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26. How B2B SaaS Companies Leave Money on the Table with Bill Wilson · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:03
  [Jack]: What's happening everybody? Welcome to Scrappy But Successful. This is where I sit down with
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  your favorite consultants and we take the comedic route through their life, find out if
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  they're successful today because they're sophisticated or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your
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  host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of Pineapple Consulting Firm, always helping small businesses become more data-driven.
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  Fun fact of the day, just like fingerprints, everybody has a unique tongue print as
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  well. I don't know what creep detective has that cataloged, but that's neither here nor
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  there. Today I'm joined by my friend, Bill Wilson. It's a multi-time founder, couple of
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  exits along the way, lives in two parts of the globe, currently runs pace pricing,
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  and it's a near and dear service to my heart. They help B2B SaaS companies
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  price based on what the customers actually value. So Bill, we're gonna jump into all
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  that. We know you're successful today. Question we have for you though, do you think
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  you're more on the sophisticated side, more on the scrappy side?
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  [Bill]: I would probably have to go with the scrappy side, just given I think so.
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  I'd like to think so. Some days I like to think I'm sophisticated, yeah, the
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  life just keeps telling me that's not true. So definitely scrappy.
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  [Jack]: When you're continually told no, then you just listen eventually, I guess. All right, so
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  [Bill]: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's funny, you know, I mean, so I'm Canadian. I grew up
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  sort of all across Canada. My dad was in Parks Canada, which is equivalent to
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  the National Park Service in United States. And so I grew up in national parks.
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  So we went from national park to national park when I was young. But it
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  was funny, like I thought about this before the entrepreneurial stuff. And I remember when
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  I was old enough to the first time we had a move where I was
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  like, a young enough boy to like have to part with a bunch of things
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  when we moved. Because you know, when you move, you got to get rid of
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  stuff. And I remember going to all the neighbors and selling my toys. I do
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  remember that. Like I had a big wheels, you know, those things, the pedal, the
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  thought, you know, I got a classic 70s big wheels anyway. Anyways, you know, so
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  I did that. So I do remember that. So yeah, I don't I don't know.
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  I think I think maybe my granddad on my mom's side was definitely one of
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  those entrepreneurs that he was a builder. He created things.
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  [Bill]: and he worked in mining, but he was always building things for people and it
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  was more about bartering back then. know, like, you know, he'd build a wooden leg
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  [Bill]: Yeah, so your question was how do I think, know, where did I start? I
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  think originally, but yeah, my first company was actually a web development software or website
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  design company back in 1996. I want to say 1997 and it was a disaster
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  like a complete disaster, but it was fun. I really it just it was I
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  was 18 or 19 years old. Didn't know anything. Yeah.
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  [Bill]: And so I had a partner in that. Anyway, we tried to do some stuff
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  and it just didn't work. I was more interested in playing business than actually being
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  in business at the time. And so this is like reinforcing that scrappiness, I think.
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  But I swore I'd never run another business. And so I just became a cog
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  [Bill]: They said they couldn't afford me at the rate I had or like that I
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  wanted like you know the salary I wanted and they said but if you're a
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  contractor we could probably do it so started a company and Yeah
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  [Jack]: Okay, so business found you, you didn't find the business.
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  [Bill]: No, I mean, and that was the thing, but then I started doing, I was
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  on kind of like a two year contract building search and rescue helicopter software for
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  the Canadian government through a contractor. It was a really lot of fun, probably some
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  of the best work I've done. It was a lot of fun and worked with
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  a really good team. But it was shortly after that that I realized I wanted
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  to keep doing that. I started working out of this co-working space that was in
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  downtown Halifax. It was 2009, like it was like pre the explosion of co-working spaces.
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  There was the hub in San Francisco and there was the hub Halifax. were the
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  two hubs, like those, the branded ones. And anyway, so I went and I started
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  working out of that and I just met all these crazy people that were doing
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  really cool things, right? Like I met designers and lawyers and you know, there was
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  a guy in mining, like there was just like everybody working in this co-working space.
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  And, but I really sort of gravitated towards the folks that were, you know, building
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  tech and doing that kind of stuff. And I realized that we were all kind
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  of going after the same kind of contract to work. And so that's sort of
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  when I got the idea for Mindsea, which is my first company, like when I
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  named it at first, it didn't even have business cards when I started. was just
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  like, look, it's just, it's an avenue for revenue.
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  [Bill]: And, but yeah, so I started working with collaborating with some people and we tried
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  to go after some projects and stuff. But a funny thing happens when you do
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  that is that it was very kumbaya, but it was really like, Hey, let's all
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  come together. Let's present as one unit, go after contracts. And no matter what work
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  we get, let's make sure we bring it back to the team kind of thing.
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  But what would happen inevitably is that someone would go get a piece of work
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  and then go find the cheapest talent they possibly could and completely circumvent the whole thing.
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  [Bill]: I was like, I did a ton of mobile work in my time, like back
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  in before iPhones came on strong. iPhone was coming on really strong. I really wanted
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  to do mobile development. I taught myself Objective-C over the Christmas break. so, yeah, found
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  a couple of other people that wanted to do that too and just started doing
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  that, completely changed the website overnight. so I built a mobile app design and development
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  studio that is still going today. it's, yeah, I think I started it, I guess,
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  proper like 2009, 2010, you know, as that next generation of it. And I sold
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  it in 2021 and still going. Yeah. Yeah.
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  [Bill]: Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's so funny. Yeah, it's one of those things. I
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  think my heart was in the right place because now I'm very focused on the
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  collaborative idea of working with people, creating something new from nothing. What I've been calling
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  committed co-discovery. It's kind of like, let's get together and let's commit to trying to
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  figure something out. And if we can't figure it out, then that's fine. We'll just
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  walk away. No big deal. We don't need to paper a whole bunch of stuff
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  up front. There's a really great group out of Charlotte called CoLab run by Chad
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  Jenkins. The guys over at Seatspark - that's their whole premise is collaborations and that's
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  where I sort of got introduced to it and started to really bend my mind
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  around like collaborations are probably the way to do things.
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  [Bill]: Yeah, I mean, for me, like, I built MindSea and I'm in Strategic Coach at
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  Dan Sullivan's coaching program and I absolutely love it. You know, it's in the services
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  business, as you know, it's like feast or famine. It's always hustling. You're always starting
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  over. And you've got a team of software developers that can only build so many
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  crud apps, right? Create, read, update, delete. Like you can only build so many of
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  those before you get tired yourself. So I had a bit of an itch, but
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  my head of sales at the time, Taylor Bond, fantastic guy. we had to build
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  a little internal tool to develop quotes for our clients. And a lot of SaaS
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  companies saw it and said, hey, where'd you get this tool? And we took that
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  as validation. We went off and raised some money and built a SaaS company based
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  on that idea. And so we got acquired in 2020.
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  [Bill]: during the frothiness that was COVID and we got acquired by a merchant of record
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  company called Fast Spring out of Santa Barbara. And they acquired us in 2020 to
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  add to their offering. yeah, I think I probably lasted six months at their company
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  before, know, like I'm not meant to be an employee. So yeah, there you go.
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  [Bill]: yeah, at Pace Pricing, we do full sort of end to end rebuilding of B2B
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  SaaS companies pricing. So everything from all the research, qualitative and quantitative upfront to figuring
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  out what the new architecture should be, figuring what the impact of all that is.
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  And then above all, making sure it actually validates with their customers. my favorite thing
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  to do is these things we call pricing strategy reviews. They're basically when a B2B
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  SaaS company is having a very specific pricing problem, usually earlier stage, like three to
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  ten million. And they book one of these things with me and I get to
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  do a bunch of research upfront, get on a call and spend 90 minutes just
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  unpacking this one problem. If I could do those all day long, I would.
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  [Bill]: The most common one in B2B SaaS that I get is people are flatlining on
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  growth. They're putting people on the top of the funnel and they just can't seem
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  to make a dent in it. Usually it means they don't have a lot of
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  expansion revenue - not a lot of their existing customers buying more. Because this is
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  the thing about churn. Like we measure churn in percentages. Percentages suck at scale.
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  [Bill]: 5% of 100 clients is a lot different than 5% of 10,000. SaaS companies are
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  always striving for over 100% net revenue retention, but even higher - like 120, 130.
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  If you're at 120, you'll probably grow like six times faster than everybody else. The
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  other common one: we haven't changed our pricing in the last N years and we
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  don't know what to do.
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  [Bill]: Fear is real, right? Like nobody wants to tinker with the pricing once it's been
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  set. I used to think that confidence was delivered through data. But what I've realized
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  about pricing is it's all about conviction and belief. If the team doesn't believe in
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  it, it is not going to work.
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  [Bill]: I have like four levels of validation. Does it work on paper? Does the team
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  believe it? Will your existing customers accept it? And the ultimate validation: you sell it
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  in the market. If you can do a test run of those, especially firms that
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  are PLG led, lo and behold their conversion rates don't change. Price went up and
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  the conversion rate didn't change. And all of a sudden they just have more money.
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  [Bill]: That was it. Their ARPU went up 52% and they added 25% revenue to the
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  business. Yeah, it was crazy. And this is the thing - pricing isn't just the
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  number. I'm least interested in how much we're charging for something. I'm more interested in
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  how we charge, what we're charging for, what's in the packages, does it resonate with
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  value. The ability to articulate their problem back to them better than they can to
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  you - that's the key. Pricing and positioning can't be separated.
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  [Bill]: Yeah, you do. I talk to a lot of founders and I say, when was
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  the last time you interviewed your customers? And they very rarely do. The biggest unlock
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  for me in pricing was jobs to be done. Once I discovered that - Anthony
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  Ulwick and Bob Mesta, the Switch interview format - that's where I start every single time.
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  [Bill]: Let's go talk to 10 customers. Get me on the phone with 10 customers.
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  We'll do full jobs to be done interviews. You get the push and the pull.
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  Something's pushing them to make a change - that's the hair on fire moment. And
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  your product is pulling them in because it can answer that push. Then underneath that
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  is the anxieties and the habits. Those are the things we have to overcome.
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  [Bill]: Yeah, get on the phone. Go watch Bob Mesta give his masterclass on how to
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  do a Switch interview. Study jobs to be done a little bit. Read Clay Christensen's
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  book or go watch Bob Mesta do Switch interviews live on YouTube. Just get on
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  the phone with a couple of customers, record them, and then use AI to analyze
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  it. It costs nothing for a founder to get on the phone with a customer.
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  [Bill]: If there's a business out there that's not leveraging AI in their business, you are
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  just doing a disservice to your employees and your customers. It's irresponsible not to use
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  AI because of the efficiency it gives you. That doesn't mean you hand over the
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  keys. It just means you are leveraging it in ways that make you more efficient.
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  [Bill]: The printing press democratized information. The Internet made dissemination of information immediate. And AI is
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  democratizing knowledge. I can be Neo - I can just download the way I need
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  to learn. You get to ask questions without feeling like an idiot. It doesn't care.
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  It's not going to judge you.
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  [Bill]: You can't be AI native unless you start today. If you're a business that existed
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  before, by definition, you are not AI native. I think AI led is really the
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  thing - you're trying to use it to leverage and lead and build your business.
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  [Jack]: I've been helping consultants be AI forward because none of the folks I talk to
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  want to be AI experts. They want to be AI forward. So I've been throwing
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  around human-led and AI-assisted.
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  [Bill]: Sure, yeah, I like that. Human-led AI-assisted, I think that works really well. The most
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  important thing is taking the thinking time to understand how AI could impact your business
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  versus the tactics. Dan Sullivan always says, it's who, not how. You don't have to
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  know how to do it. You just need to know who can do it for you.
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  [Bill]: Well, my friend Greg and I started a business last weekend. I'm walking around Estepona,
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  Spain with my wife at a market and we're chatting about this idea. And before
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  that afternoon was over, he had incorporated the company and I had built a brand
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  and a landing page. That's how scrappy you can get. It's stupid fast now.
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  [Bill]: You can iterate on an idea and get your point across visually so much faster
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  than you could before. You can iterate on your messaging and positioning so much faster.
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  You can have something reasonably plausible to get in front of people so much faster.
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  Those people starting businesses today will be AI native. They will know nothing else.
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  [Bill]: Testable and ready to go. That's where the committed co-discovery can come in. Say you
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  and I wanted to go build something - let's give this 90 days. 50-50. Go
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  figure out what this thing is. You don't need to go and paper a business
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  and do all the things. The days of operating in stealth mode are over.
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  [Bill]: The fundamentals haven't changed. We're here to deliver value to a customer. That's it. Keep
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  your delivery cost as low as absolutely possible. Keep your customer acquisition costs as low as
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  humanly possible. If I can do those two things, I can beat everybody else. And
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  now with AI, the other moat is going to be trust.
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  [Bill]: Taki Moore said there's only three things you need to figure out when deciding who
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  to help: do you love them, can you help them, and can they pay you?
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  The love one is so important. If you don't love who you're serving, that's gonna
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  eat away at you. Especially in the startup grind.
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  [Bill]: Not very often. I mean, I work from home a lot, but I'm usually
• 38:08
  at a desk. Today I'm at a counter on a really uncomfortable stool. It's the
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  price you pay for being in the South of Spain.
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  [Bill]: I probably recommend books more often than recommend podcasts.
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  [Bill]: I say, please email me and my assistant will take care of it.
• 39:02
  [Bill]: So this is a giant debate in our household. I am one of those people
• 39:05
  that thinks the gate may disappear. My airport anxiety is high. We get to the
• 39:07
  airport early, hit the lounge. We'll definitely have a couple of pre-flight drinks. My wife's
• 39:10
  MO is to get on the plane as late as possible - running as the gate
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  is closing. I made a decision a few years ago: I only fly business class.
• 41:18
  [Bill]: Yeah, yeah, for sure. All the time. From a product perspective, I'm very much about
• 41:21
  solving one small vertical slice all the way through as easily as you possibly can
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  and get it out there and test it. The market will tell you for sure.
• 42:22
  [Bill]: 100%. Yeah, yeah. They usually end with like an EOM. End of message.
• 42:40
  [Bill]: Like there's no limit. There's no limit. I used to obsess about inbox zero. I've
• 42:44
  got ADHD. I know my edges and I've built systems around my life. Before I
• 42:48
  knew I had ADHD I've realized they're just ADHD coping mechanisms. I have an assistant
• 42:52
  and it's probably the best move. Go read Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time.
• 45:28
  [Jack]: Man, what a way to finish. You are the perfect dichotomy of incredibly detailed and
• 45:31
  also incredibly screw up. Let's just try it and see if it works.
• 45:36
  [Bill]: Yeah, yeah, it's a pattern. I told you it's the quick start. I'm a very
• 45:39
  big quick start. Yeah, let's go. And then I'm also like, whoa, whoa, we got
• 45:42
  to do all these things. So if I can actually get through it, it'll see
• 45:45
  the light of day. I've launched tons of internal products that are half-baked.
• 46:09
  [Bill]: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn when I post. I often do pricing page
• 46:13
  teardowns, which are kind of fun, short videos. And I have a blog which you
• 46:17
  can hit, which is pacepricing.com/blog. And yeah, that's it. You can find me pretty much
• 46:21
  anywhere at WDR Wilson.
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  [Jack]: Okay, very cool. Bill, thank you so much for coming on, man. Take care.
• 46:36
  [Bill]: Thank you. All right. It was fun.