ISSUE #258

The last 2024 review you’ll read from me. I promise.

But before we focus on 2025 and pencil in what lies ahead, I figured it would be worth reflecting on the chapter behind us.

Not for posterity, but for perspective.

Here’s a lookback on last year. Plus, I have some big news to share below 👇.

(This coming Friday, we’ll be back to business as usual.)

Let's dive in!

Ian at SaaS Weekly

2024 YEAR-END REVIEW

👀 Perspective | 6 min read | Ian Ito at SaaS Weekly
A lookback + the road ahead

By the numbers

We all have our own growth journey.

Some of us are scaling early-stage startups, while others are reaching our first few thousand subscribers.

But despite our different paths and destinations, we face a common ground. Be it the same struggles and chasms or similar advice and lessons.

As a SaaS Weekly reader, your journey is twofold: one where I’m guiding your growth, and the other where you’re guiding mine.

Here’s a recap of last year.

The big rocks in 2024

🍻 Acquired a newsletter

At the start of the year, I gave myself a pretty ambitious goal: reach 10K subscribers by December (really…ambitious 🤦🏻‍♂️). I was banking on some big plays going into 2024.

One crazy idea was to buy another audience. So that’s what I did.

Back in January, I acquired Category Surfers, a weekly newsletter that broke down GTM strategies from some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies.

The acquisition added 2,000 subscribers under SaaS Weekly, doubling the audience size “overnight” (before I unsubscribed folks).

Despite being a step change in growth, the acquisition was a big lesson learned.

Learnings

• On the positive front, announcing the acquisition on social (LinkedIn and Twitter) added 80+ subscribers during the following two weeks – a growth hack!
  

• However, my domain/ IP health took a huge hit after moving subscribers under the SaaS Weekly. I should have slowly warmed the segment over time, sending emails in batches, not all at once.
  

• In addition, about 8% of the subscribers churned over three months. I should have created a dedicated onboarding flow for this audience, educating them on WHY they should continue to read this newsletter.

I apologize to anyone who I pissed off. I tried to win you back with memes 🤷🏻‍♂️.

🥊 Back-to-back, “back in action”

During the summer, we had quite a jump scare: the roundups fell off a cliff…but I didn’t – thankfully.

For a month, I took a break from writing to reflect on all my life choices. Specifically, the past lives that led me to SaaS Weekly.

During this time, I realized I forgot the WHY behind my writing – which is to help guide you through your growth journey.

But then after what seemed to be a cliffhanger, I returned with the roundups.

Learnings

• Just showing up is not enough. Consistency without direction is just wasted motion. And a vision without the conviction to support it is just an idea.
  

• True fans of your product or publication will stick with you through the ups and downs. I thought my open rates would drop and the unsubscribe rate would skyrocket after the break, but that never happened.

I appreciate everyone who stayed with me during that dark time. I felt like Jon Snow being resurrected in Season 5 of GOT ⚔️.

🖼 Refreshed design & the launch of Originals

After renewing my conviction and having a plan in hand, I gave SaaS Weekly a makeover.

The newsletter got a refreshed design and I updated the sections:

1. Industry Roundups: quick-hit summaries of what happened in SaaS this week

2. From the Trenches: GTM lessons from the community (this is now the most popular section)

3. Growth Plays In Practice: resources with a new format, separating the theory from the practical steps

4. Saved Social Posts: LinkedIn threads from thought leaders

In addition, I launched the GTM Foundations series. Once a month, I wrote tactical resources covering growth strategies and foundational GTM operations.

The first official post in the series covered: How to automate a signal-based outbound motion.

Pretty good 👍🏻!

Learnings

• For media-based businesses – where content is the product, you need to adopt the same experimentation culture as software companies to survive.

• Specifically, consistency ensures you deliver value to readers, while innovation ensures the value pool doesn’t go stale.

• Ship it before it’s done. While it’s not common to see this philosophy within media content, I learned it helps to match the same “clock speed” as software companies.

Shoutout to Mike Northfield for helping me with the redesign.

The 2025 roadmap

I’m cooking up some big changes for SaaS Weekly!

I won’t share much about it right now.

But all I will say is…

For most subscribers, you’re not going to like it.

For the rest, you’ll wish I had done this earlier.

More to come!

TOP READS FROM LAST WEEK

The best of SaaS Weekly

In case you missed last week’s recap, we reviewed the top reads throughout 2024. From GTM foundations to signal-based selling, jump into the most clicked-on articles from last year year.