Info

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

The Official SaaStr Podcast is the latest and greatest from the world of SaaStr, interviewing the most prominent operators and investors to discover their tips, tactics and strategies to attain success in the fiercely competitive world of SaaS. On the side of the operators, we center around getting from $0 to $100m ARR faster, what it takes to scale successfully and what are the core elements of hiring. As for the investors, we learn what metrics they hone in on when examining SaaS business, what type of metrics excites them and what they look for in SaaS founders.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
2024
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: November, 2019
Nov 28, 2019

Kevin Egan, Slack's VP of North American Sales and Dannie Herzberg, Slack's Director of Sales as discuss their strategies for going from Freemium to Enterprise at Slack.

Find the video and full transcript on our blog.

 

Nov 25, 2019

Allie Janoch is the Founder & CEO @ Mapistry, the startup that makes environmental compliance simple. As for Allie, prior to founding Mapistry she started her career in MIT’s Lincoln Lab before joining IQ Engines (acquired by Yahoo). Post acquisition, Allie integrated the technology built at IQ Engines into Flickr search. 

 In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

  • How Allie made her way from the world of Yahoo to founding the game changer of environmental compliance in Mapistry? Having had both big company, small startup and founding experience, what would Allie advise new graduates entering the workforce today? 
  • What were the biggest mistakes that Allie made when it comes to sales hiring? What were the learnings from those mistakes? How does Allie advise other founders on scaling sales teams? How does Allie think about sales rep payback period? How can one determine the effectiveness of a sales rep when they are engaging in 9-12 month sales cycles?
  • How does Allie think about the importance of focus applied to customer segmentation today? How does Allie measure true customer success? NPS? Churn? Product analytics? How does Allie explain the macro market size to VCs when they initially see the small customer segment?  
  • Why did Allie start doing their own events with Mapistry? How should startups think about whether events are the right strategy for them or not? How should founders think about resource allocation and budget when it comes to events? How does Allie measure the ROI of events? 

Allie’s 60 Second SaaStr:

  1. What does Allie know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? 
  2. What would Allie most like to change about the world of tech and Silicon Valley?
  3. What is the biggest challenge for Allie today with Mapistry?

Read the transcript on our blog.

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Allie Janoch

Nov 21, 2019

Hear about Adyen’s journey from a Dutch payments startup to a global public company with more than 15 offices around the world working with large global companies like Facebook, Spotify, Uber, and Microsoft. CCO Roelant Prins shares lessons from the company’s own global growth path and will be giving practical tips for companies who are thinking about expanding their business globally. Roelant is joined by Felicis Ventures Founder, Aydin Senkut, who shares the commonalities he sees in successful companies...starting with culture.

Find the video and full transcript on our blog.

Nov 18, 2019

Travis Bryant is Partner for Founder Experience @ Redpoint Ventures, the venture fund with a portfolio including the likes of Stripe, Netflix, Zuora, Hashicorp and Juniper Networks just to name a few. As for Travis, prior to joining Redpoint, Travis was head of Customer Growth at Front, after spending 5 years building the global Sales organization at Optimizely, the world’s most popular experimentation platform. During his time at Optimizely, the company grew from from $7 to >$90M in ARR and from 40 to 400 people. Before Optimizely, Travis spent 6 years at Salesforce in a number of sales roles including building the first Platform Sales team.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

  • How Travis made his way into the world of venture as the first ever Partner for founder experience at Redpoint? What were the 2 biggest lessons Travis took from Salesforce? How transformational is the 12 quarter year for Salesforce?
  • Why does Travis believe we need to abolish the title of CRO? Why does it suggest misalignment between customer and vendor from Day 1? What aspects of CRO’s roles is Travis in favour of? What elements is he not in favour of? What does Travis advise founders when it comes to uniting customer facing teams?   
  • Why does Travis believe that SaaS has upended the economic model but not the engagement model? How does the engagement model with customer need to shift? What does this do to the structure of the conventional funnel? 
  • Why does Travis believe net retention must always be the guiding North Star? How does Travis think about the different steps to customer qualification today and what makes the best SDR’s? What does Travis advise founders when it comes to churn analysis? What questions must you ask? What metrics must you look for? 

Travis’ 60 Second SaaStr:

  1. What motto or quote do Travis frequently revert back to?
  2. What is the most challenging element of Travis’ role with Redpoint?
  3. How should startup operators coming out of larger organizations determine which startup to join? 

Read the transcript on our blog.

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Travis Bryant

Nov 14, 2019

Nicole Alvino, founder of SocialChorus, shares some ‘truth is crazier than fiction stories’ about her time in structured finance at Enron and how she applied what she learned to build a company that has 10 of the Fortune 50 as customers. In your constant effort to grow and win, you’ll get the 5 most important lessons on how to push the envelope just far enough - while keeping your ethics in check.

Nov 11, 2019

Michael Pryor, Co-Founder & CEO @ Trello, now Head of Trello Product with Atlassian following their recent acquisition.

Kolton Andrus is the Founder & CEO @ Gremlin, the failure as a service startup finds weaknesses in your system before they cause problems.

Dylan Serota, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer @ Terminal, the startup that helps you create world-class technical teams through remote operations as a service.

Rachel Carlson, Co-Founder and CEO @ Guild Education, the leader in education benefits offering the single most scalable solution for preparing the workforce of today for the jobs of tomorrow. 

Sid Sijbrandi, Founder & CEO @ Gitlab, a single application for the entire software development lifecycle.

Jeppe Rindom is the Founder & CEO @ Pleo, the simple spending solution for your company automating expense reports and simplifying company expenses.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

  • How should founders think about the debate between all remote vs part remote teams? How does life and operations change with each? What are the pros and cons? Is it possible to move between the two overtime?
  • What can one do to maintain culture with remote teams? What processes need to be in place to ensure a cohesive and streamlined communication process? What technical architecture needs to be in place? Where are the breakpoints when it comes to communication? How often does one need to do in person off-sites?
  • How does being remote or part remote impact fundraising? How do VCs think about this new structure of operations? What is the right way to present it? How does being outside a core tech hub impact one’s ability to raise? How should one run a fundraising process if outside a core hub?  
  • How important is it for your team to be near your customers? How does this change according to sector and customer base? How important is it for your team to be near your investors? Does having an exec and sales team in one place and the rest of the team elsewhere work?  

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Read the full transcript on our blog.

Nov 7, 2019

Rene Yang Stewart, Co-Head and Principal, Vista Equity Partners, and Monica Enand, Founder and CEO, Zapproved discuss growing a company from product market fit to scale. Vista Equity Partners invested in Zapproved in 2017. Hear perspectives from both the investor and founder on growth to scale.

Find the video and full transcript on our blog.

Sponsor message: Remote and hybrid teams aren't the future of work-- they're the present. Owl Labs is embracing this revolution, and is here to provide remote workers with a virtual seat at the table with the Meeting Owl. Their 360° smart video conferencing camera can recognize and highlight any speaker at the table using an array of 8 microphones. Check it out for yourself at owllabs.com!

Nov 4, 2019

How do you manage a sales team when you're at a company with both Free and Freemium Sales-Driven Segments? What about SMB vs. Enterprise Sales? SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Mixmax's Head of Revenue Don Erwin to discuss it all.

Find notes for this episode on our blog.

1