The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 228: Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Glitch CEO Anil Dash on the Secrets to Building a Billion in ARR and Being an Ethical leader. Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

Join Glitch CEO Anil Dash and Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson for a discussion about the ethical implications of technology in today's society. Jeff and Anil discuss how social media and AI are changing the way we think about the impact of technology on society as well as the responsibility of tech leaders for this impact.

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

How taking no stance as a business leader today, is taking a stance
How to set concrete numbers for diversity goals
The impact of corporate culture on employee happiness

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

SaaStr 227: Why Deal Size In The Early Days Does Not Matter, Why TAM In The Traditional Sense Barely Matters & Why You Have To Invest In Customer Success Before You Think You Need It with Alexandr Wang, Founder & CEO @ Scale Apr 22, 2019

Show notes

Alexandr Wang is the Founder & CEO @ Scale, the startup providing high quality training and validation data for AI applications. To date, Alexandr has raised over $23m with Scale from some of the best in the business including Index, Accel, Y Combinator, Dropbox's Drew Houston, Justin Kan, Thumbtack's Jonathan Swanson and more. Prior to founding Scale, Alexandr was a Tech Lead at Quora, directly responsible for all speed projects and before that a software engineer at Addepar responsible for building and maintaining financial models.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How did Alex make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Scale? What were some of his biggest takeaways from seeing the first hand scaling of Quora and Addepar?
Why does Alex take the contrarian view that "TAM in the traditional sense barely matter"? What two characteristics of the market should founders really look to examine? How does Alex approach the element of market sizing? Does he prefer top down or bottoms up and why?
Why does Alex believe that you must invest in customer success before you think you need it? What were the benefits for Alex of investing early in customer success? Why does CS over sales ultimately drive the growth of your company? How does one know when is the right time to hire their first in customer success? What is the ideal profile of this candidate?
How does Alex think about the integration of customer success and product teams? Why is it crucial from the product perspective that founders pick their first customers well? How can your customers drive your product decisions? How can one ensure to be customer informed and not customer driven?
Why does Alex believe that in the early days it is not important to focus on the size of the deals you are signing? What should founders be focusing on with these early customers instead? When is the right time to flip the switch and opt for value extraction as a more primary objective? How does Alex respond to the fact that VCs often look at these first customer deals as an indication of the size of the pain point you are solving?

60 Second SaaStr:

What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
What does Alex believe is the hardest role to hire for today?
Who does Alex think is crushing it in 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 226: Survey Monkey CMO Leela Srinivasan on 7 Tips For Using Customer Feedback To Build Rabid Fans and Make More Money Apr 18, 2019

Show notes

Leela Srinivasan is the CMO of SurveyMonkey. Join her as she takes you through her seven tips for using customer feedback and building rabid fans. Consistently ramping your ARR is a whole lot harder if your customers don't stick around. In an age where earning customer loyalty and trust is harder than ever, the road to lifetime value is paved with customer feedback. If you take the time to listen, understand and act on what your customers are thinking and feeling, you'll create an army of advocates and drive topline revenue growth for good measure.

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

How to create an army of advocates
How to drive topline revenue growth
Real world examples from businesses that are listening and acting on customer feedback every day.

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

Leela Srinivasan

SaaStr 225: Biggest Lessons From The AppDynamics and GlassDoor Scaling, 3 Elements Marketing Team Comp Has To Be Tied To & How To Create True Alignment Between Marketing and Sales with Stephen Burton, VP of Smarketing at Harness.io Apr 15, 2019

Show notes

Stephen Burton is VP of Smarketing at Harness, the industry's first continuous delivery as a service platform. To date, Harness has raised $20m in funding from the wonderful Matt Murphy @ Menlo Ventures and BIG Labs. Prior to Harness, Stephen was VP of Marketing at Glassdoor, managing a team of 52 in product marketing, helping grow B2B revenue from $19m to $90m in just 2 years, leading to their $1.2Bn acquisition. Before Glassdoor, Stephen was VP of Product Marketing at AppDynamics where he helped grow B2B revenue from $0 to $100m in a staggering 3 year period, resulting in their $3.9Bn acquisition by Cisco.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Steve made his way into the world of SaaS and came to be VP of marketing at 2 of the larger B2B exits of the last decade in AppDynamics and Glassdoor? What were Steve's biggest takeaways from seeing the hyper-scaling at AppDynamics?
Steve has previously said, "sales and marketing must be one team". Why does he believe this is so important? What can leaders do to turn this into reality? What works? Where has Steve seen many make mistakes? Where does Steve find common points of tension between sales and marketing? WHat are the 3 elements that marketing comp should be tied and aligned to?
What does Steve mean when he says, "marketers need to embrace the developer first mindset"? What does this mean for the processes used by marketing teams? Speaking of developer-first, how can startups compete in a war for talent against FB and Google? How can they integrate autonomy into their hiring process as a core advantage?
For Steve, what does devops really mean? What does Steve believe is the right culture for devops teams? Does it differ from traditional dev teams? How can a CEO determine when is the right time to fundamentally invest in devops? What are the required steps to make devops teams as successful as possible?

60 Second SaaStr:

What does Steve know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
When is the right time to pour fuel on the company fire?
The playbook? Is there one? Dangers? Copyability?
What would Steve most like to change in the world of SaaS?

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 224: Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane on Lessons from Zendesk Beyond $1B ARR Apr 11, 2019

Show notes

Mikkel Svane is the CEO of Zendesk and author of "Startupland". Join him as he takes you through his lessons taking Zendesk beyond a billion in ARR. Mikkel founded Zendesk in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2007 before moving the company to San Francisco in 2009.

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

The future of the cloud
The rise of the public cloud and re-platforming of the tech stack
How business applications are sold and delivered leveraging SaaS

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

Mikkel Svane

SaaStr 223: Intercom COO Karen Peacock on Scaling from $1MM to $500MM ARR: 5 Strategies to Drive Your Next Wave of Growth with Intercom Apr 04, 2019

Show notes

Karen Peacock is COO of Intercom, one of the fastest growing SaaS businesses of all time. She has led businesses of all sizes through massive growth. Listen to her top 5 lessons learned building and scaling SaaS businesses from $1M to $500M in ARR including expanding to serve upmarket customers, moving from product to platform, and hiring to drive breakthrough customer experiences and business growth.

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

How should you expand your market?
How to move upmarket
The steps to building a product and creating an end to end experience

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

Karen Peacock

SaaStr 222: Flexport CRO Ben Braverman on Why It Is Total Horseshit That The Best Sellers Don't Make Good Managers, Why Specialisation Does Not Lead To The Best Customer Experience & Scaling Revenue From $18k MRR in 2014 to a $472m Year In 2018 Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

Ben Braverman is the CRO @ Flexport, one of the world's fastest growing startups combining technology, infrastructure and expertise, to build the operating system for global trade. To date they have $1.35Bn in funding from some of the biggest and best in the business including Softbank's Vision Fund, Founders Fund, DST, Susa Ventures and Y Combinator, just to name a few. As for Ben, he spearheads global sales and go to market teams. Prior to Flexport, Ben helped drive two high-growth companies to successful acquisitions: URX (acquired by Pinterest) and Heyzap (acquired by Fyber).

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Ben made his way into the world of startups and came to be CRO of one of the world's fastest growing startups in the form of Flexport?
Why does Ben fundamentally disagree with the specialisation of roles within SaaS companies? What does he believes this does to the customer journey and relationship? How should one thing about role segmentation and allocation of accounts with this in mind? Where does Ben see many people going wrong here?
Why does Ben believe it is "total horseshit to say the best sellers don't make the best managers"? What must founders try and figure out before hiring their sales leader? What are the leading indicators that suggest a sales rep has the ability to be a sales manager? How does Ben determine between a stretch VP and a stretch too far?
What does Ben mean when he says, "there are 3 distinct buckets of sales management"? What are they and what is their relationship between one another? Why does Ben believe one does not need sales management in the early days? What is the best way to train reps and determine payback period fast? Why does Ben believe sales ops is the most underappreciated role in the valley?

60 Second SaaStr:

What does Ben know now that he wishes she had known at the beginning?
What is the optimal relationship between CRO and CEO?
What does Ben believe in SaaS that most around his disbelieve?

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 221: HBS Sr. Lecturer and Former Hubspot CRO Mark Roberge on His Step by Step Guide to Revenue Growth Mar 28, 2019

Show notes

Mark Roberge is a senior lecturer with Harvard Business School, former CRO of Hubspot and author of the bestseller "The Sales Acceleration Formula". Join him as he takes you through his step by step guide to revenue growth.

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

An in-depth guide to driving revenue growth by company stage
When to scale and how fast
Product market fit, go-to market fit during the experiment stages

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

Mark Roberge

SaaStr 220: Salesforce Mobile's EVP, Leyla Seka on Her Biggest Lessons Seeing Salesforce Scale From $500m to $16Bn, What Needs To Be In Place For Hyper-Scale & How Leaders Build Trust In Their Organisation Mar 25, 2019

Show notes

Leyla Seka is the executive vice president of the Salesforce Mobile platform experience. Over Leyla's incredible 11 year journey with Salesforce she has seen the team scale from 1,800 to over 40,000 and revenue scale from $500m to over $16Bn. In Leyla's role today, she leads the charge on extending the power of Salesforce with a full portfolio of mobile apps, and is responsible for driving product, go-to-market and other key programs around Salesforce's mobile offerings. Prior to her current role, Leyla was executive vice president of the Salesforce AppExchange, where she launched a refreshed AppExchange storefront, a new partner program, and built an entire AppExchange-focused team, resulting in more than 4,000 solutions, installed nearly 6 million times. Beyond her day-to-day role, Leyla is also the executive sponsor of BOLDforce, Salesforce's organization for expanding and empowering the black community at Salesforce.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

How Leyla made her way into the world of SaaS with Salesforce when it had 1,800 people and $500m in revenue?
What were Leyla's biggest learnings on people and business model through seeing the first hand hyper-scaling of Salesforce from $500m to $16Bn? How did Leyla evolve and scale as a leader herself in those 11 years? What advice does Leyla give to young people considering whether to found a startup, join a startup or join a hyper-growth company?
Where do things start to break in the scaling of SaaS companies? What needs to be put in place to prepare for hyper-scale? What are the commonalities of where many founders go wrong in the scaling process?
What does Leyla mean when she says, "growing up in product, you have to lead through influence"? How does Leyla think this influence can be created and maintained? How does Leyla think about the balance between effective influence and excessive influence?
Why does Leyla believe that, "you can teach skills but you cannot teach empathy"? What have been her learnings from scaling teams when it comes to hiring and detecting candidates with true empathy? What can one do to nurture that empathy in the culture of the company?

60 Second SaaStr:

What does Leyla know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
What is the hardest element of Leyla's role at Salesforce today?
What does Leyla believe in SaaS that most around her disbelieve?

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 219: Atlassian President Jay Simons on How to Scale an Open Culture Mar 21, 2019

Show notes

At Atlassian, openness is core to everything the company does: employees can access most information on Confluence; "open company, no bullshit" is one of the company's five values. But it can be risky. Atlassians knew the company was going public four months before it filed. The entire company was told about Atlassian selling its chat products Stride and Hipchat to its largest competitor in the space, Slack, four days before the news went out. Some would say that that level of openness is unnecessary, but Atlassian believes that trust and honesty are essential to maintaining the culture its worked so hard to build.

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