The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 399: Four Steps to Scaling to $250M, While Keeping Community at Your Center with Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO @ Stack Overflow Nov 20, 2020

Show notes

Building the world's largest and most trusted software developer and technologist community and going from 0 to 120 million users happened rapidly for Stack Overflow. Hear four steps from its CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, on how your product-led startup can grow its community and its revenue.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/four-steps-to-scaling-to-250m-from-stack-overflow/

SaaStr 398: How To Price To Maximise For Upsell and Expansion, Why and When To Engage with Partner Programs & How To Correctly Segment Customer Profiles Most Efficiently with Rob Gonzalez, Founder & CMO @ Salsify Nov 18, 2020

Show notes

Rob Gonzalez is the Co-Founder & CMO @ Salsify, empowering brand manufacturers to deliver the product experiences consumers demand at every point in their buying journey. To date, Salsify has raised over $250M in funding from the likes of Venrock, Underscore, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners & Greenspring to name a few. As for Rob, prior to founding Salsify, he was the first-ever product manager at Cambridge Semantics and before that was a Senior Product Manager @ Endeca helping grow the company to it's $Bn exit.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Rob made his way into the world of SaaS as a product manager and how that led to his founding Salsify over 8 years ago?
How does Rob think about the bundled vs unbundled thesis within SaaS? When is it right for SaaS companies to turn down potential customers? How can they do that the right way? What is the right way to think about customer segmentation? How should startups decide which customer segment to focus on?
How should startups think about implementing partnerships? When is the right time? What is the right way to onboard them? How can they be trained in implementation efficiently? What does great change management look like to Rob? What does Rob believe are the biggest misconceptions around change management?
How does Rob think through pricing today in a way that encourages land and expand? What can you do to make the land as frictionless as possible? What does it take to expand effectively? How does Rob think about usage vs seat-based pricing in SaaS? How should sales and marketing work together on pricing?

Rob's 60 Second SaaStr:

Most challenging element of Rob's role with Salsify?
What would Rob most like to change in the world of SaaS today?
What does Rob know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-398-with-salsify-co-founder-cmo-rob-gonzalez/

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

SaaStr 397: Going Upmarket and How Things Have Changed in a Decade, @ Trello, with Co-Founder Michael Pryor and Jason Lemkin, CEO @ SaaStr Nov 14, 2020

Show notes

In today's SaaStr insider episode SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin catches up with Michael Pryor, the Co-Founder of Trello to talk about going upmarket, and how things have changed in the last decade as Trello crosses 50M+ users.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/going-upmarket-and-how-things-have-changed-in-a-decade-at-trello-with-founder-michael-pryor/

SaaStr 396: Buying patterns in the Enterprise: CEOs and More- Who's Really Buying & Why with Godard Abel, Co-founder & CEO @ G2, Mike Weir, Chief Revenue Officer @ G2 and Samantha DeStefano, Vice President, Enterprise Sales @ UpWork Nov 12, 2020

Show notes

As digital business and collaboration models have been permanently accelerated by the events of 2020, our panel of SaaS experts discuss who's buying in the Enterprise, and how to drive conversions across multiple business functions.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/buying-patterns-in-the-enterprise/

SaaStr 395: Why Seat Based pricing Will Die and Volume Based Pricing Is Optimal, How To Structure Pipeline Meetings Most Effectively & How To Think Through Demand Gen Strategically with UserTesting CEO Andy MacMillan Nov 10, 2020

Show notes

Andy MacMillan is the CEO @ UserTesting, the company that provides real-time feedback, from real customers, wherever you work. To date, they have raised over $200M in funding from the likes of Accel, Greenspring, Openview and Insight to name a few. As for Andy, prior to UserTesting, he was the Chairman and CEO @ Act On Software and before that held several positions at Salesforce, including COO - Products Group. Before Salesforce Andy spent close to 5 years at Oracle as VP Product Management.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Andy make his way into the world of SaaS? How did he come to be CEO at the market leader, UserTesting?
Why does Andy think the seat-based pricing model in SaaS will die? What are the downsides of it? Why is volume-based pricing optimal? How does one instil volume based pricing without disincentivizing usage? How does Andy think about discounting? How does Andy view the importance of offering trials?
What does it take to scale a sales team successfully? How can one determine a closer in the interview process? Should one hire sales reps 2x2? How does Andy think about hiring sales reps from adjacent companies and industries? How does Andy think about minimizing and optimising sales ramp times? How does Andy think about payback period?
How does Andy structure the pipeline meetings? Who is invited? How are the meetings structured? How does Andy advise on the right segmentation of pipe? How does Andy evaluate the closability of the pipe? Where do many people go wrong in pipeline meetings? What have been his biggest lessons on running them successfully?

Andy's 60 Second SaaStr:

The hardest element of Andy's role with UserTesting?
What Andy would most like to change about the world of SaaS?
The hardest role to hire for today and why?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-395-with-usertesting-ceo-andy-macmillan/

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

SaaStr 394: How to Hack Venture Capital with Sunil Dhaliwal, GP @ Amplify Partners and and Jason Lemkin, CEO @ SaaStr Nov 06, 2020

Show notes

Where is Venture Capital today? And how do you hack it? SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin, sits down with Sunil Dhaliwal, General Partner at Amplify Partners to discuss.

Full video: https://youtu.be/8w6K7slhLX4

Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-394-with-sunil-dhaliwal-and-jason-lemkin/

SaaStr 393: 3 Secrets to Selling Up-Market with the Leaders of Fivetran, Stripe, and Docusign Nov 05, 2020

Show notes

The journey for a company to move upmarket can be daunting and varies widely depending on the internal and external factors that inspire a shift in go-to-market strategy. Join these incredible sales leaders are they share their experiences in the evolution from SMB to Enterprise.

Kelly Del Curto, Senior Director of Sales at Lever Tammy Aguillon, Area Vice President, Commercial Sales at DocuSign Kate Jensen, Head of Platform Sales at Stripe Lauren Schwartz, Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/how-to-sell-upmarket-in-saas/

SaaStr 392: 10 Simple Steps To Help Any Sales Exec Close More with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin Oct 30, 2020

Show notes

In today's SaaStr insider episode SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin shares 10 Simple Steps To Help Any Sales Exec Close More.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/10-simple-tips-to-help-any-account-executive-close-more/

SaaStr 391: The Secrets to Bootstrapping to $5M ARR in Less than a Year with Martha Bitar, CEO @ Flodesk Oct 29, 2020

Show notes

Learn how Flodesk bootstrapped to $5M in ARR by focusing on customer-driven growth: from kickstarting growth by empowering new customers to share, to creating product viral loops that amplify and optimize these customer-led funnels.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/how-to-bootstrap-to-5m-arr-in-less-than-a-year/

SaaStr 390: How To Crush It With Interactive Content, What Type, Where and When To Use It Most Efficiently and Where Many People Make Mistakes with Randy Rayess, Founder @ Outgrow Oct 28, 2020

Show notes

Randy Rayess is the Co-Founder @ Outgrow, a growth marketing platform that enables marketers to build interactive content/tools to increase customer engagement and boost demand generation. Prior to founding Outgrow, Randy co-founded VenturePact, an invite-only marketplace that connects companies with trusted software development firms. Before VenturePact Randy held roles at Ampush and then on the investor side at SilverLake. If that was not enough, Randy is also an investor having invested in the likes of SmartyPal, Nooch, Alie and AirCare Labs to name a few.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Randy made his way from the world of PE with SilverLake to changing the game of digital marketing with Outgrow?
What does interactive content mean? What are the most common forms? When should one start to use interactive content What resources and team does one need to engage with an interactive content strategy? Where do many people make mistakes with using interactive content?
How should one think about idea generation for interactive content? How does one know what interactive content works best? How should we test it's effectiveness? How should interactive content be promoted? Where should it be placed? How many text inputs is it optimal to request for?
How does it convert more leads? How does Randy think about using interactive content to maximise sales rep efficiency? How should customer success engage with interactive content? What can be done to make the sales and customer success teamwork so well together?

Randy's 60 Second SaaStr: