Episode 851 | The Messy Middle of a SaaS Pivot

Rob Walling (0:00)

Welcome back to another episode of Startups For the Rest of Us. In this episode, I talked to a founder who is in the middle of a SaaS pivot. And I wanted to bring Nathan Tyler on the show so that you can see what it actually feels like in the midst of a pivot. Because I'm probably going to interview him two, three years from now when he's had wild success. And we can, to the best of our recollection, talk through what's happening today and how he felt. But for you to really hear it as it's going on, I think is important for a lot of folks who don't understand just how muddy, complicated, and frankly, unclear the signals are when you're in the midst of this.

I told a brief anecdote about Nathan and his co-founder and how they've built BlinkMetrics over the past couple years. And how over the past six to 12 months, they've been doing a lot of kind of consulting-ish work. It's like software with a service, as Dan and Ian would say on the Tropical MBA. And through that process, they've come upon another idea that may just be the future of the company. So it's a great conversation. I hope you enjoy it. Before we dive into that, by the time you hear this episode, I want to be in Reykjavik, Iceland, running Microconf Europe. And if you've never been to a Microconf, here's what it actually looks like. It's a couple hundred founders in one room talking candidly about everything that's changing right now. What's working? What's no longer working? And what we're all still trying to figure out. So Microconf Europe is sold out, but I want to tell you about the next one, because I'm heading to Austin, Texas, for Microconf US, and the lineup is already pretty incredible. We have sold out our last seven events. So if you want to buy a ticket, you're going to want to do it now, microconf.com/us. The lineup for this event is Nick Francis, founder of Help Scout. You heard him on the show a few months back when I interviewed him. We have Romley John from Product Lead, Jason Cohen, the founder of WP Engine, known as a Smart Bear on the Internet, and Anthony Pieri is taking the stage again. He has given one of the best talks on SaaS positioning I've ever seen, and he's going to follow up on that talk, which he gave in microconf New Orleans. We're going to be at the Hotel Van Zandt right in downtown Austin, April 18th through the 20th. I hope you join us.

As I said, tickets have been selling well. microconf.com/us to buy yours and use promo code Rob50. That's Rob50 for the best price.

And with that, let's dive into the middle of this messy SaaS pivot.

Nathan Tyler, welcome to Startups for the Rest of Us.

Nathan Tyler (2:42)

Thank you for having me. This is surreal. I've been listening to your podcast since like the early 2010s.

Rob Walling (2:48)

This is going to be great. I love it when guests come on because they just know the vibe and it's an easy conversation. You're less nervous because you're just like, I know there's a bunch of nerds out there like me and Rob that are going to be listening to this in the next few weeks. So it's good to have you on, man. And we're going to be talking today about your SaaS company, BlinkMetrics.

I actually told a fun anecdote about you and your co-founder and how you're trying to find product market fit with it. Before we get to that, I want to let folks know that you are a serial entrepreneur. You actually started Staging Pilot, which was a WordPress plugin. Am I remembering that correctly? And you sold it.

Nathan Tyler (3:29)

It was a SaaS platform, yeah, for automating WordPress updates. Did like visual regression tests and checked the site before and after updates.

Rob Walling (3:38)

Yep, really well-built and so well-built that even at early stages, you sold it to a pretty nice exit. You shared the details with me and sold it to Pantheon, isn't that right?

Nathan Tyler (3:51)

Yeah, they're a managed hosting and focused on developer experience. It was a great fit for their product.

Rob Walling (3:57)

That's cool. And then you worked there for a couple years, and now you're back doing BlinkMetrics. I told a story a month or two ago about how you're trying to find product fit with BlinkMetrics. And just so folks know, your H1 is take your business reporting out of spreadsheets for good. You know the data is somewhere in your CRM, finance and operations tools. BlinkMetrics pulls it all together into live dashboards that finally answer the questions your individual tools can't.