on our team in the context of the mission.”
“Everything's a lot more complicated than it seems.”
“You can't be everything to all people, so who are you for?”
