From €2K MRR to Visma acquisition: The GTM Playbook Behind Woffu’s 9-Year SaaS Journey and Real Learnings for AI-driven SaaS Leaders

Scaling a SaaS GTM playbook from near-zero to a strategic acquisition is a marathon, not a sprint. We scaled Woffu from a bootstrapped €2,000 MRR to a thriving company acquired by Visma, eventually serving 1,500 customers and on a “healthy” trajectory towards 8-digit ARR. It was a 9-year journey, not built on hype or endless VC cash, and in my view, it provides critical GTM learnings for today’s AI-driven SaaS leaders.

I was privileged to be part of that journey, starting as an angel investor and mentor before stepping in operationally as CRO/GTM Leader, a key shareholder, and board member, always with skin in the game.

In this piece, I’m not just recounting a success story. I want to share the candid, no-fluff lessons from Woffu’s Go-To-Market (GTM) journey – particularly around strategic focus, efficient execution, and a deliberate exit strategy. These are principles I believe are more critical than ever for founders building AI-driven B2B SaaS companies today, even though Woffu itself wasn’t an “AI-native” play in the current sense. The fundamentals of building a resilient, valuable SaaS business? They’re timeless.

The Spark: From Basketball Court Connection to SaaS Scaleup

Woffu was born in 2015, doing just €2K MRR when I was introduced to its founder, Miguel Fresneda, through Albert Armengol, a fellow basketball buddy and serial tech founder. Miguel was full of infectious energy and a vision: make life at work easier and more productive with a Spotify of time & attendance management.

At the time, I was SVP Sales & Marketing at Whisbi (Enterprise SaaS), but Woffu intrigued me: a sharp focus, an SMB play, and GTM whitespace. I joined first as angel and mentor, then stepped in deeper as CRO, key shareholder, and board member by early 2018.

Fast forward: we sold Woffu to Visma (a PE-backed HR tech leader) in 2022, successfully navigated a three-year earn-out which concluded at the end of 2024 (when I transitioned to my next chapter), and today, Woffu is celebrating 10 years, it’s profitable and on track to finish 2025 close to 500K€ in MRR  with 70+ people. The mantra for the future? Rule of 40.

So, what was the GTM formula? It was built on a few core beliefs, executed relentlessly.

Pillar 1: The Uncomfortable Power of Strategic Focus

When I first got involved, Woffu’s logo bravely declared “Woffu HR Suite.” The temptation was to go horizontal, to build an all-in-one HR platform like Personio or Factorial were starting to do.

I’ve always been a firm believer in specialization in SaaS. Unless you’re aiming to be the undisputed elephant in the room and have the capital (and risk appetite) for colossal VC rounds, focus is your superpower. We had frank, early conversations. We aligned on a plan for healthy, efficient growth with a strategic M&A opportunity as a potential long-term outcome. There was no unicorn infatuation, no “growth at all costs” mindset.

So, we made a pivotal decision: Woffu would do one thing exceptionally well – time management. We weren’t trying to replace incumbents  such as Sage or Oracle, or even the emerging all-in-one challengers. We aimed to be a complementary, best-in-class functional layer.

Pillar 2: The Mantra of Efficient Growth (When “Free Money” Wasn’t Our Drug)

With a clear focus, our next challenge was building a GTM engine that was efficient and sustainable. It sounds almost obvious to talk about “efficient and profitable growth” now, in 2025. But think back to 2018-2019. Money was practically free. SaaS valuations were through the roof. Companies that, like us, didn’t join the “growth at all costs” movement? We were seen as a bit conservative.

Here’s how we operationalized efficiency:

Smart Funding & Preserving Optionality

We financed Woffu mostly with debt and our own resources. Just enough, and only when strictly necessary. At one point, VCs were knocking, ready to inject millions. We had another frank board discussion. Self-awareness about the pros and cons of taking large sums is vital. We took a little, the bare minimum to feel secure and continue product and GTM development. We preserved our optionality.

Photo taken by me. Our Woffu leadership team in 2019, a snapshot of our ~20-strong team focused on efficient growth

Proactive Revenue Stream Diversification. Don’t Wait for the Well to Dry Up

Our inbound engine was working well in the early days. But I’ve learned this lesson the hard way: you don’t wait for your current revenue source to slow down before building the next one.

• We started building our outbound engine when inbound was still sufficient for short-to-medium term growth. We shifted from 100% inbound in 2016-2017 to a 50/50 inbound/outbound mix in under 24 months, all while maintaining triple-digit YoY growth.

• Building our outbound engine was an intensive, hands-on effort. My time logs from early 2018 are filled with entries like ‘Outbound machine set up,’ ‘Fine tuning Playbook,’ dedicated days for ‘Training to AEs, Training to SDRs,’ and detailed ‘Work on Salesforce properties specs.’ We spent a significant portion of that year, often 8-hour dedicated days according to my records, laying these foundational GTM tracks.

• We applied the same logic to partnerships. Only when our direct inbound and outbound funnels were robust and predictable did we strategically layer in a partnership motion. It wasn’t until mid-2019, as my records show entries like ‘Partnership meeting, Marketing meeting with content roadmap,’ that we began to systematically build this third pillar, ensuring our direct engine was humming first. This became Woffu’s third fundamental revenue pillar from late 2019. Too many startups chase partners too early, wasting precious CEO and revenue leader bandwidth before they even have a proven GTM motion to partner with.

Disciplined ARPA Growth Without Just Hiking Prices

Increased ARPA was key. We accelerated our revenue metrics to achieve 7x ARPA and 5x MRR in 3 years. How? When we built the outbound motion, we didn’t just let the team “go wherever they wanted.” We implemented simple but rigid Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and account list criteria, guided by a nascent RevOps function. This disciplined targeting, focused on slightly larger SMBs and mid-market accounts that felt the pain of time management more acutely, naturally drove up deal sizes.

Customer Success as a Retention Weapon

At a certain point, particularly as COVID hit and well-funded competitors were raising hundreds of millions, churn protection became THE priority. Instead of just pushing harder on sales and marketing, we consciously decided to invest heavily in our Customer Success team. I personally dived deep into creating the CS engine: the processes, the playbooks, the team enablement. This pivot is clearly reflected in my time allocation during late 2019 and throughout 2020. For example, an 8-hour entry from December 2019 notes a deep dive to ‘focus on CS priorities for next year (churn concern… how to protect the churn building a stronger CS).’ This focus intensified in 2020 with specific projects like the ‘CS anti churn plan’ and ‘CS retention campaign review + training/coaching,’ all documented with significant hours. 

Additionally, the only director-level hire made for the entire GTM team during a crucial phase was a Director of Customer Success (who, by the way, eventually became the current MD of Woffu under Visma – a testament to internal growth). It worked.

The “SaaSup” Framework: The Method Driving Our GTM Success

This journey of scaling Woffu wasn’t accidental, nor was it purely intuitive. It was guided by a GTM framework I’ve developed and refined over 20+ years of scaling B2B SaaS companies , a strategic and operational system I call SaaSup.

Think of Phil Jackson and the Triangle Offense. He led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships and then the Los Angeles Lakers to another five. Was it just because he had Michael Jordan and then Kobe Bryant? Not only. The Triangle provided the structure, the principles, the repeatable system for success, adaptable to different teams and players.

Similarly, SaaSup provides the core pillars and fundamentals for building healthy, efficient, and scalable revenue engines. The decisions at Woffu – the intense focus, the multi-layered GTM motions, the emphasis on customer success, the disciplined ARPA growth, were all applications of these principles. This wasn’t just high-level strategy; it was about rolling up sleeves. The detailed entries in my time logs from 2018, covering everything from ‘Salesforce properties specs’ and ‘pipeline review green/yellow/white’ to specific ‘SOA training’ and ‘BDM/SDR coaching,’ illustrate the granular, methodical execution inherent in the SaaSup approach.

It’s a framework that has been instrumental not just at Woffu, but across several other SaaS companies I’ve led or advised towards successful exits, including Whisbi, Tiendeo, and Wide Eyes Technologies and more recently even in a public listed consumer company like British American Tobacco. It’s about having structured know-how and a methodology, not just reinventing the wheel every time.

Pillar 3: The Strategic Exit – “Las Compañías Se Compran, No Se Venden”… Or Do They?

Woffu was largely bootstrapped and self-funded. This preserved our most valuable asset: optionality. By mid-2019 / early 2020, with a healthy growth trajectory, we reached an inflection point. VCs were definitely interested in a Series A. But we also knew that continuing to bootstrap long-term in an increasingly competitive market carried its own risks.

After much internal deliberation, we made a conscious, strategic decision: no VC route for a large round. It was the right moment to proactively explore a strategic exit, from a position of strength.  This strategic intent wasn’t an afterthought. My time logs show specific 8-hour entries across Q4 2019, Q2, and Q3 2020, including various external (eg US based PEs investing in Europe) + internal meetings. 

We hired a London-based M&A boutique and built a “go-exit strategy.” This involved defining our Ideal Buyer Profiles (IBPs, we had three distinct types) and developing a prospect funnel, much like a sales campaign. Our primary objective was to find a “bigger brother” who would value Woffu’s unique focus and GTM engine, and allow the business to continue its successful trajectory.

When COVID hit, my logs from March 2020 show immediate ‘Session to reorganize things following the start of the quarantine.’ Alongside discussions on cash burn and team status, we also had a ‘Catch up with Miguel and our M&A advisor regarding M&A prospecting status,’ demonstrating our commitment to the long-term strategy even then.

We weren’t desperate to sell; we could afford to wait for the right partner if an offer didn’t align with our vision for Woffu’s future and our shareholders’ aspirations.

The CEO, Miguel, and I had weekly routines with our M&A partner. We meticulously built prospect lists and crafted a compelling pitch that highlighted not just our tech platform, but the resilience and efficiency of our GTM engine and the consistency of our funnels. The agenda for those meetings? Prospecting activities, first meetings in view, follow-up prep, opportunity qualification… sound familiar? It was an incredibly instructive period, my deepest dive yet into the end-to-end cycle of a company.

The Human Element: People, Enablement, and That Irreplaceable Chemistry

Underpinning all the strategy and process was people. We grew Woffu by investing in and growing young talent. I poured significant energy into coaching our early SDRs, AEs, and CS team members. My timesheets are peppered with countless hours dedicated to ‘Team coaching,’ ‘Training to BDMs/SDRs,’ and individual ‘Pipeline reviews’ with team members. They became the backbone of our GTM execution. A continuous enablement program and consistent coaching aren’t nice-to-haves; they’re essential.

And finally, let’s be candid: startups have incredible ups and downs. As a revenue leader, you need trustworthy founders and investors who back you up, especially when things get tough. Because the journey is tough. I was incredibly fortunate to share the Woffu adventure with Miguel Fresneda and Albert Armengol. Exits are like love; you never forget the real ones. And chemistry with people? That’s everything. We didn’t just build a successful company; we became friends for life.

What Today’s AI SaaS Founders Should Take Away

Most AI startups won’t fail on tech, they’ll fail on GTM. Here’s what Woffu’s journey makes clear for anyone building in this new wave:

1. Positioning isn’t a marketing decision. It’s a strategy call. 
   Woffu won by not building a full HR suite. Today’s AI founders need the same clarity. Don’t build another “AI-powered everything” platform. Own a specific use case, wedge in, and layer up from there.

2. Efficiency-first doesn’t mean small. It means durable.
   We didn’t raise big rounds, but we built a resilient business with options. In the AI gold rush, the temptation is to chase scale fast. Resist it. Build efficient growth engines that compound.

3. GTM frameworks beat founder intuition. 
   Woffu’s growth wasn’t a fluke. It was the result of deliberate, staged GTM execution across inbound, outbound, and partners – guided by the SaaSup principles. AI tech can give you speed, but frameworks give you direction.

4. Optionality > hype when the market shifts. 
   When the funding environment changed, Woffu had real options. We didn’t pray for an exit, we prepared for one. In AI SaaS, where exits may come faster or not at all, you need to design for optionality from day one.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Woffu was never about chasing trends. It was about building something real. As AI reshapes SaaS, the fundamentals of GTM haven’t changed: focus, efficiency, and execution still win. That’s the mindset I bring into every new cycle I join.

 

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