Introduction
how to grow a testimonial SaaS to $850k ARR — In this Q&A, I share exactly how I took Senja from $0 to $850,000 ARR in 3 years, the experiments that worked, how I dialed into a niche ICP, and my process for collecting authentic testimonials at scale.
Founder Success Story QnA
What is your business and how did you start it?
So, the business is called Senja. It’s a platform for collecting proof from your customers. And I started it about 3 years ago when I found someone building it on Twitter and reached out to him and said, “Let’s collaborate.”
What were you doing up until that point?
Before Senja, I had a productized service called Roast My Landing Page, and I was professionally roasting people’s websites.
How did the roasting service work and how much did you make?
Roast My Landing Page was a service where people would come to the site, they would book me and they would pay $350 upfront and I would film a Loom video going through their website and telling them how to turn more visitors into customers. So I made about $300,000 doing that, charging about $300 — so around a thousand roasts. It was a lot of fun. I liked giving people quick wins they could implement to turn more visitors into customers. They got this 10–15 minute video and then we were done.
Over what time period did you make the $300k?
That was a 2-year period of busier weeks and less busy weeks depending on what else was going on in my life.
What’s your takeaway for someone considering a productized service?
There are lots of people doing productized businesses. I pushed this and created a lot of awareness for it. You’ve got to stay dialed in and get really good at what you’re offering. If you’re amazing at it, you’re going to create advocacy. Most of my customers came from word of mouth. I had a nice cycle of sending the roast, asking for the testimonial, then using that to drive more sales. If you’re not willing to be the best at something, I wouldn’t spend a lot of time building a productized service around it. If you can put something better into the world, it’s an amazing business model.
How did you price the roast service?
The first ones were free to collect feedback and testimonials. Then about $50, then $200, at one point about $600. I felt I was pricing people out and came back to $350. For 15 minutes that’s a lot, but if you can lift conversion, it’s a no-brainer depending on the business size and spend.
How did you transition from service to product?
I wanted to build my own thing that gets better each day. I saw someone building a testimonial tool on Twitter — Wilson, my co-founder (soon to be ex-co-founder). I reached out and said, “Let’s build something.” He had just put a few things out and had no customers. I shared my vision, he said yes. We didn’t have a formal founder agreement, just an email saying 50/50 and “let’s start shipping.” From there, we built it into Senja, which is now about $850,000 ARR. We’ve just finished our third year.
Do you need a brand-new idea to win?
Senja is a copycat. Damon Chen was building a testimonial tool in public. We saw it and liked it. Our early conversations were about what we could do over and above — our unique angle was focusing on the ability to share testimonials. That other platform basically had one or two ways to share. We launched with 15–20 different widgets you can customize and place throughout your funnel. You can share as images, videos, remix them. Our view: use social proof to answer objections and increase conversion.
How long did it take to reach $1k MRR, and what happened after?
It took 11 months to get to 1,000 MRR, and now we’re adding about $1,800 net MRR a week. It was a real struggle emotionally and financially to get to the first $1,000. Then compounding kicked in.
What did your first-year experiments look like?
We tried everything. We leveraged every community and connection to talk about Senja: Reddit, Indie Hackers, emailing friends and ex-colleagues, friends of friends, building in public — anything to get in front of people. If I was to go again, I’d dial into one buyer in a very niche way and get in front of those people. We struggled to $1k MRR but saw the speed of growth increase from there.
Who did you choose as your ICP and why?
We focused on professional creators with courses — people who want to collect a lot of proof and have funnels. That came from a conversation with Wes Bush where we wanted to dial into product-led growth and a specific buyer. Higher advocacy, easier to convert free to paid. Once we dialed into one buyer, we saw meaningful growth.
What does product-led growth mean to you?
For me it’s the culture where the product moves people through the lifecycle: amazing landing page converts, incredible onboarding activates, retention emails drive people back, great customer support fixes UX and reduces support questions. At every point, the product, team, and culture unlock customers and get them to success — without salespeople on their backs.
What would stand out if we shadowed you for a week?
We have a 4-day work week. No recurring meetings. We don’t use Slack. Everything is tracked and managed through Linear. I’ve worked with my co-founder for over 3 years, and we’ve never met in person. We met on Twitter. He’s based in Nigeria, I’m nomadic. Logistics and visas got in the way.
What’s happening with your co-founder, and what’s next?
We’ve had an amazing relationship. It was light and informal early on and has become bigger than expected. Wilson (21) wants to explore other ideas. I’m buying him out. He’ll work on his new project, and I will scale Senja until the point where I’m living in a mansion. That’s next year.
How did you go from $1k to $20k MRR?
We dialed into the course creator persona and pushed what worked: Google Ads, sponsorships, affiliates, SEO. We saw channels we could grow and got more customers from them. It was still hustly. The plan is to strip back and focus on channels we can meaningfully scale.
How did you double down once you knew the ICP?
Affiliates with newsletters targeting course creators — we found people who educate those buyers and reached out. We made content and assets relevant to help them be more successful. We partnered with platforms like Podia and Kit to launch integrations. We identified opportunities and pushed harder. Sometimes we brought in fractional people to work on them.
How do you find and manage experts to help?
Historically it was gut instinct — that didn’t work. Now we have strong criteria: they must use Linear, no Slack, no one’s bigger than the process. We define reporting and experimentation cycles. We ask for case studies and evidence of success. We spend more time upfront with a structured list of questions. If they’re willing to work like this and have a track record with businesses like Senja, we hire them.
How would you get your first 100 users today?
There is no playbook. Try a lot of different things. Go super niche with your buyer. Our buyer now is something like: a professional creator, full-time, US-based, has multiple offers, uses Kit, Podia, or Circle, and is likely launching in the next 6 months. The specificity should be higher than most people think. Even if there are only 10 of them, work through those 10 and then expand. Zero to one is the hardest. If you’re at $1k MRR, don’t give up — try presenting the same product in different ways, or take it to different buyers. Instead of shipping another feature, run another marketing experiment. Get to ramen profitability and keep experimenting.
How are you using AI?
It’s quicker to test, validate, and share ideas with customers. A customer can message me a request; I can send a clickable wireframe within 20 minutes: “Is this what you’re thinking?” We’re not using AI to write code or push to production, but we use it in experimentation to try things fast.
Tips for asking and collecting testimonials?
You need to actually ask — at the right time. We automate a request 24 hours after someone moves from free to paid. After good support interactions, say thank you and ask. Make clear it’s for the whole business, not just support. Ask in a human way — founder to person. Share where and when it will be used and give control over usage. Offer an incentive for leaving it (not for positive feedback) — e.g., a month free for a video testimonial. When we implemented that in Senja, we collected video testimonials every day. Our testimonials are multiple clips; now we have hundreds covering product, support, and outcomes. Finally, thank them — not just with a gift, but genuinely. Authentic testimonials can power your whole funnel — landing pages, email, socials — and massively increase revenue. If you’re not doing it, get over that limiting belief.
What tools and communities have helped you?
We use as few tools as possible but robustly: Linear as the source of truth for tasks, Notion for knowledge. Community is huge: Dynamite Circle and MicroConf. These keep me energized and resilient. Rob Walling and his “SaaS Playbook” made me feel seen and supported. Look for resources relevant in the moment to help you feel unblocked and supported.
Any final message for founders?
Know yourself. Spend intentional time documenting who you are, your values, and what’s important. Every business decision becomes easier. It can feel wishy-washy, but after doing it, every decision was informed by that exercise. If you’ve never done it, I recommend it.
Ollie Business Stats
Here are high-level stats on Senja‘s growth, revenue, and focus areas from the conversation, including ARR progress, ICP, and core channels we doubled down on.
- $850,000 ARR after 3 years
- 11 months to first $1,000 MRR
- Adding about $1,800 net MRR per week
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| ARR | $850,000 |
| Time to $1k MRR | 11 months |
| Weekly Net MRR Added | $1,800 |
| Primary ICP | Professional course creators |
| Core Channels | Affiliates, SEO, Google Ads, Partnerships |
Ollie Method
Here’s the one-line breakdown of my method: niche ICP focus, experiment broadly early, then 10x what works, with product-led growth across the entire lifecycle.
- Niche down to a super-specific ICP and build for them
- Run many small experiments across communities and channels
- Measure, then 10x what proves traction
- Use product-led growth to drive activation, retention, and advocacy
- Collect authentic testimonials and deploy across the funnel
Ollie Tools
I keep the stack lean. We use Linear for all work tracking and experimentation cadence, and Notion for knowledge. We integrate with creator platforms like Podia and Kit to meet our ICP where they are.
- Linear — task and experiment management, single source of truth
- Notion — documentation and internal knowledge base
- Podia, Kit, Circle — ecosystem integrations for creator workflows
Key Notes
These are the standout takeaways that shaped Senja’s path from $0 to $850k ARR.
- Zero to $1k MRR is the hardest; keep experimenting
- Specific ICP beats broad targeting for PLG and conversion
- Incentivized video testimonials can be collected daily
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
Here’s how you can start like I did and grow a testimonial SaaS toward $850k ARR using niche focus and experiment-led execution.
- Define a hyper-specific ICP and their stack
- Ship fast and talk everywhere your ICP hangs out
- Instrument onboarding and retention for PLG
- Collect and deploy testimonials across your funnel
- Double down on 1–2 scalable channels with clear ROI
Conclusion
Growing from zero to $850k ARR came from niching down, relentless experimentation, product-led growth, and systematic testimonial collection. If you keep the stack lean, the ICP specific, and the experiments rolling, compounding can take over.