Bootstrapped SaaS Strategy: $0 to $27M ARR by Serving vs Selling | Spectora

Kevin Wagstaff and his brother Michael turned a $5,000 investment into a $27 million ARR home inspection software business—without raising venture capital for the first six years. After nine months of customer research, they built Spectora by focusing on one philosophy: serve before selling. Kevin answered every support message within 60 seconds for five years, showed up daily in online communities without pitching, and even took a 6AM Sunday demo that unlocked their biggest growth wave. Today, Spectora serves 12,000+ inspectors while Kevin has stepped back from the CEO role, recognizing he was best suited for the zero-to-10 journey. 🔑 Key Lessons 🚀 The SEO Head Start: Why writing content 12 months before launch created an unfair advantage. 🛠️ The Agency Wedge: How building 200+ websites manually became a critical wedge to sell software. 💰 Pricing Wars: How to convince an old-school industry to switch from one-time fees to monthly subscriptions. 🤝 Community Growth: The strategy of being the "first to comment" in Facebook groups for 12 hours a day. 🛑 Founder Transition: Recognizing when you are the bottleneck and how to exit gracefully to Private Equity. 📖 Chapters The "Zero to 10" Founder Mindset The $5k Bootstrap Origin Story 9 Months of Customer Interviews (That Actually Worked) The MVP: Focusing on Workflow vs. Features The "Smart Home Inspector" SEO Strategy The Agency Wedge: Building Websites to Sell Software Serving vs. Selling: The 10-Year Trust Game The 6 AM Sunday Demo: Doing Things That Don't Scale The Failed $10k Ad Experiment Raising Capital via Private Equity (Secondary Offering) Stepping Down as CEO This episode is brought to you by: 💖 ⁠⁠Sprinto⁠⁠ → ⁠⁠Learn more and book a demo today 🚀 SaaS Club Launch → Build your SaaS to $10K MRR Resources: 🎧 Full Show Notes: saasclub.io/457 🎤 Subscribe to the Podcast: saasclub.io/subscribe 💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: saasclub.io/email 💡 Join the SaaS Club founder community: saasclub.co/plus