The SaaS Playbook

If you can get over the sound of the subtitle, this book does three things right:

1. It's written for a specific audience and tells you upfront.

That audience is bootstrapped (mostly; it allows for some leeway in financing models) B2B SaaS businesses with some semblance of product-market fit—defined by the author as a running product customers are willing to pay for—and both the market and ambition to grow that business to upwards of $100k in MRR.

While my business is not in a market that would ever allow for that level of revenue, enough of the advice still applied, so even if you're running a niche SaaS, I'd say the book might still be relevant to you.

2. This makes it possible to give specific, relevant advice instead of general platitudes.

If you fall squarely into the target group described above, there will be few sections that don't apply to you or don't leave you with actionable advice.

If your business is way smaller, whole sections (e.g., hiring) might be mostly irrelevant, as they were for me. So keep that in mind.

3. It doesn't overstay its welcome.

At around 190 pages minus a lot of formatting and empty pages between chapters, this is a pretty quick read without much fluff.



If you have been at this for a while, most of the things here will already be familiar to you. But reading something again at the tight time is often more valuable than knowing it in the abstract.

So as long as you see yourself as part of the target group, I feel confident recommending this. And I can especially recommend reading this as part of a book club with your co-founders, if you have them. I can guarantee you will get a good discussion going.