Going Deep with Aaron Watson · Aaron Watson

551 The $256 Million Gameplan w/ Bill Hauser (SMB Team)

October 24, 2022·44 min·4 clips

Bill Hauser's parents both attempted suicide after their family went bankrupt, which triggered his own anxiety disorder.

Bill Hauser begins with a sharp contrast. Five years before the interview, he was cold calling attorneys and contractors from the basement of his apartment complex. Then the scale changed fast. SMB Team is now around 20 million in annual recurring revenue, with roughly 60 full-time W2 employees. Aaron Watson moves past the headline numbers and into the decisions, pressure, and repetition behind the growth. Mentorship gets a lot of airtime. Bill talks about rooms where everyone around him seemed to be building large companies, and that discomfort pushed him instead of freezing him. He studies specific operators, including Myron Golden, Jason Fladlin, Pete Vargas, and Russell Brunson, especially around selling from stage. The business lesson stays practical. The interview keeps coming back to how coaching changes the buyer experience when services can feel interchangeable. SMB Team is selling more than marketing. Bill says product innovation should come from consumer feedback, then ties that back to how the company frames, teaches, and supports clients. The operating philosophy gets more direct from there. He points to extreme ownership, citing Jocko Willink, as a value that puts responsibility back on the company. By the end, Bill is pushing listeners to keep writing down the goal until belief has something concrete to return to. The closing is grateful, business-minded, and clear-eyed: less victory lap, more reconstruction of resolve, mentorship, customer feedback, and accountable execution.

As heard by us

A grounded founder story about growth, mentorship, and sticking with the work.

Bill Hauser carries this one. The story keeps circling back to SMB Team's climb from basement cold calls to more than 60 full time employees and around 20 million in annual recurring revenue, but it never pretends that growth came from grit alone.

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Why you'd press play

Hear a founder trace growth from basement cold calls to $20M ARR, 60 employees, and hard-earned resolve.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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