The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 268: G2 CMO, Ryan Bonnici on Lessons Learned From Scaling Marketing Team From 5 to 70, The Most Important Role of The CMO Today and How To Create Alignment Between CRO and CMO Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

Ryan Bonnici is the CMO @ G2, the company that allows you to get the right software and services for your business with over 897,000 user reviews to help you make smarter buying decisions. As for Ryan, prior to G2 he was Senior Director of Global Marketing at Hubspot where among many other achievements, he scaled HubSpot's marketing-generated sales revenue by 330% year-over-year. Before Hubspot, Ryan was Head of Marketing @ Salesforce (APAC) where he led his team to achieve 227% YoY net-new sales sourced through marketing. Due to his success, Ryan has been named to Forbes' List of World's Most Influential CMOs.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Ryan made his way into the world of SaaS from Sydney, Australia and came to be one of the world's leading CMOs with G2 today? What were Ryan's biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce? How did it change his mindset?
What are the core differences when comparing marketing functions at the likes of Salesforce to smaller companies like G2? What can they learn from each other? Where does Ryan sit on whether marketing is an art or a science today? How did Ryan turn a $6,000 initiative at Hubspot into a product that generated $64m net revs?
What have been Ryan's biggest lessons in what it takes to acquire the best talent? How does Ryan build candidate pipe? What works most effectively? How does Ryan structure and run the process? What core questions does Ryan ask and find most revealing of the individual's character? What does Ryan love to see in a candidate?
Does Ryan agree that marketing teams should always be held directly accountable to a number tied to revenue? What type of CMO would Ryan bucket himself as; demand gen or brand? How does Ryan think about the relationship between the two?

Ryan's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his career in marketing?
What is the biggest BS that Ryan often hears in the world of marketing?
Which marketing leader does Ryan most respect and admire and why?

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 267: Menlo Ventures Partner Naomi Ionita on 3 Lessons in Monetization - Matching Price to Value Sep 19, 2019

Show notes

SaaS is about creating long-term value for your customer, and being compensated appropriately for that value as a business. Learn actionable monetization tips from a Product/Growth operator turned VC, Menlo Ventures Partner Naomi Ionita.

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

How to avoid underpricing your product
Fitting your businesses' product to the market

This podcast is an excerpt of Naomi's session at SaaStr Annual 2019. You can watch the full video on our website.

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

Naomi Ionita

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SaaStr 266: Zoom CMO Janine Pelosi on Why MQLs and SQLs Are Not Helpful As Labels, How To Create Alignment Between Sales and Marketing & How The Role of CMO Has Changed So Dramatically Over The Years Sep 16, 2019

Show notes

Janine Pelosi is the CMO @ Zoom, the next-generation enterprise phone system. Prior to their very successful IPO, Zoom raised funding from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, Emergence Capital, Horizons Ventures and 2 of my favourites in the form of Matt Ocko @ Data Collective and Dan Scheinman. As for Janine before joining Zoom, she spent 11 years at Cisco where among many incredible achievements she led worldwide demand gen for WebEx and led their worldwide digital marketing team with a $25M annual budget.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Janine made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be one of the leading CMOs today with Zoom?
How has the role of the CMO changed over the last 5 years? Would Janine agree with Jason Lemkin that "the role of the CMO is to execute the vision of the CEO"? What makes Janine and Eric's relationship so successful? What makes Eric the special leader that he is? How does the changing power of the CMO affect their relationship with the CEO?
When is the right time for startups to hire their first CMO? What should they look for in that ideal candidate? What should they have in place in terms of infrastructure, prior to hiring the candidate? What does the right onboarding process look like for a CMO? Where does Janine see many going wrong when hiring their first CMO?
How does Janine look to create alignment between sales and marketing? Why does Janine not believe in having the labels of "MQLs and SQLs"? How does Janine look to reduce the friction when handing off between marketing and sales? What are the common causes? How are we seeing marketing also blend with customer success?

Janine's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Janine know now that she wishes she had known at the start of her time at Zoom?
Who does Janine most respect in the world of marketing today? Why?
What would Janine most like to change about the world of SaaS today?

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 265: WP Engine SVP of Global Sales Matt Schatz on Building a $100M ARR Sales Team - The Second Time Around Sep 12, 2019

Show notes

Matt Schatz is SVP of Sales at WPEngine, responsible for defining and executing the global sales strategy. Matt has nearly two decades of senior leadership experience in sales and customer growth, specifically for technology companies with customers around the world including Bazaarvoice, CityVoice and Rackspace.

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

Getting your "first story"
What is a lucky lead and how does that turn into predictable growth
Building trust across time zones

This podcast is an excerpt of Matt's session at SaaStr Annual 2019. You can watch the full session 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

WP Engine

SaaStr 264: Gainsight COO Allison Pickens on Why Customer Success and Product Management Are The New Sales and Marketing, How To Approach Building and Scaling "Services" As A Revenue Line & How To Build A CS Team On A Tight Budget Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

Allison Pickens is the COO @ Gainsight, the company that provides everything you need to turn your customers into your biggest growth engine. To date Gainsight have raised over $184m from some of the world's best VCs in the form of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and Salesforce Ventures just to name a few. As for Allison, in her 5 years at Gainsight her list of achievements in endless from running all functions that drive value for Gainsight customers, now a 150 person team, to building out the corporate development function to being the right hand to the CEO. Allison is also an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Bessemer Venture Partners and sits on the board of RainforestQA. Before Gainsight, Allison started her career in NYC with stints at Bain and The Boston Consulting Group.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Allison made her way into the world of SaaS with Gainsight from her start in finance at Bain in New York?
What does a strategic plan really mean to Allison? What is included in it? How should it be structured? In terms of ambition, how does one set ambitious enough plans to be a stretch but not a stretch too far? How does one tie their strategic plan to their financial plan? What is the right way to communicate this throughout the organisation?
Why does Allison believe product marketing and customer success are the new sales and marketing? What have been Allison's biggest lessons on how to effectively measure adoption? Who is accountable to this number? CS or product management? Does Allison believe that marketing needs to be held accountable to a number directly tied to revenue?
How does Allsion respond to the common negative of "services revenue"? What is an acceptable ratio of services to software revenue? How can one approach setting up a services team for scale? Why is having such a great CS team actually bad for product development in the long run? How can one mitigate this?

Allison's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Allison know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning of her time with Gainsight?
How often should CS check in with their customers? What does that look like?
If on a tight budget, how should one staff a CS team?

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 263: Eventbrite SVP of Platform Pat Poels on Engineering Your Own Luck - The 3 Key Rules of Building Globally Distributed Teams Sep 05, 2019

Show notes

Building a company made up of distributed teams presents a plethora of complex challenges that can derail productivity and impact employee retention. But with it comes immense benefits and competitive advantages such as the diversification of ideas, speedier product development, and representation in important regions and time zones. Come and hear about the typical pitfalls (and how to avoid them) from Eventbrite SVP of Platform Pat Poels, an executive with over seven years under his belt leading Eventbrite's now 300+ strong engineering team that sits across North America, South America, and Europe.

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

Engineering your own luck
How to build an engineering team

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 262: Box's Jon Herstein on How Customer Success Teams Should Structure, Schedule and Execute on Customer Check Ins, Why Delight is Important But Insufficient & Why Customer Success Is Not Responsible For Upsell Sep 02, 2019

Show notes

Jon Herstein is the Chief Customer Officer at Box, the company that provides one platform for secure content management, workflow and collaboration. Prior to their IPO, Box had raised funding from some of the best in the business including Andreesen Horowitz, Bessemer, DST, Emergence and Meritech, just to name a few. As for Jon, prior to being Chief Customer Officer at Box, he was Senior VP of Customer Success, responsible for all post-sales services Box provides from implementation to user adoption and more. Before Box, Jon spent 4 years as VP of Professional Services at NetSuite and prior to that, close to 8 years as Senior Director of professional services at Informatica.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Jon make his way into the world of SaaS and come to be one of the leading figures in the rising tide of the customer success movement?
What does Jon mean when he says, "you have to constantly bring your customers to the forefront of your employees minds"? For non-customer facing roles, what can one do to give them that perspective? Does it work to ensure every function spends time in customer support? What is challenging about that? What can be done in the onboarding phase to ensure the individual has the most empathy for the customer, regardless of function?
For those in CS, what is the right communication cadence to check in with their accounts? What should the agenda look like? What outcomes should they drive towards? Should they be involved in the upsell process? How does Jon think about post-mortems on churned clients? How do they structure them? What lost client stands out to Jon and what would he have done differently to retain them?
From Jon's experience seeing Box in hyperscaling, at what stages do SaaS orgs start to break down? Why does Jon think that is? What can be done to proactively try and mitigate this? How does Jon think about the structuring of roles and responsibilities with scale? What does this done well look like? Where do many people go wrong here?

Jon's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Jon know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time with Box?
What motto or quote does Jon frequently revert back to?
What is the most challenging element of Jon's role with Box today?

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 261: Workday EVP of the Planning Business Unit Tom Bogan on The Top Lessons Learned in Getting to $100M ARR Aug 29, 2019

Show notes

Tom Bogan, CEO of Adaptive Insights, a Workday company, will review the key principles to building a successful SaaS company. From team to vision to metrics to funding and more, these principles provide the framework for high-growth, high performing SaaS companies.

How can you develop a winning culture? How can you set aggressive but realistic goals? What's needed to build the right team in SaaS today?

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

The important maxims about team building
Insights on fundraising and why you might not want to always raise at the highest valuation
Personal stories from his time building Adaptive Insights

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 260: HelloSign COO, Whitney Bouck on How Startups Can Attract The Most Seasoned Execs In SaaS, How To Determine Whether A Seasoned Exec Has True Startup Fabric & What Separates Good From Great When It Comes To COOs Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Whitney Bouck is the COO @ HelloSign (now a part of Dropbox). For those that do not know, HelloSign is the company reimagining how you approach your most important business agreements with their award-winning e-Sign solution. As for Whitney, she directly leads the organization's go-to-market efforts, including sales, marketing, business development and customer operations. Whitney is also an advisor to companies funded by the YC Continuity Fund, focusing on enterprise strategy, go-to-market strategy, leadership and execution. If that was not enough, Whitney is also on the board of Ekata, building the global standard in identity verification. Finally, prior to HelloSign Whitney spent close to 5 years at Box where as SVP Global Marketing & GM Enterprise she took on all of marketing globally for Box and was responsible for reshaping the company brand from SMB to enterprise.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Whitney made her way into the world of SaaS originally with Box and how that led to her coming one of today's leading COOs with HelloSign? What were Whitney's biggest takeaways from seeing the hypergrowth of Box? How did that change her operating mentality?
What does truly successful exec leadership look like in Whitney's mind? When is the right time for founders to think about building out their first exec team? What common mistakes do they make in the process? What can founders do to attract seasoned SaaS execs to their early-stage company? What are the questions that suggest an individual has a startup culture to them? What are the indications that they are a "big company" person?
What does Whitney believe is the new role of the CIO? What has changed about their tole and what has driven this change? With their coming front and centre in the org, how does that change both the reporting and operating structure of the business? What are the nuances and intricacies of this role that many do not often consider?
COO is thrown around as a term today, what does it really mean to Whitney? What does Whitney believe separates good from great when it comes to COOs? When is the right time for founders to start looking for their first COO? What should they look for in their first COO? What is the optimal onboarding process for any new COO?

Whitney's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Whitney know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
What makes for the optimal relationship between COO and CEO?
What is the most challenging element of Whitney's role with HelloSign today?

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:

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SaaStr 259: Pipedrive SVP of Global Sales Tara Bryant on Addressing the Ugly Side of Growth Aug 22, 2019

Show notes

Our guest today is Pipedrive SVP of Global Sales Tara Bryant.

Globalization opens up a world of opportunities for sales growth. We often focus on the positive sides of growth—but what about taking a look at the ugly sides? Even what we could consider "good problems" need preparation, and it starts by understanding your team and your goals, including knowing when and how to recruit members of your team, and building in a way that compliments your growth. Do you need more man-power on the customer facing side, or do you need to bring in new management to keep everything in line? Growth isn't always linear, and the steps to success aren't always one after the other. How do you prioritize and organize to bring the best possible results? This side of success can be scary, but knowing how to prepare can set you up to reach your companies long term growth goals.

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