Jan 14, 2021
“How many mermaid tails do
you think are sold every year globally?”
It wasn’t a question I expected
to be asked by a SaaS founder.
I guessed 50
million.
But I was short… by 450
million.
Liam Martin, one
of my SaaS Academy coaching clients, asked me this question in the latest episode of
Escape Velocity.
Liam is the co-founder
of both Time Doctor, time tracking software for remote workers,
and Running Remote, the world’s largest remote work
conference.
I’ve been coaching Liam
and his co-founder Rob for years now.
Liam is an open book,
happy to share anything about his business, life and relationships.
His partner, Marielle, is the CEO and founder of Aqua
Mermaid, a site that
sells mermaids tails and teaches you how to swim like one too.
...Which explains the
unusual question.
It never ceases to
amaze me how much money can be made in a unique niche.
And although Liam has
some unexpected insights into the mermaid niche, his strength is in
his knowledge of remote work.
Amidst a global
pandemic, the topic of remote work has gone from interesting to
necessary, and many myths around remote work are being quickly
shattered.
“When you take
someone remote, they increase their productivity by 40%.”
Your ability to
assemble a flexible, efficient remote workforce may be an essential
step to getting your SaaS off the ground without the upfront costs
of office space.
If you want to know
more about scaling your business with a remote workforce, then tune
in to this awesome interview with Liam.
Although most of my
interviews are business focussed, this one gets personal quite
quickly, where we touch on topics including:
- The high rates of
depression amongst entrepreneurs
- The value of therapy
for high-performers
- How Time Doctor went
down for 2 days… losing $1M in ARR
- Why VCs are skeptical
of remote workforces
- How your remote
workforce can be a competitive edge
- What to do when life
deals you a tough hand
- The need for empathy
in business
- Self-sabotaging and
why entrepreneurs can be their own worst enemy
- How to help someone
course correct
And by the way... I
think it's a good thing not to talk only about business.
As entrepreneurs we're
human. We all have good days and not so good days.
What helps us through
those times is having a good feedback loop from entrepreneurs that
have been through what we're going through and come out the end of
the tunnel alive.
The Escape Velocity
podcast is my way of having those conversations and giving you
another perspective.
Tune in and hang out with
us.
--
Dan Martell is a serial entrepreneur, an investor in
40+ startups like Intercom, Udemy, and Unbounce and the creator
of SaaS
Academy, helping over 500 B2B SaaS
founders scale faster. He’s founded five SaaS companies and
successfully exited three of them. If you want to scale faster
without hitting the usual roadblocks, make sure to follow him
on
Youtube, Facebook,
Instagram,
LinkedIn
& Twitter.