E13 w/ Ruben Gamez: How to Restart Growth in a Stagnant SaaS Business

Michael Koper built Nusii, a proposal-management and e-signature product for agencies and consultants, after leaving a company where he was employee number one and which later became a unicorn. Nusii has remained around $10,000 in monthly revenue for several years. Michael says he has tried nearly every marketing lever, but a Google update reduced his traffic and it never recovered. He is a developer, not a marketer, and previously relied on a co-founder who handled design and more of the marketing before Michael bought him out. Jason Cohen brings in Ruben Gamez, whose BidSketch also plateaued before he built SignWell.

Nusii’s homepage says, “The proposal software serious businesses use to win more work.” Jason likes the outcome-oriented promise but questions whether sending proposals alone really makes customers win more work and asks why “serious businesses” is there. Michael explains that a customer survey found an extremely broad base, from construction workers to marketing agencies, so he chose “serious” to describe businesses that send many proposals. He admits that freelancers often cancel after winning a project because they no longer need proposal software, whereas larger companies maintain an ongoing proposal pipeline. Jason concludes that “serious” and “successful” do not describe the actual qualifying behavior.

Michael first says Nusii helps customers win more deals because it makes follow-up easier: users can see whether prospects opened a proposal and respond accordingly. Jason repeatedly asks him to explain why follow-up produces a win, rather than merely saying that it matters. Michael then shifts toward speed, saying customers can build proposals quickly from templates and send them immediately. Ruben says visibility and automated follow-up reduce the discomfort of chasing prospects, but are not usually the primary reason customers close more deals. He argues that speed is more defensible: reaching a prospect first, removing printing and signing delays, and shortening the path from proposal to acceptance can increase the chance of winning.

Michael says Nusii focuses on short, one-page proposals instead of the long, multi-section documents common in competing products. Customers use templates and reusable sections, allowing them to create a proposal in minutes, sometimes with the prospect’s name and website filled in automatically. Jason points out that faster sending, tracking opens, automated follow-up, and signatures are table-stakes features shared by nearly every proposal app. Michael’s meaningful difference is that Nusii is simpler, but the homepage emphasizes “serious” businesses and winning more work rather than simplicity. Jason suggests a coherent story: simple, fast proposals reduce friction for both sender and buyer, which can help proposals get accepted sooner.

Ruben warns that “simple” is a claim nearly every competitor makes, so repeating it does not automatically differentiate Nusii. He distinguishes several meanings of simple: an easy interface, limited functionality, simple presentation, or a fast way to assemble a proposal. Michael estimates that 30–40% of new customers still use Word, while others use roughly 50–100 different tools; about 5% appear to come from HubSpot, though those customers tend to be larger. Ruben says many prospects are not comparing proposal apps at all: they are replacing Word, Google Docs, email, or a proposal feature embedded in a larger system. Nusii may therefore need to speak to an inadequate, improvised process rather than only to direct competitors.

Ruben says he would not re-enter the proposal market with another horizontal product because it is crowded, fragmented, and full of companies making similar claims. At BidSketch, he grew through several channels rather than relying only on SEO: a WordPress-agency course used BidSketch as its proposal module, partnerships with people who already had the desired audience, cross-promotions, advertising, and cold email. He recommends finding a segment where the use case is meaningfully different and where the product can be more specific, rather than trying to win through a generic feature comparison. If Michael refuses to compete through distribution and marketing volume, Ruben says he must become more specialized on the product side.

Michael previously positioned Nusii for marketing, branding, and development agencies, but admits those were mostly words rather than product features built for a particular vertical. Jason rejects the idea that proposals are inherently horizontal just because they end as documents. He gives book proposals as an example: software could know publishers’ recurring questions, required formats, word limits, and relevant information, then generate suitable submissions. For a marketing agency, a proposal could include relevant SaaS rebranding case studies, testimonials, portfolio examples, and the agency’s specific process. Ruben adds that agencies vary substantially: some need help understanding what belongs in a proposal, while established sales teams already know their content and mainly need efficient assembly.

Michael says marketing is not his strength and that his former co-founder handled much of it. He tried hiring an SEO person for a year, but says the person tested ideas without taking ownership, and Google traffic remained depressed. Jason tells him that integrations and bottom-of-funnel content may generate useful traffic, but pursuing integrations because they feel like an engineering project is not a substitute for deciding whom to market to. Michael initially says “marketing agencies,” largely because they are his biggest customer group. Jason presses him to narrow that description and notes that a company cannot effectively market to everyone without enormous resources.

The discussion narrows Nusii’s likely best customer to a marketing agency with roughly 20 employees, excluding both large firms and solo freelancers. These agencies send at least about 10 proposals per month, sometimes as many as 20, and typically quote between €2,000 and €30,000 rather than deals above €100,000. Michael says these customers are more likely to stay than other segments, which suggests Nusii is working for them even if too few new ones arrive. Jason says this is a much clearer starting point than “everyone,” though the boundaries are approximate. Michael also considers integration marketplaces and conferences as ways to reach the segment.

Ruben recalls a conference where BidSketch generated paid upgrades after an organizer unexpectedly made him speak during a Q&A. That experience led him to try more conferences, but he says merely buying a booth or placing a logo rarely justifies the cost. Jason says conferences can be valuable for structured customer research, because a founder can speak with many prospects and test pitches in one day. For sales, he recommends having something substantive to say, such as a talk on the patterns that make proposals lose or win, supported by data from Nusii. A useful talk can establish credibility and send interested attendees to the booth; simply showing up cannot.

Jason asks whether Michael genuinely cares if customers’ businesses grow because of their proposals. Michael says he believes he cares but cannot explain why. Jason distinguishes wishing customers well from making their success the company’s mission: Nusii would measure success by whether target agencies actually win more deals, not merely whether they send proposals or keep paying. That mission would change the product, marketing, and content. Nusii might analyze which proposal structures, wording, length, or evidence correlate with wins, then feed those findings into templates, product guidance, talks, and customer emails. Ruben says deeply focusing on digital agencies and proposal outcomes could stand out, especially if the product uses customer data or AI to identify missing content.

Jason describes how a mission can emerge later, using WP Engine as an example: the company began by making WordPress sites faster and more reliable, then recognized a broader purpose around keeping important sites online, protecting business revenue, and preserving people’s ability to publish. He says Michael could similarly adopt a genuine mission to help appropriately sized marketing agencies win proposals, but it must be real enough to guide what Nusii builds and teaches. Ruben agrees that this could make the product more compelling, while warning that positioning alone will not solve the growth problem. Nusii still needs roughly ten times more of the right prospects entering the funnel, through partnerships, targeted outreach, talks, conferences, or other channels. Michael says framing the business around this mission makes him excited about doing marketing again.