The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 158: 3 Core Skills of The Best Performing SaaS CEOs & The Inflection Points In The Scaling of SaaS Teams & How To Mitigate Them with Mike McDerment, Founder & CEO @ Freshbooks Jan 15, 2018

Show notes

Mike McDerment is co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the #1 cloud-based accounting software designed exclusively for service-based small business owners. Starting from his parent's basement, Mike has grown Freshbooks to more than 10m users worldwide and raising over $75m in VC funding from the likes of Accomplice and Georgian Partners. Mike is also the co-author of Breaking the Time Barrier, downloaded more than 250,000 downloads since its release.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Mike came to enter the world of SaaS with the founding of Freshbooks from his parent's basement?
Why does Mike disagree with the common notion of the "pivot"? How does Mike balance between realism when something is not working and vision?
From Mike's conversation with USV's Fred Wilson, what does he believe are the 3 most important roles of the CEO?
Why is the No 1 rule in SaaS, you do not replatform your software? What are the inherent dangers? How does it affect your ability to drive revenue? Where do most SaaS startups make big mistakes when replatforming?
Where are the inflection points in SaaS team scaling? What is the biggest challenge at 20 people? How does collaboration change when your team hits 40 people? How can one maintain seamless communication when one hits 80 people?

60 Second SaaStr

Why is Mike so bullish on SaaS outside of Silicon Valley?
How does being outside the Valley affect his ability to hire?
What does Mike know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

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

SaaStr 157: MuleSoft Founder, Ross Mason on How Unbundling to A SaaS Platform Alters Revenue, Org Structure and Product Roadmap, Why Moving To Silicon Valley Was Fundamental For Mulesoft &Why Startups Can No Longer Own The Entire Customer Lifecycle Jan 08, 2018

Show notes

Ross Mason is the Founder & VP of Product Strategy @ MuleSoft, one of the world's leading software platforms making it easy to connect the world's applications, data and devices. Following over $250m in VC funding from the likes of Lightspeed, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and NEA, MuleSoft then went public in March 2017, popping as much as 45% on it's first day of trading. As for Ross, prior to MuleSoft, he was CEO of SymphonySoft, an EU-based company providing services and support for large-scale integration projects. Previously, Ross was Lead Architect for RaboBank and played a key role in developing one of the first large-scale ESB implementations in 2002.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Ross made his way into the world of SaaS with the founding of MuleSoft?
Why did Ross decide to move full time to the West Coast having started the company in Europe? What were the biggest challenges about the move to the US? What advice would Ross give to prospective entrepreneurs, looking to make the move? Where does Europe exceed the US and vice versa?
What does it really mean to be a SaaS platform? What 3 elements of a company benefit when a product unbundles into a SaaS platform? How does unbundling change the process for building products and services? How does unbundling change the ability to drive new revenue streams? How does unbundling change core operational elements of the business?
What does Ross mean when he says we are shifting from verticals into value chains? Does Ross believe it is even possible to own the entire customer lifecycle today, from start to finish?

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What does Ross know now which he wishes he had known at the beginning?
How did it feel the day MuleSoft went public?
What advice does Ross commonly hear being given that he most disagrees with?

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

SaaStr 156: Most Downloaded SaaStr of 2017: David Skok, General Partner @ Matrix Partners Dec 18, 2017

Show notes

David Skok is a serial entrepreneur turned VC at Matrix Partners. He founded four companies: Skok Systems, Corporate Software Europe, Watermark Software, and SilverStream Software and did one turnaround with Xionics. Three of the companies he founded went public and one was acquired. In 2001 David joined Matrix Partners, who had backed his last two startups, as a General Partner. David's successful exits as an investor at Matrix include: HubSpot, JBoss, AppIQ, Tabblo, Netezza, Diligent Technologies, CloudSwitch, TribeHR, GrabCAD, OpenSpan and Enservio. David currently serves on the boards of Atomist, CloudBees, Digium, Meteor, Namely HR, Salsify, and Zaius. You can also find David's amazing blog here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How did David make his way into the world of SaaS? What was it about Matrix that made him want to make the transition from operations to VC?
Metrics: Why are metrics so important? What role do they play in an organisation? How do good founders respond to questions on not achieving sales targets? What metrics in SaaS really determine the trajectory of the business?
How can founders examine unit economics to determine whether they have a sustainable SaaS business?
How does David address sales rep productivity? How much in ARR should they be booking in relation to their annual comp package?
Negative Churn: What is negative churn? Why is it fundamental for SaaS startups to have a strong grasp of their negative churn? How does negative churn affect the pricing axis? What can startups do if they have no alternative product to upsell to?
Upsell: To what extent should founders be willing to engage in customisation in order to upsell a product? What are the dangers? What should founders be mindful of? To what extent is upsell the responsibility of customer success? Should they have a hand in the sales process? What are the dangers and concerns?
How important is it for a startup to track their champion with the customer company? Does it matter if your champion leaves? What should you do if so?

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

SaaStr 155: Intercom Co-Founder, Des Traynor on Constructing The Right Brand Architecture, The Right Way To Integrate Customer Feedback Into Product Roadmap & Why There Is An Inverse Correlation Between Quality & Market Size Dec 11, 2017

Show notes

Des Traynor is the Co-Founder, Chief Strategy Officer and VP of Marketing at Intercom, one of the world's hottest startups that simply put, makes communicating with customers easy and efficient. They have raised over $115m in funding from some of the world's leading investors including Social Capital, Index Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and then titans of industry with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and the Collison brothers at Stripe. Prior to Intercom, Des previously co-founded Exceptional (now a part of Rackspace), and prior was a UX designer for web applications.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Des made his way from founding consultancy web design businesses in Ireland to founding SaaS superstar, Intercom, with Eoghan and moving to San Francisco?
Why does Des believe that "brand is the most overlooked element for new startups"? How must founders think differently when constructing their brand for a single product vs multi-product company? What is the right way to think about this brand architecture?
How involved should customers be in the development of product roadmap? Where are the nuances and challenges to this? When is the right time to start thinking about releasing a second product? What is the right and the wrong way for this to be marketed?
What does Des mean when he says, "there is an inverse correlation between quality and market size"? How should founders think about selling to both SMB and enterprise? How do their buying psychology and implementation process differ?

60 Second SaaStr

When I say success, who is the first person that comes to Des' mind?
Where do most startups go wrong with their branding?
What does Des know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

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

SaaStr 154: Why The Rule of 40 Is Wrong, Why Growth Does Matter More Than Profitability & Why Every First Hire In A Function Must Be A Swiss Army Knife with Greg Sands, Founder & Managing Partner @ Costanoa Ventures Dec 04, 2017

Show notes

Greg Sands is the Founder & Managing Partner @ Costanoa Ventures, one of the leading early stage enterprise funds on the West Coast with their latest $175m fund, raised earlier this year. At Costanoa, Greg has made investments in the likes of Intacct (acquired by Sage for $800m), Quizlet, DemandBase and previous guest, Grovo, just to name a few. Prior to founding Costanoa, Greg was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill, where he was an early investor in the likes of Feedburner, AllBusiness, and Return Path. Before Sutter Hill, Greg was on the other side of the table as the first hire at Netscape after its founding engineering team. As Netscape's 1st Product Manager, Greg wrote the initial business plan, coined the name Netscape, and created the SuiteSpot Business Unit, which he grew from zero to $150m in revenue. He also served as Manager of Business Development at Cisco where he architected a global channel management plan.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How did Greg make his way into the world of SaaS as the first non-engineering hire at Netscape and then make his way into the world of SaaS investing, subsequently?
Why does Greg completely disagree with the hailed notion of, "The Rule of 40"? Why does Greg believe it has achieved such status and recognition in market today? Where are the large nuances? If not the rule of 40, what metrics and benchmarks should early stage SaaS founders be focussing on?
If we disregard "The Rule of 40", how does that impact the emphasis that should be placed on profitability? Tom Tunguz stated on the show, ""growth is the largest determinant of value at IPO, not profitability". What are Greg's thoughts on this?
In that scaling process, Greg has said to me before, "the first hire in every function should be a Swiss army knife hire and most people go wrong". What does Greg mean when he says a Swiss Army Knife, how does that change in marketing vs sales? Where do most people go wrong within this?
How does Greg define the different phases of product market fit? Why does Greg advocate that all founders approach product market fit with a "crawl, walk, run" approach? What examples does Greg have where this has worked and what specifically about this allowed it to work so well?

60 Second SaaStr

Logos or expansion?
Pros and cons of usage based pricing?
What does Greg know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?

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

SaaStr 153: How To Build and Scale Sales Teams As A Technical Founder, How To Scale The Sales Learning Curve & Why No One Actually Cares About Your Product with Spenser Skates, Founder & CEO @ Amplitude Nov 27, 2017

Show notes

Spenser Skates is the Founder & CEO @ Amplitude, the only analytics solution built for modern product teams that helps you understand user behaviour and ship the right solutions fast. They have raised over 55m in VC funding from many friends of SaaStr and 20VC including Eric Vishria @ Benchmark, Neeraj Agrawal @ Battery Ventures, the teams at IVP, Data Collective, Box Group and SV angel, just to name a few of their incredible investors. Prior to Amplitude, Spenser founded Sonalight, an app that allowed users to text while they drive, backed by the likes of Y Combinator.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How did Spenser make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Amplitude?
How did Spenser look to build and scale his sales team, as an engineering focussed founder? Where does Spenser see most engineering founders go wrong in their approach to sales?
What were the stumbling blocks that Spenser found hard in this learning process? What is his biggest advice to technical founders to scale the learning curve fast?
How does Spenser view the importance of a customer's willingness to pay? Does that suggest a correlated amount of value? How should this propensity to pay, change with the stage of the provider? How does Spenser suggest founders mitigate discounting?
What have been Spenser's core learnings in creating an incentivised sales team? What are the core drivers that yield the behaviour desired? How does Spenser look to align this with engineering teams, traditionally disgruntled with sales' compensation packages?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Spenser know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of Amplitude?
What is Spenser's fave SaaS reading material? How does that vary according to stage of business?
How does Spenser view discounting?

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

SaaStr 152: Cloudera's Lars Nilsson on Why SDRs Are The Most Important Role In The Sales Function, How To Build An SDR Team From Nothing & How To Construct A Compensation Plan That Drives A Behaviour You Want Other Than Just Revenue Nov 20, 2017

Show notes

Lars Nilsson is the VP of Global Inside Sales for Cloudera and with over twenty-five years of sales and operations experience, Lars Nilsson is a global leader in enterprise software and selling solutions. One of Lars many incredible achievements was he and his team at Cloudera built the sales methodology Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD), which has transformed how businesses approach high-value targets. Prior to Cloudera, Lars founded SalesSource, a business services consulting firm specializing in CRM customization and sales process development. Lars has also served in sales executive roles at ArcSight/Hewlett Packard, Riverbed Technology and Portal Software – all three of which achieved IPOs, in addition to Cloudera (2017). As Special Advisor at True Ventures, Lars helps True portfolio companies develop sales compensation plans from the ground up, implement best-of-breed sales technologies, and rapidly scale sales teams to meet demand.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How did Lars make his way into the world of enterprise sales back in 1995? How has Lars seen the industry change so significantly over the last 22 years?
Why does Lars believe that SDRs are the most important role in sales? How does their role of ensuring a full pipe compare to the role of demand gen and marketing?
How does Lars think about setting a quota that ensures a desired behaviour beyond pure revenue chasing? What is his framework for setting and optimising the right quota? Why does Lars believe that ales is all about activities? What activities is Lars most eager to measure and test?
What is Lars' biggest advice to someone looking to build out their SDR team from the ground up? What core characteristics should one look for in those initial SDR hires? What is and has been Lars' biggest challenge in building out his SDR team? Why is building SDR teams in the bay so hard?
How does Lars think about setting ideal customer profiles? How big a TAM is large enough to be excited, yet narrow enough to be achievable and solve a true and inherent customer need?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Lars know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What is Lars favourite piece of SaaS reading material?
Sales rep productivity, what does Lars believe is the scale from exceptional to poor?

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

SaaStr 151: AppDynamics Founder, Jyoti Bansal on The Requirements To Proceed Through The Scaling Stages in SaaS To Build One Of The Fastest Growing Enterprise Companies And Achieve a $3.7Bn Exit Nov 13, 2017

Show notes

Jyoti Bansal is the former Founder & CEO @ AppDynamics, backed by the likes of Lightspeed, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins just to name a few before it's ultimate acquisition by Cisco for $3.7Bn. Today, Jyoti is the Founder and CEO @ BIG Labs essentially a laboratory for creating, developing and launching innovative ideas. The first of these ideas being turned into companies being, Harness.io the industry's first continuous delivery as a service platform, where Jyoti is the Founder & CEO. As a result of his tremendous success, Jyoti has been a recipient of many leadership awards including, "Best Cloud Computing CEO to Work For", "Best CEO" by San Francisco Business Times.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Jyoti made his way from selling agricultural machinery with his father in India to creating one of the fastest growing enterprise companies with AppDynamics?
$0-3m ARR: What is the key goal and objective for startups scaling through this phase? How can startups look to accurately determine what their North Star in this stage? To what extent should the founder involve the customer in product roadmap and development?
$10-15m ARR: What are the core objectives for the business in this stage of the cycle? How should founders view competition through this phase? What does Jyoti mean when he says about "go-to-market strategy fit"? How can this be determined most accurately?
$60-80m: What should be front and centre of the mind of the entrepreneur at this stage? Why does Jyoti believe it is here that it is crucial to get sales execution right? WHere are the breaking points that occur in the team scaling at this phase? How does the role CEO change here?
Pre-IPO: Why is operational efficiency so crucial in this stage of the business? What did AppDynamics do best at this stage of the business? Where would Jyoti say AppDynamics could have done better in the progression through this stage?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Jyoti know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of Appdynamics?
What is Jyoti's must read SaaS material?
Payback period is the most important metric?

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

SaaStr 150: Why New Qualified Leads Divided By Win Rate Is The Metric in SaaS, Why It Is Harder To Go Enterprise Down Than SMB Up & How To Create Engines of Growth Within Your Organisation with Paul Albright, Former CRO @ Marketo Nov 06, 2017

Show notes

Paul Albright is one of the valley's most experienced SaaS execs with extensive operational and capital management experience, including 3 IPOs. Most recently Paul was the Founder & CEO @ Captora, the marketing acceleration software solution that raised over $25m in VC funding from the likes of NEA and Bain Capital Ventures. Prior to Captora, Paul was Chief Revenue Officer at Marketo where he drove the overall revenue strategy across sales and marketing that delivered global revenue growth over 100% year-over-year, from $14m to $58m. In a similar position at SuccessFactors, he grew revenues to more than $200m and over 80% year-over-year growth. Previously, Paul led worldwide marketing at NetApp and at Informatica, which he joined pre-revenue through their successful IPO. If that was not enough he has also served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Greylock.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Paul made his way into the world with the likes of SuccessFactors and Marketo? What were his big lessons from seeing both companies scale into hyper-growth mode?
Does Paul agree with Dave Kellogg in stating, "CAC/LTV is the single most important metric for SaaS startups? What other metrics must all VPs of Demand Gen and Sales be watching constantly?
What does an efficient sales and marketing engine look like? What are the core components to build that? What are the requirements to both run this engine and scale it quickly? How does the growth of this engine affect hiring in other parts of the business?
Why does Paul believe that it is much harder to go SMB up than enterprise down? What are the changes that are required on both ends? For this in "no man's land of pricing" what does an efficient sales process timeline look like from lead to conversion?

60 Second SaaStr

How does Paul think about picking the investors he works with?
Is customisation always wrong?
What is "good sales rep productivity" to Paul?
What does Paul know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

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

SaaStr 149: 2 Fundamental Challenges To Rapid Scaling in SaaS, The Importance of Short Qualification Periods & Why Departments Must Also Have North Stars with Jack Altman, Founder & CEO @ Lattice Oct 30, 2017

Show notes

Jack Altman is the Founder & CEO of Lattice, the #1 performance management solution for growing companies.They have raised close to $10m in funding from some of our favourites in industry including the likes of Miles Grimshaw @ Thrive, Khosla Ventures, Elad Gil, Alexis Ohanian and YC's Daniel Gross. Prior to founding Lattice, Jack was the Head of Business Development @ Teespring where he saw the firm move into hyper scaling. Jack has also build an incredible angel portfolio including the likes of Gusto, OpenDoor, Instacart, Zenefits and Soylent.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Jack made his way from seeing the hypergrowth of Teespring to starting Lattice?
What does Jack identify as the 2 core challenges to rapid scaling in SaaS? Does Jack agree with Chris Caren in stating you have to hire for 3-4 years ahead of the role? How does Jack see the role and structure of communication change with the scaling of a firm?
How did the early days of selling look with Lattice? How did Jack incorporate the team into his learnings and development within the world of SaaS? What should founders look for in the first sales hire? How does that profile change with the scaling?
Why does Jack believe that each and every department should have their own North Star as well as a company North Star? Does Jack concur with Eric Ries' believe that every department must also have their own budget?
In terms of metrics, how does Jack prioritise within the metric stack? What is most important for Jack to focus on? How has Jack seen this change with time? Does Jack agree with Shan Sinha @ Highfive that it is "always about payback"?

60 Second SaaStr