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 interview between Nathan Latka, the host of Daily Interviews with SaaS Founders, and Maureen McGarry, the founder of Blue Stream Analytics. They discussed how she built this secret software to add $4m in deal volume to her brokerage.

Maureen McGarry has been a realtor and broker since 1995 and is passionate about working with investors and developing proprietary software. As a market leader in residential investing, she's eager to help investors succeed in reaching their goals.

About Blue Stream Analytics

Blue Stream Analytics is a proprietary software that pinpoints investments and delivers analytics quickly. Maureen initially developed it to support her customers. But now, they're working on getting it out to other realtors around the country and eventually to other investors so they can use it, too.

Her husband is from the software world, and he helped her find their first engineers and know what to look for, what questions to ask, and what she needed to be aware of.

P.S. Blue Stream Analytics generated over $4m in deal value for her in 2022, of which she keeps 3% of her 150k revenue.

Challenges

She learned how to get her ideas out of her head to a developer the hard way.

She had to go through the whole process of learning how to explain to a developer precisely what she wanted to do. They had software that was working for them but didn't really have a user interface, so she learned what a user interface was. That's where they started.

Advice to Other Founders

Sometimes, wasting something doesn't necessarily mean it's a "waste."

They're on the third iteration of this software, and they probably have a hundred thousand into it that was a waste. It was tricky to put together, but it was all part of the process — and they had to do it before figuring it all out.

Seek help from someone who speaks the same language.

Many folks make mistakes here because they spend a lot of money on a spec that isn't what they need. It then leads to firing that person, and the next person needs to start from scratch. Having someone to advise and guide you throughout the process can help ensure your project is successful.

Learning when to quit is also just as valuable as learning when not to quit.

You must identify when a venture is no longer feasible or beneficial and decide to move on. This can help you avoid wasting time and resources on something that isn't working out while allowing you to explore other options that may be more profitable.

Fall with an invoice when doing user research calls.

Having a list of people who want your product may not be enough. People might say "yes" during your Zoom call, but when you file an invoice and ask them to sign and commit to a certain fee a month for a year, the pedal goes to the metal—they tell you the absolute truth.

Bonus

Maureen is currently reading a business book entitled "Profit Before People."
She's a numbers geek. Her favorite tool for building Blue Stream Analytics is Microsoft Excel.
She's 50 years young, 26 years married, with many kids — one's almost 18.
She wishes she had known when she was 20 to study business and software.

TL;DR

Maureen is a top broker in Minnesota. Her secret power is this offer she built for herself. Blue Stream Analytics generated over $4m in deal value for her in 2022, of which she keeps 3% of the so-called $150k there of revenue. Now, she has been frustrated investing over $100k of her own money in the engineering on the third iteration. Currently, it's working—it's paying for itself, and the only question is, who should she start selling this to? She wants to sell it to other brokerages but also doesn't want to lose the advantage it brings her.

P.S. Here is a link to the full interview if you are interested in listening to the full episode: She built secret software to add $4m in deal volume to her brokerage last year

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See you again next week.

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