The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

A story about saying no until you're the only option.
This episode is for founders who believe a horizontal product means a horizontal go-to-market.
A product for everyone still needs a market of one.
Dima Gutzeit, founder and CEO of LeapXpert, watched bankers in Hong Kong do their real work on WhatsApp in 2017, then spent two years building before selling anything. He wrote a large part of that first product himself.
He built something that fits any industry. Then he turned down almost every industry that asked. Today he sets the terms, not only the price.
And this inspired me to invite Dima to my podcast. We explore why he said no to marketing applications, CPaaS, and the contact centre business, and how that gave him the upper hand in the one category he kept in focus. You'll discover what he can ask of a customer today that he couldn't ask for in the early years.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Acknowledge you cannot please everyone
Aim to be different, not just better
Both are chapters in The Remarkable Effect.
Remarkable companies decide who they are not for before the market decides for them.
Here's one of Dima's quotes that captures how he thinks about what focus buys you:
"In today's market, the only way to win is not the product. Anybody can create a product; it's velocity"
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why a horizontal product and a horizontal go-to-market are separate decisions
What saying no protects when the market starts pulling you sideways
When the bigger customer gives you more room instead of less
How years of focus turn into the speed you need later
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Dima Gutzeit, founder and CEO, LeapXpert
Website: leapxpert.com

A story about picking a fight your biggest competitor cannot win.
This episode is for founders who believe the only answer to a bigger player copying them is to build faster.
Most founders fear the day the giant copies them.
It happened to Cyril Golub, CEO of Jinnify — Amazon shipped what they'd built within months. He'd spent twenty years inside e-commerce, long enough to know how marketplaces actually make their money.
So, his answer wasn't to beat them by building faster.
This inspired me to invite Cyril to my podcast. We explore why the strongest position isn't the one you defend, but the one your competitor cannot afford to take. Cyril shares what twenty years inside e-commerce taught him about reading a competitor. You'll discover what he saw in Amazon's business model that decided how he competes.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Master the art of curiosity
Aim to be different, not just better
Both are chapters in The Remarkable Effect.
Cyril's story proves that remarkable companies don't out-build the giant. They choose ground the giant cannot take without damaging itself.
Here's one of Cyril's quotes that captures how he thinks about growth:
"The company should be ready to change, probably completely change level by level, and the main limiter here is the mindset of the founder and CEO."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why the real limit on scaling sits in the founder's head, not the market
Why two founders make better decisions than three
Why the safest position is one your competitor can't copy without hurting itself
What to study when a platform starts building what you built
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Cyril Golub, Founder and CEO of Jinnify
Website: jinnify.ai

A story about what he kept, and what he cut.
For SaaS founders whose growth has stalled and who can't tell whether the problem is the company or the plan.
Most new CEOs tear down what they inherit.
Martin Payne, CEO of TextUs, took a different path. He replaced the founder CEO in April 2020. Growth had flatlined, cash was burning, and he laid off a third of the company in his first year.
The business is now at $20M. He'll tell you most of what got it there was already in the building.
And this inspired me to invite Martin to my podcast. We explore why a stalled company has more going for it than anyone inside can see. Martin shares what he found in his first months, the hardest call he had to make, and a culture his employees wrote. You'll discover the one thing he did twice, six years apart, for the same reason.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Master the art of curiosity
Offer something valuable AND desirable
Martin's story proves that remarkable companies read the signs others stopped noticing.
Here's one of Martin's quotes that captures how he sized up what he inherited:
"I came into the company thinking this is not a turnaround situation. This is a fine-tune, refine situation. And so I just went in with the mindset of there's goodness here. Now let me understand more specifically where the goodness is. Let me understand where specifically things need to be removed or changed."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why a stalled company rarely needs the rebuild everyone assumes
What intellectual honesty looks like when you inherit someone else's company
When retention tells you more about growth than new revenue does
How to make culture stick
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Martin Payne, CEO of TextUs
Website: textus.com

Nice surprise this week: Feedspot ranked The Remarkable SaaS Podcast 17th in their Top 70 Tech Startup Podcasts. Thanks for listening — that's the only reason it's there.

A story about thinking harder while everyone builds faster.
This episode is for founders wondering why shipping faster with AI hasn't made their product any better.
Building has never been easier. That's exactly the problem.
Alex David spent a decade in pricing — Simon-Kucher, then Segment — before founding unSurvey, an AI company G2 acquired last year. Today, he leads AI Solutions there.
His worry is simple: the tools got cheap, but good judgment didn't. While everyone rushed to build, he kept asking the question most people skip ”Is this even worth building?”
This inspired me, hence I invited Alex to my podcast. We explore why the founders who win aren't the ones building fastest — they're the ones who know what's worth building. Alex shares why he walked away from a company that was working to start another and what a decade in pricing taught him about worth. You'll discover why the price was never yours to set — and what that changes about everything you build.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Master the art of curiosity (trait 4)
Create momentum (trait 8)
Alex's journey is an excellent example of the mindset that goes behind how remarkable software companies build something people just keep talking about.
Here's Alex's approach to deciding what to build and what not:
"The price is what the price is to the customer; that's what it's worth to them. You have two options: You build a product that is profitable within that constraint, or you have to spend a lot of marketing dollars to educate the customer on why they're wrong, and why it should be worth more."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why asking why matters more now that building costs almost nothing
What real momentum is made of — and why founders manufacture it
Why hope is what stops founders from pivoting in time
Why acquisitions live or die on people, not terms
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Alex David, Founder and CEO of unSurvey. Today, GM of AI Solutions at G2
Website: g2.com (and g2.ai)

A story about the market everyone assumed was taken.
This episode is for founders wondering how to find room in a market owned by giants.
The biggest software market in the world looked fully taken.
Mazy Dar, CEO of Here, found room in it anyway. He spent 26 years on one pain the giants' browsers aren't built around — a browser made for work, not the public internet.
The world's biggest banks now run mission-critical work on it.
And this inspired me to invite Mazy to my podcast. We explore how you find room in a category owned by Google and Microsoft — and why the slice they leave open turned out to be sizeable. Mazy shares why he named the company after an idea rather than a product, and what he learned serving the most locked-down desktops in the world.
We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:
Acknowledge you cannot please everyone
Sell the idea, not the product
Mazy's journey proves that remarkable companies don't fight the giants head-on. They find the ground where they can become the only logical option.
Here's one of Mazy's quotes that captures how he thinks about a problem hiding in plain sight:
"This is not like a crazy concept. What's crazy is that in this one category of product, the web browser that's the most widely used in the world, it's the one area where the one size fits all seems to be the thing that everyone assumes is the correct answer."
By listening to this episode, you'll learn:
Why holding one problem for years can beat chasing the next trend
What it really costs to let big customers design your product for you
When to stop building only what your founding segment demands
Why selling the idea outlasts selling the product
For more information about the guest from this week:
Guest: Mazy Dar, co-founder & CEO of Here
Website: here.io
Mazy's email: mazy@here.io