Kosta Panagoulias

In 2011, I bootstrapped my first SaaS company from my parents’ basement with zero dollars and no tech experience. Through sheer persistence—starting with cold calling our first 500 customers—we generated over $20M in revenue before a successful acquisition.

The most important yet often overlooked department in a company is customer support. Likewise, the most critical metric for SaaS longevity is churn. One of the best ways to reduce churn is by fine-tuning your customer success processes. I’ve spent years testing and optimizing strategies that improve customer success, keep clients happy, and drive retention.

The only thing stopping you from growing is the limitations you set in your own mind. Having someone with an unfiltered perspective to brainstorm with often leads to powerful "AHA" moments. These small but impactful conversations can shift your thinking and change the trajectory of your business.

I built a fully remote, bootstrapped SaaS company with 30+ team members across 10+ countries. Hiring and onboarding the right people are critical to scaling a distributed team effectively. I’ve learned what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to remote hiring, culture, and team alignment.

Most people overcomplicate sales. They jump straight into paid ads and marketing campaigns, only to burn cash with little to show for it. The truth is, old-school outbound sales still work. I personally closed the first 500 paying clients for my company through cold calling and outbound email marketing—proving that direct, persistent outreach is still one of the most effective ways to grow.

One thing I wish I did more of while growing my business was bouncing ideas off experienced people. Over the years, I’ve mentored and advised hundreds of entrepreneurs and startups on business strategy and direction. Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh, unbiased perspective to break through roadblocks and keep moving forward. I built a successful, turnkey SaaS company with no tech background and no prior experience—so trust me, I’ve been through it.

Customer.io allows you to send automated communication to your users and contacts. You can segment your contacts how you wish, and send triggered messaging based on events that you assign.

Dropbox allows you to store, access and manage your files from any computer or mobile device. A great app to keep your team organized. Especially useful remote companies!

Intercom is a communication app that allows you to engage with your users in a very meaningful and impactful way. Extremely useful for any SaaS company.

Mailchimp is a simple and easy email marketing platform. It's a great way to build subscriber lists, creating email newsletters, automated campaigns, A/B testing, and much more. Best of all, It's free!

Mixpanel is an app that allows you to get deep insights and analytics into what your users are doing in your app. This is a very useful tool for SaaS companies in particular.

Trello is a product management tool that allows you to track progress on tasks in a visually appealing way. It's very customizable and has an endless amount of use cases.