RWL241 This serial Founder solved an everyday problem to create a $10M SaaS success.

Alex Turnbull transformed a frustrating experience with shared email inboxes into Groove HQ, a remote-first SaaS company generating over $10 million in annual recurring revenue. His journey demonstrates how personal problems can become successful global solutions when approached with transparency, simplicity, and a clear understanding of customer needs.

Have a listen, and if Alex's journey gave you something to think about, whether around hiring, business growth, or the power of building in public, please consider subscribing to the show, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone building their own location-independent venture.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Alex Turnbull is the founder of Groove HQ, a remote
first SaaS company that grewfrom a simple frustration into a
business generating more than$10 million in annual recurring
revenue.
His story is a clear example ofwhat can happen when someone
takes a personal problem andturns it into a global solution,

(00:21):
using transparency andsimplicity as his guiding
principles along the way.
It all began with a problemthat many small business owners
will probably recognize.
Back when Alex was building hisprevious company, bantam Live,
he found himself spending moreand more time on customer
support.
He was wearing several hats atthe time, including product

(00:43):
manager, and one of the biggestpain points was handling support
requests through a shared emailinbox.
The team was small just fourpeople and they were all using
the same support address.
That setup quickly became amess.
Emails were missed, customerissues went unresolved and it
became impossible to know whohad replied to what, and it
became impossible to know whohad replied to what.

(01:04):
When Alex looked for help desktools that could help, he
realized most of them were builtfor enterprise level companies.
They were packed with complexfeatures that small businesses
didn't need and couldn't afford.
The interfaces were clunky, theonboarding was confusing and
the pricing was far too high fora lean team.
That realization is whatsparked the initial idea for

(01:26):
Groove, a simple, affordablehelp desk tool built
specifically for smallbusinesses.
What's especially noteworthyhere is that Alex wasn't a
technical founder.
He didn't know how to code andhe wasn't trying to pretend
otherwise, but he had a clearunderstanding of the problem and
he had a strong product vision.
After Bantam Live was acquiredfor $15 million, he decided to

(01:47):
put $350,000 of his own moneyinto starting Groove.
That gave him enough runway tohire a development agency who
helped bring the first versionof the product to life.
The process took around fourmonths and cost about $300,000.
From the beginning, oss tookaround four months and cost
about $300,000.
From the beginning, groove was aremote company, not because it

(02:09):
was trendy, but because it madesense for how Alex wanted to
build the business.
This was well before remotework became mainstream, before
the pandemic forced companies torethink where work happens.
For Alex, the ability to hireglobally to find the best people
, regardless of their location,was part of the plan from day

(02:31):
one.
The team grew with people basedall over the world, from
Newport in the US to Krakow inPoland, cape Town in South
Africa, phuket in Thailand andZhejiang in China.
Groove's culture was builtaround autonomy and flexibility.
Team members were trusted tomanage their own time and work

(02:52):
from wherever they felt mostproductive, whether that was a
beach, a mountain village or aquiet apartment in the city.
Of course, the road wasn'tsmooth.
There was one decision inparticular that nearly cost them
everything.
At a point where the businesswas growing steadily, alex made
a bold move.
He decided to rebuild theproduct from scratch.
He had a gut feeling thatGroove needed to level up to

(03:14):
stay competitive, and so he toldhis developers to start fresh.
But here's the thing he didn'tcheck the data first.
He didn't verify whether userswere unhappy or whether the
existing product was holdingthem back.
He went with instinct and itturned out to be a costly
mistake.
What was meant to be a one yearrebuild turned into a four and

(03:35):
a half year nightmare.
Development dragged on, bugsincreased, customers got
frustrated and started leaving.
It drained the team's energyand slowed the company's
momentum.
Looking back, alex says ittaught him a hard but necessary
lesson to trust the data, notjust your gut.
Being a non-technical founderalso came with its own

(03:56):
challenges.
Alex couldn't jump into thecode base to fix bugs or guide
development decisions from atechnical point of view.
But he leaned into what he didhave a strong understanding of
customer pain points, a clearproduct vision and an ability to
communicate that vision topeople who could build it.
Groove's business model isstraightforward they offer help

(04:18):
desk software for smallbusinesses at a price point that
makes sense, starting at $40per user per month, with a free
trial to help people test thewaters.
The simplicity of the productis what sets it apart.
Where other tools try to beeverything to everyone, groove
focuses only on what's essential.
The core feature is the sharedinbox.

(04:39):
It allows teams to organizeincoming support emails, assign
conversations, leave internalnotes and make sure that nothing
falls through the cracks.
It also includes a live chatoption, a knowledge base to
handle common questions andanalytics to help track
performance.
But nothing is over-engineeredor unnecessarily complex.

(05:01):
That clarity of focus hasresonated with customers.
Today, groove is used by morethan 12,000 support agents
across over 2,000 businessesaround the world.
Now, while there isn't adetailed breakdown of Alex's
hiring process, you can learn alot from the values that Groove
promotes.

(05:21):
They've got five key valuesthat they talk about openly Own
your shit, be real, no waste,always be helpful and
relentlessly value driven.
You'd think and hope that thosearen't just buzzwords.
It's more likely that they tellyou something about the kind of
people Alex looks forindividuals who are accountable,

(05:42):
honest and intentional aboutthe work they do and, given
Groove's remote structure, it'sclear that Alex prioritizes
autonomy.
He's not hiring based on timezones or where someone lives.
He's hiring based on fit,values and the ability to work
well without micromanagement.
One of the most distinctivethings Alex has done, and

(06:05):
something that made a big impacton Groove's growth, is build in
public.
Back in 2013, alongside thelaunch of Groove, alex started a
blog called the Founder'sJourney.
In it, he shared the highs andlows of building the company.
He talked about revenue numbers, product launches, customer
churn and mistakes.
At the time, this kind oftransparency was unusual.

(06:28):
Most founders kept their cardsclose to their chest, but Alex's
openness helped build acommunity around the product.
His blog posts were picked upby major platforms like Hacker
News and were shared widelyacross Twitter and LinkedIn.
The blog didn't just attractreaders.
It brought in customers.
It became one of Groove's mosteffective marketing channels.

(06:52):
That content strategy didn'tstop at blogging.
He built an influencer outreachlist around 250 names and
reached out personally to see ifthey'd be open to hearing more
about Groove.
The response rate was close to90%.
That's rare.
It showed that the personaltouch combined with a strong
story really works.

(07:12):
They also invested in SEO,targeting search terms that
small business owners were usingto look for alternatives to
bigger players like Zendesk.
They fine-tuned their emailmarketing with drip campaigns
that added value first, beforeever pitching the product, and
they created regular feedbackloops with customers, especially

(07:33):
those who cancelled, so theycould continue to refine the
product and their messaging.
All of this led to strong,steady growth.
Within two years of launching,groove had crossed $100,000 in
monthly recurring revenue.
Today, they sit somewherebetween $5 and $10 million in

(07:53):
annual recurring revenue, andthey've done it without raising
a bunch of venture capital orbuilding a bloated team.
In recent years, alex formed apartnership with Syed Balkhi,
the founder of Awesome Motive.
Syed took a minority stake inGroove and the two connected on
shared values buildingsustainable businesses for the

(08:14):
long term, not chasing fastexits or the startup hype cycle.
That alignment helped bring newenergy and strategic thinking
to the business.
Alex is now working on his nextventure, an AI-powered customer
service tool called Helply.
His goal is to grow it to $10million in annual revenue and,

(08:35):
as you'd expect, he's sharingthe whole process in real time,
just like he did with Groove.
For me, there are a fewtakeaways that stand out from
Alex's story.
First, frustration can be apowerful starting point If
you're struggling with a problemthat no one seems to be solving
well.
I mean, you know others arefacing the same issue.
That's a signal worth listeningto.

(08:55):
Second, you don't need to be adeveloper to build a SaaS
company.
What you do need is a clearunderstanding of the problem,
the drive to solve it and thewillingness to hire the right
people to help bring your visionto life.
Third, remote work isn't justabout flexibility.
It's a strategic advantage.

(09:15):
It allows you to hire greatpeople from anywhere in the
world and create a culturethat's built on trust and
results, not office hours.
Fourth, transparency buildstrust.
Alex's willingness to shareboth his wins and his failures
made Groove more relatable andmore trustworthy in a world
where SaaS companies often feelfaceless.

(09:37):
And finally, data should guideyour big decisions.
Instinct is important, but, asAlex learned during that painful
rebuild period, it has to bebacked up by what the numbers
are telling you.
That's it for today's episodeof Remote Work Life.
If Alex Turnbull's journey gaveyou something to think about,
whether it's around hiring,business growth or the power of

(10:00):
building in public, pleaseconsider subscribing to the show
, leaving a review or share itwith someone.
Building their own locationindependent venture.