10 Lessons for scaling your SaaS business from €1M to €20M ARR

Let’s be clear upfront: This article isn’t about how to start a SaaS business. It’s about how to scale one.

There are plenty of resources explaining how to get to your first €1m in ARR. But what happens next? What separates a solid product with early traction from a truly scalable, resilient business?

Over the last decade, we’ve built and scaled Rydoo into a SaaS company serving clients in more than 38 countries. Along the journey, I’ve gained a number of insights.

Here are ten lessons that stand out — some learned the easy way, others the hard way.

Finding the right product, the right customer type, the right market, and the right pain point takes time.

To truly succeed, spend the early stages exploring widely. Test different directions, talk to different clients and personas, try multiple pricing strategies, geographies or verticals.

See what sticks and what doesn’t, but keep an open mind. It’s tempting to double down on what starts working early on, but premature success can be dangerous. It can quickly lead you down a path that seems promising, but isn’t scalable or aligned with your long-term vision.

Patience is key. So stay curious, explore, but don’t commit too early.

Once you do find that groove, the right product-market fit, your ideal customer profile and your wedge, focus relentlessly. Narrow your scope, pick a few geographies and verticals. Create a sharp but simple value proposition. And say “no” to everything else.

It’s tempting to double down on what starts working early on, but premature success can be dangerous.

At Rydoo, we explored a few different directions at first, but we had the discipline to quickly realign and focus. That discipline was critical to reaching €20M in ARR before our 10th anniversary.

Focus is the way to build momentum and truly accelerate.

One of the biggest mistakes SaaS companies make is listening too much to their largest clients or the noisiest voices, and not enough to their end users.

The end user, the person who actually uses your software every day, is your best guide. You need a robust system to gather insights from them: what works, what doesn’t, what they need next.

At Rydoo, we’ve built a structured feedback platform that consolidates input from end users, clients, prospects, the market, and even competitors. Everything is categorised, prioritised, and continuously updated. This platform is our single source of truth when it comes to shaping our product roadmap.

The best SaaS companies treat data as their compass. Conversations with customers give you context, and data gives you clarity. Together, they turn SaaS from guesswork into a system you can continuously fine-tune.

So spend time with customers, talk to end users and obsess over data. Track your metrics, build dashboards. Test, learn, iterate. Understand what works and what doesn’t. Let data, not instinct, guide your decisions.

SaaS success isn’t about a single hire, a lucky client, or one big partnership. It comes from building a system that’s repeatable, measurable, and built to scale. The best companies treat growth as a science.

If you’re serious about building a company that can grow fast and last long, you need to think about scalability. Not just in terms of product, but also in terms of people and processes.

Scalability is about designing a business that doesn’t break when it grows. Where every new customer, employee, or geography adds value without creating bottlenecks.

It’s about building for tomorrow while delivering today.

Product scalability

From day one, avoid building one-off features for individual clients, no matter how tempting the deal might be. Every product decision must serve all your customers (and future customers), not just one.

It’s hard to be strict on this, especially when a big contract is on the line.

I remember pitching Rydoo to the Global Chief Procurement Officer of a major industrial group in our fourth year. He loved the product, but asked for three custom developments specific to his organisation.

A truly scalable SaaS business is one where every decision makes it easier to grow, not harder.

I politely declined. But, staying true to Rydoo’s transparency culture, I explained why: If we made an exception for him today, we’d end up doing the same for others tomorrow, and within a few years, our product would be a fragmented mess.

He walked away, and I left with a pit in my stomach. We had just lost a huge deal, possibly worth hundreds of thousands.

But, deep down, I knew it was the right call.

Three months later, he called back. We restarted the conversation and ran a pilot with their HQ. Today, we serve that company in 38 countries.

Organisational scalability

A scalable product is nothing without a scalable organisation behind it.

Hire international profiles early on, and don’t shy away from working with remote talent. Find the right people, the ones that grow with you and bring more value year after year.

Empower them. Give them authority. Trust them. The more ownership they feel, the more motivated and impactful they will be.

At Rydoo, we now have 150 people representing 34 nationalities, with offices in over 15 countries. Diversity is a strength and a strategic asset, one that gives us different viewpoints, leading to better decisions and a richer daily experience for the team.

Scaling is about resisting shortcuts that might win you a client today, but compromise your long-term ability to serve thousands tomorrow. The same goes for your organisation: you’re not just hiring for today’s problems, you’re building the foundation for a company that will still thrive five or ten years from now.

A truly scalable SaaS business is one where every decision makes it easier to grow, not harder.

Achieving this balance is hard, but critical.

If you overinvest in go-to-market without a product that meets the expectation, you’ll see short-term growth, but long-term stagnation.

If you overinvest in creating the best possible product, you risk missing the market opportunity.

The balance starts at leadership, and every executive must understand the trade-off and contribute to it.

At Rydoo, every member of the executive team is expected to think beyond their function, prioritising company success above their team’s interests.

Which leads me to the next point…

Internal politics is poison. I’ve worked in environments where people spent more time playing politics than solving problems. It kills motivation and slows everything down.

At Rydoo, we promote radical transparency. We talk openly, confront issues early, and always focus on what’s best for the company. When someone starts acting politically, we address it immediately.

Internal politics is poison. It kills motivation and slows everything down.

Sometimes, that means letting people go before their attitude spreads.

Hire for alignment. Fire for misalignment. Protect your culture fiercely.

Clarity matters. People do their best work when they understand where the company is going and how their work makes a difference.

At Rydoo, we put a strong emphasis on communication. We share the big picture regularly — our value proposition, geographic priorities, financial performance. Company goals are then translated into team-level OKRs, making sure everyone is moving in the same direction.

Alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It takes intentional structure. Left unchecked, teams drift into silos. Clear goals and constant communication keep the whole organisation on the same page.

Delegation is one of the hardest skills to master, but it’s absolutely essential.

You are a founder, but you are also human. You will make mistakes, and so will your team. But you will learn, grow and get better. Together.

If you build a strong, empowered leadership team and give them space to execute, your business will scale faster, and you’ll preserve your energy for strategic focus.

You will make mistakes, and so will your team. But you will learn, grow and get better. Together.

I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs burn out by trying to micromanage every detail. The truth is, no one scales alone. Trusting in collective intelligence multiplies your impact.

Company culture isn’t just a nice-to-have. Poor culture slows you down. Great culture propels you forward.

Culture is the invisible architecture of your company.

Culture shows up in how you make decisions, solve problems, recruit, structure teams and handle setbacks. It’s also deeply influenced by leadership, so surround yourself with people that share your values — they will help reinforce and promote them.

Remember: culture is the invisible architecture of your company. Build it intentionally.

Pick investors who are fully aligned with your ambitions, strategy, and preferred level of interaction.

I always prioritised trust and transparency. When the time came to look at investors, I wanted someone that I could call not just for major strategic decisions, but also when facing tough operational challenges. Someone who would bring benchmarks, outside perspective and real support.

A good investor isn’t someone who just joins four board meetings a year. It’s someone you can call when you need help.

These ten recommendations are just that: recommendations. They are lessons from my personal journey, not a universal playbook. Every company has its own path, but in the end, staying flexible, listening closely to the signals around you, and adapting with clarity and conviction are key to success.

Entrepreneurship is about resilience. It’s about facing reality — customers, markets, data — and still choosing to move forward.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that growth comes from a mix of discipline and belief: discipline to build repeatable systems, and belief to keep going when the path isn’t clear.

Every company has its own path, but in the end, staying flexible, listening closely to the signals around you, and adapting with clarity and conviction are key to success.

These are some of the lessons that helped us scale Rydoo. I hope they encourage you to keep building, keep learning, and keep pushing forward. The journey is never easy, but it’s always worth it.

If there’s one constant in scaling, it’s this: growth rewards those who stay disciplined, adapt fast, and keep the belief alive.

Good luck!