Selling SaaS when customers don't know they have a problem

Executive overview

Most founders assume their market knows the problem exists. Trotto sells GoLinks — shared URL shortcuts inside organisations — to buyers who have never heard of the category. Retention is exceptional; acquisition is the hard part.

The core challenge is moving buyers from unaware to product-aware without a large search market or obvious category to advertise against.

If your product has near-zero churn but near-zero awareness, the only viable ICP is people who've already lived without it and missed it.

What GoLinks are and why they exist

• Internal URL shortener: type go/resource-name in a browser to reach any saved link
• Works only within an organisation — not a public shortener like bit.ly
• Originated at Google in the early 2000s; engineers set up internal redirects that exploded in popularity
• Spreads virally when Google/Netflix/LinkedIn alumni join new companies and recreate the tool
• Browser plugin intercepts go/ prefixes — no domain needed
• Trotto stores nothing; it is a redirect layer only

The awareness problem

• Most prospects sit at unaware or problem-aware on Eugene Schwartz's five-stage scale
• Unaware buyers (like the host) don't feel the pain until they've used GoLinks daily
• Problem-aware buyers assume they need engineering to build it in-house
• No large search volume, limited Reddit/Quora/forum discussion — most inbound channels don't fire
• Creating category awareness at scale is "boiling the ocean"; not a viable goal for a small team

The ICP that works

• Target people who've already used GoLinks at a prior employer (ex-Google, ex-Netflix, ex-large-tech)
• Cold outreach to CTOs at companies without GoLinks yields instant responses when they've lived with them before
• Fortune 500 contracts signed from a single cold email — the buyer sells internally on the call
• Non-tech verticals (automotive, healthcare, government, nonprofits) are an emerging greenfield; they lack the productivity stack tech companies take for granted

Growth and retention dynamics

• ~70% average monthly active usage once fully adopted inside a company
• 20–30% of users hit GoLinks more than five times a day
• Customers stay four to five years; seat count grows as companies hire — net negative churn
• Revenue is six figures; business is profitable
• Per-seat pricing at $3/user means large orgs become large contracts

Finding repeatable acquisition

• Outbound email, Google AdWords, and other standard playbook items tried — no clear winner yet
• No single channel is likely to dominate; diversification is probable (mirrors Rob's experience with Drip)
• Tiny Seed mastermind community used as a sounding board for channel experiments
• Biggest open question: how to create a reliable, scalable top-of-funnel for a low-awareness category

How Andy acquired the business

• John (original founder) built a strong product but neglected sales and marketing while holding a full-time engineering job
• Andy found Trotto on Quiet Light broker marketplace — they had no prior relationship
• Andy bought a majority stake; John retained a minority to keep incentives aligned
• Weekly → fortnightly → monthly syncs as trust built; John remains on call for technical questions
• Model demonstrates that acquiring a majority of a working product is a viable alternative to building from scratch

The hardest part of the journey

• No clear feedback loop: unlike school or employment, there is no reliable signal that effort is paying off
• Marketing spend can be unlimited with zero guaranteed return
• Opportunity cost is real — founders often leave high-paying engineering careers for below-market salaries
• Community (Tiny Seed, Microconf) reduces isolation but doesn't remove uncertainty