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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.
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Now displaying: Category: technology
Dec 7, 2023

In our 'What's New' series, SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin sits down with the top CEOs from leading SaaS companies to discuss What's New and what's top of mind.

In this episode, Jason sits down with Aaron Levie, CEO and Co-Founder of Box, and also a SaaStr-fan fave from speaking at various SaaStr events in-person and digitally.

Together they discuss:

  • How to go long as a CEO and Founder in SaaS
  • Overhauling operating margins at Box to a top-tier 25%
  • Implementing AI at BOX
  • Macro issues on the horizon for 2024
  • What's new at Box

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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.

Join us in 2024 at:

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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Dec 5, 2023

A holistic and well-executed go-to-market strategy is one of the key pillars that drives sustainable, long-term growth for software companies. But there is a dearth of data that leaders can leverage to inform building out the best team, strategies, and tactics to scale their go-to-market organization.

Leveraging proprietary data from over 200 leading GTM executives and tens of thousands of data points related to executive profiles across Sales and Marketing leaders, Doug Pepper, General Partner, and Christine Edmonds, General Partner and Head of Analytics at ICONIQ Growth will share detailed answers to the key go-to-market questions from B2B SaaS leaders including:

  • The latest insights on what “effective” scaling means in today’s environment
  • Best practices for building out GTM teams and processes
  • Learnings related to what profiles make the most successful IPO-ready executive hires
  • How top companies are tweaking tactics in today’s environment to drive efficient selling

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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.

Join us in 2024 at:

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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Nov 30, 2023

We had a party in 2020 and 2021 where valuations and growth were crazy. Then, we had a hangover in 2022 and the first half of this year. Now, investing is coming back, public markets have returned, and we’re almost back to normal.  Jameson Yung, SVP of Sales at Gong, and Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and previous CRO at Brex, share five tactical ways to get back to growing and hitting revenue targets.  The days of working a little for big returns are behind us in the Boom of ‘21, so what can you do to start hitting revenue targets? 

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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.

Join us in 2024 at:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Nov 24, 2023

From seed funding to reaching $100M ARR to going public in 2021, Spenser Skates knows about growing and scaling a business. But for many founders, the question becomes: how do you maintain hypergrowth? In this podcast, Spenser will share key lessons around maintaining long-term, sustainable growth, including when to expand your product suite, why iteration matters more than perfection, where AI fits (and doesn't!) fit into growth strategy, and how to ensure your exec team is the right group for your next stage of growth.

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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.

Join us in 2024 at:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Nov 16, 2023

Scott Belsky, CSO, and EVP at Adobe, does a deep dive on the profound transformations taking place in the creative world. As technology continues to reshape the landscape, Cloud and SaaS Founders, VCs, and Executives must adapt and evolve to stay ahead. Discover the playbook to thrive in this dynamic environment and unlock unprecedented opportunities. Belsky will share his deep insights into the rapidly changing creative industry, drawing from his vast experience at the forefront of innovation.

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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.

Join us in 2024 at:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Nov 14, 2023

In this episode, Nick Mehta will share ten significant mistakes he made during his career, and how these failures shaped his journey as CEO of Gainsight. Mehta will impart valuable lessons on resilience and growth, offering attendees actionable takeaways for their own entrepreneurial ventures. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to learn from real-life experiences and turn failures into opportunities for success in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) world.

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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.

Join us in 2024 at:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Nov 9, 2023

In this new episode of CRO Confidential, we take a look at the proven customer acquisition strategies behind Toast's explosive growth to over $1.1B ARR. Hosted by Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond, this episode features the CRO of Toast Jonathan Vassil, who walks us through Toast's go-to-market and customer acquisition strategies.

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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent

When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Nov 2, 2023

Each year, tens of thousands of SaaS fans attend SaaStr Annual. And every year, Jason Lemkin, the founder of SaaStr, takes the stage to answer the audience's most pressing questions. For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, when to use AI at early-stage companies, and when the right time is to invest in a new product line. Building and scaling a startup isn’t for the faint of heart and often comes with many ups and downs that SaaS veterans have experience in. Let's dive into the questions and answers!

Oct 24, 2023

As industry leaders, understanding the transformative power of AI and how it can be harnessed to drive innovation and growth is essential for staying ahead in today's rapidly evolving business landscape.

In this episode, Aliisa Rosenthal, Head of Sales at OpenAI, will delve into the ways in which AI is reshaping the way we work. With her extensive experience and deep knowledge of AI technologies, Aliisa will share insights, trends, and practical examples of how AI is being applied across various sectors.

Oct 22, 2023

As SaaS companies slash campaign budgets, marketing leaders need to find other ways to augment customer wins from their remaining campaigns. Increasing down-funnel conversions by having marketing enable sellers to “all-star” levels along the funnel can help make up the difference.

In this episode, Datadog's CMO Alex Rosemblat will explore the tactics, personas, best practices, and tracking metrics to significantly up-level product and campaign-level sales enablement.

Oct 18, 2023

In the dynamic landscape of SaaS startups, pursuing rapid customer growth while achieving and maintaining profitability is an art that requires flexible strategies and, more importantly, employees that are eager for the challenge.

In this episode, Expensify COO Anu Muralidharan will share how Expensify became profitable on its way to securing millions of users in less than 15 years.

You'll hear real-world examples and walk away with specific tactics they can immediately deploy at their own companies, including:

 a.) when, where, and why to outsource

b.) a new, more bullish approach to testing and launching products with confidence

 c.) how to leverage automation to reduce expenses while simultaneously supporting growth.

Oct 12, 2023

Monday has gone from $7m in 2017 to over $700m in revenue today, showcasing the sheer power of compounding revenue. Did Monday’s founders feel like they’d be 100x bigger in just six years since that first SaaStr conference they attended? Eran Zimman, Monday’s co-founder and co-CEO, shares his secrets to scaling and growth in an unpredictable market. Monday hasn’t missed a bit, but before we dive into their secrets, let’s first learn where it all started and what they do today.

Oct 6, 2023

Discover the best ways for a seed-stage startup to pitch to investors and successfully fundraise from Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel. Any founder you talk to likely remembers every investor who said no to them. Those founders hold a special kind of “not hatred,” says Michael Seibel, Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator, but a special kind of something for those investors and a desire to prove them wrong. If you’re a seed-stage startup, Michael shares the best ways for you to present your company to startup investors.

Oct 4, 2023

SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin deep dives into the current state of SaaS and the Cloud and what to expect over the next year.

Oct 2, 2023

One of the open secrets behind a lot of great companies is going multi-product. Jack Altman, CEO and co-founder of Lattice, firmly believes that many more companies should be multi-product, and many should go multi-product earlier than they think. Lattice has launched four product suites in the last eight years, and the ideas that drove their growth apply to most companies today.

Sep 27, 2023

Given the massive downturn that started 18 months ago, many SaaS founders are nervous about what it takes to raise capital in SaaS in 2023. Christoph Janz, General Partner of Point Nine Capital, shares some answers about what it takes to raise capital in SaaS, overall investment activity in 2023, and how to develop a convincing AI strategy.

Sep 25, 2023

Discover Bessemer Venture Partners’s annual State of the Cloud report, going through trends, benchmarks, and metrics that underpin the Cloud economy. 

Presented by:

  • Mary D'Onofrio, Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners
  • Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer Venture Partners
  • Caty Rea, VP @ Bessemer Venture Partners

The past twelve months have been relatively turbulent for Cloud founders. SVB collapsed, market multiples are down, yet the IPO window is re-opening, and we have a platform shift to AI that’s exciting everybody. 

What does this mean for Cloud companies? 

Let’s find out.

Sep 18, 2023

Freshworks is a successful public SaaS company that has a humble beginning in the small town of Chennai, India. Founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham shares five big bets that paid off as he scaled this multi-product company.

 Listen to discover Mathrubootham’s key decisions in launching and scaling a company, which include:

*Betting on inbound while going global

*Hiring talent when talent is hard to find

*Going multi-product early on

*Layering a sales-led motion on top of a product-led motion

*Betting on AI and the future before it arrives

Sep 15, 2023

Are you curious to learn what the future of SaaS will look like in 2024? Well, look no further. In this informative interview, two of the biggest pioneers of SaaS, David Sacks, Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures and Jason Lemkin, SaaStr Founder and CEO, team up to discuss the potential landscape for AI-focused SaaS over the next five years. From understanding what it takes to raise a Series A these days to discovering how AI will shape the industry, get a unique insight into the world of SaaS as two leading experts share their predictions and experience. Don’t miss your chance to keep ahead of the competition – listen now!

Sep 2, 2023

SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin and Partner at QED Investors Amias Gerety chat on the Fintech Beat podstream about all things SaaS, money, and what makes a great founder. 

Some topics covered include: 

  • What makes SaaS so great
  • How SaaS is fairing in the “macro” economy
  • Perspectives on fintech and SaaS and how they overlap
  • How an investor chooses what to invest in and when it’s time to walk away

Fintech Beat is all about the intersection of finance, tech, and policy, and now they’re touring outside the neighborhood of fintech and into the great big world of SaaS. 

While the world of public tech stocks is defined by consumer-facing juggernauts like Facebook, Amazon, and Google, the world of venture capital is defined by the North Star of SaaS. 

Let’s dive right in. 

Aug 30, 2023

G2 is a unicorn startup that’s stayed in the game for over a decade. G2 CEO Godard Abel deep dives into his original vision for G2, going multi-product, selling with multiple sales teams, demand gen spend, and why AI is the most important thing right now. 

Aug 25, 2023

10 Terrible Pieces Of SaaS Advice To Avoid If You Want To Succeed with SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin

 

Bad advice is everywhere these days. Hundreds of thousands of experts are telling you how to succeed in SaaS. Many of those voices are incredible, yet terrible bits of advice pops up again and again.

 

On top of that, founders are full of excuses preventing them from scaling. 

 

SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin shares the 10 worst pieces of SaaS advice, excuses, and mistakes founders make, and what to do instead. 

 

Aug 9, 2023

Whether you’re going from nothing to something or already scaling and thriving beyond $10-100M, healthy, sustainable growth in SaaS is on every founder’s mind. 

Cockroach Labs’ CEO Spencer Kimball shares hard-won lessons from scaling from $0 to $5B and his time as an angel investor for more than 80 different startups. 

He’ll walk you through the three stages of growth: 

0-$1M — From nothing to something

$1M-$10M — Building, innovation, and customers

$10M-$100M+ — Scaling and thriving And what sustainable growth strategies you can implement (and pitfalls to avoid) wherever you’re at in your SaaS journey.

 

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Aug 6, 2023

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday, and the founder of SaaStr. The godfather of SaaS and founder of the world’s largest community for business software sits down with one of the most metric-oriented companies today to discuss the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023. Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, and co-founders and CEOs, Eran Zinman and Roy Mann of the wildly successful monday.com chat with Startup For Startup about ARR, NRR, CAC, and what it takes to beat the odds in a tougher environment.

Jun 30, 2023

It’s not an easy time to be a startup entrepreneur. Even as generative AI and LLMs present the potential for a technical paradigm shift, startups today must also grapple with the realities of financial market upheaval, ominous global power shifts, uncertain economic indicators, and disruption up and down the supply chain: It may feel as though “hunkering down” is the best that a founder can do.

Bill Magnuson, Co-founder and CEO of Braze, has a different take, in which there’s no time like the present era of change to uncover opportunities that can distinguish your business from competitors’ as the skies clear. Having navigated through the early days of mobile and the multiple macro disruptions since to take Braze public and scale to a revenue run rate of $400+ million, Bill has put this strategy to the test.

Seeing opportunity in today’s times requires a longitudinal perspective on the underlying forces of change that create growth opportunities and strategy that anticipates the evolution of those forces while positioning your business to best take advantage of the resulting changes over time..

Timing around disruptions is key, and they provide a key opportunity for innovators to build in response to the evolution of new skillsets, team structures, and business models, all of which create new buyer personas, and can be cultivated even while headwinds stall growth. Those who lean into disruptions with curiosity and optimism can emerge as stronger innovators with deeper competitive moats because they were out building with a growth mindset while everyone else was hunkered down.

Key takeaways from this talk include:

*How to think about second-order effects of disruption, and when their evolution may ultimately reward patience, creating room for the slower growth that is often forced by a difficult macro. *What to watch for in areas of macro disruption in order to identify differentiating opportunities in unexpected places. 

*How evolving skillsets, team compositions, and ways of working can transform business, and why its absence can lead to obsolescence.

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