How I Built $15M Annual Revenue Vertical SaaS | Dan Uyemura, PushPress

以下是内容的中文翻译： Dan Weemura，健身房管理软件平台PushPress的CEO兼联合创始人，分享了他的创业历程，为首次创业者提供了宝贵的见解。PushPress从2011年的一个想法开始，于2013年推出了第一个客户，其目标是简化健身房运营，让经营者能够专注于客户的健身。 Dan的职业生涯始于工程师，但在2010年离开这个行业，创办了一家CrossFit健身房，因为他意识到健身行业需要现代化的软件解决方案。他对现有的工具不满意，于是构建了自己的系统来满足健身房的特定需求。一个关键的时刻是为他的健身房谈判支付费率，这暴露了健身房经营者需要更好、更透明的财务工具的需求。他发现，现有的软件试图做的事情太多，最终却变得无效，而iPhone基于应用程序的可定制方法解决了这个问题。 早期，PushPress在融资方面面临挑战。Dan反思了首次创业者和风险投资家(VC)之间的脱节。起初，他认为风投只是“赌徒”，他和他的团队努力有效地阐述商业机会。他们不理解风投在寻找什么，比如TAM（总潜在市场）和增长潜力。经过多次路演，他们才意识到投资者需要看到一个可行的商业模式。 演讲者反思了在建立公司时韧性的重要性。他分享说，建立一个每个人都认可其价值的产品，实际上价值并不高，因为可能每个人都在做。如果你真的相信有某种有价值的东西，而其他人却看不到，那么赌注就是，你是不是错了？ 最初几年是靠自筹资金度过的，通过一些节俭的举措，比如出售举重技术海报和一款带有名人声音的锻炼计时器应用程序。这款计时器最初的目的是为了建立品牌知名度，却产生了可观的广告收入。尽管取得了这些成功，但2017年出现了一个具有挑战性的时刻，Dan曾考虑放弃PushPress，专注于他的健身房，但他的联合创始人鼓励他坚持下去。 COVID-19被证明是一个转折点。受“永远不要浪费一场好危机”这句话的启发，PushPress通过发布免费版本的软件、为健身房提供支持，甚至提供赠款，加速了增长。这种以客户为中心的方法，源于团队对健身行业的深刻理解，建立了信任和善意。 获得A轮融资需要持续的学习和指导。Dan强调了与那些成功扩展业务的人在一起的价值。 Dan讨论了垂直SaaS（软件即服务）模式，旨在将健身房管理的所有方面集成到一个平台中，从支付到营销。他认为垂直SaaS的TAM是一个企业的所有费用项目，软件可以在其中自动化或简化任务。 他提倡将客户支持作为一种市场推广策略，挑战了传统上将其视为成本中心的观点。他分享说，团队的目标是授权他们的客户支持团队，这有助于培养品牌忠诚度并推动推荐。CEO强调了在公司发展过程中保持以客户为中心的文化的重要性，强调同理心和与使命一致的团队。 最后，Dan强调了健身行业需要建立在稳定基础上而非炒作之上的多代公司。他对PushPress的愿景是通过更好的健身房业务让世界更健康，从而产生持久的影响。他认为，健身的未来在于解决孤独感和建立社区，而健身只是一个副产品。他提倡建立多代公司，以便在该行业创造持久的影响。

Dan Weemura, CEO and co-founder of PushPress, a gym management software platform, shares his entrepreneurial journey, offering insights valuable to first-time founders. Starting with an idea in 2011 and launching the first client in 2013, PushPress aims to simplify gym operations, allowing owners to focus on their clients' fitness. Dan's path began as an engineer, a profession he left to open a CrossFit gym in 2010 after recognizing a need for modern software solutions in the fitness industry. Dissatisfied with existing tools, he built his own system to address the specific needs of his gym. A pivotal moment was negotiating payment rates for his gym, which exposed the need for better, more transparent financial tools for gym owners. Existing software, he found, tried to do too much and ended up being ineffective, a problem that the iPhone's app-based customizable approach solved. Early on, PushPress faced challenges in fundraising. Dan reflects on the disconnect between first-time founders and venture capitalists (VCs). Initially thinking VCs were simply "gamblers," he and his team struggled to articulate the business opportunity effectively. They didn't understand what VCs were looking for, like TAM (Total Addressable Market) and growth potential. It took numerous pitches to realize that investors needed to see a viable business. The speaker reflects on the importance of resilience when building a company. He shares that building a product which everyone recognizes value in, is not really that valuable, since everyone is probably doing it. If you really believe that there's something valuable and nobody else can see it, the gamble is, are you wrong? The initial years were bootstrapped, marked by scrappy initiatives like selling weightlifting technique posters and a workout timer app with celebrity voices. The timer, initially intended to build brand awareness, generated significant ad revenue. Despite these successes, a challenging moment arrived in 2017 when Dan considered giving up on PushPress to focus solely on his gym, but his co-founders encouraged him to persevere. COVID-19 proved to be a turning point. Inspired by the phrase "never waste a good crisis," PushPress accelerated growth by releasing a free version of its software, offering support to gyms, and even providing grants. This customer-centric approach, born from the team’s deep understanding of the gym industry, built trust and goodwill. Securing Series A funding involved continuous education and mentorship. Dan emphasizes the value of being around people who have successfully scaled businesses. Dan discusses the vertical SaaS (Software as a Service) model, aiming to integrate all aspects of gym management into a single platform, from payments to marketing. He views the TAM for vertical SaaS as the entirety of a business's expense line, where software can automate or streamline tasks. He advocates for customer support as a go-to-market strategy, challenging the traditional view of it as a cost center. He shares the team aims to empower their customer support team, which helps to cultivate brand loyalty and drive referrals. The CEO highlights the importance of maintaining a customer-obsessed culture as a company grows, emphasizing empathy and a mission-aligned team. Finally, Dan emphasizes the need for multi-generational companies in the fitness industry, which are built on stable foundations rather than hype. His vision for PushPress is to create a lasting impact by making the world fitter through better gym businesses. The future of fitness, he believes, lies in solving loneliness and building community, with fitness as a byproduct. He advocates for multi-generational companies to create lasting impact in the industry.