Oliver Meakings

I'm the founder of Senja.io, a bootstrapped SaaS that helps you collect, manage and share customer testimonials. 

Senja helps you collect testimonials using automations, and share them as images, widgets, popups, Walls of Love, links and videos.

I'd love you to try it: Senja.io

Co-Founder

Co-founder of Senja.io. Collect, manage and share your testimonials.

Olly Meakings

I want to spend $120,000 on marketing

$20,000/month over six months

This will be my biggest ever marketing bet at Senja

But I want to scale from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 ARR and need to take bigger bets

My brain is telling me to try and scale something measurable - meta ads, Google Ads, cold outbound

But my gut thinks I should focus on the hard work of building relationships with power-users and influencers of our ICP

Less measurable, slower to ramp-up, but a genuine opportunity to find and persuade the right people to use Senja, and get to success

This work would then act as the foundation of future marketing activity

So I'm torn

What would you do #BuildInPublic?

Building a bootstrapped SaaS in public, without the BS

I got roasted by 250 people

I knew my post would be controversial, but I had no idea it would also totally change my thinking

I thought people would focus on the measurable vs unmeasurable marketing question, or discuss head versus heart when making strategic decisions

Instead some very smart people focused on me fixing fundamental issues with the product and our product-led growth (now) before sequencing in paid (later)

Senja is product-led but I've drifted way from this over time because our churn and TOF sign ups have met and I have been looking to throw money at the problem

I'm starting to realise that paid will compound existing issues, whereas (unmeasurable?!) relationship building will not only drive TOF but assist throughout the funnel -> activation -> retention -> referral -> churn

We help our customers collect and share video testimonials and stories, and tell them this is how to grow, so it's critical that this is the foundation of our own marketing

Finally I need to look again at our product growth loops as we're uniquely positioned to grow from them IF enough news customers are getting to success

Our tool creates (awesome) assets for our customers that can drive awareness and TOF but only if they are being shared

Thanks to everyone who commented and especially to Olya Grovel 👩🏼‍🔬 who challenged my key assumptions

This is exactly why I LOVE #buildinpublic

I’m hiring my first marketer for Senja

Where should I look?

I'm hiring at Senja!!

Let's start 2026 getting the world's best creator educators on Senja!

I'm looking for someone to manage concierge migrations.

You will lead our efforts to find the best creator educators, tell them about Senja, migrate them to our platform, and ensure they get to success.

If you’re interested, application in comments below.

Your annual reminder that #buildinpublic is for this:

→ Accountability
→ Reflection
→ Helping others through sharing
→ Building community
→ Hiring

Not this
→ Getting rich quick
→ Doing marketing
→ Getting likes on X

The most rewarding part of sharing my journey has been having a ritual to reflect on my progress.

And then sharing it in a way that can help others.

I know a lot of people see #buildinpublic as a way to market their business, and that's a nice second-order effect.

But fundamentally it's about sharing, helping and democratising information.

I'm particularly inspired by those who continue to do it at scale, like Joel Gascoigne at Buffer ✨

I have $12,000 to spend on Meta ads

I want to run 3 cycles of $4,000 of ad spend

Who should I talk to about Meta ads for SaaS?

Most testimonials are filler

Not because they're bad, but because they're untested and unmeasured

You collect them, edit them, and share them on your sales pages

But you have no idea if they're actually helping buyers to make a decision

What if your leads could tell you which testimonials were most helpful?

And you could use that information to show more of the most helpful proof in your marketing?

Over time, you could discover
→ Which stories resonate
→ Which formats work
→ Which proof belongs above the fold

And which testimonials should be hidden

This is something I've been exploring at Senja in our widget playground

Visitors can actually upvote the proof that was useful to them

What do you think?

Would visitors actually leave feedback on a testimonial? 

#buildinpublic

Kicking off 26 with some great news - another native integration live!!!

You can now find Senja inside Umso

Instantly add your customer testimonial widgets to your Umso landing pages

This type of integration Senja's customers get to success in other tools

And it increases the discoverability of Senja across the web

Plus, it's amazing to see Senja inside tools I love and use

taplio