In SaaS, hitting $10M ARR is a milestone — but it can also be a trap. David Lecko, founder of DealMachine, discovered that even a fast-growing product can stall if churn isn’t addressed head-on.
DealMachine, a platform for real estate investors, had grown rapidly by solving a niche pain point: streamlining the “driving for dollars” process. Its automation, property ownership lookup, and direct mail capabilities turned a manual grind into a scalable workflow.
But as revenue climbed, something else was climbing too — churn.
The Silent Revenue Killer: Churn at Scale
By the time Lecko reached out to us, DealMachine’s monthly churn rate hovered around 15%. For a high-velocity SaaS product, that’s a serious drag: each new dollar of MRR was partially offset by customers walking out the back door.
Lecko had seen copycats pop up, conferences drive spikes of growth, and partners amplify awareness — but retention was becoming the real growth constraint.
“I knew going in it was a $50,000-a-month problem,” he recalls. “You just can’t outsell that forever.”
Two Levers That Moved the Needle
Working together, we focused on SaaS retention mechanics — not just acquisition. Two projects had an immediate and measurable impact:
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Passive Churn Recovery – Failed credit card payments were quietly draining MRR. By implementing proactive recovery workflows, DealMachine stopped losing customers they’d already won.
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Onboarding & Buyer Guidance Dashboard – When new users logged in, they landed on a map with little direction. We replaced that with a guided, buyer-intelligent dashboard featuring tutorials, case studies, webinar signups, and step-by-step action items. This reduced early drop-off by helping users reach value faster.
The result: churn dropped from 15% to between 10–12%, with a roadmap to push toward 7%.
Why Retention Work Stuck
Lecko credits the speed of execution to two things:
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Cultural bias for action — “We’d have a meeting on Wednesday, and by the next week we were ready to launch,” he says.
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External authority — Internal suggestions for product tweaks often got deprioritized. But when an outside partner validated those same ideas with data, they moved to the top of the list.
The Bigger Lesson: Focus Over Diversification
DealMachine briefly explored adapting its app to other industries like forestry and utilities. Six months later, that project was killed before launch.
“It was another whole business,” Lecko says. “I realized I didn’t have the passion or bandwidth to learn new markets, and it would take focus away from our core buyer.”
This is where buyer intelligence overlaps with retention: understanding who your best-fit customers are — and doubling down on making them successful — has a compounding effect.
What SaaS Founders Can Take Away
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Retention is a growth multiplier — Every point of churn you cut is worth exponentially more as you scale.
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Address passive churn early — Failed payments are an easy, high-ROI fix.
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Onboarding should be buyer-centric — Guide users to value with clear, contextual next steps.
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Kill distractions quickly — Projects outside your core buyer focus dilute both product and retention impact.
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External partners can accelerate change — Sometimes the fastest route to internal alignment is outside validation.
Our takeaway: DealMachine’s story proves that scaling SaaS isn’t just about more leads or better marketing — it’s about turning first-time users into long-term customers. The combination of buyer-focused onboarding, retention systems, and strategic discipline is what breaks growth ceilings.