Accidental SaaS: Content Marketing That Finds Buyers

A lot of founders treat content marketing like a brand exercise: post regularly, “build awareness,” and hope customers show up someday. Jordan Hansen’s path to building Cobalt Intelligence shows a sharper truth: content can be a customer-discovery engine—and it can work even if you’re not chasing VC, not “networking,” and not sure you’re building a SaaS at all.

Jordan didn’t set out to launch a traditional SaaS. He started by publishing weekly blog posts about web scraping, then uploaded raw YouTube coding videos before work. Over time, those posts pulled in real inbound leads, turned into recurring revenue, and eventually became an API-first SaaS that helps lenders verify businesses using Secretary of State (SOS) records and other public data.

This story fits perfectly in our “SMB Content Marketing United States” series because it’s a clean example of what works when you don’t have a big budget: consistency, specificity, and content that creates conversations with buyers.

The “accidental SaaS” path is normal—and powerful

Accidental SaaS happens when you chase a problem, not a business model. Jordan’s early goal wasn’t “start a SaaS company.” It was: publish useful content, build small tools, and find a way out of a corporate job.

That’s a better starting point than most pitch decks.

Here’s the pattern that shows up again and again in bootstrapped startups:

1. You develop a niche skill (Jordan picked web scraping because it was “fringe” enough to stand out).
2. You publish consistently until strangers start asking for help.
3. You do some one-off work, then realize one-off work is annoying.
4. You productize the repeating request.

The stance I’ll take: bootstrapped founders should stop forcing “a SaaS idea” and start forcing “a learning loop.” SaaS is often the byproduct.

Why this matters for founders avoiding VC

Jordan later took funding from TinySeed (a small, founder-friendly accelerator), but the growth mechanism wasn’t “fundraising.” It was:

• building in public
• shipping content
• letting the market pull the product out of him

If your campaign goal is US startup marketing without VC, this is the playbook: earn attention, turn it into trust, turn trust into sales calls that don’t feel like sales.

Content marketing that actually creates revenue (not just traffic)

Jordan’s primary acquisition channel was content—blogging and YouTube. That’s not rare. What’s rare is his discipline:

• one blog post per week for a year (52 posts)
• early YouTube videos that were basically unedited screen recordings

Most SMB content marketing advice focuses on tactics (SEO checklists, posting schedules). This story highlights the deeper driver: consistency long enough to compound.

A practical way to apply this if you’re an SMB founder in the US:

Build a “weekly proof-of-work” cadence

Pick one:

• 1 blog post per week
• 1 video per week
• 1 newsletter per week

Then stick to it for 26 weeks.

Not because consistency is magical, but because it forces the two hard behaviors most founders avoid:

• choosing a niche (you can’t publish weekly without narrowing)
• creating artifacts (posts/videos that keep working while you sleep)

Jordan’s content wasn’t “thought leadership.” It was usable. People could watch him scrape data, replicate it, and then realize they’d rather pay someone who’s already good at it.

The SEO takeaway: specificity wins

Jordan didn’t blog about “business automation.” He blogged about web scraping public data.

For SEO and inbound marketing, specificity does three things:

• attracts fewer people, but better-fit people
• increases the chance you rank for long-tail keywords
• makes your CTA feel natural (“Want the API instead of maintaining scrapers?”)

If you’re doing content marketing on a budget, being narrow is a feature.

Productizing demand: from CSVs to an API business

Cobalt Intelligence sells business verification via an API using SOS data and public records. The key isn’t that it’s an API; it’s that the customers have a high-cost manual workflow.

Jordan explained the problem like this:

• alternative lenders process hundreds of applications a day
• they must verify whether a business exists, is in good standing, and has issues like judgments
• doing this manually means staff are constantly checking state sites and court sources

Cobalt’s value is time compression and fewer errors.

Why “boring infrastructure SaaS” is underrated

A lot of founders chase crowded categories (CRMs, project management, AI writing tools). Jordan’s category is less glamorous and more defensible:

• public data collection is annoying
• integrations break
• coverage across 50 states is operationally hard

That’s the point.

If a product is operationally painful to build, it’s often operationally painful for competitors to copy. For bootstrappers, that’s a stronger moat than “branding.”

Pricing lesson: high-ticket B2B makes content marketing easier

Jordan mentioned a critical advantage: being able to charge real money.

When you can land one customer and add meaningful monthly revenue, you don’t need millions of views. You need a small number of qualified conversations.

For SMB content marketing strategy, that changes how you measure success:

• A “small” channel that produces 2–5 sales calls/month can be more valuable than a big channel that produces 0.
• A niche audience (even a few thousand people) can outperform broad reach.

The hard decision: when content growth becomes a distraction

Here’s the part most founder stories skip: Jordan’s YouTube channel took off… and then he intentionally shrunk it.

He had a spike from roughly 800 subscribers to ~8,000 in about two months, driven by a video that YouTube’s algorithm promoted. Sounds great—until you notice the mismatch:

• the popular content didn’t overlap well with buyers for Cobalt
• it created support/comments/attention from the wrong audience
• it pulled focus away from the SaaS

So he removed about 300 of ~350 videos (made them private). That’s a painful move, and it’s a serious lesson for SMB founders.

Vanity metrics are expensive

Subscriber counts, likes, and “impressions” feel like progress. But for lead generation, the only numbers that matter are:

• qualified demos booked
• trial-to-paid conversion (if you have trials)
• churn / retention
• expansion revenue

A blunt but useful line from this story:

If your content makes you feel known but not paid, it’s entertainment—maybe for you, maybe for the audience.

A practical filter: “Would my buyer forward this?”

Before you publish, ask:

• Would a decision-maker in my niche forward this to a coworker?
• Does it reduce risk, save time, or make them money?
• Does it naturally lead to my product?

If the answer is no, that content might still be fine—but it belongs on a personal channel, not your company’s core acquisition engine.

TinySeed vs VC: the non-VC funding option that fits bootstrappers

Jordan eventually joined TinySeed. The relevant insight for a “no VC” audience isn’t “funding is good.” It’s what kind of funding matches the business you’re building.

Jordan’s constraints were clear:

• married, three kids
• not interested in 80-hour weeks
• wanted recurring revenue, not constant custom work

Community-based accelerators and small-fund models can fit that reality because they don’t require “hypergrowth at all costs.” They often optimize for:

• sustainable growth
• founder health
• long-term profitability

Even if you never take funding, the bigger point stands: community is a growth asset. Jordan didn’t just get capital; he got people to pressure-test decisions, reduce doubt, and keep focus.

A simple playbook you can copy this quarter

If you’re an early-stage founder trying to drive leads through content marketing (without VC), use this 30-day plan.

Week 1: Pick a narrow customer + narrow problem

Write a one-sentence ICP:

• “We help [role] at [type of company] do [job] faster/safer.”

If you can’t do this, content will drift.

Week 2: Publish 2 pieces that show your work

Choose either blog or video:

• 1 “how it works” walkthrough
• 1 “mistakes I made” post (these convert because they’re honest)

Week 3: Add a lead capture that doesn’t feel salesy

Examples:

• “Reply and I’ll share the checklist we use.”
• “If you want the template, I’ll send it.”

The goal is conversation, not virality.

Week 4: Talk to 5 people who engaged

Not a pitch. A learning call.

Ask:

• “What are you doing today instead of using a tool?”
• “What breaks most often?”
• “What would make you switch?”

That’s how you turn content into product clarity.

Where accidental SaaS founders win

Jordan’s story is a reminder that a bootstrapped SaaS doesn’t need a perfect origin story. It needs momentum and focus.

• Content marketing works when it’s tied to a real workflow and a real buyer.
• High-ticket, niche B2B makes inbound lead generation more efficient.
• The hardest growth decision might be killing the content that’s “working” because it’s working on the wrong audience.

If you’re building in the US and trying to grow without traditional VC, the practical question isn’t “How do I go viral?” It’s: What can I publish every week that makes the right buyer trust me faster?