How to Use Storytelling to Effectively Grow Your SaaS Product | Gavin Hammar from StoryPrompt

Gavin Hammar's Background: Gavin Hammar is the founder of StoryPrompt and previously served as the CEO and founder of Sendable, a social media management platform for small businesses. Sendable went through a period of slow growth from 2016 to 2018 but experienced significant acceleration in the following years, leading to its acquisition in 2021. Sendable's Growth Journey: Sendable targeted mainly agencies, offering a social media management solution that allowed them to manage social media at scale. The company initially struggled to compete with well-funded competitors in the martech space, with over 7000 tools in the market. In 2018, Sendable repositioned itself as a human-centric brand, introducing storytelling to overcome challenges as a bootstrap company and differentiate itself. Building a tribe of listeners through a podcast, sharing behind-the-scenes content, and hosting meetups for customers contributed to accelerated growth from 2018 onwards. Strategies for Brand Building: To stand out, Sendable focused on real images of employees instead of stock images and engaged in storytelling through a podcast. Meetups for Sendable customers were organized, creating a memorable experience and fostering word-of-mouth marketing. Gavin reached out to listicle bloggers, aiming to be included in top rankings, providing social proof and using affiliate commissions to incentivize placement. Transition to StoryPrompt: StoryPrompt is Gavin's new venture, focusing on helping businesses collect video testimonials asynchronously from customers and employees. The product uses AI to produce branded videos, aiming to simplify video production for social media, email marketing, and websites. The growth strategy for StoryPrompt involves a focus on SEO and authenticity, targeting competitors' traffic and building a brand following before product promotion. Website's Role and Future Outlook: For StoryPrompt, the website plays a crucial role in the customer journey, with a focus on improving SEO and effective copywriting for conversion. Unlike Sendable, which started without a strong website focus, StoryPrompt recognizes the importance of website speed and SEO for acquiring new customers. Gavin advises his younger self to start building a company earlier, emphasizing the importance of taking risks and not being afraid to venture into entrepreneurship.