Episode Details

Shawn Finder booked nearly 1,000 demos on launch day for Autoklose - a sales automation platform entering one of the most crowded markets in SaaS. His secret? LinkedIn lead generation, 8 months of pre-launch buzz, and influencer partnerships. In this episode, Shawn reveals how he built a 2,400-person waitlist, used social selling to connect with 100 prospects per day, and hit $1M ARR in 18 months.

Shawn's LinkedIn lead generation strategy combined a virtual assistant sending 100 personalized connection requests daily with hours of genuine engagement - liking, commenting, and sharing influencer content before ever asking for anything. He built 30,000 connections and relationships with 15+ influencers who promoted Autoklose to 500,000+ followers on launch day.

Shawn also let his first SaaS customers name their own price. Most said $20-30/month, so he set initial pricing at $19.99 and raised every 3 months to $49.99. The pre-launch buzz strategy made subscribers feel like co-builders, booking nearly 1,000 demos from a 2,400-person list.

🔑 Key Lessons

• 🚀 Build pre-launch buzz to attract first SaaS customers early: Shawn spent 8 months building a 2,400-person email list through surveys and product previews, booking nearly 1,000 demos on launch day.
• 🤝 Invest in LinkedIn lead generation relationships before you need them: Shawn engaged with 15+ influencers' content for months. When Autoklose launched, they promoted it to 500,000+ followers without being asked.
• 💰 Charge from day one to validate willingness to pay: Following David Cancel's advice, Shawn let his first 20 customers name their price, then raised every 3 months from $19.99 to $49.99.
• 🎯 Define your buyer persona before scaling LinkedIn lead generation: Autoklose initially targeted VPs of Sales but discovered CEOs of SMBs were faster decision-makers. Fixing this changed the effectiveness of every campaign.
• 🧠 Use your own product to generate leads through social selling: Shawn used Autoklose's sales automation to generate leads for Autoklose, demonstrating product value through his own results.

Chapters

• Introduction
• What Autoklose does and built-in B2B database
• How the idea for Autoklose started
• Building Exchange Leads before Autoklose
• Pre-launch strategy - 8 months of buzz building
• Nearly 1000 demos on launch day
• Differentiating in a crowded market
• Reaching $1M ARR in 18 months bootstrapped
• LinkedIn lead generation and social selling routine
• Content strategy - ebooks that generated 3000 leads
• LinkedIn approach: authority vs connection hunting
• Partnership strategy with Vidyard and Calendly
• Cross-promotion webinars and affiliate programs
• Pricing mistakes and lessons learned
• Letting first SaaS customers name their own price
• Cold email tips for SaaS sales
• Lightning round

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/216
• Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email