Real Talk, Real Growth: Mike Jones’ One-on-One Strategy for SaaS Success

In this edition of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight series, we delve into Mike Jones's journey from SaaS insider to founder of ProductGrowth Labs™. Mike transformed his passion for building products and helping people into a business that empowers SaaS founders to make strategic product decisions. By prioritizing real conversations over traditional marketing, he turned clarity into momentum, helping startups evolve their products into growth engines. Mike’s story underscores the power of action over perfection, illustrating how engaging with the market can refine direction and drive success. Discover how his unique approach reshapes the path to entrepreneurial triumph.

Hi, Mike Jones! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?

I run ProductGrowth Labs™, where I help SaaS founders, startups and growth-stage companies make better product decisions that actually drive growth.

A lot of early-stage companies don’t have a clear product strategy. They’re building, shipping, and staying busy, but they’re not always sure if what they’re doing is moving the business forward. That’s where I come in.

I break down where growth is actually happening or breaking across acquisition, activation, engagement, and retention. From there, I help them prioritize what to fix, what to stop building, and what to double down on so the product starts driving real business outcomes.

The impact is clarity and momentum. Instead of guessing what to build next, founders start making decisions with confidence, and the product becomes a growth engine instead of just something they’re maintaining.

Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.

For me, it wasn’t a big launch or a milestone moment. It was when I started taking consistent action and treating it like a real business before it fully felt like one.

Reaching out to founders, having real conversations, getting on calls, and working through their product challenges made it real. Even before closing clients, I was already doing the work, thinking like an owner, and showing up with intention.

That shift from planning to actually engaging with the market is when things clicked.

Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.

Throughout my career, I’ve always been drawn to two things: building products and helping people succeed.

On one side, I’ve spent years in SaaS working on products at both the startup level and inside a large organization like Salesforce. I’ve seen what it looks like to scale products, but I’ve also seen how messy and uncertain things are in the early stages.

On the other side, I’ve always naturally gravitated toward helping others think through problems, whether it was teammates, founders, or people in my network trying to figure out what to build or how to grow.

Over time, those two things started to converge. I realized I didn’t just enjoy building products, I enjoyed helping others build better ones and avoid the mistakes that slow growth.

That combination of my experience in tech and my interest in helping others succeed is what ultimately pushed me to take the leap and start ProductGrowth Labs™.

Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?

Honestly, the biggest “tool” for me has been direct conversations with founders.

No software replaces actually talking to your market. Whether it’s through outreach, communities, or calls, those conversations shape everything - positioning, messaging, and even how I think about my services.

On the software side, I’ve kept things intentionally simple. Tools that help with outreach and organization are helpful, but the real leverage comes from understanding problems deeply, not just optimizing systems.

We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.

One of the biggest lessons for me was realizing that being great at building products inside a company is very different from building something from scratch.

Early on, I over-indexed on trying to “perfect” the offering before putting it in front of people. The pivot came when I started treating the business itself like a product - something to test, iterate, and refine in real time.

That shift made everything faster. Instead of waiting until things felt ready, I started learning directly from the market, which led to better positioning and clearer direction.

What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?

Instead of relying on traditional marketing or trying to build an audience first, I focused almost entirely on direct, one-on-one outreach.

Reaching out to founders, responding to real problems, and starting conversations created immediate feedback loops. It helped me understand exactly how founders think about their challenges and what language actually resonates.

It’s not the most scalable approach on paper, but early on, it’s one of the fastest ways to get real signal and build traction.

What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?

You don’t need everything figured out to start.

Clarity comes from action, not from thinking. A lot of people wait until their idea, offer, or plan feels perfect, but that usually just delays learning.

The faster you get in front of real people and real problems, the faster things start to make sense.

Want to dive deeper into Mike's work? Check out the links below!

• Visit ProductGrowth Labs™'s website: productgrowthlabs.com/
• Connect with Mike Jones on LinkedIn: Mike Jones