“How many mermaid tails do you think are sold every year globally?”
It wasn’t a question I expected to be asked by a SaaS founder. I guessed 50 million. But I was short… by 450 million. Liam Martin, one of my SaaS Academy coaching clients, asked me this question in the latest episode of Escape Velocity. Liam is the co-founder of both Time Doctor, time tracking software for remote workers, and Running Remote, the world’s largest remote work conference. I’ve been coaching Liam and his co-founder Rob for years now. Liam is an open book, happy to share anything about his business, life and relationships. His partner, Marielle, is the CEO and founder of Aqua Mermaid, a site that sells mermaids tails and teaches you how to swim like one too. ...Which explains the unusual question. It never ceases to amaze me how much money can be made in a unique niche. And although Liam has some unexpected insights into the mermaid niche, his strength is in his knowledge of remote work. Amidst a global pandemic, the topic of remote work has gone from interesting to necessary, and many myths around remote work are being quickly shattered. “When you take someone remote, they increase their productivity by 40%.” Your ability to assemble a flexible, efficient remote workforce may be an essential step to getting your SaaS off the ground without the upfront costs of office space. If you want to know more about scaling your business with a remote workforce, then tune in to this awesome interview with Liam. Although most of my interviews are business focussed, this one gets personal quite quickly, where we touch on topics including: - The high rates of depression amongst entrepreneurs - The value of therapy for high-performers - How Time Doctor went down for 2 days… losing $1M in ARR - Why VCs are skeptical of remote workforces - How your remote workforce can be a competitive edge - What to do when life deals you a tough hand - The need for empathy in business - Self-sabotaging and why entrepreneurs can be their own worst enemy - How to help someone course correct And by the way... I think it's a good thing not to talk only about business. As entrepreneurs we're human. We all have good days and not so good days. What helps us through those times is having a good feedback loop from entrepreneurs that have been through what we're going through and come out the end of the tunnel alive. The Escape Velocity podcast is my way of having those conversations and giving you another perspective. Tune in and hang out with us. -- Dan Martell is a serial entrepreneur, an investor in 40+ startups like Intercom, Udemy, and Unbounce and the creator of SaaS Academy, helping over 500 B2B SaaS founders scale faster. He’s founded five SaaS companies and successfully exited three of them. If you want to scale faster without hitting the usual roadblocks, make sure to follow him on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn & Twitter.