Episode 34

034 Massimo Arrigoni - Royally Frustrated with A Big Enough SaaS Problem

Massimo Arrigoni is the CEO of BEE, a product-led scale-up that’s making email and landing page design easy and fast. BEE’s no-code visual builders are used over six million times a month, and are embedded in over a thousand SaaS applications. Massimo is also co-founder of Early Impact and created Product Cart, an early ecommerce system that still powers thousands of online stores today.

Today, Massimo joins the show to discuss his background in product management, three keys to solving product-market fit, and the difference between taking a ‘Free Trial’ versus a ‘Freemium’ approach.

Episode Sponsor

Small Fish, Big Pond – https://smallfishbigpond.com/ Use the promo code ‘SaaSFuel’

Champion Leadership Group – https://championleadership.com/

Key Takeaways

03:01 – Jeff introduces today’s guest, Massimo Arrigoni, who joins the show to discuss the inspiration behind BEE and his background in product management

09:35 – Three aspects of solving product-market fit

23:01 – How to know when to stick with a product and when to kill it off

25:29 – Jeff takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsor, Champion Leadership Group

25:59 – Shifting from ‘Free Trial’ to ‘Freemium’

35:29 – Advice Massimo would give to his younger self

38:01 – The role that mentors have played in Massimo’s success

39:41 – Where listeners can go to connect with Massimo and learn more about BEE

Tweetable Quotes

“To create a good fit is really hard, right? We talk about product-market fit and how to get there. When you’re intimately familiar with the fundamental reason to exist, it just makes it so much easier to reach product-market fit, almost naturally. I try to explain this by saying, ‘When you are royally frustrated with a big enough problem that you are very familiar with, those three things are great ingredients.” (10:42) (Massimo)

“Be intimately familiar with the problem. In our case, for example, it was 2013-2014 when we decided building emails with the existing Microsoft Word looking editor doesn't work. So we said, ‘Let’s build a visual builder that works.’ First we outsourced to save money and it sucked. We knew that it sucked because we were that familiar with the problem. We were building emails night and day, so we quickly decided that product that we built was not gonna work out and had to be rebuilt.” (14:16) (Massimo)

“I would use that as an indicator. If those early adopters are very happy, they are advocates, and they talk to other people about it, and yet you don’t see the adoption, then I would stick with it. It probably is a timing issue.” (24:20) (Massimo)

“With a Free Trial, you just try a product. There may not be any limitations with features. And then at some point the trial ends and you need to make a decision. Do I want to continue using it and pay for it or do I stop and I don’t have any other options? A ‘Freemium’ approach basically says, ‘Come in, use it. Typically there are some limitations, but you can use it as long as you want.’” (31:21) (Massimo)

“It just takes longer. It normally always takes longer than you think to get to having a good product for the right market. So, just know that it does. And, therefore, prepare yourself.” (35:52) (Massimo)