I Built A $90K/Month SaaS in 19 Months

We launched it about 19 months ago. Gone

from zero to over a million in ARR over

those 19 months.

>> This is Zach. He built a million-dollar

SAS in just over a year. But here's the

crazy part. This is not your typical SAS

model because he does something

completely different. And it's the

reason he's adding $10,000 in MR every

single month. I think the reason it's

easy and like why I think this kind of

concept of selling to agencies is like a

really good angle is agencies are really

easy to find. I asked Zach to come on to

the channel to reveal everything. And in

this episode, we'll dive into the 1

million ARR SAS that he built, how he

found this idea, and why almost nobody

else is doing it, and how you can

replicate this new SAS model right now

in 2026. All right, let's dive in. I'm

Pat Walls and this is Starter Story.

Zach, welcome to the channel. Tell me

about who you are, what you built, and

what's your story.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is

Zach and my partner Brendan and I built

a analytics platform called Hero

Analytics. We launched it about 19

months ago in October 2024. So, we've

gone from zero to over a million in ARR.

And today, I'm really excited to talk

specifically about building SAS for

agencies instead of brands.

>> This is crazy. first of all and I think

you have a unique kind of take on why

this happened and why it grew so fast

and we're going to talk about that but

before we do let's talk about what you

built. Can you explain what your SAS

does in a few sentences?

>> So Hero is a analytics and reporting

platform specifically focused on

automation for agencies and really like

a specific niche of agencies which are

email and SMS marketing agencies. These

are the agencies running platforms like

Claio on behalf of their clients sending

weekly emails. an agency can go into

kind of every aspect of what they're

running on behalf of their clients and

pull a ton of data and then we have like

agency specific features. So an agency

can see all of their clients in one

place. They can see how their team is

pacing versus their goals. And this is

Stripe for the last 4 weeks. We're at

about 96.2K

in MR. We're currently pacing at adding

close to 10K in MR every month. And then

you can see churn is like extremely low

as well. That is the best churn rate

I've ever seen from anyone who's come on

to Starter Story. So, this is the real

deal. Can you explain your business

model at a high level? Like, how much

does it cost? And is it on subscription?

How does it work?

>> It's a subscription. We do a 30-day free

trial for every agency that comes on.

And so, we set the monthly fee kind of

based on their client count. So, let's

say you're an agency with 10 clients,

you kind of pay 500, 20 clients, 600,

etc., etc. And then larger agencies,

it's a little bit more bespoke cuz some

of them have 200 clients and they might

pay a couple thousand a month.

>> Okay, cool. Well, we're going to be

talking all about this sort of unique

pricing model that you have and

approach, which is to sell to agencies.

But before we do, how do you get to the

place where you've built a SAS that got

to 90K MR in just over a year? How do

you get here?

>> I'll say the first business that

actually worked out was an email

marketing agency. So, we ran that for

about 6 years. We had around 30 clients

who were kind of like our ICP for this

app. And Brendan was so fed up with a

lot of kind of the friction points that

all of these agencies experience that

he's like, I'm just going to figure out

how to build something. And so it kind

of just worked out where right as we

were really getting momentum with Hero,

we were able to step away from that

agency full-time to focus on this. I

love everything that Zach is breaking

down right now. But I think one of the

real secrets behind his success is this

kind of overlooked category that he's

building in. There are so many business

ideas like this that are hiding in plain

sight. They're just not being shared on

places like X and Instagram. This is

exactly why we launched this free

database of 30 plus business ideas in

unsexy niches. When you download it, you

will find real business ideas that are

quietly making money while everybody

else fights over these overcrowded

markets. Every idea is grounded on real

founders, real data, and numbers to back

it up. So, if you've been looking for an

idea, then head to that link in the

description and you can download this

database 100% for free. All right, I

hope you enjoy. Let's get back to the

episode. So, you guys kind of built this

without deep technical experience, even

though this is a pretty technical data

heavy product. What were some of the

early tools that you used to allow you

to build a SAS product and then what are

you using nowadays?

>> The funny thing is we like had this

oddly specific old background in ETL.

The funny thing is we had no idea about

AWS as it relates to like app usage. So

like our early day bills on on like AWS

and like the first time we set up

Snowflake were like crazy high, but we

knew how to set up the tables and then

retool which is essentially like an

internal app building tool and then we

were just connecting it to kind of like

our own database structure that we had

set up and then over the last 6 to 8

months we've actually completely kind of

pivoted. It's all cloud code. So the

main reason why I wanted to bring you on

to the channel is to talk about this

sort of unique business model that you

have. So can you give me an overview of

what this is and how it works. So there

are a lot of analytics applications in

the kind of like Shopify e-commerce

space, but all of them go to individual

brands, right? So every time I need to

make a sale, I would have to go to brand

A, brand B, brand C to sell one

subscription to each of them to get to

three subscriptions. with agencies. Each

of the agencies have 10, 20, 30 brands

as customers. And so in effect, I'm

getting 30 brands onto the platform by

going through one agency. And then the

agencies have 10 users or 20 users. So

I'm selling seats to each of the users.

They can give seats to their customers.

So imagine the agency has 10

strategists. They're paying $10 a month

for each of those seats. And then they

have 20 customers. And each customer

wants a seat. that's another $200 a

month in seats. And so you're just

getting a lot of access to users through

one customer. And I think the reason

it's easy and like why I think this

concept of selling to agencies is like a

really good angle is agencies are really

easy to find. You can go to the Shopify

agency partner page directory, the

Clavio partner page directory, and they

basically give you a force rank list of

agencies by like size and influence. And

because the agencies are all leveraging

the same platform, you can kind of

safely assume they have the same

problem. 99% of the features we launch

is relevant to every single user every

time. Okay, I just think this is super

super smart. Instead of having to go

again to the end consumer and try to

sell a $10 per month subscription,

you're going to the agency that serves

hundreds of those. And it just makes so

much more sense. And it reminds me of

two softwares that I paid for as a

business, which is Gusto and QuickBooks.

I didn't actually just go buy these on

the website. My bookkeeper recommended

them to me and actually sold them to me.

And I didn't even have a choice in the

matter. I just had to use it. I imagine

that the sales teams of those companies

are doing something similar to you as

they're going to the bookkeepers who

manage hundreds of businesses. It's kind

of a similar idea, right? Agency model.

I have a question on this though. Are

you worried at all that Claio, which is

this app that you wrap around, or the

agencies themselves, say, "Hey, I don't

want to pay $500, $1,000 a month for

something that I could just build on my

own." What do you think about the future

of this business?

>> Yeah, that's a great question. Us having

a $1 million ARR business unit is

amazing because we're a couple people. A

publicly traded company having a 1 AR

business unit like isn't really going to

move the needle for them. So, I just

think their sites are elsewhere. The

other piece is we don't just connect to

Claio. And so if you're an agency with

30 clients, you might have 20 clients

using Claio, but you might have another

10 using Postcript or Attentive or

Omnisend. And so even if Claio were to

build a version, it's extremely unlikely

they'd show the data from those other

platforms where Claio isn't even

involved with that brand. I think that's

a great answer and a good point. Let's

talk about how to replicate this. What

would be your advice for anyone watching

this that wants to build a SAS and

potentially take some things from this

model and implement it?

>> We had specific experience in this

industry. So, we knew the platforms, we

knew the players, we knew what mattered.

So, I think I would kind of take a step

back in whatever industry I'm currently

working in and say like, oh, is there an

agency layer here that I could do this

with? Think of restaurants for example.

Restaurants have agencies who are

managing their Door Dash and Uber Eats

ads and they have to report to the

client on how that's performing. So now

that you picked your industry, you kind

of have a sense of what the key

platforms are. Like most of those

platforms are going to have a page on

their site that is like agency directory

or partner directory. Those directories

kind of give you that access right off

the bat. And I think the key with

agencies is they're all experiencing the

same problem. Every agency owner is

trying to take on more clients without

hiring more people. And the second most

impactful thing is how much time can you

save the agency? And so in selling a

product to agencies, you can just hit on

those key points. And that's really how

you get an agency owner to be like,

"Okay, yeah, I'll take you seriously."

Like, you understand what my key

problems are. Let's see what this thing

actually does.

>> All right. Well, thanks for sharing

that. I think it's just super cool model

that you've come up with. I think people

are going to love it. Last question that

we ask all founders who come on to the

channel. What would be your advice to a

younger Zach or for anyone watching

this, maybe they're an agency operator

or just anyone who wants to build a SAS

that could make a million dollars a

year. What would be your advice?

>> The path to finding like the business

that really works is never linear. We've

talked about, oh, Hero got to a million

in ARR in a year and a half, whatever.

But really, like it took us like maybe

10 years to build hero, right? like we

worked at this data visualization

startup. Amazon bought that startup. We

worked at Amazon. We left Amazon. We

started a failed newsletter business.

But through the newsletter business, we

learned email marketing. And then

through email marketing, we built the

agency. And then only then after running

the agency for 5 6 years did we build

hero. And so I wouldn't discount any of

these experiences. every experience you

have along the way. You never know which

one might be super relevant to the

business that finally takes off a decade

later.

>> That's a great advice. Thanks for coming

on, Zach, and sharing million ARR in

just over a year. It's awesome. Thanks

for coming on and sharing everything.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate

it.

>> All right, producer of Starter Story.

What do you think of this one?

>> I think he mentioned at some point in

the interview, every industry has like

an agency layer. It's interesting to

think about how there's like sort of

this business model out there for like

all all types of industries that you can

maybe go create something like this for.

So that's my first like initial thought.

I have more things to say, but I'm just

kind of impressed with this like the

business model. I mean, I know what an

agency is, so it's not like a hidden

market or anything like that, but

there's sort of this like really big

market, I guess, of agencies that I'm

maybe not like as aware of.

>> Right. Right. My favorite thing about

this is that all of this is well

documented on the internet, right? All

these billion-dollar tools have

ecosystems around them and they actually

document their agency layer on their

site. What are the best agencies to work

with because customers need this? Go to

chat GPT right now or claude and ask it,

hey, I learned about this business

model. Can you tell me where I could

apply it in other agency layers? It'll

probably give you 20 ideas of where you

could do it. And then hopefully in one

of those ideas you'll see one that is

actually interesting to you or maybe you

have some experience in it that

definitely helps. This I believe is a

gold mine hiding in plain sight and I

wouldn't just say that.

>> Yeah. Really genius and I loved how he

kind of explained it all and broke it

all down. My question for you is like

the whole like data visualization thing.

Do you think that's still like a good

idea or good sort of like problem to

solve? Is that kind of the main thing

that these agencies want? Yes, but it

goes a level deeper. The data

visualization is something that the

agencies serve to their customers. But

the reason why this business does well

is that it's a huge pain in the ass to

visualize the data and send it to your

client. And then you have to do that for

20 different clients. It's just a bunch

of manual work that they have to do. And

this software solves that problem and

allows them to do that automated. So

that's the secret there. The sauce is

not the data visualization, it's the

time saved in doing so.

>> Interesting. Yeah. No, I mean that makes

a lot of sense. And I'm just a little

bit like, wow, this is so unexpected

uh to some degree. Like I would have

never guessed this is like a a layer of

a business and it's pretty cool. And he

seemed like a cool dude. I liked him. He

was awesome.

>> Yeah. And that's the thing, you know, we

have a lot of people we bring on the

channel that build apps. It's cool. It's

consumer. You can understand like, oh,

maybe I would use this. This is one of

those examples that doesn't hit that.

But it's also one of those examples of

great market and kind of like an unsexy

business. And if you really want to make

money, if you want to build something

and grow as fast as they did, I would

focus on unsexy niches, especially if

you're doing something in B2B like this.

So, I will put in the description our

list of 30 plus unsexy niches or unsexy

markets that you can build a business

in. You can get it 100% for free. I'll

put it in the description right there.

Hope you guys enjoyed this one. We'll

see you in the next one. Peace.