Investors are wrong - and I can prove it

Hey there, and welcome back to the second issue of the SaaS From Scratch Newsletter!

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who subscribed and shared feedback after the first issue. It was exciting (and a bit nerve-wracking) to hit send for the first time, but knowing you're all along for the ride makes it worth it!

This week, I want to talk about something that plagued my previous CRM venture - the perception that CRM is an overcrowded market. Investors told me this all the time, and I’ll be honest - it made raising money really tough. I even started believing it, I heard it so many times. But after a few years, It’s clear: they were wrong.

Difficult to raise money from investors last time around

When I ran a CRM company last time, raising money was a major challenge. Many investors had the same feedback: "CRM is an overcrowded market," "everyone already has a CRM," or "the big players dominate, and you’ll never stand a chance."

While there’s some truth to that if you’re aiming to offer a CRM product to the biggest companies in the world, but that was not (and is not) my target. My focus is on companies with 1-100 people working in sales. It's like comparing a ferry to a speedboat - both can carry passengers and there’s a market for both, but they serve different purposes. They don’t compete.

So were they right? Of course not.

After shutting down my previous CRM company in 2018, something funny happened. Those "dominant players" that investors were so worried about? They didn’t just survive - they thrived. Their growth shot through the roof, with most of them expanding 3-5 times in size in just six years.

So much for the market being saturated, right? While I was hearing “no chance” from investors, these companies were busy proving there was plenty of room for growth. Turns out, the CRM market wasn’t even close to being tapped out - it was just getting started.

But why did the market explode?

Simple: small and mid-sized companies kept adopting CRM as a necessary tool as they realized how critical it is to manage customer relationships. Businesses that never even considered using a CRM are now making it a priority. The pandemic and the shift to remote work only accelerated this shift - CRMs became essential for staying connected with customers.

So here’s the real lesson: investors might know numbers, but they don’t always know markets. Trust your instincts.

What about me - do I have a place here?

Well, I think so.

I know what we did last time to reach the top 3 in Sweden. I know what customers loved and hated about our CRM and other systems. And guess what? I’ve already started talking to entrepreneurs, CEOs, and sales leaders again, and they’re still voicing the same frustrations as they were years ago.

"The interface is too cluttered."
"It’s not built for teams like ours."
"I spend more time managing the CRM than actually closing deals."

These problems haven’t changed. A wide open door to kick in. Again.

But isn’t the market saturated this time?

Yes! (Let’s tell investors that, so they don’t fund any new competitors!)

In reality, let’s check the numbers. The largest CRM provider in Sweden (where I live) has fewer than 6,000 customers. And Sweden? It has around 1 million companies. The same pattern exists globally - most businesses are still using spreadsheets, email inboxes, or post-it notes to manage customer activities.

We’ve touched on a few reasons why that is: too expensive, too complex, and too much hassle to adopt. That’s exactly where the opportunity lies.

So yes, I believe there’s more than enough space for a new player in the CRM market - and I’m ready to dive in. In the next issue, I’ll share a bit more about one of the strategies I’m using to take this to market. Stay tuned!