5 Go-to-Market Lessons from SaaS Grid’s Journey from Internal Tool to Vertical Platform
Converting internal tools into successful products isn’t a new playbook, but few companies manage the transition effectively. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Ethan Ruby shared how SaaS Grid evolved from a VC’s due diligence template into a vertical BI platform, offering valuable lessons for founders navigating early go-to-market challenges.
- Start with a Focused Product Wedge The path to product-market fit often begins with solving a highly specific problem. For SaaS Grid, this meant transforming a Google Sheets template into a basic analytics tool. As Ethan explains, “We ended up sharing that Google sheet with some of our founders after we invested, and they’re like, oh, this is helpful… Well, what if instead of being a spreadsheet template, we hired a few contract developers and turned this into a really simple product?”
This minimalist approach allowed them to validate demand before expanding: “I’m talking incredibly simple, that you literally, you just upload, you upload an Excel spreadsheet and we pop out a few charts for you.” The lesson? Find a clear wedge that solves an immediate pain point, even if the long-term vision is much broader.
- Embrace Unexpected Market Expansion While SaaS Grid initially targeted early-stage startups, they discovered strong demand from larger organizations. As Ethan notes, “We are also a very compelling platform for later stage startups, for relatively large growth stage. It turns out I’m drowning in data and don’t know what to do with it. Problem doesn’t magically go away as you scale.”
This market expansion created new opportunities but required adapting their approach to different buyer personas. The key is remaining flexible enough to capitalize on unexpected market demand while maintaining focus on core value delivery.
- Adapt Sales Approach to Different Personas SaaS Grid’s experience demonstrates the importance of tailoring sales approaches to different buyer personas. When selling to seed-stage companies, Ethan interfaces with founders who understand their business intimately but may not be metrics experts. For enterprise customers, he works with operations and finance teams who “care a lot about process, they care about auditability. They understand these metrics really well, but they’re really focused on how they present them better.”
- Leverage Founder-Led Sales Before Scaling Four months after launching their paid product, SaaS Grid has focused on founder-led sales to build their customer base. As Ethan describes, “Right now it’s really all about sales… We have a lot of companies coming to us and looking for help.” This hands-on approach has helped them sign dozens of customers with an average contract value approaching $10,000.
- Build for Long-Term Platform Evolution While starting focused is crucial, successful vertical SaaS companies need a clear vision for platform expansion. SaaS Grid aims to evolve “from the analytics layer for SaaS companies” into “the all in one operating hub for SaaS companies.” This includes expanding into workflow automation and system integration, transforming from an analytics tool into a comprehensive operating system.
For founders building vertical SaaS platforms, Ethan emphasizes that solving a clear pain point trumps other considerations: “If you find a really amazing pain point, if you find a business user that’s being absolutely driven crazy by a problem and you could solve it elegantly and get them to pay even a little bit for it, I think you have the basis of being successful. Everything else around how much they pay and how big the market is and all these other things, everything else is secondary.”
The key takeaway? Success in vertical SaaS isn’t about building the most feature-rich platform upfront. It’s about finding a specific, painful problem you can solve elegantly, validating demand through focused solutions, and methodically expanding your platform’s capabilities based on real market feedback.