Co-founding a video SaaS and learning GTM the hard way
- Company
- LAMA, the "Digital Journalist" app for video interviews (Berlin)
- My role
- Co-founder & CMO/COO
- Dates
- Jan 2018 – Feb 2020
- Scope
- go-to-market, marketing, partnerships, fundraising support
The idea
There are more than 580 million entrepreneurs in the world and not nearly enough journalists to cover them. LAMA made video interviews cheap and scalable. You picked the person, our system generated tailored questions from their website and news, they recorded on their phone, and we published and distributed the result. For media companies and brands we offered the same thing as SaaS.
On stage
What I did
Picked a beachhead nobody else wanted.
We started with founders, freelancers and small-business owners, people with a story and no PR budget. Once we had quality content in that niche, we expanded to C-level, investors and HR through targeted expert and influencer acquisition.
Built an outbound interview engine.
We sent around 100 personalised invitations a day, with automated reminders, journalist-prepared questions, transcription and an interview page. Each funnel step was tracked, from "yes" to "recorded" to "paid" to "shared".
Interviewed people worth listening to.
Our in-house interviews included the co-founder of Earlybird, the founder of Eyeo, YC alumni, Forbes 30 Under 30 founders and Wired's "hottest startups". That gave LAMA a magazine and some credibility.
Took the B2B route.
I designed the B2B go-to-market and brought in pilot clients including TED Conference and leading German media companies. That was backed by the Next Media Accelerator (batch 8, Hamburg), Web Summit and TNW.
What the funnel taught us
People say yes, wallets say maybe.
In one paid campaign, 106 people confirmed they'd pay and 5 did. We fixed the payment flow before buying more traffic.
A 15-minute call beats 5 reminder emails.
Adding a prep call raised completion rates, and about 70% of people on those calls bought the promotion package.
Free content is a growth loop.
Interviewees shared their videos with their own communities, which brought in the next wave of users at no cost.
Results
- 1,600 published interviews and 25,000+ users
- 30 B2B pilot clients, including TED Conference
- €500K+ raised from Speedinvest and Pioneers Ventures
LAMA is where I learned GTM with my own money on the line. Measure every step of the funnel, fix the leak before you pour in more water, and never confuse "interested" with "paying". Every company I've worked with since has benefited from those scars.