192. How to Start a SaaS Business (Even If You’re Not in Tech)

0:00So much of entrepreneurship is making lemonade out of lemons. In this case of a gym owner, he was tired of poor software that made streamlining his member services challenging. So he decided to use his skills and build a product that could sell to other gym owners, making him and his employees millionaires. This is Ryan Atkinson and you're listening to the Upfoot Podcast, where we uncover how great businesses are built and the secrets to their success. Today, I am so, so, so excited to be welcoming Dan Waymora, the founder of PushPress, a top rated gym software company to the podcast today. Today, we're going to be talking about how to build a software company.

0:33It's a challenge in itself, and I'm excited to have Dan on the podcast to actually talk about this. So, Dan, welcome to the show. Excited to have you here. Thank you so much. Super excited to be here and share some of my experience with your audience. You have got great experience, but before we dive into that experience, let's lay the context about how PushPress started. So, wind me back to 2012. Share with us what you were doing before PushPress and really what led up to starting this. Yeah, I mean, I guess you go all the way back to my childhood and college. I was really entrepreneurial. I think I understood it, but I didn't really understand the full context of all that.

1:02I was just the type of person that would run through a wall to make something happen always. Coming out of college, that led me into learning how to be an internet developer or an internet engineer. And it's funny, back then we actually called it an internet engineer because there was this like traditional software engineers. I didn't know that. It's kind of the same, but yeah, the specific flavor I was, was an internet database driven website engineer. So this is like in 2000, around 2000. That's because it was the most entrepreneurial space I could find where I wasn't the actual entrepreneur.

1:27I was getting to work on cool stuff that was new cutting edge stuff, but I wasn't the one doing the entrepreneurial work. Fast forward about 10 years, I had kind of been sitting at a desk, 10 years coding, writing code. But I didn't realize at the time, which I understand now being as the employer seat is like they would serve Italian dinners to us. They would put Coca-Colas in front of us, like everything they could to keep us in our seat writing code. Well, you do that for 10 years and you end up like 30, 40 pounds overweight. So I was your typical Italian pasta dinner fed engineer who was 40 pounds overweight going through a divorce in Los Angeles.

1:55And I decided like, yeah, I got to get in shape because I'm now in the single market in Los Angeles and I got to get in shape. I think one thing about being an entrepreneur is you're obsessive compulsive and you want to find the fastest path to the result you want. And for me, that was a kind of turned through P90X and pushup challenges and all these crazy things. And I found my way into a CrossFit gym. And what I immediately did was I fell in love with CrossFit because it was very entrepreneurial. Like it was very startup-y, grungy and data-driven, which was the weird thing. I've never been involved in a data-driven fitness protocol before.

2:23And so I was still working for MySpace, getting super into CrossFit, and I ended up getting laid off for MySpace. So I decided to take my severance and just open a gym. And the first thing I realized when I opened the gym was like, whoa, the software here does not represent what I know can be built in software. So I wasn't really thrilled. And I also felt new that the people building these softwares didn't really know what it was like to build a gym. Like they were bankers or they were payment provider companies. They were companies that were from the outside trying to satisfy gym needs. And I knew real quick that they didn't really understand what gym management was like.

2:54So I just decided to build my own and that embarked like the next decade and a half of my life, which I thought would be super easy and wasn't. I love the comparison between CrossFit and entrepreneurship. I'm also in CrossFit. And literally this morning, I was driving back from the gym and I was just like, you know what's like equally as hard as like entrepreneurship. There's nothing harder than entrepreneurship. But CrossFit is right up there with it. It is such a hard workout. I love that you identify that as well, honestly. crossfit i think in a lot of ways shaped some of the endurance that you need for starting a business and like later on i actually started doing endurance running like 50ks type running and it's the same mindset like in crossfit it's like i don't know if i can finish this workout but i know i can do this burpee i know i can do this one more rep and then you find yourself at the end of the workout done because you just didn't stop and really it's like that's the same thing with endurance running and that's the same thing with entrepreneurialism it's like if you just don't stop you don't know when the pain's gonna stop but you know if you don't stop you'll finish eventually.

3:47That's the same thing as starting a business. Gosh, that is a great comparison. I love that. But I want to also hit on. So you start your own gym. How long were you running this gym until you decided to start your own software company? Just delay that context. Like one day. Wow. We're going to the setup motions of starting this gym. So I'll give you an example of kind of like exactly what convinced me. Beside the fact that I looked at the software and I knew like we could build something, we were building stuff better at MySpace and other companies I was at. While I was transitioning out of MySpace, I was negotiating my payments rate for my gym that I knew I was opening.

4:15I spent about a month of my life faxing all this, you know, statements and information to let them know I'm a legit person. I could do it. Negotiated that rate all the way down to 1.9%, which I was proud of. You know, all the internet Googling I did said, you can get about 1.9. I got to 1.9. About three months into opening my gym, one of my new members came in and was bragging like, cause he was a banker. And I was like, I got 1.9. I'm so proud of myself. And he's like, it's impossible. You didn't show me your bank statement and I'll show you where they lied to you. And so I did. And turned out I was paying 4.8.

4:40They just hit a bunch of fees, like all over the place in my statements. I was a typical gym owner who didn't look at my statements, didn't care, just assumed I was getting 1.9. So I was already convicted we needed to build the software. I was already building it because I just wasn't happy with what was out there. But when I saw that, I realized I'm not the first person he's ripped off, this person selling for a software company. And so I kind of started asking around and everybody was paying like four or 5 % when they thought they were paying 2%. And so that was kind of shaped my ultimate and massive perception of not only can the software be better, but the industry needs to be defended from the inside out.

5:13So let's talk about building this software. Then you basically are starting working on this day when you identified this little trend as well. So was it just you working on this at the very days, building the software? Like, how did you start building PushPress? I mean, honestly, the first version of it was just me building something for my gym to use because I just could not bring myself to using what was out there. Yeah. What I didn't know about the gym space was, and I'm sure this is the same for every small business niche, coffees, breweries, you know, whatever, electricians, is there was a whole crap ton of gym owners like hiding out in Reddits and Facebook forums and stuff where they were all helping each other.

5:44And the one area at the time, this is like 2010, is like tech was emerging. And so gyms were emerging from like, I compare it to the hardware space. Like in 1970s, there was a hardware dude who was operating a hardware store who didn't care anything about cash registers or POSs. And eventually they got wiped out and replaced by people who were tech friendly. Same thing with gyms at this time, 2010. I ended up kind of being like a thought leader on those forums and groups because there weren't a lot of people in the space who knew how to like create lead funnels and understood what payments were like on websites and knew what, you know, CTAs were and stuff like that.

6:12So I was kind of doing that at the time. And from that experience, I just realized pretty quickly that, or it just helped me understand that gyms needed help in the tech space. And that's kind of where the software was evolving into being anyways, right? Less about just filling out a form and running your business and more about like building this holistic tech first experience. How long did it take you to go from, because I want to give context to people that are listening that are like, okay, a SaaS platform sounds awesome. Like I want to build SaaS. I think that's a pretty common thing that people think of when they want to start a company.

6:39A thousand ways to make money. That's one. Give us context. How long did it take you to build this to actually get your like first paying customer then? So the first versions of what I built for my own gym was on top of WordPress as a WordPress plugin. That's actually why we're named PushPress because it was kind of like, oh, that's interesting. It was a three-way, like I like names that actually have meaning. So it was like, it was a throwback to CrossFit because we came from CrossFit. I knew from the day one, And like, we want it to be bigger than CrossFit, but that way it would always tie us back.

7:05Two, it was built on top of WordPress. And three, one of my co-founders was like, I like the idea of it being you just push a button, you press a thing and like stuff gets done. Like it's simple, right? So that was kind of the idea of ManPushPress. So anyway, so we initially built it on top of WordPress. We realized really quickly that wouldn't scale for other gyms, but it worked for my gym. And where I was kind of going is like, as I started becoming a thought leader in this Reddit space and whatever space, like people were asking me, like, whatever you're using looks different. Can you tell me what it is?

7:30Can you tell me how I can use it? And what I realized quickly was like, I hard coded a recurly key into my WordPress and like, push, let's go. So we had to kind of tear that down and rebuild something from scratch. Probably took about a year and a half of sitting in coffee beans and different coffee stores, coding all day long while holding a day job while running my gym. Oh man. To get the basics of push press out. Luckily for me at the time, I had the life, like I was going through that divorce. So it's like, I had the space, I had the time, I didn't have family obligations. You know, those things lined up for me.

8:00And I would just sit in my gym and when I wasn't coaching, I would be coding. And, you know, I would work 14, 15 hour days, easy, maybe 18 hour days, coaching, coding, sleeping. Like that's all you do. And it took me about a year, year and a half to get all of the core table stakes functionalities written for PushPress out the door so we can launch. I actually launched a second gym around 2013. And my gym was client number one, that second gym. I'm curious. So when you guys launched this in your like second gym, basically your client number one, but like what were some of those things that you noticed like right away with PushPress?

8:27I mean, you're solving your own problems here. But yeah, what were some of those things that like streamlined it right away? Because I want to give people context. Like when you build a software platform, you need to be filling a need. There are a lot of software platforms out there. So how did you identify that need? And yeah, talk about that a little bit more. Yeah. So I mean, the first wedge that we kind of leaned into was the whole from day one felt customer service should be part of the product. And that was from my experience across all kinds of different SaaS platforms of like, hey, I'd like to use this, but I don't understand how this works.

8:51And you're, you know, it's all chat based, like intercom was coming up. So it's like, how does this work? And then somebody would get back you four days later. And by that time you've encountered a hundred other problems and whatever you've already forgotten what that one was. So it's like worthless. So my whole thing at the time was like real-time customer support under five minutes. Like we should be answering questions as fast as we could. The other thing, honestly, I thought like there's a huge gap in the market. In my opinion, the software is not that good. And we're building something that's much easier, much cleaner, looks better, blah, blah, blah.

9:17We're going to crush, we're going to launch this and we're going to have hundreds of clients like month one, not the case. So it was like this learning curve of like in the beginning, you have to get bloody for every client one by one. And then you really have to dive into their needs. So it's like you have to have this mental acuity of like, does this client know what they're talking about? And is what they're asking for going to hurt the product in the long run or help the product in the long run? And how do you navigate that? I don't even think I had that framework in place at the time, but it's like you just naturally will start to go through that.

9:44Like someone's going to ask for something crazy and you have to decide like, do I build that because I want the client or do I punt the client? And that's a really hard test for yourself because you want every client at that point in time. That is one of the hard things when you are building, especially early on within like your first year or even like your second year is like, it's like, oh my gosh, the money is like right there. Like I want it so bad at the same time. You're like, for my instance, like, oh, this person's like not our ideal customer profile. Like, and honestly, this person kind of seems like a pain in the butt to deal with, or it's like, you have to balance, like, is this really work?

10:10That will never go away, by the way. Oh, it never will go away. But some are just such a pain and you know, from the start where it's like, do I really need to be building this for them or not? It is a tough balance. How did you balance it? I mean, to be honest, I was kind of working you through the law of attraction. So it was like, I had a very opinionated, and I don't think this is the best course of action forever, but I was very opinionated on how gyms should be run. And I think the only people that kind of came to us early were people who were attracted to that mindset. Very tech forward.

10:34We ran everything through landing pages and we tried to automate, take things off customer, you know, and a lot of gyms at the time were running that way. So honestly, I took a sales course probably within the first two years of launching PushPress. And that made me realize that, Hey, not every customer is good for you. And you actually do them a favor if you tell them we're not good for you. That was part of the sales process. So I I think you marry those two things together. And it was like, I kind of was picky about who we took as clients. But at the same time, we were really trying to get a lot of clients.

10:58So it is a hard thing to navigate through, to be honest, you know, like really clearly defining what we do and what we don't do. I want to talk about then how did you get your first like customer that wasn't you? How did you identify that person? How did you market to them? How did you sell them? Take us through actually getting your first like paying client that wasn't your own gym? Well, so ironically, the first paying client came almost immediately, which again, probably set our expectations wrong. This is like one of those fluky things. And this is what happens in business is like, you have these fluky things that kind of come and go.

11:25There was another company in our space called PushPress Labs. They had the word labs after them. And they got in a Twitter fight with CrossFit HQ. And so somebody saw that. And then I chimed in and I'm like, yo, we PushPress are not PushPress Labs because CrossFit HQ started tagging us and like the beef that they had. Yeah. And I'm like, hey, just so everyone knows we're not them. And like, hey, keep us out of this. And some guy on the internet who actually works for us today, his name was Sam, saw that. And he's like, hey, I'm actually opening a gym and I like trying new things. And it looks like you're a new gym management software.

11:54Can I talk to you guys? And it was like, that was our first client, like right there. He was actually like, he'll tell everyone he was the first gym. Technically my gym was the first gym, but he was the first non-owner founder gym that was on PushPress. And he was like a day after mine, like right there. So that like set us up for like, oh, this is going to be easy. Like people are just going to find us and come, but that wasn't the case. That was just one of those lucky moments. So yeah, we signed him up quick, but he was on the, if you categorize people, he was on the, I love new stuff. I want to understand the newest thing.

12:20I'm willing to take a chance on new things type of person. And he was in right away. Those are the people, I don't know what it's called, but like, it's the early adopters that you want to like find. And Sam sounds like he was like an early adopter that wanted this technology and being able to just kind of stumble across him on Twitter is a perfect way to get your first customer. Absolutely. Yeah. If you're launching your first SaaS, you do need to try and find that talking point and attraction point to drive early adopters in people who are willing to get feedback and, you know, respect being listened to super critical.

12:48You just need to make sure that their early adopter, the way they run their business is aligned with how you want to build your business and you're not building the wrong stuff. Like that's kind of the big one, because if you don't listen to early adopters, they're going to become detractors, like pretty heavy detractors. So do you have any strategies or advice for someone that like hears that and they're like, well, how do I identify the early adopters? I mean, I think part of it is really taking the time to understand what you want to build. You know, honestly, it's, this is something 12 years later that I'm just starting to understand that this is my business or this is our business and we get to build it how we want.

13:19In the beginning, you don't think that way. You just think like I'm building anything anyone will pay me for. I think there is something to say, like if I was doing it all over again early, I would say like there are very clear guardrails of what we do and don't do, which again, that sales course kind of made me do that. And we can talk about that in a second because there's something powerful there, but really identifying what boundaries you have to be narrow to begin with, because you have to solve somebody's pain really well, and it can't be everybody's pain. And once you kind of define what that looks like, you can start to take your demos or take your calls accordingly.

13:46And let me talk about the sales angle. The sales course taught me that one of the most effective ways to actually close a deal is to tell someone no, which is the most crazy thing. But if you really think about it, like who is the one you want to date the most? The one who won't give you the time of day, you know? So it's like we're in a sales call and I'm like, hey, Ryan, you know what? Like I love everything you do in your business here at PushPress. We're really closely defined to working with this type of customer profile. I can't wait till we can work with you, but right now we're not there.

14:08So I can't go forward with you. Your natural inclination is to be like, hold up, you're telling me no, like, let me figure this out. Let me find a way to work with you. That's going to be your natural inclination. So then you actually have to be a better person and say like, no, honestly, I'm not doing this as like a sales trick. Like I can't work with you have to actually stand your ground and not work with the people who are outside of your circle. You know, what's so crazy about that. There was one time I was on a sales call and I was talking to someone and they were in like another country and like, they couldn't like basically afford us, quite frankly.

14:34I was just like, no, like there's no way like we can work together. And that made them want to work with us like way more where they're like, what is the bottom you can go? Like, I want to work with you really, really bad. We ended up not doing a deal because they couldn't afford us. But like, it does go as a show. Like if you say no to clients on these sales calls, you actually drive their interest like way more. Yeah, it is a crazy thing. So the irony is if you're trying to do it to gate into your ICP and be rigid about who you work with, the people you say no to are going to want to work with you harder.

14:59And you're going to have to have strong conviction that like, I really appreciate that, but you're outside of what I do. I'm not going to serve you well. But if you give me six months, like take the time to like work with me, let me learn what you need and then give me six months to get there. But right now it's going to be a fail. So like, but what you will find is like, if you respectfully tell someone, Hey, just pause on this, keep doing what you're doing. I'll build towards you. They'll be ready for you when you're ready for them. But just that level of integrity, people aren't used to, you know, they're used to a salesperson pushing them into a deal.

15:25So I've gotten so many referrals from gyms that I've said no to because we won't be a good match for them. But then they know that the integrity is there that when they refer their friend over, either we'll tell them yes or no with integrity, right? Exactly. That's a big thing, especially when you're in a sales role is integrity. I want to talk about other sales and marketing strategies that you use to really scale this thing because a SaaS company, it is hard. Like I said, there is a lot of competition out there. You might find an industry where there is none, but overall there is a lot of competition.

15:49What were some sales and marketing strategies you guys use to really grow a software brand push press. Yeah. You know, let me actually back up out of that. And if I don't get to the question, just redirect me because I have ADD admittedly. But I think one of the first, most important things that I feel, because what I've seen in SaaS is like someone comes out of graduate school of business somewhere and they're like, I want to start a SaaS. What should I do? And then they like create this matrix of opportunities and they're like, oh, auto body mechanics. That's what I'm going to do. I think the time of the ship has sailed on that.

16:17So don't do that because if you don't, first of all, you're going to be competing against me who like, I will die for our clients because I come from the gym industry. So you're screwed there. And two, like you're going to get punched in the face every day. The analogy I give is this. It's like you're in the ring with pick whatever the best fighter is of the moment. You're in the ring with, I don't know, for my era, it's Mike Tyson. And you don't even know how to fight. You haven't even trained. And then eventually after like a hundred rounds, you learn how to block a punch. And then after about another hundred rounds, you know how to slip most of the punches, but you can't land one.

16:44And then another hundred rounds later, you're able to land a punch. Like that's what you're talking about in terms of like how much pain you're about to endure. So if you don't love the industry you're getting into, like it sucks taking punches for that long. So that's kind of my word of advice there. That's kind of the precursor to like, how do you even find clients? Like if you're not willing to bleed and Naval said this in his podcast slash book, like you bleed daily. Like that is true. If you don't love what you're doing, the bleeding part gets harder as you go on. You have to love what you do.

17:11Yeah. Okay. So I'm proud of myself. I remember the question because the ADD is real. What sales and marketing strategies like to grow, to start to scale. Yeah, that you guys use to grow and scale. I would say for us, like, first of all, scaling for me, and I feel like a lot of vertical SaaS probably are in this boat, was slow. I think there's this myth that like, okay, triple, triple, double, double, double, or whatever these guys are saying, like that, I feel like, hey, man, if you find that and you're on a true rocket ship, that's great. For me, scaling meant like the first year, yeah, maybe we tripled from like eight clients to 24.

17:43You know, like it's not a sexy ride. What we just really leaned into personally, and again, being a founder from the gym space. And, you know, it might be different, but I just really leaned into authenticity and love of customer and customer support. Like our wedge early on was customer support. Our product was subpar to all the competition we had, honestly, but I would get on a call. Like I still do. I talk to our clients to this day, 12 years later. I mean, to me, that was it. It's like, and then you start to attract the people who care about your growth, working with you to help you grow and helping you learn and become a better company and founder for them.

18:15That was our wedge in terms of sales and marketing. Other than that, as a founder, I had to take a sales course, you know, because your founders are probably doing like me, like you're the marketer, you're the sales guy, everything. I'm writing code and I'm coaching classes in between. Like, it's ridiculous. Like there's so many times I'm coaching classes and like someone's doing a rope climb or a GHD set up right in front of me. And it's just like, it was surreal. I still remember those days. Anyway. Yeah. Like for me, sales is about having integrity and being honest, right. And protecting the person talking to you against the things that they don't even know that they're coming up against.