The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 258: Plaid CEO and Co-Founder Zach Perret on How to Build a Platform that Fuels an Ecosystem Aug 15, 2019

Show notes

Companies that have access to more accurate financial data have the ability to develop seamless exchanges of information, providing consumers with improved ways to manage their finances. But how do companies gain secure access to that data in the first place? Enter the platform company. Hear from Plaid co-founder and CEO, Zach Perret and CNBC's Ari Levy as he walks through his lessons learned building Plaid and how it found itself at the center of the fintech ecosystem.

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Jason Lemkin

SaaStr

Zach Perret

SaaStr 257: How To Scale Sales Culture Successfully and Sustainably, The Leading Indicators of Burnout and What To Do & The 2 Inflection Points In SaaS Growth Where Things Start To Break with Justin Welsh, Former SVP Sales @ PatientPop Aug 12, 2019

Show notes

Justin Welsh is the former SVP Sales @ PatientPop, the startup that offers the first all-in-one practice growth platform that's HIPAA-compliant and is proven to grow your practice. During his 5 years at PatientPop, Justin grew sales from $0 to $56m alongside the full build-out of the sales team. Before PatientPop, Justin was one of the first 10 employees at ZocDoc, where he spent 4 years in different roles including Director of Strategic Sales.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Justin made his way into the world of Sales and came to be one of the industry's leading scale up Sales leaders with PatientPop and ZocDoc?
How did Justin experience burnout? What were the first indications and signals for him that he was suffering from it? How did it manifest itself in how he carried himself and his behaviour? How did Justin communicate the situation to his bosses? What does Justin advise others in communicating burnout to their superiors?
As a manager observing their team, what are signs that an individual is burning out? What is the right way to approach them to discuss the situation? What options do managers have available to them when faced with a burned out employee? How does micro-management fit into the signals that suggest clear burnout of the individual?
Justin has said before that "culture must precede performance", what did he mean by this? What actions and communications must they adopt to ensure that this feeling of culture over performance is accepted by the team? With that in mind, how does Justin think about KPI and goal-setting? What can leaders do to create an environment of safety for their team? Where do many leaders go wrong here?
Having seen multiple scaling culture, where do SaaS organisations tend to break down both in terms of culture and process? What are those inflection points? What can be done to actively mitigate these 2 significant points of failure?

Justin's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Justin know now that he wishes he had known when he started at PatientPop?
Sales leader Justin most respects and why?
If Justin could change one thing about the world of SaaS today, what would it be?

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 256: Google Cloud VP of Engineering Eyal Manor and Zenoss CMO Megan Lueders Aug 08, 2019

Show notes

As a global technology provider powering thousands of SaaS companies, Google is at the forefront of driving exciting and innovative technologies to market. Eyal Manor and Megan Lueders host a fireside chat between Google Cloud and Zenoss, a leader in software-defined IT operations. They discuss the most common and emerging challenges facing SaaS companies today. You'll also learn how leading SaaS companies are able to scale and thrive in this complex, dynamic environment. Join us for this lively discussion between two innovators.

Missed the session? Here's what Eyal and Megan talks about:

How to develop software faster
The emergence of new A.I. services
Why the "strongest" conversations need to happen between engineering and marketing

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 255: Why Enablement Must Be An Early Investment and How To Structure It, Why The SaaS Incumbents of Today Are Not As Strong As We Think & How To Build A Sales Culture of Confidence Without Arrogance with Vikas Bhambri, SVP Sales and Customer Experi Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

Vikas Bhambri is SVP Sales and Customer Experience @ Kustomer, the startup providing Real-time, actionable views of customers with continuous omnichannel conversations and intelligence that automates repetitive, manual tasks. To date they have raised over $113m in financing from some of the best in the business including Tiger Global, Battery Ventures, Boldstart, Canaan, Cisco and Redpoint just to name a few. Prior to Kustomer, Vikas spent over 20 years implementing, consulting, marketing, and selling CRM and ContactCenter solutions with companies like LivePerson and Oracle.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Vikas made his way into the world of SaaS and came to be at the rocketship that is Kustomer?
Why does Vikas believe that a wave of SaaS incumbents are about to be displaced or disrupted? What about the changing tech stacks and infrastructures makes them vulnerable to up and comers? Does this not lead to a consolidatory environment? How does Vikas see the space play out in the coming years when it comes to acquisitions?
What have been the dramatic changes that have happened in sales over the last few years? What is the right way for startup founders to address sales rep onboarding? Why is it so crucial to invest in enablement in the early days? How should this enablement be structured? How does this change sales rep payback periods? What is a good payback period?
How does Vikas feel about discounting? If accepted, what must the startup ask for in return? How does Vikas think about multi-year deals? When are they good? What sort of terms make them less beneficial for the vendor?
How does Vikas think about professional services? What is a good margin for professional services? What ratio of revenue is healthy for professional services to account for? When should one look to hire their first customer success reps? What should they look for in those reps?

Vikas' 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Vikas know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What is his secret to building diverse teams?
The sales leader Vikas most respects and admirers 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:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

SaaStr 254: HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan on The Funnel is Dead, Long Live the Flywheel. Aug 01, 2019

Show notes

The age-old sales funnel has worked fine for decades…until now. Flaws are being exposed, and a new model is imminent. Why is the sales funnel alone no longer an appropriate way thinking about customers? What will emerge to supplement or replace it? HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan and NEA's Hilarie Koplow-McAdams explore the evolution of the marketing and sales funnel you've been using for decades to generate traffic and convert and leads into customers.

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

Why a flywheel instead of a funnel?
What does the Grateful Dead have to do with Marketing…?
What role do T shaped people play?

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

Brian Halligan

SaaStr 253: TaskRabbit Founder Leah Busque on Lessons Learned from a Product Reboot Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

Leah Busque is currently a General Partner at Fuel Capital, an early stage venture fund located in Silicon Valley. She likes to invest across consumer, B2B saas, and technology infrastructure companies at the earliest stages. In 2008 Leah founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world. She spent nearly a decade involved with the company as CEO and Executive Chairwoman before she sold the company to IKEA in October of 2017. Hear about her takeaways from a product reboot with TaskRabbit.

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

What are the lessons learned from a product reboot?
When bringing a product to market - what are the BHAGs?
How to navigate a product pivot.

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

Leah Busque

SaaStr 252: How To Make The Transition From Founder Led Sales To Sales Team, The Truth About Raising a Series A Round As a Non-Bay Area Company and Why Employee 50 Is Such a Big Turning Point Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

Eric Christopher is the Founder and CEO @ Zylo, the software management system built for the cloud pioneering a new standard in software management. To date, Eric has raised over $12m for Zylo from some of the best in the business including Byron @ Bessemer, Salesforce, GGV, Semil @ Haystack and the team at High Alpha. Prior to founding Zylo, Eric was the VP of Sales @ Sprout Social leading the revenue operations for over 11,000 customers. Before Sprout Social he was VP of Sales at Shoutlet, responsible for global direct and channel sales teams and developing and managing strategic relationships. Finally, prior to Shoutlet, Eric spent over 7 years at ExactTarget as a Senior Business Development Manager which is where he met High Alpha's Scott Dorsey.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Eric made his way into the world of startups and SaaS? What were his biggest takeaways from working with Scott Dorsey @ ExactTarget? What was the founding moment with Zylo?
What have been Eric's biggest lessons when it comes to making the transition from founder led sales to sales team? What would we have done differently with the benefit of hindsight? What were the biggest challenges in the process?
How does Eric think about the importance of quantity vs quality of logos when acquiring your first few customers? Do big logo brand names really provide social validity or is it over-hyped? How does Eric think about discounting in the early days? What can founders do to really extract the most value from the discount they are giving away?
Why does Eric believe that hitting the employee 50 mark is a huge moment for founders and the scaling of the company? What fundamentally changes? What gets harder? What gets easier? How has Eric seen his role evolve with the scaling of the team? How does Eric think about goal and KPI setting with a much larger team? What needs to change? How does one create and retain accountability and ownership at scale?
Why does Eric believe that the bar for execution in SaaS in 2019 is so much higher than in 2009? What has changed? How does this make Eric change the way he approaches benchmarking, capital allocation and growth? How did Eric find raising the Series A as a non-Bay area company?

Eric's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Eric know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What is the toughest role to hire for today?
If the money is on the table, take it. Agree or not? 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 251: Y Combinator Michael Seibel on a Decade of Learnings from Y Combinator Jul 18, 2019

Show notes

Michael Seibel is CEO and a partner at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv and Socialcam. He has been a partner at Y Combinator since 2013, advised hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity efforts among startup founders. Hear his take on the future of work with a decade in learnings from YCombinator.

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

How quickly should you hire?
When is the right time to sell a startup?
How large a differentiator will investors make in your company?

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

Michael Seibel

SaaStr 250: Why Enterprise Is Hard Again, Why To Be Successful in SaaS Today You Have To Find The Crumbs Falling From Incumbent Mouths and Why Large Orgs Are So Dysfunctional and How To Poach Talent From Them Jul 15, 2019

Show notes

Peter Yared is the Founder & CEO @ InCountry, the startup that allows you to operate globally with data residency as a service meaning they store your mission-critical data in it's country of origin, without compliance. To date, Peter has raised $8m for InCountry from some of my very favourites including Bloomberg Beta, Felicis, Ray Tonsing @ Caffeinated and CRV just to name a few. Prior to InCountry, Peter founded six and sold 6 enterprise software companies that were acquired by Sun, Citrix, VMware, Oracle, Sprinklr and Prograph. Previously, Peter was also the CTO/CIO of CBS Interactive where he brought CBS into the cloud. At Sun, Peter was the CTO of the Liberty identity consortium that designed SAML 2.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Peter make his way into the world of enterprise SaaS with the founding and selling of 6 companies and how did InCountry come about? What is that founding moment?
Why does Peter feel like it enterprise is really hard again? Why is it no longer to come into large enterprises with a small contract and expand? How does Peter think about enterprise pilots today? Do they really mean anything? What proof points suggest an enterprise is really bought in? What benchmarks should startups bake into the agreements?
How does Peter think about and approach market sizing today? Why is market risk no longer a risk he is willing to take? Where do many entrepreneurs make mistakes when it comes to market timing? In terms of timing, how should entrepreneurs think about whether to start at SMB and move to enterprise or start enterprise and move to SMB? What are the considerations?
Why does Peter believe that large orgs are so dysfunctional today? What can founders do to extract the truly special talent out of these large orgs with big pay packets and troves of options? How has Peter found the transition from CTO to CEO this time? What have been some of the challenges? Where has he asked for external help?
Having built numerous successful remote teams, what have been Peter's biggest learnings in what it takes to successfully build remote teams? Where do many people go wrong? Does it have to be from Day 1? When is the right time to start thinking about this as a startup?

Peter's 60 Second SaaStr:

What would Peter most like to change about the world of Silicon Valley and tech?
Who is the biggest rockstar in the valley that is less well known?
Hire fast, fire fast, agree or disagree?

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 249: New Relic CRO Erica Ruliffson-Schultz on Five Critical Steps to Scaling Enterprise Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

CRO Erica Ruliffson-Schultz has led New Relic through massive growth, scaling the company's enterprise business 10x since she joined the business pre-IPO. Growing a company's revenues, customer base, team, process, and product doesn't just happen without major work and strategy. Erica will share the five critical steps (and some lessons learned along the way) for scaling in the enterprise.

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

How to change up your marketing mix
How to transition from SMB to enterprise
Identifying your sweet spot target customers and leveraging your network to access those companies.

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

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