From lead gen agency to sales enablement PLG SaaS with Arnaud Renoux @ScaleList

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.

In episode #18 of season 5 of the saas.unbound podcast, Anna Nadeina dives deep into the entrepreneurial journey of Arnaud Renoux, founder of ScaleList. ScaleList is a sales enablement software that simplifies the process of creating and organizing email lists directly from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This episode reveals invaluable insights into transitioning from a service-based business to a product-led SaaS, growth strategies, bootstrapping challenges, and the power of customer-centricity.

Transitioning from a Lead Generation Agency to SaaS

Arnaud’s entrepreneurial path began with Scalab, an outbound lead generation agency he co-founded in May 2020 with his business partner Yousef Kali. While running Scalab for nearly five years, the duo harbored a strong desire to build and scale a product. This ambition led to the creation of ScaleList in late 2022 and early 2023.

Running two businesses simultaneously—the agency and the emerging SaaS product—proved to be incredibly challenging. Arnaud candidly describes this period as a “recipe for disaster,” emphasizing the difficulty in dedicating sufficient time to both ventures. By mid-2024, a decisive transition was made: retiring from the service business to focus exclusively on ScaleList, marking a major milestone and setting the stage for future growth in 2025.

Why Singapore? The Strategic Hub for Growth

Though Arnaud originally aimed for a career in Silicon Valley, fate led him to Singapore in 2017 after a job offer from Rocket Internet. The city-state quickly became home due to its strategic advantages:

• Geographical Hub: Easy travel to other parts of Asia and beyond.
• Tax Benefits: Almost no personal income tax.
• Diverse and Vibrant Community: A multicultural environment offering rich learning opportunities.
• Exceptional Food Scene: A foodie’s paradise with diverse international cuisines.

Arnaud’s experience underscores how location can influence entrepreneurial success by providing access to talent, networks, and lifestyle advantages.

ScaleList: Simplifying Sales Enablement in a Saturated Market

With many competitors in the sales enablement space, what sets ScaleList apart is its simplicity and laser focus. The platform enables users to extract lead lists from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, clean the data, and enrich it with valid emails and mobile numbers—all within three clicks and minutes.

Importantly, ScaleList caters to a broad audience, especially beginners and intermediate salespeople who may lack technical expertise but excel in traditional sales methods like cold calling. Arnaud highlights that many sales professionals are unfamiliar with SaaS tools or find existing solutions too complex. ScaleList’s straightforward approach fills this gap.

Customer support is another key differentiator. Arnaud personally engages with users, offering tailored responses and maintaining close relationships, reflecting a strong commitment to customer success despite the company’s early stage.

Bootstrapping and Strategic Funding Decisions

ScaleList operated as a bootstrap company until January 2025, when it raised a small round from Tiny Seed, a US-based accelerator focused on SaaS startups. This investment was strategic rather than a necessity, providing a financial safety net to accelerate growth and experimentation without sacrificing control.

Arnaud shares candid insights on bootstrapping:

• Pros: Full ownership and freedom to shape the company’s vision.
• Cons: Limited cash flow can restrict growth activities like hiring or advertising, leading to slower iteration and heavier reliance on founder effort.

Having external funds now allows ScaleList to test and scale faster while maintaining profitability.

Growth Strategies: The Power of YouTube and Content Marketing

One of ScaleList’s biggest wins has been leveraging YouTube for user acquisition. Starting in January 2024, Yousef began producing SEO-focused videos related to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, aiming to attract users searching for solutions on Google and YouTube.

Within months, YouTube accounted for over half of ScaleList’s website traffic and nearly half of new subscriptions. This success prompted the team to double down on video content, producing tutorials and educational videos that cover both the fundamentals of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and how to use ScaleList effectively.

Other acquisition channels include:

• Google Search: Users searching for solutions often discover ScaleList via videos and blog content.
• LinkedIn: Active presence and content sharing by the founders helps drive awareness.
• Chrome Web Store: Additional channel for discovery.

Understanding Customer Behavior and Enterprise Clients

Arnaud notes an important distinction in customer intent based on acquisition channel. Many users find ScaleList through educational content while researching how to perform tasks, rather than actively seeking a tool. This insight underscores the value of nurturing users through their buyer journey.

Enterprise clients, primarily based in the United States, represent about 10% of ScaleList’s customer base. These clients often discover ScaleList via word of mouth, LinkedIn, or YouTube, and self-initiate contact through the website’s sales form. Arnaud stresses the importance of building trust and ensuring product fit during sales conversations.

Enterprise customers have begun influencing ScaleList’s product roadmap, requesting features like:

• Team plans for managing multiple users.
• Integrations with popular CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot.
• API access for custom workflows.

This feedback loop is guiding ScaleList’s evolution to better serve larger organizations while maintaining simplicity for smaller users.

Biggest Wins, Failures, and Lessons Learned

Biggest Win: Betting on YouTube as a key acquisition channel without prior expertise, then iterating and optimizing based on data, has been transformational for ScaleList.

Personal Win: Maintaining a strong, fight-free partnership with Yousef over five years, which Arnaud attributes to mutual respect and alignment.

Biggest Failure: Learning to prioritize time effectively. Arnaud admits that early on, he struggled with managing distractions and working on the wrong tasks, which slowed progress. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on high-leverage activities that move the business forward and deliberately setting aside less critical tasks.

Growth Hack: Direct Customer Conversations

To better understand why users subscribe or cancel, Arnaud personally reaches out to every new subscriber and cancellation. Although time-consuming, this practice has yielded valuable insights into customer motivations and pain points. Inspired by founders from ScrapingBee, he commits to maintaining this routine consistently.

This direct engagement helps ScaleList refine its onboarding, improve retention, and build stronger customer relationships—a powerful reminder of the value of staying close to users in a product-led growth model.