Get to 10,000 paying customers in 3 years

A European SaaS Pipedrive managed to get to 10,000 paying customers in 3 years…

Here’s how:

1. They created an easy to use sales CRM that solved a real problem with focus on great design and support.
1.2. Laser-focused on founders having a very good understanding of the pain in sales software.
2. Got first 20 clients through friends and family.
3. Networked and hustled in Bay Area for months.
4. Graduated from Angelpad business accelerator.
5. Did an Appsumo promotion (I wrote about it many times in the previous growth hacks).
6. Started growing their email list and sharing practical tips, quotes, sales humor and onboarding emails.
7. Created a Google Chrome Extension and got roughly 1/3 of new signups from this channel when competition was super low (it means you need to look for new emerging platforms you can use to boost growth).
8. Launched a free 2-week email course (still works well).
9. Focused the majority of time/money/effort on content and SEO around low-competition keywords + email list building.
10. Tested Adwords. Discovered what keywords generate positive ROI and scaled that.
11. Scaled their PPC efforts in Mexico, Russia, and Brazil.