22 Jul, 2025

🚀 7 Habits of Fast Growing SaaS Startups (And How You Can Replicate Them)

by Ryan James
founder of Rocket SaaS

Some SaaS startups skyrocket. Others stall. So what’s the difference?

After working with over 120 SaaS companies, I’ve seen it all, the ones that scale rapidly, the ones that plateau, and the ones that quietly disappear. There are clear patterns. The fastest-growing SaaS companies share repeatable habits and mindsets. They don’t always have big budgets or massive teams, but they move differently.

Here are the 7 traits I consistently see in fast-growing SaaS startups, and how you can start applying them today.

1. They Launch Fast, Then Optimise

Here’s a great quote from Jeff Bezos: “If you wait for 90% of the information, you’re probably being too slow.” Instead of waiting for the “perfect” marketing campaign, fast-moving SaaS companies launch a solid version quickly and refine it with real feedback. Delaying weeks or months for the perfect landing page, ad creative, or email nurture often means missed opportunities. Most startups don’t need perfect, they need momentum. If it’s 70% better than what you had before, it’s ready.

Actionable steps:
Adopt a 70% rule: If it’s good enough to improve what you already have, launch it. Run “launch-and-learn” sprints: ship something quickly and review the results. Remember: campaigns are editable. That “launch” button isn’t a finish line.

2. They Empower Teams (Instead of Micromanaging)

The fastest-growing SaaS businesses trust their teams. They don’t micromanage every decision, they build confidence, set direction and step back. In contrast, businesses that demand endless approvals and nitpick every campaign slow everything down. You end up with marketers afraid to act without permission. If you’re a founder and you’re still approving every line of copy, it might be time to ask: is it a trust issue, or a team issue?

Actionable steps:
Spend 60–90 days transferring product and brand knowledge to your marketing team. At the 3-month mark, ask: “Do I trust this person to lead marketing?” If the answer is no, change the team. When you do trust them, let go.

3. Founders Stay Actively Involved in Marketing

The best-performing SaaS companies don’t hand off marketing entirely. Founders stay involved, not to approve every post, but to shape thinking and provide thought leadership. Your insight as a founder is invaluable. Without it, messaging often falls flat or sounds generic.

Actionable steps:
Schedule a monthly 30-minute “thought dump” with your marketer or agency. Record it and repurpose it. Join at least one webinar or podcast per quarter as a guest or speaker. Make sure your strategic point of view shapes the tone and direction of your campaigns.

4. They Nail Their Positioning Early

Positioning is the biggest driver of success or failure in SaaS marketing. Great positioning answers three questions, clearly and quickly: what do you do, who is it for, and how does it help? If your homepage or ads leave people confused, they won’t click, scroll or convert.

Actionable steps:
Run short interviews with 3–5 happy customers to gather their language and messaging. Take recordings from sales calls to capture common objections and phrases. Survey your audience to uncover key motivators and pain points. Build a messaging playbook with an elevator pitch, positioning statement, benefit stack and proof points. Roll out that messaging across all channels, from ads to onboarding.

5. They Scale Marketing Budget with Revenue

When your revenue increases, so should your marketing budget. Sounds obvious, right? But many SaaS companies keep spending the same amount, hoping for better results. Here’s the problem: as you grow, so does your churn, competition, and need for leads. Without fuelling the fire, your pipeline runs dry. As a benchmark, SaaS companies should spend 10% of revenue on marketing.

Actionable steps:
Calculate your current marketing spend as a percentage of monthly revenue. Schedule quarterly budget reviews and adjust your spend proportionally to growth. Allocate funds across paid ads, content creation, email nurturing, SEO and marketing ops.

6. They Understand Not All Value is Measurable

The best SaaS teams know that not all value shows up in a dashboard. Demand generation doesn’t always result in immediate ROI. LinkedIn Ads, for example, rarely show strong direct attribution in B2B SaaS, but that doesn’t mean they’re not working. If someone clicks your ad, reads a blog, joins your webinar, then six weeks later Googles your brand and books a demo, was that lead from LinkedIn, Google or content? It’s all three. Brand-building campaigns don’t always create leads overnight, but they help fill your pipeline over time. Fast-growing teams understand this and keep investing, even if attribution is murky.

7. They Build Marketing Around Customer Insights

The most effective campaigns don’t come from guesswork. They come from your customers’ words. The best SaaS companies listen to sales calls, support tickets, and interview transcripts to guide their messaging. Then they build landing pages, ads and product copy using that exact language.

Actionable steps:
Record and transcribe sales calls using tools like Fathom or Gong. Create a swipe file of real quotes, objections, and common questions. Update your messaging and assets based on what customers actually say, not what you think they care about.

Final Thoughts

Speed. Clarity. Trust. Insight. Those are the real growth levers. None of the habits above require a seven-figure budget. They just require bold decisions and the willingness to move faster and smarter. Pick one habit and start implementing it this week.

If you’d like help putting all seven into action, that’s exactly what we do.

👉 Book a free marketing strategy call

Let’s talk about how we can help scale your business.