Leo Widrich, co-founder and COO of Buffer, shares practical customer discovery advice and interview question design at SaaStr.
Insight
Growing SaaS companies must keep an in-house copy of raw data
“Frankly, in a very hard way is that you always want to keep some, like, at least one copy of your data in-house, and there is a lot of people in a company that sometimes will walk up to you and say you shouldn't do that, right?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Buffer doubled revenue with zero conversion drop after doubling prices
“When we switched from the five dollar to the 10 dollars, We had a zero change in conversion rate, so we literally doubled our revenue from one day to the next without losing a single customer”
Disclosure
Widrich: Buffer is oblivious to competitors and never thinks about them
“Because we are so oblivious to competition at Buffer, Whether we are ignorant, or whether we are arrogant, or whether we are naive, or like, some combination of some of those three things, but truthfully, it's never on my mind. Like, I never think about it”
Insight
Widrich: Founders should avoid problem-solving each other in masterminds
“The one tip here, if you experiment with that, is to sort of avoid solving each other's problems, and instead really practice listening and the Socratic method, which is sort of to ask more questions and to, you know, really let that person come up with their …”
Insight
Widrich: Early startups should prioritize qualitative feedback over quantitative charts
“I think, I actually believe that it can be such a huge distraction early on when you're building your company, where you get too focused, too narrowed in, in, in trying to look at charts, look at numbers, when it can actually be much more useful to focus on th…”
Insight
Widrich: Founders should seek opposing expert opinions on major decisions
“Whenever you have those big conversations, try and get two opposing opinions that you really respect. And in the past I would like talk with someone and be so hooked and now my, Immediate goal is, after I've had one of those conversations, is to immediately go…”