From prototype to product-market fit: the fast-track SaaS playbook with Jérôme Vobmann @Zola

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by saas.group, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.

In episode #31 of season 5, Anna Nadeina talks with Jerome, founder of Zola, HR software platform designed for SMEs to manage employee reviews, training, skills development, and continuous feedback.

Jérôme is an engineer from Strasbourg who cut his teeth in product roles at startups and worked on projects including IBM Watson. A long friendship with co‑founder Raphaël — who brought HR experience to the table — became the seed for Zola. Jérôme’s background in product management and growth shaped the early focus on building something that serves both users and businesses.

The origin story: a side project that proved the need

In 2020, during COVID, Jérôme and Raphaël launched a free learning product (Zolola) that delivered daily learning prompts by email. It unexpectedly attracted thousands of signups and national attention. That early momentum convinced them there was demand for tools that help people learn and grow at work.

“We wanted to help people grow at work, still proud of their progress and excited to keep moving forward in their career.”

From free consumer product to B2B SaaS

The founders realised direct consumer monetisation would be hard. Instead, they pivoted: companies pay for tools that upskill and retain employees, so the product became a B2B offering. Zola was reimagined as an all‑in‑one HR platform enabling companies to showcase career journeys, manage reviews and goals, and centralise HR processes.

Bootstrapping: constraints that shaped product and process

Early fundraising wasn’t an option — the founders had limited track record and the market was noisy with HR tools. Bootstrapping wasn’t just choice, it was necessity. That constraint led to three practical decisions:

• Prototype fast: build rapid MVPs (sometimes with low‑code/no‑code tools like Bubble) and iterate directly with customers.
• Founder‑led sales: cold outreach, phone calls and manual demos replaced paid marketing.
• Use grants and loans: local French support helped cover basic salaries and hire a first CTO.

These constraints created a lean, execution‑focused culture that prioritised product‑market fit. After roughly a year of intense prototyping and selling, Zola reached a turning point where one MVP generated the equivalent of a year’s revenue in a single month — the classic product–market fit moment.

Raising capital: why and how they chose investors

After three years of bootstrapping and proving repeatable traction, the team decided to raise external funding to scale product and go quicker on opportunities they were seeing. Rather than traditional VC, Jérôme says they preferred investors who were operators and business angels — people who matched the bootstrap mindset and could provide hands‑on support without pushing a “raise‑and‑spend” mentality.

Today Zola is scaling: Jérôme shares that the company has almost 20 employees, crossed around €1.5M ARR, is doubling year‑on‑year, and is “almost profitable.” A notable revenue model detail: many clients sign long commitments — contracts up to five years — which stabilises cash flow and reduces churn risk.

How Zola uses AI and automation

AI is embedded both inside the product (to surface career insights and personalized recommendations) and in marketing operations. Jérôme describes a pragmatic approach:

• Build “agents” and pipelines that assist with content generation (LinkedIn posts, images, SEO copy) but maintain human review before publishing.
• Leverage local and open models such as Mistral for writing and analysis.
• Use AI tools inside CRM and site tooling (e.g., Upshot‑style features, Webflow/editor tools, and generative frameworks like Bold) to create lead magnets (skill matrices, white papers).

Jérôme admits the team isn’t fully automating acquisition with AI yet — there’s still experimentation around search and AI indexing — but AI already accelerates content and product features.

Sales: patience, relationships and surprisingly short cycles

Zola’s go‑to‑market remains founder and SDR driven: outbound calls, targeted emails, webinars and events. Although buyers are tired of cold outreach, Jérôme finds that persistence and staying top‑of‑mind with prospects who lack budget today pays off later.

• Typical sales cycles: 2–4 months.
• Key retention lever: long subscription commitments (5 years) which reduce acquisition pressure and increase upsell potential.
• Major growth channel: upsell — existing customers buying new modules as Zola expands its product suite.

All‑in‑one product strategy: why not single‑feature?

Early feedback told the team that HR teams were juggling many disconnected tools (objectives, skills, reviews, feedback). That fragmentation prevented a coherent career view of employees. Rather than staying narrowly focused, Zola pursued an integrated platform because the product’s value emerges when modules are connected.

To achieve this without bloated development timelines they adopted a two‑team model:

• Innovation squad: build rapid MVPs (initially in two weeks; now closer to one month) using low‑code and AI to validate demand.
• Core squad: harden, secure and industrialise successful MVPs into production modules.

This approach keeps innovation fast while ensuring quality for widely used features. It also drives expansion revenue because existing customers can adopt new modules without replacing vendors.

Team and culture: alignment, clarity and founder dynamics

Jérôme highlights a few cultural practices that keep the team aligned as they scale:

• Regular company retreats and presentations that connect day‑to‑day work to the larger mission: helping people progress in their careers.
• Transparent product roadmaps so engineers and product people understand the user impact of features (e.g., how objectives feed promotions and pay progression).
• Founder trust: Jérôme and Raphaël’s long friendship is a strength — candid feedback and quick decisions help move the company forward.

Biggest failure and biggest win

The biggest failure: investing months to build a “big” product too early and pausing the MVP iteration cycle. That delay cost traction and taught them to respect the MVP‑sell‑iterate process.

The biggest win: the moment of product–market fit when a single month’s revenue equalled a full year’s expected turnover. That signal gave the team confidence to industrialise sales and product efforts.

Founder hacks: what to focus on

Jérôme’s practical advice for founders is low‑drama and high‑action:

• Prototype fast: ship minimally viable versions, expose them to real customers, and iterate based on feedback.
• Decide fast: don’t over‑polish offers. Share early prototypes and messaging with prospects — transparency wins more often than perfection.
• Prioritise upsell and retention: building modules that existing customers can buy reduces acquisition pressure and improves unit economics.