In this episode of SaaS Origin Stories, Phil speaks with Scott Hurff, Founder and Chief Product Officer at Churnkey, a SaaS product that fixes every type of churn for you, supercharges all aspects of customer retention, and optimizes your company’s growth. They explore Scott's journey to founding and growing Churnkey, the differences between running a B2B versus a B2C SaaS company, and what every SaaS founder should do to scale a successful business.
Guest at a Glance:
Name: Scott Hurff
About Scott: Scott Hurff is a product maker, designer, and writer. He is the Founder and Chief Product Officer at Churnkey, a SaaS product that fixes every type of churn for you, supercharges all aspects of customer retention, and optimizes your company’s growth. Before Churnkey, Scott was the Founding Designer and Head of Design at Casa, Director Of Product Design at Philosophie Group (now InfoBeans), and Product Manager and Lead Designer at Tinder.
He wrote Designing Products People Love, a book that highlights how product designers work at places like Twitter, Product Hunt, Facebook, and more. He is a keen writer who works on science fiction stories and is a member of the Sudowriters' writing group. In 2019, Scott graduated from the Taos Toolbox workshop.
Topics we cover:
Key Takeaways:
Cracking the Customer Churn Code
Reducing customer churn is a top priority for every company, particularly in the SaaS industry. To tackle this issue, start by identifying the customers who haven't paid for two months but are assumed to be interested in continuing their subscription. This step alone can reduce churn by twenty to forty percent.
Additionally, launch a well-designed survey at the point of cancellation to understand why customers are leaving. It's crucial to ensure that the survey is discreet, thoughtful, and crafted to elicit valuable feedback.
To further decrease churn, consider implementing a cancel flow and regularly review as a team why customers are leaving on both the product and customer success sides. Make this an ongoing part of your routine and iterate as necessary to keep improving.
“De-stigmatize the notion that that data can't be helpful because it's biased, and I think you'll make some great gains.”
B2B Versus B2C
When running a B2B company, you develop a more personalized relationship with your customers compared to B2C, where the focus is on scaling. B2B companies concentrate on resolving specific problems at a more human level.
Additionally, B2B SaaS companies typically have smaller and more proficient teams, while B2C companies tend to have a more pronounced separation and specialization of various functions as they grow.
However, some B2B founders make the mistake of adopting B2C practices that they believe would work similarly. This is not always the case. If you run a B2B company, your priority should be finding ways to connect with your customers as efficiently as possible.
“You have to go through the process and figure out what not to do. Take the wins and then go in and build something of your own and build it your own way.”
Wisdom for SaaS Founders
Be open to fundraising and showcasing your product. You won't know if it works if you don't try. Without trying, you won't know if it's effective and capable of scaling. Avoid assuming that your efforts are not good enough. Instead, consider it a motivation to drive you and your company forward. Going through the process can help in identifying your values, abilities, and limitations.
“We didn't know if this was gonna work at scale. It's working now. And maybe there's that part of us that we don't want to be told that what we're doing is not good enough.”