It’s the dream of every Internet entrepreneur to build a business that goes viral. Yet the sad truth is that most do not. It’s hard to think of any other industry with such a winner-take-all mentality as Internet software. The volatile combination of small market entry costs and big network effects creates wave after wave of disruption and consolidation, and quite a few millionaires along the way. Alas, virality is an elusive goal, particularly in SaaS. For this reason, SaaS Don’t #10 insists that you should not depend on network effects. Instead you should focus first and foremost on satisfying each and every single customer. But, if you’ve done that…bring on the hockey stick!
This is the fourth post in a series that paves the path to sustainable SaaS growth. The first post in this SaaS growth series introduced the concept of the SaaS growth ceiling, as well as the three fundamental SaaS marketing levers for breaking through it: customer acquisition, customer lifetime value and viral customer network effects. This installment explores the third, final and most funnest SaaS marketing lever: network effects, offering three proven SaaS marketing strategies to drive SaaS growth by getting your customers to sell themselves.