How to execute a complete SaaS company pivot in one day with Simon Manz @entitys.io

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

In episode #8 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Simon Manz, founder of entitys.io, a cloud-based Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform specifically designed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the B2B sector.

Simon joins the podcast to unpack one of the hardest pivots in SaaS: transforming a professional services company into a product-focused software business.

Crowded SaaS markets reward focus more than noise. Building a product out of a service business, finding a defensible niche, and learning when to say no are the decisions that separate sustainable companies from fast-burning ones. Below are practical lessons from a founder who made that shift, focused on B2B mid-market product data, and chose a deliberate, bootstrapped path.

From consulting to product: a sensible restlessness

The founder’s path started in engineering and consulting—skills that sharpen problem solving, prioritization, and operational rigor. Consulting teaches rapid delivery and client-first behavior, but it often lacks the long-term ownership entrepreneurs crave. That itch to own a product and a vision pushed the company from being a professional service provider toward becoming a software-first business focused on Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM).

The hard truth about turning services into a product

Moving from a service culture to a product culture is more cultural than technical. In services you say yes. You adapt to each client. In product you standardize, prioritize, and say no—even to paying customers—so the product can scale and remain maintainable.

“You have to say no and you have to look into feature requests in a way that it works for everyone and not for this sole client.”

The switch was executed decisively: rebrand, new website, new positioning, and a firm internal message that there is no way back. That meant some team attrition—and that was okay. People who could not adapt left, and this cleared the path for a smaller, more focused team aligned to product goals.

Choosing the right customers: why mid-market B2B in Germany

In red oceans you win by narrowing your focus. The market divides into three rough segments:

• Large enterprises with many tools and big budgets
• Very small shops that can live with Excel or a storefront backend
• Mid-market B2B manufacturers and distributors that are under-digitized

The sweet spot: mid-market German B2B companies. They are heterogeneous and require tailored attention, but once treated well they are extremely loyal. They make slow decisions because PIM/DAM touches core processes, but they rarely churn once integrated.

How to build trust with conservative buyers

For this audience, cold performance marketing rarely wins. The tactics that work are personal, patient, and persistent:

• Long-term touch points: relationships often start years before a purchase decision.
• Personal outreach: handwritten mailers, well-crafted packages, and trade fair presence.
• Community and support: open calls and strong onboarding for software customers; offering implementation support as a USP.

These buyers notice genuine effort. Artificially personalized AI outreach can appear calculated; real physical touch or high-quality, human interaction still stands out.

Turning customers into advocates: reviews, success stories, and incentives

Visibility in a niche market often comes via trusted, local platforms rather than global directories. For German mid-market SaaS, platform-specific reviews (for example a local industry review site) can bring relevant inbound leads.

Ways to generate reviews and social proof:

• Ask actively and make it easy. Offer structured help drafting the review.
• Exchange value: offer discounts in return for a genuine success story included in contractual agreements.
• Use multimedia testimonials: short videos or audio snippets lower friction for customers and increase credibility for prospects.
• Reward small effort: vouchers or small gifts can boost completion rates for reviews.

The logic is simple: customers who feel supported are willing to support your growth if you explain how scale benefits them—more clients translate into more product engineering capacity and faster improvements.

Why bootstrap (mostly) and what it forces you to do

Choosing a bootstrap-first path was deliberate. Bootstrapping keeps control over direction and pace, and puts pressure on making every marketing and product decision count. Restrictions become advantages:

• Focus: With limited capital you must choose a specific ICP and go deep.
• Efficiency: Spend on what drives visibility and differentiation, not broad market education.
• Sustainability: Profitability and customer value trump “growth at any cost.”

If your product category requires heavy capex (hardware, defense, or complex physical infrastructure), VC is often unavoidable. For many SaaS businesses, however, careful bootstrapping is still viable and beneficial.

Positioning: don’t educate the market—differentiate within it

When the market is crowded and red, two common but costly mistakes are:

• Trying to be everything to everyone
• Spending heavily to educate the broad market

Instead, focus on clear differentiation: pick the precise use case, the exact customer profile, and the specific benefits you offer. This reduces wasted spend and speeds up product-market fit.

AI: a multiplier, not a replacement

AI drives productivity across documentation, research, and customer outreach drafts, but it does not replace domain expertise or decision making. For a complex, technical product, developers still find many AI outputs insufficient—yet AI speeds up mundane tasks and frees the team to focus on higher-value work.

Wins, failures, and lessons you can act on

Wins

• A compact, highly effective team achieving more than a larger, unfocused one.
• Deep loyalty in mid-market B2B customers once product-market fit was established.
• Using customer proximity (support, co-development, community) as a competitive advantage.

Failures and lessons

• Delay on hard decisions. If something feels off, act quickly instead of waiting.
• Underestimating culture change. Moving from a service to a product mindset requires decisive leadership and sometimes letting people go.
• Early attempts to scale through broad performance channels yielded low ROI—focus beats breadth.

“If you already know the answer, act on it as fast as possible.”

Simple operational habits that matter

• Keep external responsibilities that pull you away from daily firefighting. Non-work anchors (family, sport) can improve focus and idea quality.
• Be ruthless with priorities: pick a few things and execute them well.
• Use AI as an assistant: for research, drafts, and QA, but always layer in human expertise and context.