Hey - Marc here.

Happy Saturday morning, motivated B2B SaaS Founders!

Here's at least one tip to keep in mind as you grow your B2B SaaS company:

Today's issue takes about 5 minutes to read.

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In today's issue, I share some key takeaways from a recent presentation of Craig Fuller, the founder of FreightWaves, at the Founder500 event. He discussed how he used their $20m media business to build a $20m ARR SaaS with zero CAC.

Data businesses live on forever. No one can kill you when you become the source of information and intelligence in your market. You have to have something unique and proprietary because if you don't, you become a commodity.

About FreightWaves

FreightWaves see the world's freight transactions in real-time from Amazon, PNG, Nissan, and Nestle. They then provide fundamental data and analysis to the market, enabling companies to make and interpret information that gets put into context and intelligence. They editorialize it through a media business, allowing them to grow their entire platform.

A lot of people think of them as a media company. They provide supply chain news, data, and context for the global supply chain industry. They have journalists who write original content. So if you ask someone familiar with the brand, they would suggest that they are a media company.

On the other hand, their investors think of them as SaaS and a data company. In the four years since they launched their SaaS business, they achieved 20m in ARR and burned about a million dollars a quarter but added nearly $2m of NET ARR per quarter.

Their data and analysis help clients answer many critical questions. Examples of how they present data:

Articles
Editorial content
Scrolling ticker
Daily animated video
Data charts
Streaming T.V.

P.S. Media business generates a lot of cash flow. That cash flow enables them to reinvest into their data and creates something they've coined "negative CAC." They have something that very few companies do. As they develop content and create a top of the funnel approach, the advertising contribution margins and the profits they make enable them to have perpetual and unlimited growth without having to pay to acquire customers.

Challenges

People would say, "building a media business on a supply chain sounds boring."

If you've lived through the last two years, you know that's not true. Straightways has a content-supported business model. Companies that want to reach the same audience – the very same decision-makers they wish to reach – are paying to advertise to them.

Their SaaS trajectory is very slow.

Their investors were incredibly patient relative to the media business for a long time to build up enough momentum. 2022 is the first year their subscription data revenue surpasses their media business. Now, they're both growing 90% year over year.

Advice to Other Founders

Recruit people who are actually on the field.

They hire someone in the field to write editorial content. It's written from the point of authority and credibility – and not from somebody who's never actually dispatched or driven a truck or loaded an airplane. Now, they post about 50 original articles daily — and have become their primary source of content lead generation.

Focus on high-frequency data.

If you're building, manufacturing, retailing, or ordering a product, those products must move 12-18 weeks before you see and consume them as a consumer. FreightWaves track the global economy within 24 hours. Supply chains see the economy 8-12 weeks before everybody else does.

Get your customers curious and concerned.

Make your customers aware of what's happening and the trends, and become curious about why a ship stuck in the Suez Canal will impact their lives. Having that information and being the market leader in that context has enabled them to build a very successful media business and a very successful SaaS company.

Be a part of the community.

Do many things you're not getting paid for because it's all about branding community equity. What differentiates them from other companies is they go to market thinking about what the community needs to understand, what's happening in the global supply chain, and using both content and data to get there.

Bonus

1. FreightWaves now has:

50 market reporters and commentators
200 employees
40 analysts and data scientists
85k unique visitors who tune into their streaming content (FreightWavesTV) per day
65% market share of supply chain media content
3m daily visitors across their channels

2. Click here to view Craig Fuller’s master deck in his presentation at Founder500.

TL;DR

FreightWaves sees the world's freight transactions in real-time from Amazon, PNG, Nissan, and Nestle. They then provide fundamental data and analysis to the market, enabling companies to make and interpret information that gets put into context and intelligence. They editorialize it through a media business, which has helped them grow their entire platform and later used it to build a $20m ARR SaaS.

P.S. Here is a link to the full interview if you are interested in listening to the full episode: How FreightWaves used their $20m Media Business to build a $20m ARR SaaS with Zero CAC.

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See you again next week.

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