SaaStr Conference Evolution

A story about how Jason Lemkin accidentally built SaaStr's conference business from small meetups to a major industry event.

"We built this community around content. We had some newsletters and podcasts, and then we just did meetups. In 2013, our first meetup had 800 people come - these were great CEOs that now have gone public or have 9-figure businesses. I didn't know it would be a business, but I knew we had product-market fit.

I did another meetup that had 1,000 people and we had to turn people away. Then we did a one-day event. I didn't treat it as a business - I outsourced the first 2 years and never even looked at a financial statement. I had a partner who kept all the profit, I just drove the engagement and content.

By the second year, we had 3,000 people and there was demand. The real reason I got into the business wasn't because I wanted to - my partner quit after the second year because it was too much work. I had no ability to do this, no team, no blueprint, didn't know how the revenue or finances worked. I had to learn from scratch for the third year. It wasn't intentional - I felt like the community wanted this, that there was organic demand.

Now our flagship event gets 12,000 people in the Bay Area every September. It costs $10 million just to turn the lights on before making a dollar. Once we got over $15 million in revenue, it finally generated actual profits."