The $1 Million Mentor: How SaaS Institute Coach Marc Thomas Turns Stagnant Apps into Rocket-Ship Revenues
From founder to “Growth Punk,” Marc Thomas shares the battle-tested tactics he’s used to stack nearly $1 million in new ARR every year — and how your SaaS can be next in line.
Like other SaaS Institute coaches, Marc Thomas started out as a founder. In 2016, he built a company that did live polling for events. When he found it was growing too slowly for his taste, he dove into learning growth and marketing.
His self-study curriculum worked. After his company powered the biggest survey in the UK (about attitudes to Covid lockdown), Marc decided to double down on what he was really good at: growing software companies.
From 2021-2023, Marc worked at Powered By Search, helping companies between $10-100M ARR build systems for growing predictable revenue.
Next, Marc went in-house at Podia. There, he spent two years helping launch big expansion revenue projects, and capturing value from the existing customer base through lifecycle marketing.
Marc’s Big Wins at a Glance
+$600k in affiliate sales in six months by rebuilding a dormant program.
3× email‑generated revenue by tripling send frequency with <1 % unsubscribes.
$1.9m expansion ARR unlocked through lifecycle marketing sprints.
Average +$1 M annual ARR contribution across eight years in growth roles.
Marc sees the SaaS Institute as the fastest way to transfer his repeatable growth systems to ambitious founders — without making them sacrifice equity.
“I want to sit shoulder‑to‑shoulder with teams shipping real work, not just advise from the sidelines.”
Recently, Marc left Podia to launch his hands-on consultancy, Growth Punk. We’re thrilled to have him on board as a SaaS Institute coach! We shot over a few questions for Marc to let him share his expertise in his own words.
Without further ado:
What’s a milestone you’ve helped a founder (or founders) hit that still gets you hyped every time?
“I've added an average of just short of $1M additional revenue for every year of my marketing career. It's always exciting to be able to see the difference that makes to a founder's headspace/mindset. Seeing a growth in the number of people willing to pay and the amount they're willing to pay is always exciting.”
What patterns have you seen across the most successful founders you’ve worked with?
“The best founders are very pragmatic. They don't care about what everyone else is doing. They are focused on the bottom line, and willing to trust people with expertise to do good work. They also value action and momentum above most things. Those are some of the things I look for when choosing people to work with. “
What was the toughest growth problem you’ve helped solve, and how did you approach it?
“One of the biggest moments of my career was working with a company whose revenue was in slow decline and had been for multiple quarters. They had just restructured their marketing team and cut several people.
The challenge was getting the growth curve moving upwards again, because the engine had stopped working entirely. To do that, we focused on getting the company's products in front of people much more frequently, e.g. they had been emailing segments 4x a month. I got them emailing everyone 12x a month, and we immediately saw a boost in revenue on days where we emailed (with very low unsubscribe numbers!).
We also restructured all the programs that had worked, but had diminished in quality, including completely restructuring affiliates. I managed to add $600K of sales through that program within 6 months, and also plugged all the holes in their lifecycle sequences, adding around ~$50K in the first month with one sequence.”
What’s a mindset shift every founder has to go through to successfully grow past $1M?
“I actually think maybe it's not a shift, but avoiding a shift. I've seen a lot of people hit $1M and try to hire a marketing team.
I think that's the wrong approach — at $1M, there's still usually a huge amount of the market to capture and you're going to waste six months finding a great marketer, six months having them onboard to the place where you fully trust them, and six more months before the stuff they do actually makes a difference.
And that's assuming you hire an absolute unicorn who nails it, is senior enough to be strategic on their own, but isn't too senior to want to actually do the work of marketing/growth. Obviously I'm incentivised to say this, but I hope you'll be able to trust my weirdly rounded experience: hire consultants who are also good at executing and aren't afraid to put a little skin in the game by demonstrating results fast.
So the mindset shift is to try to avoid shifting, and to stay hands-on — with a little help from some action-oriented marketing consultants to help you go faster.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people hit $1M and try to hire a marketing team. I think that’s the wrong approach.
Hire consultants who are also good at executing and aren’t afraid to put a little skin in the game by demonstrating results fast. ”
What’s one strategy or tactic you used to recommend, but don’t anymore? Why?
“I think most marketing channels are harder and harder to win at, but there's not really any that I wouldn't recommend trying.
That said, it used to be enough to just produce content and you'd get customers eventually. That's not the case anymore. You need a unique point of view, and you need a way to get that in front of people. Search content can be that for sure, but it's only a part of it. You need to think about how you're going to deliver that without Google's help, and how you'll get people to take action — even if they're not ready to buy.”
Rapid‑Fire Q&A
Milestone that still fires him up?
“Watching founders’ anxiety lift when revenue pops — nothing beats that.”
Toughest growth challenge solved?
“Turning a declining SaaS into a $600k upswing by overhauling email cadence and affiliates.”
Mindset every $1 M founder needs?
“Stay hands‑on; rent execution muscle before you hire a full marketing team.”
Want to work with Marc or the other SaaS Institute coaches?
If your SaaS is generating $1M+ ARR, and you want the TinySeed experience of community and support without giving up equity, apply to join the SaaS Institute here.