{"id":311721,"date":"2025-04-16T08:15:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T15:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/?p=311721"},"modified":"2025-07-01T19:35:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T02:35:33","slug":"5-interesting-learnings-as-marin-software-shuts-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saastr.com\/5-interesting-learnings-as-marin-software-shuts-down\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Interesting Learnings as Marin Software … Reorgs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So this series has all been about public B2B and Cloud leaders.\u00a0 Some are still in hypergrowth mode, like Toast<\/a><\/span> and Shopify<\/a><\/span> and Snowflake<\/a><\/span> and Samsara<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Others are at a more mature phase for now, like Dropbox<\/a><\/span> and Salesforce<\/a><\/span> and PagerDuty<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

But they all keep going, don’t they?\u00a0 Mostly, yes, at scale.\u00a0 And if growth stalls, doesn’t someone step up and buy them, cheap?\u00a0 Sometimes, for sure.<\/p>\n

But it was tough going forMarin Software.\u00a0 Now Marin has been struggling for many years.\u00a0 It was founded way back in 2006, and did a small IPO in 2013.\u00a0 They were an early leader in digital advertising and marketing software, but couldn’t keep their early lead.\u00a0 But I didn’t realize it had gotten this bad.\u00a0 After a brief revival in the Boom of 2021, revenue just kept falling … and it had to go through reorg out of bankruptcy at $16m ARR or so.<\/p>\n

At just shy of Year 20.<\/p>\n

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5 Tough Learnings:<\/h3>\n

#1.\u00a0 Just Adding “AI” to Your Product Doesn’t Magically Add Growth<\/h3>\n

Marin worked in 2024 to add AI to its offering, powered by OpenAI.\u00a0 But simply adding AI isn’t enough.<\/p>\n

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#2.\u00a0 Launched a Free Media Audit Service.\u00a0 But It Wasn’t Enough<\/h3>\n

Many from HubSpot on have accelerated top of funnel with free audits and similar services.\u00a0 It works, done right.\u00a0 But it was too little, too late for Marin.<\/p>\n

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#3.\u00a0 The Last $16m of ARR or so Remained Sticky — But Couldn’t Cover Their Losses<\/h3>\n

Yes, the final Marin customers still in many cases stayed after many years, at least to some extent.\u00a0 Much of its revenue came from revenue sharing from Google.\u00a0 Even prior to the reorganization, revenue was only declining -4% a year.\u00a0 SaaS is sticky.\u00a0 But they just ran out of cash, finally, in the end.\u00a0 They were down to their last $5.6 million a year ago, and couldn’t get profitable on that last revenue.\u00a0 Even after shrinking to 100, and then 75, and then finally 40 employees and a handful of contractors.<\/p>\n

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