The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 389: How To Really Disrupt the Big Guys With Free with Mikael Cho, CEO @ Unsplash and Kinsey Grant, Business Editor and Podcast Host @ Morning Brew Oct 22, 2020

Show notes

Mikael Cho, CEO of Unsplash shares his lessons learned from starting Unsplash as a side project and growing it to a market leader, and disrupting an industry of giants like Shutterstock, Getty, and Adobe Stock with a free business model.

Full video: https://youtu.be/t3nmvxlybJM

Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-389-with-unsplash-ceo-mikael-cho-and-morning-brew-business-editor-kinsey-grant-how-to-really-disrupt-the-big-guys-with-free/

SaaStr 388: Okta CMO, Ryan Carlson on How To Measure Marketing Attribution Effectively, Why People Think About Category Creation Incorrectly Today & How You Have To Think Through The Product vs The Company Story Oct 20, 2020

Show notes

Ryan Carlson is the CMO @ Okta, the leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise. Prior to their incredibly successful IPO in April of 2017, they raised funding from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, a16z, Greylock, Khosla and Floodgate to name a few. As for Ryan, he has spent an incredible 9 years at Okta in numerous different roles starting with running the product marketing team before moving to run the marketing team, leading to his promotion to CMO close to 5 years ago now. Before Okta, Ryan was the Co-Founder and CEO @ Sproost, a bootstrapped online expert recommendation system.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Ryan made his way into the world of enterprise SaaS? Why was joining Okta the most challenging interview process he has experienced? How did it impact how he assesses candidates today?
How does Ryan distinguish between the company story vs the product story? When do they align and when do they separate? How should your strategy change as they move apart? How does the structure of your marketing team need to change with the evolution?
What should the first marketing hire look like? What experience should they have? Why does Ryan believe you should hire two in marketing to start? How do you want them to work together? How does Ryan ensure cross-function working seamlessly from the very beginning with marketing?
How does Ryan think about measuring success when it comes to product marketing? How does Ryan think about marketing attribution today? How should we think through SAL vs closed revenue as indicator of marketing success? Where does Ryan believe many go wrong with regards to marketing funnels?

Ryan's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What makes Frederic Kerrest the special leader he is?
What is the most challenging element of Ryan's role with Okta?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-388-with-okta-cmo-ryan-carlson/

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

SaaStr 387: Where Product Development is Going in 2021 with Nick Mehta, CEO @ Gainsight and Jason Lemkin, CEO @ SaaStr Oct 16, 2020

Show notes

In this CEO to CEO catch up, Nick Mehta and Jason Lemkin discuss how to do product extensions, how to sell a second product, and where product development overall is heading.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/saas-customers-have-never-been-happier-a-discussion-with-nick-mehta-ceo-of-gainsight/

SaaStr 386: How to Win When There are 1000 Players in Your Market with Adam Blitzer, EVP & GM @ Salesforce Digital Marketing Cloud Oct 15, 2020

Show notes

How do you compete in a tough marketplace with thousands of other competitors? Join Adam Blitzer as he shares insights from launching a company in an already crowded marketing automation space and zig-zagged the way to market leadership.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/how-to-win-with-1000-players-in-your-market/

SaaStr 385: How To Approach Core Product Decisions in SaaS, Why Storytelling is a Lost Art in SaaS & How Product and Marketing Can Work Together Most Efficiently with Paul Rosania, Founder & CEO @ Balsa Oct 14, 2020

Show notes

Paul Rosania is the Founder & CEO @ Balsa, the company that recognises that builders move the world forward and so they are building the best second screen for builders, integrating tools you already use like Jira, GitHub, and Figma. Coming out of stealth today with their seed round being led by Andrew Chen @ a16z and joined by former CPO @ Slack, April Underwood, Chapter One's Jeff Morris Jr and then of course, 20VC Fund. Prior to founding Balsa, Paul was Senior Director of Product @ Slack and before Slack was a Group Product Manager @ Twitter where he was responsible for the home timeline, including timeline ranking.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Paul made his way into the world of startups with Twitter and Slack and how that led to his founding SaaS company, Balsa?
Paul was central in the decision-making around changing the Twitter timeline from chronological to ranked, how did he think about that decision? How does Paul approach such large product decisions today? What were his biggest operating takeaways from seeing the internal mechanics of Twitter & Slack?
What does really effective product marketing mean to Paul? How does Paul think about driving really effective change management? When engaging with bottoms up sales models, where does Paul identify the tipping points of going from bottoms up to top down?
Why does Paul believe that the builders are the new pro athletes? How will the structure of orgs change around them? How will the support they receive change? How will their training change? How will their comp change? How does on do this and not discourage other functions in the org?

Paul's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Paul believe is the hardest role to hire for today?
What would Paul most like to change about the world of SaaS today?
What do the next 5 years hold for Paul and for Balsa?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-385-with-balsa-founder-ceo-paul-rosania/

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

SaaStr 384: When to Launch a Second Product with Dharmesh Shah CTO and Co-Founder @ Hubspot and Jason Lemkin, CEO @ SaaStr Oct 09, 2020

Show notes

We caught up with one of the SaaStr community's favorite speakers, Dharmesh Shah CTO and co-founder of Hubspot on lessons learnings launching a second product. Hubspot recently expanded its Sales products and the learnings were top of mind.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/how-when-and-why-to-launch-a-second-product-a-deep-dive-with-dharmesh-shah-cto-hubspot/

SaaStr 383: Growing Product and Engineering Orgs from Zero to IPO with Nick Caldwell, VP of Engineering @ Twitter, and Tomasz Tunguz, Managing Director @ Redpoint Ventures Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

Nick Caldwell has built and grown product and engineering organizations at PowerBI (0 to 300 engineers), Reddit (500M MAU) and Looker ($2.7B sale to Google). Nick will share 5 big lessons he's learned along the way that you can use as you build your company's product and engineering functions from its earliest days to its largest successes.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/growing-product-and-engineering-orgs-from-zero-to-ipo-with-twitter-and-redpoint-ventures/

SaaStr 382: What's Next For B2B and Cloud Events in 2021 with Amelia Ibarra, SVP & GM @ SaaStr, and Alon Alroy, Co-Founder & CMO @ Bizzabo Oct 02, 2020

Show notes

In today's SaaStr Insider, SaaStr SVP & GM, Amelia Ibarra, sits down with Alon Alroy, Co-Founder & CMO at Bizzabo on What's Next For the Future of B2B Events.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/whats-next-for-b2b-saas-events-2021/

SaaStr 381: Churn is dead. Long Live Net Dollar Retention Rate with Dave Kellogg, Principal @ Kellogg Consulting Oct 01, 2020

Show notes

There are a lot of problems with calculating churn rates. Moreover, public companies don't generally release churn rates. Learn what they are and how to calculate them correctly.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/churn-is-dead/

SaaStr 380: How To Effectively Sell Into Mid-Market, Why SEO Is The Best Kept Secret In SaaS & How To Show Credibility To Enterprise Customers as a Startup Sep 29, 2020

Show notes

Ryan Sandler is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Truework, the company that gives employees control over employment, income and other identity data. To date, Ryan has raised over $44M with Truework from the likes of Sequoia, Khosla, Menlo and from the founders of companies such as Plaid, Seatgeek, Mino Games and Checkr. Prior to founding Truework, Ryan spent 3 years as a Senior Product Manager @ LinkedIn.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Ryan made his way from LinkedIn Product Manager to founding Sequoia backed Truework and changing the world of identity data?
Why does Ryan believe it is such an advantage to sell into mid-market? Where do most people go wrong here? How can startups show credibility to mid-market when they are so small? How can founders use case studies and references to build social credibility early on?
What have Ryan's lessons been when it comes to pricing? How does Ryan think about and approach discounting? How does Ryan feel about pilot plans? What elements can founders negotiate on to get the best pricing?
Why does Ryan believe SEO is the best-kept secret in SaaS? How has Ryan structured his content and marketing team as a result? How can one automate as much of the content creation process as possible? How long should one expect in terms of lead times to see returns on the SEO strategy?

Ryan's 60 Second SaaStr: