How to grow a SaaS startup — Niklas Dorn // Filestage

Niklas Dorn, CEO of Filestage, talks about the importance of an optimal martech stack. Filestage has gone from being a bootstrapped company to a market leader in content review and approval platform for marketing teams. As a SaaS company, they were able to scale their product and user base relatively quickly, but the journey wasn’t without its challenges and pitfalls. Today, Niklas discusses how to grow a SaaS startup.
About the speaker

Niklas Dorn

Filestage

 - Filestage

Niklas is CEO of Filestage

Show Notes

  • 02:53
    How Filestage got its start
    Filestage started in 2014 after its three founders finished getting their masters from university. Initially, they had many ideas, but no money. Luckily, business angles came onboard quickly.
  • 03:49
    Why Filestages software solution targeted marketers
    One of the founders was unable to find a software solution for the client review process. And they realized that marketers also had problems with content sharing, reviews, and approvals.
  • 06:37
    Filestage and video streaming in browsers
    When they started, technology to stream videos in browsers was becoming popular. First, they focused on video sharing in browsers. Then they added the option to add feedback to videos.
  • 08:02
    Using Facebook groups for feedback
    Filestage is a feedback company. Through Facebook groups, theyve been able to create a community for customer feedback and add more relevant functionality to their solution.
  • 10:41
    The evolution of Filestages marketing strategy
    When Filestage got its first set of users, there werent enough developers to implement a payment system. So, users were manually invoiced and continued paying because of the value.
  • 12:26
    How Filestage scaled their SaaS customer base
    New features were added to attract users from different segments in the market. On their blog, content for target groups was published and guest posts on large blogs grew their community.
  • 14:59
    Filestage and paid advertisements
    Initially, Filestage has more experience with content and media than paid advertising. Consequently, they pushed the wrong metrics and lost money on Facebook advertising.

Quotes

  • "In 2014, we started Filestage right after doing our masters. And it was just the three founders, lots of ideas and motivation, but no money really. So, we lived on $400 a month back then" Niklas Dorn, CEO, Filestage

  • "It's not just you produce a video, share your feedback, and it's approved. Typically, for one minute of a video project theres have around 150 emails back and forth." -Niklas Dorn, CEO, Filestage

  • "Instead of just selling our solution, we asked for feedback. We still consider Filestage as a feedback company. So we constantly learn from our customers and that's something we have done on Facebook." -Niklas Dorn, CEO, Filestage

  • "We spent about 100K on Facebook advertising, but this is one of the biggest phases of fuckups. Conversions were good, but nobody converted into a paying customer because we pushed the wrong metrics." -Niklas Dorn, CEO, Filestage

About the speaker

Niklas Dorn

Filestage

 - Filestage

Niklas is CEO of Filestage

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