The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 238: Salesforce Mobile EVP Leyla Seka and Sr. Director of Global Equality Programs Molly Ford on How They Did It: Gender Equality, Equal Pay and Racial Equality May 30, 2019

Show notes

Join Molly Ford, Salesforce Global Equality Programs Senior Director, and Leyla Seka, Salesforce VP of Mobile for actionable advice they have applied on their own journey. Here are their lessons learned on driving change in gender equality, equal pay and racial equality within Salesforce.

Missed the session? Here's what Molly and Leyla talk about:

Building a community of allies and allyship
How to drive equality
What you can be doing as an employee to help drive the culture you want

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

SaaStr 237: Rippling's Parker Conrad on How To Clear The Bar of "Not Another System" Thinking in SaaS, Why Your Engineers Should Be Doing Support For As Long As Possible & Why Remote Teams Is The Worst Way To Build A Company, Apart From Every Other Way May 27, 2019

Show notes

Parker Conrad is the Founder & CEO @ Rippling, the startup that gives you back your time from payroll to employee computers, Rippling makes it unbelievably easy to manage your company's HR and IT - in one system. To date Parker has raised over $59m in funding from some of the best in the business including Mamoon @ Kleiner Perkins, Garry Tan @ Initialized, Justin Kan, SV Angel and Y Combinator, just to name a few. As for Parker, prior to founding Rippling, he was the Founder & CEO @ Zenefits, the startup he built from $0 to $60m in ARR in just 3 years. Before that he co-founded Sigfig where he grew assets on the platform to over $35Bn across 500k users.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Parker made his way into the world of startups and SaaS, came to found Zenefits and what was that a-ha moment for the founding of his most recent company, Rippling?
What does Parker do with regards to operational scaling that is unconventional but works? Why does Parker believe it is fundamentally better to wait for as long as possible before hiring customer support? Why should engineers also be doing customer support?
Why should your engineers be heavily involved in the customer support hiring process? What are the benefits of this? How can one prevent their customer support team from being a wall of protection for the product and eng team? How can you ensure seamless collaboration and communication flow between product and customer support?
Stripe last week recently announced their 5th office would be… "remote", so how does Parker feel about the building of remote teams? What are the most important things when establishing your first remote team? What do you look for in those hires? What can be done to ensure a greater feeling of community and closeness despite the distance? What have been some of the biggest challenges for Parker in building out the remote team?
Parker has been a CEO with 3 different companies now and so how has he seen his style and approach change over the years? What has Parker found the hardest to get good at? When advising founders on fundraising, what advice does he give? How can founders know when is the right time to raise? How should they look to build relationships with investors between raises?

60 Second SaaStr:

What does Parker know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
What one thing would Parker like to change about tech and Silicon Valley?
Biggest mentor and what has Parker learned from them?

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 236: Logikcull CEO Andy Wilson on $0 to $10M in 19 Months: The How, When & Why + 10 Mistakes Along the Way May 23, 2019

Show notes

Join Logikcull's CEO and Co-Founder Andy Wilson as he takes you through the mistakes made going from $0 to $10M in 19 months.

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

Selling the way your customers want to buy.
What you need to know about hiring, firing, advisors, and culture
Why SaaS is your business model, not your mission.

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

Andy Wilson

SaaStr 235: Scaling To 3,000+ Customers Without A Single Sales Rep, The Most Important Trait To Look For In Your First Sales Hire & How To Make Your Customers Your Best Investors with Andrew Filev, Founder and CEO @ Wrike May 20, 2019

Show notes

Andrew Filev is the Founder & CEO @ Wrike, the cloud based collaboration and project management software that scales across teams in any business. In Dec 2008, Vista Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Wrike for a deal reportedly valuing the company at $800m. Before this transaction, Andrew had raised over $45m in funding from the likes of Rory @ Scale and Bain Capital Ventures just to name a few. As for Andrew, he started his first software development company at the age of 18 and has been running Wrike for the last 13 years alongside advisory roles with both Ditto and Appulate.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Andrew made his way into the world of SaaS from his starting his first software business at the age of just 18 and how that led to his founding of Wrike?
How does Andrew advise founders on the question of whether to start in enterprise or SMB? What are the benefits of starting in SMB? How does the founder know when is the right time to start moving to enterprise? What are those leading indicators? How does the product and what you invest in proactively need to change as you move into enterprise?
Andrew has been the CEO for the last 13 years, how has the role of CEO changed over those years? What has been the most challenging phase? If the CEO is the guardian of the culture, what does a great guardian look like? What 3 elements does Andrew focus almost exclusively on today within his role as CEO?
What does Andrew think are the major breaking points in the scaling of companies? Where does culture begin to breakdown? What can be done to mitigate this? How does Andrew think about using employee satisfaction surveys internally? How can one accurately determine the strength of your manager set?

Andrew's 60 Second SaaStr:

What does Andrew know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
No man's land in SaaS pricing, does it exist?
Sales rep productivity, what is good to Andrew?

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 234: PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada and Duo Security CEO Dug Song on The Top Things No One Really Tells You About Scaling May 16, 2019

Show notes

Duo Security Co-Founder and CEO Dug Song and PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada discuss building, enabling, and leading great teams through 10K+ customers, $100M+ ARR, $1B+ valuation and beyond - all while earning 4.5+ Glassdoor company ratings and 98%+ CEO approvals from 500+ total employees!

Duo Security is a cloud-based provider of unified access security and multifactor authentication was acquired by Cisco for $2.35 billion in October 2018. PagerDuty is a leading digital operations management platform for organizations announced new financing in September 2018 at a $1.3 billion valuation.

Missed the session? Here's what Jennifer and Dug talk about:

When is the right time to raise money?
How can you better manage the board?
Should you worry about competitors?

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

SaaStr 233: G2 Founder & CEO, Godard Abel on How To Set Ambitious But Achievable Sales Rep Quotas & The Lessons From 2 Successful Exits on The Breaking Points In The Scaling of SaaS Orgs May 13, 2019

Show notes

Godard Abel is the Founder & CEO @ G2, the company helping millions of business make better product buying decisions every month. To date, Godard has raised over $100m in funding with G2 from the likes of Accel, IVP, High Alpha, Pritzker Group and Chicago Ventures just to name a few. As for Godard, he founded his first business, BigMachines, in 2000, a business he scaled to $50m in revenue and over 300 people up until it's acquisition to Oracle 11 years later for $400m. Godard then became CEO @ Steelbrick where he took them from 5 to 200 employees and increased bookings by 37x in 7 quarters. Steelbrick was ultimately acquired by Salesforce where he spent a year and a half before starting G2.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Godard make his way into the world of SaaS over 20 years ago? What was the a-ha moment for the founding of G2 for Godard?
Having been a Founder through the bust of 2000, how did seeing that macro environment impact his operating mentality today? What did it teach him about capital efficiency and investing ahead of time? Taking the team from 70 to 20, what were his lessons on the right way to let someone go? Where do many people get it wrong today?
Why does Godard advocate for working with people that you have worked with before? How can you find the zone of genius for the people that you work with? How does Godard set a culture of ambition and determination around goals but also prevent dejection if the goals are not hit? How often should rep quota be hit? Why is that the right ratio?
Where does Godard believe that things really start to break down in the scaling of an organisation? What can you do to get ahead of those moments and minimise their impact? How many direct reports does Godard believe is the optimal and then the maximum for a manager to have? How have his thoughts on this changed over time?

Godard's 60 Second SaaStr:

What would Godard like to change in the world of SaaS today?
What does Godard know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
If an investor can provide one value, what would it be 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 232: Fmr. Host Analytics CEO Dave Kellogg on The Top 5 Questions Every CEO Wrestles With May 09, 2019

Show notes

Dave Kellogg is CEO of Host Analytics and prolific blogger. Join him as he takes you through lessons learned from Host Analytics on the top questions every SaaS CEO wrestles with. Dave was CEO of Host Analytics from 2012 to 2018 where he quintupled ARR while halving customer acquisition costs in a highly competitive market, ultimately selling the company in a private equity transaction.

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

When is the right time to raise money?
How can you better manage the board?
Should you worry about competitors?

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

Dave Kellogg

SaaStr 231: Why SQLs and MQLs Are Redundant, Why You Have To Eliminate Hand Offs Between Go-To-Market Teams & Why One North Star For The Whole Company Can Be Damaging with Jason Reichl, Founder & CEO @ GoNimbly May 06, 2019

Show notes

Jason Reichl is the Founder & CEO @ GoNimbly, the first SaaS consultancy to focus on revenue operations. Currently growing 100% year over year, working with companies to un-silo their operations and create one strategic revenue ops team to support their Go To Market strategy. In the past, Go Nimbly has helped companies like Zendesk, Twilio, PagerDuty and Coursera to achieve alignment and increase revenue by 26%. As for Jason, prior to co-founding GoNimbly, he was Director of Product Management @ TradeShift and before that was VP of Product Management @ Lanetix.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Jason made his way from Director of Product Management at Tradeshift to changing the way we think about scaling revenue operations with GoNimbly?
Why does Jason believe that we have to remote handoffs between go to market teams? Why are they so damaging? How does Jason believe SaaS companies can use a "swarming" effect to create the best buyer experience for their customer? What does this involve? How does this change the type of metrics that we track?
Why does Jason believe that your North Star has to be revenue in the go to market teams? Why does Jason also believe that it is damaging to have the same North Star across the entire company? How should North Star's be segregated between GTM teams and biz ops teams? What are the mistakes many companies make when setting their internal North Stars?
Why does Jason believe that alignment is a dirty word? Why is alignment actually a negative for the customer experience? What does Jason view as vanity metrics? If one has vanity metrics in place, what does Jason recommend as to keeping them or phasing them out?

60 Second SaaStr:

What does Jason know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
How does Jason feel about multi-year deals?
How does Jason feel about channel/partner sellers?

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 230: SaaStr 230: AWS VP Sandy Carter on Customer Success at Scale May 02, 2019

Show notes

We live in a Shark Tank world: competition is fierce, talent is better than ever, and we're all striving to come out on top. CEOs everywhere are seeking to innovate, but 81% say their teams are not equipped to meet the challenges needed to compete in today's marketplace.

Innovation is about empathy with your customers. It's all about customer obsession! In this session, Sandy Carter, AWS Vice President will hone your superpower - not of customer focus, or customer driven, but customer obsessed.

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

How to start with success and think backwards
Think about how to present a feature or product before you start building.

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

Sandy Carter

SaaStr 229: The 2 Most Important Numbers For Your SaaS Business, Why You Should Not Have VPs Until $5m in Revenue & How To Manage Top Of Funnel Efficiently But Aggressively with Manny Medina, Founder & CEO @ Outreach Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

Manny Medina is the Founder & CEO @ Outreach, the market leading sales engagement platform that turns your team into a revenue driving machine. To date, Manny has raised over $114m in funding from some great people including friends of the show in the form of Alex Clayton @ Spark, Mayfield, Trinity Ventures and DFJ Growth, just to name a few. Prior to founding Outreach, Manny spent 7 years with Microsoft where he ran the Latin America and Canada business development group for Microsoft's emerging mobile division, representing $50M of yearly revenue. Befofe that Manny was a Senior Product Manager @ Amazon where he engineered the compensation system for Amazon Associates and Web-Services which accounts for 15% of Amazon's traffic.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Manny made his way to found the leader in sales engagement from product management at Amazon and Business Development @ Microsoft?
How does Manny fundamentally approach managing top of funnel? What are the 2 big dangers of not managing it aggressively? What can be done to ensure not only full but high quality top of funnel?
Why does Manny believe it is so important to track pipeline coverage as one of your core metrics? What does good look like when it comes to pipeline coverage? How does this change if you are creating vs in an existing market? How does Manny think about specialisation within the sales function? Why are SDR's 99% of the time not able to carry leads to completion?
How does Manny think about quota construction today? Does Manny err on the side of setting high to be ambitious or setting low to increase confidence? How can managers really empower their reps to be aggressive in hitting their quota and exceeding it? How does Manny think about resource allocation on the individual rep level? What is sufficient? What is excessive?
Does Manny believe that the founder should always be responsible for selling their product at one moment in time? How did Manny sell the first $1m in ARR simply through walking the streets of SOMA and selling door-to-door? What were his biggest lessons from doing this? Why does Manny believe that you should not have a VP before $5m?

60 Second SaaStr: