"Sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult to achieve." — Keanu Reeves
I was sitting in a sushi restaurant in Düsseldorf, Germany, with the owners of an international SaaS service operating in eight countries. The acquisition ink had been dry for six weeks. I knew the hardest SaaS roadmap I had ever assembled was still ahead: merging two companies across half a world, running different technology stacks, with the shared goal of retaining enough of both subscriber bases to justify the deal.
What I had that I didn't have the first time around was a plan. And SaaS transitions require a laser-like focus on existing customers. Their core needs must be met through the transition or they will not make the switch — and they will tell everyone in their professional circle why.
The phone call came not long after dinner. A prominent association lobbyist and 16-year subscriber — nearing 80 years old, formidable as a force of nature — called to inform me she did not like Germans, and that if anything changed about how the site worked or what she received in her daily delivery, she would take her business elsewhere. I relayed her comments to my partners. They were immediately concerned, rightly noting that her demands were probably not achievable and that she had been, by any standard, quite rude. I told them she was the least of our concerns — she was a kitten compared to some of our other subscribers.
Eighteen months later we had retained over 85% of the subscriber base and grown revenues by more than 20%.
Roadmap Considerations For Mergers & Retooling
◆ Infrastructure. What adaptations are needed to preserve the key value propositions that prevent subscriber churn? ◆ Product offering. Will the retooling cause you to lose market share, expand it, or shift it? Each path requires different planning. ◆ Growth model. How will the change maximize bottom-line growth over a 12–24 month horizon?