Remote Work Life Podcast
At Remote Work Life, we spotlight successful location-independent entrepreneurs and established remote work professionals. Our interviews highlight their journeys and growth strategies, and their inspiring stories offer ideas for your entrepreneurial and professional ventures and reveal insights on thriving while working remotely.
Remote Work Life Podcast
RWL241 This serial Founder solved an everyday problem to create a $10M SaaS success.
Alex Turnbull transformed a frustrating experience with shared email inboxes into Groove HQ, a remote-first SaaS company generating over $10 million in annual recurring revenue. His journey demonstrates how personal problems can become successful global solutions when approached with transparency, simplicity, and a clear understanding of customer needs.
Have a listen, and if Alex's journey gave you something to think about, whether around hiring, business growth, or the power of building in public, please consider subscribing to the show, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone building their own location-independent venture.
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Alex Turnbull is the founder of Groove HQ, a remote first SaaS company that grew from a simple frustration into a business generating more than $10 million in annual recurring revenue. His story is a clear example of what can happen when someone takes a personal problem and turns it into a global solution, using transparency and simplicity as his guiding principles along the way. It all began with a problem that many small business owners will probably recognize. Back when Alex was building his previous company, bantam Live, he found himself spending more and more time on customer support. He was wearing several hats at the time, including product manager, and one of the biggest pain points was handling support requests through a shared email inbox. The team was small just four people and they were all using the same support address. That setup quickly became a mess. Emails were missed, customer issues went unresolved and it became impossible to know who had replied to what, and it became impossible to know who had replied to what. When Alex looked for help desk tools that could help, he realized most of them were built for enterprise level companies. They were packed with complex features that small businesses didn't need and couldn't afford. The interfaces were clunky, the onboarding was confusing and the pricing was far too high for a lean team. That realization is what sparked the initial idea for Groove, a simple, affordable help desk tool built specifically for small businesses.
Speaker 1:What's especially noteworthy here is that Alex wasn't a technical founder. He didn't know how to code and he wasn't trying to pretend otherwise, but he had a clear understanding of the problem and he had a strong product vision. After Bantam Live was acquired for $15 million, he decided to put $350,000 of his own money into starting Groove. That gave him enough runway to hire a development agency who helped bring the first version of the product to life. The process took around four months and cost about $300,000. From the beginning, oss took around four months and cost about $300,000.
Speaker 1:From the beginning, groove was a remote company, not because it was trendy, but because it made sense for how Alex wanted to build the business. This was well before remote work became mainstream, before the pandemic forced companies to rethink where work happens. For Alex, the ability to hire globally to find the best people, regardless of their location, was part of the plan from day one. The team grew with people based all over the world, from Newport in the US to Krakow in Poland, cape Town in South Africa, phuket in Thailand and Zhejiang in China. Groove's culture was built around autonomy and flexibility. Team members were trusted to manage their own time and work from wherever they felt most productive, whether that was a beach, a mountain village or a quiet apartment in the city. Of course, the road wasn't smooth. There was one decision in particular that nearly cost them everything.
Speaker 1:At a point where the business was growing steadily, alex made a bold move. He decided to rebuild the product from scratch. He had a gut feeling that Groove needed to level up to stay competitive, and so he told his developers to start fresh. But here's the thing he didn't check the data first. He didn't verify whether users were unhappy or whether the existing product was holding them back. He went with instinct and it turned out to be a costly mistake. What was meant to be a one year rebuild turned into a four and a half year nightmare. Development dragged on, bugs increased, customers got frustrated and started leaving. It drained the team's energy and slowed the company's momentum. Looking back, alex says it taught him a hard but necessary lesson to trust the data, not just your gut. Being a non-technical founder also came with its own challenges. Alex couldn't jump into the code base to fix bugs or guide development decisions from a technical point of view. But he leaned into what he did have a strong understanding of customer pain points, a clear product vision and an ability to communicate that vision to people who could build it.
Speaker 1:Groove's business model is straightforward they offer help desk software for small businesses at a price point that makes sense, starting at $40 per user per month, with a free trial to help people test the waters. The simplicity of the product is what sets it apart. Where other tools try to be everything to everyone, groove focuses only on what's essential. The core feature is the shared inbox. It allows teams to organize incoming support emails, assign conversations, leave internal notes and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. It also includes a live chat option, a knowledge base to handle common questions and analytics to help track performance. But nothing is over-engineered or unnecessarily complex. That clarity of focus has resonated with customers. Today, groove is used by more than 12,000 support agents across over 2,000 businesses around the world.
Speaker 1:Now, while there isn't a detailed breakdown of Alex's hiring process, you can learn a lot from the values that Groove promotes. They've got five key values that they talk about openly Own your shit, be real, no waste, always be helpful and relentlessly value driven. You'd think and hope that those aren't just buzzwords. It's more likely that they tell you something about the kind of people Alex looks for individuals who are accountable, honest and intentional about the work they do and, given Groove's remote structure, it's clear that Alex prioritizes autonomy. He's not hiring based on time zones or where someone lives. He's hiring based on fit, values and the ability to work well without micromanagement.
Speaker 1:One of the most distinctive things Alex has done, and something that made a big impact on Groove's growth, is build in public. Back in 2013, alongside the launch of Groove, alex started a blog called the Founder's Journey. In it, he shared the highs and lows of building the company. He talked about revenue numbers, product launches, customer churn and mistakes. At the time, this kind of transparency was unusual. Most founders kept their cards close to their chest, but Alex's openness helped build a community around the product. His blog posts were picked up by major platforms like Hacker News and were shared widely across Twitter and LinkedIn. The blog didn't just attract readers. It brought in customers. It became one of Groove's most effective marketing channels.
Speaker 1:That content strategy didn't stop at blogging. He built an influencer outreach list around 250 names and reached out personally to see if they'd be open to hearing more about Groove. The response rate was close to 90%. That's rare. It showed that the personal touch combined with a strong story really works. They also invested in SEO, targeting search terms that small business owners were using to look for alternatives to bigger players like Zendesk. They fine-tuned their email marketing with drip campaigns that added value first, before ever pitching the product, and they created regular feedback loops with customers, especially those who cancelled, so they could continue to refine the product and their messaging.
Speaker 1:All of this led to strong, steady growth. Within two years of launching, groove had crossed $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Today, they sit somewhere between $5 and $10 million in annual recurring revenue, and they've done it without raising a bunch of venture capital or building a bloated team. In recent years, alex formed a partnership with Syed Balkhi, the founder of Awesome Motive. Syed took a minority stake in Groove and the two connected on shared values building sustainable businesses for the long term, not chasing fast exits or the startup hype cycle. That alignment helped bring new energy and strategic thinking to the business. Alex is now working on his next venture, an AI-powered customer service tool called Helply. His goal is to grow it to $10 million in annual revenue and, as you'd expect, he's sharing the whole process in real time, just like he did with Groove.
Speaker 1:For me, there are a few takeaways that stand out from Alex's story. First, frustration can be a powerful starting point If you're struggling with a problem that no one seems to be solving well. I mean, you know others are facing the same issue. That's a signal worth listening to. Second, you don't need to be a developer to build a SaaS company. What you do need is a clear understanding of the problem, the drive to solve it and the willingness to hire the right people to help bring your vision to life.
Speaker 1:Third, remote work isn't just about flexibility. It's a strategic advantage. It allows you to hire great people from anywhere in the world and create a culture that's built on trust and results, not office hours. Fourth, transparency builds trust. Alex's willingness to share both his wins and his failures made Groove more relatable and more trustworthy in a world where SaaS companies often feel faceless. And finally, data should guide your big decisions. Instinct is important, but, as Alex learned during that painful rebuild period, it has to be backed up by what the numbers are telling you. That's it for today's episode of Remote Work Life. If Alex Turnbull's journey gave you something to think about, whether it's around hiring, business growth or the power of building in public, please consider subscribing to the show, leaving a review or share it with someone. Building their own location independent venture.
