The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 509: Adding Outbound Sales & Marketing to the Product-Led Growth Engine with CMOs of Freshworks, Twilio, 1Password, and Coda Dec 22, 2021

Show notes

Many start-ups today start with an amazing Product Led Growth (PLG) engine that hasn't required an outbound sales and marketing motion. As amazing as this is, if your company wants to move into the mid-market or enterprise business, you're going to have to build and hire a Sales team, and expand the capabilities of your Marketing function. How can you add this GTM motion effectively, without cannibalizing your existing business? How do you balance the two for the right target markets and audiences? Product-market fit, pricing, packaging, messaging, strategic investments, culture, evangelism all play a critical part and will change as soon as you add this team.

Hear from the CMOs of top tech companies on they helped Freshworks, Twilio, Salesforce, 1Password, Atlassian, Litmus, CircleCi, Coda and many others have faced this challenge and led their companies through this successful transition.

Stacey Epstein, CMO @ Freshworks

Sara Varni Bright, CMO @ Twilio

Carilu Dietrich, Fractional CMO @ 1Password

Viviana Faga, General Partner @ Coda

SaaStr 508: Picking the Perfect Pricing Model that Fits Your App and More with HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos Dec 17, 2021

Show notes

Pricing can kill your product, or make it soar. To start with, create pricing tiers and make pricing easy and convenient for your customers. Beyond that, the decisions are difficult, such as usage-based vs. predictable pricing. In this presentation, we discuss the key principles of pricing and app or online service, showing the pros and cons of your choices.

Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/picking-the-perfect-pricing-model-that-fits-your-app-with-hackerone-ceo-marten-mickos-podcast-508-and-video/

SaaStr 507: On Shifting to the Next Gear: Proven Strategies to Accelerate Growth with Intercom CEO, Karen Peacock Dec 15, 2021

Show notes

When is the best time to find your next gear of growth? Now. Whether you are growing rapidly or seeing growth start to slow, this talk will share proven ways to accelerate.

Karen Peacock, CEO of Intercom and former SVP of Small Business at Intuit, will discuss how putting customers at the forefront of your business is the key to hitting that next level.

She'll cover how to segment your customer base and analyze the health of each part as input to strategy, design and package your product based on value and build highly contextual and personalized customer experiences that lead to happy customers, retention, expansion, and growth.

Karen will share stories based on her experience at Intuit building one of the world's largest SaaS product lines from $500M to $2.5B and in her current role leading Intercom's high growth on the path to IPO.

Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/shifting-to-the-next-gear-proven-strategies-to-accelerate-growth-with-intercom/

SaaStr 506: A $100M ARR Pivot from Platform Product to Vertical Apps with Treasure Data CEO, Kazuki Ohta Dec 10, 2021

Show notes

Treasure Data was founded as a big data platform company, but struggled to compete against larger tech companies. After pivoting to a more vertical solution (CDP - Customer Data Platform), revenue growth accelerated, going from $20m to $100m in 3 years. Kazuki will share the struggles and decisions a part of pivoting the company.

Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/100-million-arr-pivot-with-treasure-data-ceo-kazuki-ohta/

SaaStr 505: The Future of AI, Open Source, and Enterprise SaaS: Where It's All Going with Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi Dec 08, 2021

Show notes

A lot of startups and SaaS companies that build a business around an open source technology struggle to commercialize in a way that is both profitable and scalable, while also supporting the open source community that is so critical to innovation. Join Ali Ghodsi, CEO and Co-Founder of Databricks and Nithya Ruff, Head of Open Source at Comcast and Chair of The Linux Foundation Board, who are both open source thought leaders, for a fireside discussion about the value open source software has delivered for enterprises and their perspectives on the current state of the open source landscape.

Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/the-future-of-ai-open-source-databricks-ceo-ali-ghodsi/

SaaStr 504: The Cutting Edge Techniques for Overcoming High-Stress Sales with Bryan Smith, Co-Founder at Leon Health, and Bryan Elsesser, SaaStr VP of Sales Dec 07, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, Bryan Smith, Co-Founder at Leon Health sits down with SaaStr's own VP of Sales, Bryan Elsesser, to talk about the best techniques to overcome Q4 and end-of-year stress in sales teams.

SaaStr 503: The RevTech Stack Playbook, Going from $1M to $100M with SalesLoft CMO Sydney Sloan Dec 03, 2021

Show notes

Gone are the days of Sales and Marketing building their own tech fiefdoms. In this podcast, Sydney Sloan, CMO at SalesLoft shares a holistic approach to adding technology that powers your revenue engine and shares examples of tech stacks, best practices, and org designs from successful companies at different growth stages.

Blog post and video: https://www.saastr.com/the-revtech-stack-playbook-going-from-1m-to-100m-with-salesloft/

SaaStr 502: Why Founders Should Prioritize Personal Development with Shopify President, Harley Finkelstein Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

There are countless ways for founders to learn how to build strong teams, strengthen go-to-market processes, and focus on growth and customer success. But a topic that's becoming more important, especially after such a challenging year, is founder well-being. Shopify President Harley Finkelstein shares insight on how successful entrepreneurs approach personal change, coaching, and ongoing development to achieve work-life harmony. Harley will be joined by Felicis founder and Managing Partner Aydin Senkut and Felicis' Head of Founder Success Dasha Maggio. They will discuss what founders should ask for and how focusing on personal development can lead to stronger teams and better outcomes for the business.

Blog post and video: https://www.saastr.com/why-founders-should-prioritize-personal-development-with-shopify/

SaaStr 501: The State of Software Buying From SMB to Enterprise with G2 CMO, Amanda Malko Nov 30, 2021

Show notes

The state of software buying has changed. SaaS spending dipped in the first half of 2020 but has since accelerated and increased as we reach the end of 2021. Amanda Malko, CMO at G2, shares a fascinating look at the data that reveals shifting patterns in the way consumers purchase software.

Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/the-state-of-software-buying-from-smb-to-enterprise-with-g2s-cmo/

SaaStr 500: How to Scale a Successful SaaS Sales Team with Harry Stebbings, Founder @ 20 VC, and Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder @ SaaStr Nov 24, 2021

Show notes

We're celebrating episode 500 of the SaaStr Podcast! Our SaaStr 'OG' podcaster, Harry Stebbings, Founder of The 20 Minute VC and, Jason Lemkin, SaaStr CEO and Founder discuss the future of the markets and how to build a successful SaaS sales team from the ground up.

Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/how-to-scale-saas-sales-team-with-harry-stebbings-jason-lemkin/

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