3. Situation at the beginning
We started a software product
company with a DAX member as
customer from the beginning
The company had a lighthouse
customer and was profitable from
day one
A previous company
4. Situation after 12 months
Customer required custom
development
Lack of innovation
Lack of market adoption
Low company valuation
Key question: How could we
implement our target business
model?
Previous company after 12 months
Why?
5. billwerk after 2 years
Our customer
base is our source of
knowledge and
innovation
8. Situation
• We hired a senior CSO with a
good track record
• Traditional sales approach based
on outbound cold calls
• Cost per lead was high and
quality was low
• Reason: There was a small
window of opportunity to sell,
which is unlikely to hit by a cold
call
Conclusion
• Changing market paradigms
require different approaches, also
in sales & marketing
• A good track record matters, but
the ability to change approaches
is even more important
• Recruit the right mindset!
13. My first web application 2003
Backend
Web Frontend
Backend
Web Frontend
Application Programming Interface
User Interface
Marketing Campaign other web applications
21. Make or Buy?
Disadvantage
• Solution fulfils
requirements
perfectly
Advantage
• High costs
• Low innovation
• High project risk
• High time-to-
market
24. When should a process be automated?
Too late
• process is not
stable yet
• business volume is
low
Too early
• process is a
bottleneck for
business growth
• process costs are
significant
25. What payment means should a SaaS merchant offer?
8
Share of
recurring
payment
means
Payment amount
10
0%
100%
50 200 1k 5k
On Account
Mobile
Payment
Credit card
SEPA Direct Debit
PayPal
26. Example: process automation at billwerk
Process At the beginning Today
Recurring billing automated automated
Recurring payments
SEPA Direct Debit
Credit Card
On Account Payments
manually via bank
not offered
manually via bank
automated via PSP
automated via PSP
manually via bank
Debtor Management / Dunning automated automated
27. Trap #5:
Lack of Scalability
Automate your SaaS business
as soon it stabilized!