The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 278: Do You Have To Scale From SMB To Enterprise Customers, How To Make The Transition Successfully, What Changes About Customer Acquisition and Support & Why Continuous Customer Development Is The Most Important Thing You Can Do With Krish Subrama Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

Krish Subramanian is the Founder & CEO @ Chargebee, the startup that lets you go beyond billing, payments and recurring invoices — to delivering subscription experiences that "wow". To date, Chargebee have "wowed" some of the world's leading VCs to the tune of $38m including the likes of Insight Venture Partners, Tiger Global, Steadview and Accel Partners. As for Krish, under Krish's leadership the team has grown to over 300 people and over 5,000 clients making it one of the next generation in truly global SaaS businesses started in India.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Krish made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found one of India's fastest growing SaaS companies in Chargebee?
What does Krish mean when he says, "in SaaS, you either sell to one of 2 customer profiles"? How does Krish think about purely serving the SMB market? Does one have to move to enterprise? Does one have to expand the product line to retain customers? How does he think about the mortality rate of SMBs?
First, what is continuous customer development? Second, why does Krish believe it is one of the most important things any company must do? What is the process to do it efficiently? Does it have to be in person? What questions reveal the most? How should this data feedback into your product roadmap and pipeline?
How does Krish think your customer acquisition and GTM strategy has to change with the movement from SMB to enterprise? What are the biggest challenges in making this transition? How does your customer success and customer support functions change with the move to enterprise?

Krish's 60 Second SaaStr:

Biggest lessons from working with Lee Fixel?
How does one know when is the right time to introduce a new product?
What does Krish know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

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:

SaaStr 277: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Shopify Plus GM Loren Padleford on Revenue, Ecosystems and The Right Time to Go Upmarket Oct 25, 2019

Show notes

When is the right time to go upmarket and how do you serve small, medium and large customers in the same company. SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Shopify Plus GM Loren Padelford to discuss.

Read the transcript on our blog.

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SaaStr 276: Airtable's VP of Customer Engagement Liat Bycel on Why "Hands Off Leadership" Does Not Work, How To Align The Ambitions Of An Individual With The Objectives of The Company & Unpacking The Dilemma of Whether To Go Horizontal Or Vertical When It Oct 21, 2019

Show notes

Liat Bycel is VP of Customer Engagement @ Airtable, the startup that works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power to organise anything. To date, Airtable has raised over $170m in funding from some of the best in the business including Thrive, Coatue, Founder Collective, CRV and individuals like Patrick Collison, Ashton Kutcher and Raymond Tonsing to name a few. As for Liat, prior to Airtable, she was the Chief Revenue Officer @ Assist. Before Assist, Liat spent 6 years at Twitter where she first hand saw their hyper-growth, managing a team of 40 across New York and SF and also Liat achieved 102% to quota on average every year. Finally before Twitter, Liat was VP of Sales @ Revolution Prep where she led and managed 7 offices.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Liat made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be VP of Customer Engagement at one of Silicon Valley's hottest startups in Airtable?
What were Liat's biggest lessons from Twitter on how to hire successfully? What were some of the key takeaways from that experience on how, why and when to fire? Is there ever a right way to do it? How does Liat think about aligning both the personal ambitions of the person with the wider objectives of the company? Why does Liat reject the notion of "hands off leadership?"
Companies often worry about whether to go horizontal or vertical, how does Liat personally think about this choice? What does she advise founders as a result? What are the core questions they should ask to determine their strategy? What are the biggest challenges of having such a vertical product? How does it impact messaging and brand? Product roadmap? Pricing?
How does Liat think about challenging the traditional sales model? How does that challenge the structure of the conventional AE and SDR structure? How does Liat think Airtable is pushing up against the traditional customer success model? How has having children impacted how Liat thinks about operating today? What changes with children?

Liat's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Liat know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning of her time with Airtable?
What are Liat's biggest strengths and weaknesses?
What are the challenges of prioritization?

Read the full 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:

SaaStr 275: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta on Founder Struggles from Imposter Syndrome to Vulnerabilites Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta to discuss what it means to be a SaaS leader. What are the day-to-day struggles? The fears and the worries and what it means to be "crushing it" today.

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

Jason Lemkin

SaaStr

Nick Mehta

This episode is sponsored by Owl Labs.

SaaStr 274: Messagebird CEO Robert Vis on Scaling To A $60M Series A, Why You Should Not Try To "Scale" & Why You Need To Build Your Business Like A House Oct 14, 2019

Show notes

Robert Vis is the Founder & CEO @ MessageBird, the company that allows you to talk to your customers via Voice, SMS and Whatsapp. The company raised a monster $60M Series A from Accel and Atomico with only one prior investor being Y Combinator. As for Robert, prior to MessageBird, he was co-founder and CEO of Zaypay.com which focused on driving mobile payments into 50+ countries, enabling 1.5bln users to pay for virtual goods through their phones (sold to Mobile Interactive Group (MIG).

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Robert made his way into the world of startups and SaaS and came to found Messagebird? What was the a-ha moment for him?
Why does Robert believe the most important element of being a founder is "thinking big"? How as a founder do you balance between thinking big with investors and then the day to day in the weeds with the team? How does Robert as Europe's mentality of thinking big today? Have our ambitions exceeded what they have been before? How does being in Benelux change how Robert thinks about global ambitions and growth ambitions?
What does Robert mean when he tells founders, "don't try to scale"? How does Robert think about knowing when a business is ready to scale? Where do many founders go wrong in the preparation for scale phase? What does one need to get in place before scaling?
Why did Robert wait 6 years before raising any VC money? Why did he decide then was the right time? Once the raise was in, did he feel the pressure of suddenly having a lot of VC funding? How did his mindset to capital allocation change post-raise? How did he see his decision-making process change post raise? How did raising from the US differ from raising in the UK?

Robert's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Robert know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time with Messagebird?
What keeps Robert up at night?
What are Robert's strengths and weaknesses?
What advice in SaaS does Robert most often hear that he disagrees with?

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:

SaaStr 273: Atlanta Tech Village Founder David Cummings on 7 Lessons Helping Start Pardot, SalesLoft, and Calendly Oct 10, 2019

Show notes

David Cummings is the co-founder of the Atlanta Tech Village, Pardot which sold to ExactTarget/Salesforce.com, Hannon Hill, Rigor, SalesLoft (raised over $75M in capital), Terminus (raised over $25M in capital), and several more. Hear his lessons learned over the years from Pardot to Calendly.

Missed the session? Here's what David talks about:

How large a role does funding play?
Matching pricing to value
How to continuously level up talent

Find the video and full 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

SaaStr

SaaStr 272: Asana's Head of Marketing Dave King on How We Are Entering The Third Wave of SaaS Marketing, What That Means For SaaS Marketers and Companies Today & What B2B Marketing Can Learn From B2C Oct 07, 2019

Show notes

Dave King is the Head of Marketing at Asana, the work management platform that teams use to stay focused on the goals that grow their business. To date, Asana has raised over $210m from some of the biggest names in tech including Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen, Ben Horowitz, Sean Parker, Ron Conway, Benchmark, Founders Fund and more incredible names. As for Dave, prior to joining Asana, he led the marketing teams at Percolate, Highfive, and Salesforce Community Cloud.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Dave make his way into the world of SaaS and startups? When did he realise his love of marketing SaaS companies?
What does Dave mean when he says, "we are entering the 3rd wave of marketing"? What were the 1st and 2nd chapters? What does the "3rd wave" of marketing mean for marketers today? How does it change what marketing should be focusing on? How does it change how marketing works with sales and customer success?
What does Dave mean when he says, "offsites serve as a crutch for 2 core elements of the marketer's role"? How does Dave advise marketers on crafting their playbook? What are the core questions to ask? Where does Dave see many going wrong here? How does one turn a playbook into a repeatable, measurable process? With channel volatility being so high, is it possible to have a repeatable and predictable process?
What are Dave's biggest observations on what B2B marketers can learn from B2C? How does that change how Dave thinks about new campaigns and community building with Asana today? Who does Dave think has done this particularly well in the world of enterprise? Are there any challenges to trying to carry over B2C into the world of B2B?

Dave's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Dave know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his career in marketing?
Biggest breakdown in the working of an efficient funnel?
A moment in Dave's life that has served as an inflection point and changed the way he thinks?

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:

SaaStr 271: Talkdesk SVP of Client Services Gillian Heltai on How to Build a CSM Team that Generates 130% Net Retention Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

Talkdesk SVP of Client Services Gillian Heltai oversees Talkdesk's Customer Success and Technical Support teams, partnering closely with customers to achieve their CX vision. In this session, Gillian will walk you through how to build a high performing CSM Team.

Missed the session? Here's what Gillian talks about:

How to build a CSM team
Avoiding the mistake of over defining the candidate profile
How to divide responsibilities across roles

Find the video and full 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

SaaStr

SaaStr 270: How To Scale Leader While Retaining Humanity and Personality, Why Starting At SMB Actually Makes Culture Easier & How To Make A Part-Remote Team Your New Superpower Sep 30, 2019

Show notes

Jeppe Rindom is the Founder & CEO @ Pleo, the simple spending solution for your company automating expense reports and simplifying company expenses. To date, Jeppe has raised over $78m in funding for Pleo from some European favourites of mine in the form of Creandum and Vaestfonden and then also their most recent round led by Stripes Group in NYC. As for Jeppe, prior to founding Pleo he was the CEO @ Nodes, a design and development house that worked with brands including Loreal, BMW and Lego. Before that, Jeppe was the CFO @ Tradeshift where he first hand saw their scaling to 190 countries with offices in 6 different locations.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Jeppe make his way into the world of startups and SaaS with his becoming CFO @ Tradeshift? What were his biggest learnings from Tradeshift and how did that impact his operating mentality? What was that a-ha moment for him with Pleo?
Why did Jeppe decide to focus on SMBs from Day 1? How does the product build in the early days differ when building for SMB vs enterprise? Why does Jeppe believe that building for SMB makes it easier to build a great culture internally? How does Jeppe think about when is the right time to move into enterprise? What changes?
How does Jeppe respond to 3 common concerns VCs have with SMBs:

The price points are so low that it takes huge volume to scale to meaningful revenue?
The mortality rate of SMBs is so high that you are going to always have high churn due to the customer segment?
Serving SMBs in the way that Pleo does is an intensely competitive space, is this a winner-take-all market? How does Jeppe think about competition?

How does Jeppe think about NPS today? How does Jeppe approach the problem of agency when the buyer is not the user? How does Jeppe think about being customer informed but not customer-driven?
Pleo has a part-remote work structure, why does Jeppe advocate for this structure in the face of many saying it either has to be remote or not? What has Pleo done to make it work? What tool stack do they have to ensure seamless communication between remote and non-remote? Where are the challenges? What must one always do?
How does leadership change for Jesse in the face of scale? How does Jesse think about scaling humanity and the personal touch with the scaling of his leadership? What are the challenges? When do they start to arise? How has raising in the US compared to raising in Europe? What are the core differences?

Jeppe's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Jeppe know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
How did raising from the US differ from raising with European investors?
What would Jeppe most like to change about the world of SaaS today?

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:

SaaStr 269: Gorgias CEO Romain Lapeyre on How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data Sep 26, 2019

Show notes

Gorgias helps brands automatically respond to basic questions, and track the impact of customer service on sales so support becomes a profit center. Join CEO Romain Lapeyre as he walks you through how to close your first 1000 customers based solely on data.

Missed the session? Here's what Romain talks about:

How to build a growth machine
How you can tailor onboarding to customers
Using data to your advantage

You can find the full video and 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

SaaStr

Traditional customer beta testing can't keep up with the speed of Agile or the demands of continuous delivery. Centercode's approach to real-world Delta Testing fuels product and engineering teams with actionable quality and UX insights before every new release. Visit Centercode.com to learn more.

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