455: Accelevents: How 5 Years of Nights & Weekends Built a $10M ARR SaaS - with Jonathan Kazarian

The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship

Jonathan Kazarian built Accelevents to $10 million ARR working nights and weekends for five years while keeping his hedge fund day job. But when COVID hit just as he went full-time, every event worldwide got canceled and revenue dropped to zero – forcing him to borrow $75,000 from his father's retirement to survive.

Instead of waiting it out, Jonathan pivoted hard to virtual events and started pre-selling features they hadn't built yet. Within three months, they hit a million-dollar run rate and 10X'd revenue by year's end. But when the tech bubble burst in 2022, revenue got cut in half and he had to lay off more than half his 117-person team while rebuilding their reputation from scratch.

You'll learn:

• Why maintaining 19-second response times 24/7 became Accelevents' secret weapon in the high-stakes events industry
• How hosting dinner events for event professionals generated better leads than cold outreach – without ever pitching the product
• What Jonathan learned from going through 21 Upwork contractors that changed how he thinks about hiring remote developers
• How pre-selling features they hadn't built yet helped them survive COVID and reach $1M ARR in three months
• Why after 10 years and multiple pivots, Jonathan still believes focusing on one business is the only way to win

Full show notes → saasclub.io/455

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