How We Grew Our SaaS to 150,000 Users (Full Playbook)

In 2023, we launched Supademo with no brand recognition, no domain authority, and nobody searching for our name.

Today, Supademo has grown to nearly 200,000 users and over $3M in ARR.

The natural instinct is to look for the one channel that made this happen. Was it SEO? Founder-led distribution? Referrals? Product-led growth?

The honest answer is that no single channel got us here. Growth came from running the right channels in the right sequence, then layering them together until they started compounding.

Most SaaS founders try to scale by choosing one channel and going all-in. That can work in rare cases, but for most companies, growth is more like building a distribution system. One channel creates the first layer of demand, another adds trust, another turns usage into reach, and eventually the channels start reinforcing each other.

For Supademo, that system came together in three distinct phases. Let's dive into the tactics we deploy for each stage.

The 3-Phase SaaS Growth Playbook That Took Supademo to 200,000 Users

Phase 1: Capture Existing Demand with Comparison Pages

When we first launched, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for people to search for “Supademo.” Nobody knew who we were.

So instead of trying to manufacture demand from scratch, we looked for demand that already existed. There were already people searching for alternatives to tools in our category. They were comparing products, evaluating workflows, and trying to understand which solution fit their needs.

That became our first major growth wedge.

We built comparison pages around high-intent searches like “X alternative,” “X vs Y,” and “best tools like X.” These weren’t generic blog posts designed to attract passive readers. They were bottom-of-funnel pages for people who were already in buying or switching mode.

That distinction mattered. A visitor searching for a broad educational topic might eventually become a customer, but a visitor searching for an alternative to an existing product already has urgency. They are aware of the problem. They know the category. They are actively evaluating options.

This is why comparison pages became such an important part of our early SaaS SEO strategy. Some of these pages now convert more than 20% of visitors into signups because the intent is so strong.

The lesson here is not just “do SEO.” It is to start with the highest-intent version of SEO possible. If you are early and have limited resources, you probably should not begin with broad top-of-funnel content. You should begin with pages that meet users at the exact moment they are looking for a solution.

For us, that meant being direct about how Supademo compared to other tools, showing actual product examples, and making the path to signup obvious. The goal was not just to rank. The goal was to convert existing demand into product usage.

The best part is what works for SEO often works for LLMs and AEO, since the goal is to generate and distribute valuable content.

Phase 2: Do the Unscalable Founder-Led Work

SEO helped us capture demand, but it did not solve everything.

In the earliest days, we still needed conversations. We needed feedback. We needed to understand how people described the problem, what alternatives they were considering, and what moments made them care enough to try a new product.

That came from founder-led distribution.

We spent time in places like Reddit, Indie Hackers, and niche communities where early adopters were already discussing product demos, onboarding, documentation, and sales enablement. The work was not glamorous. It did not fit neatly into a dashboard. It was hard to attribute perfectly. But it worked.

A big part of early traction comes from doing things that look inefficient from the outside. Answering questions manually. Joining conversations without immediately pitching. Sharing examples. Asking follow-up questions. Helping people solve the underlying problem before pushing the product.

This kind of work is easy to dismiss because it does not scale. But that is exactly why it is valuable early on. When you are still finding your positioning, every conversation teaches you something. You learn which pain points resonate, which use cases are urgent, and which words your customers use to describe the problem.

For Supademo, this helped us sharpen our messaging far faster than if we had only relied on analytics. It also built trust. When people saw us showing up consistently and actually helping, they were more willing to try the product.

The takeaway is that unscalable channels are not a distraction from growth. At the right stage, they are the foundation for growth. They give you the customer insight that later makes your scalable channels work better.

Phase 3: Turn Product Usage Into Distribution

The third phase was building distribution directly into the product.

Supademo is naturally shareable. Users create interactive demos, then send them to prospects, customers, teammates, or embed them across websites, help docs, onboarding flows, and sales materials.

That meant every created demo had the potential to become a new acquisition surface.

Instead of relying only on outbound, content, or paid acquisition, we leaned into the natural product-led growth loop already happening inside the workflow. When someone viewed a Supademo, they were experiencing the value of the product firsthand. They could see what was possible, understand the use case, and often trace it back to Supademo.

Today, this in-product referral loop accounts for more than a third of our traffic.

The important part is that this was not a traditional referral program where users had to invite friends for a reward. It was a usage-based loop. The more customers used Supademo, the more people were exposed to Supademo.

That is the strongest kind of product-led growth because it does not require users to take an extra promotional action. Distribution happens as a byproduct of normal product usage.

If you are building a SaaS product, this is worth studying carefully. Ask where your product naturally leaves the boundaries of your user’s account. Does it get shared? Embedded? Exported? Forwarded? Published? Presented? If so, those moments can become distribution loops.

For Supademo, the shared demo became the loop. Every demo was both a useful asset for the creator and a potential discovery moment for the viewer.

Why Sequencing Matters

The biggest mistake is assuming these phases are interchangeable. They are not.

If we had started only with product-led growth before enough people were using the product, the loop would not have had enough volume. If we had only done SEO without founder-led distribution, we might have captured demand but missed the customer insight needed to improve conversion. If we had only spent time in communities, we would have built relationships but struggled to create a durable acquisition engine. The order matters.

Comparison pages helped us capture people who were already searching for a solution. Founder-led community work helped us understand users, earn trust, and improve our positioning. Product-led loops turned usage into recurring distribution.

Each phase created the conditions for the next one to work better.

That is what most SaaS growth advice misses. Channels are often discussed in isolation, but in practice, they compound when they are layered together intentionally.

The Concept of Distribution Density

One of the biggest lessons from growing Supademo is the importance of distribution density.

Distribution density means your audience starts seeing you in multiple places at once. Someone might find Supademo through a comparison page, then later see a founder post, then receive a shared demo from a colleague, then encounter an embedded Supademo in a help center or landing page.

Each touchpoint makes the next one more effective.

This is where growth starts to feel like it compounds. Not because one channel suddenly becomes magical, but because the channels begin reinforcing each other.

A comparison page works better when the brand feels familiar. A shared demo converts better when the viewer has already heard of the product. Founder-led content performs better when there is already product usage and customer proof behind it. That overlap is the real unlock.

Many teams underinvest in this because they are looking for clean attribution. They want to know exactly which channel caused the signup. But in reality, especially in B2B SaaS, users rarely convert from one isolated touchpoint. They convert after repeated exposure, trust-building, and timing.

Distribution density creates that repeated exposure.

How to Apply This Playbook to Your SaaS

If I were starting again, I would still follow the same general sequence.

First, I would identify where existing demand already lives. That usually means competitor alternatives, category keywords, comparison searches, and workflow-specific pain points. The goal is to find users who are already problem-aware and solution-aware.

Then I would layer in founder-led distribution. I would spend time in the communities, forums, social platforms, and niche groups where those users already ask questions. I would not treat this as a place to spam links. I would treat it as customer development with the side benefit of acquisition.

Finally, I would look for product-led loops. Every SaaS product has some kind of natural expansion moment. For some products, it is collaboration. For others, it is sharing, publishing, inviting, exporting, or embedding. The goal is to identify the moment where one user’s success exposes the product to another potential user.

The best growth systems do not depend on one channel doing all the work. They combine demand capture, trust-building, and product-led distribution into one compounding system.

In Conclusion...

Supademo did not grow to 200,000+ users because we found one perfect channel.

We grew because we sequenced the right channels at the right time.

SEO helped us capture existing demand. Founder-led distribution helped us earn trust and understand the market. Product-led growth turned normal usage into ongoing acquisition. And once those channels overlapped, they started compounding. That is the real playbook.

If you are trying to grow a SaaS product, the better question is not “Which channel should we bet on?”

The better question is: “What phase are we in, and what distribution layer should we build next?”