So recently a founder doing really well at $30m ARR reached out to me and asked if they fly out to take a meeting with a big potential partner in the SF Bay Area.
A very important partner yes, but one they didn’t have a super deep relationship. It wasn’t clear it was worth all the time flying to the SF Bay Area, staying in a hotel, and flying back.
So I asked a question:
If you were in SF, would you Uber over to the meeting? Would it be worth your time then?
The founder didn’t miss a beat, and said Yes of course, if I could get there in a Uber, I’d go.
You gotta go then I said.
I don’t think you need to be the in SF Bay area today to win in SaaS. 3/4 of the last SaaS IPOs weren’t even based in the SF Bay. But if your partners are there, your customers are there, you have to be there. Even if you … aren’t.
You have to show up just as often as you would if you were there. Especially if your competition is there.
At least, don’t let not being in the SF Bay be an excuse.
I quietly see that too much these days.
