The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders

Latest Episodes:

SaaStr 138: The Rule of 40% For A Healthy SaaS Company, Why It Is Not All About Top Line Growth In Enterprise & Why Land & Expand Is Wrong with Vineet Jain, Founder & CEO @ Egnyte Aug 14, 2017

Show notes

Vineet Jain is the Founder & CEO @ Egnyte, the startup that delivers smart content collaboration in the cloud or on-premises. They have raised over $60m in VC funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures and one of our favourites here, Mike Maples @ Floodgate. Prior to Egnyte, Vineet founded and successfully built Valdero, a supply chain software solution provider, funded by KPCB, MDV and Trinity Ventures. Before that, Vineet held a variety of senior operational positions at KPMG and Bechtel.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Vineet made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found his second startup in Egnyte?
Vineet states that it is not all about top line growth, how does he look to satiate VC appetitie for growth with this mentality? Why does he think that we should discuss EBITDA margins more often within business models in Silicon Valley?
Considering this conservative approach, how does Vineet determine when is the right time to put the "pedal to the metal" and raise a large round of funding and really look to gain the market? What metrics suggest product market fit to this extent?
Why does Vineet argue that land and expand is all wrong? What alternative does Vineet offer for those looking to sell to enterprise?
How does Vineet evaluate "The Rule of 40% For A Healthy SaaS Company"? What are the inherent flaws in this model? How can this model be gamed by posting enormous growth figures? What figures should startups input into this ratio?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Vineet know now that he wishes he had known earlier?
How long is long enough to give someone who is not performing?
What hire does Vineet wish he had made earlier?

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

SaaStr 137: How To Scale A Sales Org The Right Way, What Makes A Truly Effective SaaS Board & Why SaaS Leaders Need To Be Vulnerable with Max Yoder, Founder & CEO @ Lessonly Aug 07, 2017

Show notes

Max Yoder is the Founder & CEO @ Lessonly, the modern learning software used by teams to translate important work knowledge into Lessons that accelerate productivity. They have raised funding from the likes of former ExactTarget CMO Tim Kopp, OpenView Ventures and New York Times Bestseller Jay Baer just to name a few of the impressive figures involved. Fun tact; they are based in Indianapolis and so Max brings a fantastic perspective on scaling and operating a growing SaaS business outside Silicon Valley.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Max made his way into the world of startups and came to found Lessonly, one of the hottest SaaS startups outside of Silicon Valley?
Max has previously stated that 'SaaS scaling happens in 3 stages'. What are those stages? What is the most challenging stage? How does the CEO need to transition with each stage?
How does Max view the scaling of the team? Why does Max think it is bad to give large and often inflated titles in the early days? How can CEOs most effectively look to place people in the right place to ensure the most productive of scaling?
What does Max most look for in potential Lessonly employees? Why is it so fundamental that candidates have experienced some form of professional hardship before?
How does Max view the role of the board in the scaling of a SaaS organisation? What are the components that make the best boards? What are the components that make the best board members?

60 Second SaaStr

What one hire does Max wish he had made sooner?
What SaaS reading material can Max not live without?
Pros and Cons of running a SaaS startup outside the valley?

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

SaaStr 136: What Role Should The CEO Play With The Marketing Strategy, What Do CEOs Most Often Get Wrong About CMOs & What Makes The Optimal CEO-CMO Relationship with Stacey Epstein, CEO @ Zinc Jul 31, 2017

Show notes

Stacey Epstein is the CEO @ Zinc, the secure communications platform for workers in front of customers, not computers. They have backing from some of the best in SaaS investing including the likes of Jason Green @ Emergence, CRV with George Zachary and GE Ventures. Prior to Zinc, Stacey was CMO at Banjo. Before Banjo, Stacey was CMO at ServiceMax where she helped fuel 5 consecutive years of triple-digit growth. Finally, before ServiceMax, Stacey was the Vice President of Global Marketing Communications at SuccessFactors. During her tenure with SuccessFactors, Stacey pioneered the marketing function in 2005, and was instrumental in the company's successful IPO in 2007, which led to a $3.4B acquisition by SAP in 2010.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Stacey made her way from Executive Assistant working for another Executive Assistant before moving to CMO and today as CEO?
What were the fundamental lessons Stacey took from her career as CMO to now being CEO/ What were some of the hardest elements of the transition?
What role should the CEO play in the marketing strategy and execution? What do CEO's most often get wrong about CMO's?What is the optimal and most efficient working relationship between CEO and CMO?
How does Stacey create alignment and strong and successful communication between the traditionally conflicting sales and marketing? How does transparency help drive better business results?
How can one look to instill these values and communication standards on inherited organisations they they did not found? Are there any drawbacks to transparency and communication?

60 Second SaaStr

What hires does Stacey wish she had made earlier?
What can females do to master the art of negotiating?
Recruiting in the valley today, how tough and top tips?
When is the right time to hire your CMO?

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

SaaStr 135: Auren Hoffman on Why Raising Prices Is Not A Good Idea, How Fewer Employees Can Mean Fast Growth & Why The CEO Must Never Delegate HR Jul 24, 2017

Show notes

Auren Hoffman is the Founder & CEO @ Safegraph, the startup that is unlocking the world's most powerful data so that machines and humans can answer society's toughest questions. They have backing from likes of Naval Ravikant and prior guests of the show including SignalFire, IDG Ventures and David Rodnitzky just to name a few. Prior to Safegraph, Auren has an astonishing 5 successful exits under his belt with one being, LiveRamp (sold to Acxiom for $310m in 2014). If that was not enough, Auren is also a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of ThumbTack, Rainforest QA, Brightroll and Groupon.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Auren made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found his 6th SaaS startup in Safegraph?
Auren has said before there are two types of successful sales people, what are these two types and what are their character profiles? What type of company should have each different profile? How does each profile interact differently with the rest of the company?
Why does Auren take the contrarian view and saying that highering your price is not always the right answer? In what markets is it right to higher or lower your price? When is it the wrong time? What percentage of revenue should sales and marketing be at a healthy SaaS startup?
Why does Auren believe that you can actually grow faster by having fewer employees? In what situation and start does this work and when does it not? ?
Why does Auren believe that the CEO should never delegate HR? What does Auren mean when he says the best HR professionals are real capital allocators?

60 Second SaaStr

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

SaaStr 134: The Crucial Difference Between Mentorship & Advocacy, Why You Have To Practice Upward Empathy & How To Make The Successful Transition from Services Based Business to SaaS Based Business with TapInfluence CEO, Promise Phelon Jul 17, 2017

Show notes

Promise Phelon is the CEO @ TapInfluence, bringing the first ever influencer marketing platform to the Fortune 1000. Under Promise's leadership the company has enjoyed a 300% increase in revenue in 2015 alone, they made the successful transition from a services to a SaaS model and were successful in raising a fantastic $14m Series B. Prior to TapInfluence, Promise was the Founder and CEO at 2 startups, one of which, The Phelon Group, grew to 8 figure revenues and was successfully acquired in 2009. Before that, Promise got her start at BEA systems.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Promise made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be at BEA systems, one of the most exciting companies in the valley at the time?
How does Promise view the importance of building long lasting relationships with colleagues? How does Promise suggest is the right way to leave a job and sustain the best communication and relationship with former employers and colleagues?
What does Promise mean when she states the importance of upward empathy? What are the benefits of installing this in your organisation? What is the right way to breed a culture of upward empathy?
How does Promise differentiate between 'advocate' and 'mentor'? What is the right way to attain each of these? At what point in one's career is the right time to have each of these?
What does Promise believe is the formula for making the successful transition from a services based business to a SaaS business? How can one make the change without significant customer churn and revenue loss?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Promise know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?
How does motivating people differ when outside of the valley?
Should customer success be able to upsell?

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

SaaStr 133: 3 Fundamentals SaaS Founders Have To Nail To Get To $30m+ ARR & What First Time SaaS Founders Can Do To Increase Their Chances of Product Market Fit Jul 10, 2017

Show notes

Ashu Garg is a General Partner @ Foundation Capital whose portfolio includes the likes of Uber, Lending Club, Adroll and Netflix, just to name a few. As for Ashu, at Foundation he has led investments and naming just a few of them here, in the likes of Conviva, Localytics and TubeMogul, later going public in 2014. Prior to Foundation, Ashu was the General Manager for Microsoft's online advertising business.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Ashu made his way from completing to the Rubik's cube as a kid in 25 seconds to being a leading SaaS VC?
How does Ashu really define scaling a SaaS company? What does product market fit really look like with regards to ARR growth?
What are the 3 fundamentals that SaaS founders have to nail if they are to scale to $30m+ ARR? Why does Ashu believe it is so important to have a single insertion point? What does this mean for SaaS founders?
What does Ashu advise first time founders making their first foray into the world of SaaS? How should they think about obtaining and building an ecosystem of mentors? How should they manage weaknesses within their own skill sets? Does Ashu believe with Aaron Levie @ Box, "anyone can learn to be a great CEO"?
Where do technical founders most often struggle? What can be done to help them go from 0-1 on customer acquisition? Where do business led founders most often struggle? How must they think of the engineering element as a core part of the founding team?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Ashu know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
Chats: Fad in the enterprise or here to stay?
Biggest inflection points and breaking points in SaaS company growth?

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

SaaStr 132: Why The 1 Metric You Have To Know Is "Magic Number", Why Measuring The "Time To Money Is Crucial" & Why You Must Switch From Metrics to KPIs with Kurt Bilafer, CRO @ WePay Jul 03, 2017

Show notes

Kurt Bilafer is the CRO @ WePay, the most complete payments solution for platforms. To date, they have raised close to $75m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Max Levchin and August Capital just to name a few. As for Kurt himself, prior to WePay he has had experience both in startups and large corporations with his founding of Pilot Software, sold to SAP in 2007, where he spent a further 7 years holding titles such as a Global Vice President of Sales and Director of Strategic Accounts.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How did Kurt make his way into the world of SaaS? What were Kurt's big takeaways from seeing the internal machinations of SAP?
What is the one metric that guides Kurt's thinking? How can you calculate your "magic number" for your business? Why must SaaS founders switch from activity based metrics to KPI's?
How does Kurt assess scalability and repeatability of revenues? What is a reasonable ratio for sales and marketing expense to revenue?
Why should SaaS founders focus on the LPI of "time to money". How can they look to optimize this? How has Kurt seen the enterprise sales cycles change since his time with SAP?
How does Kurt assess conflict within the sales and marketing teams and customer success and product teams? How can managers look to implement an element of prioritization into what sales teams submit to product teams?

60 Second SaaStr

What does Kurt know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What is the worst piece of SaaS advice that Kurt commonly hears being given out?
What should one look for in their VP of Sales?
What mistake does Kurt see most in the world of SaaS?

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

SaaStr 131: The Secret To Selling To SMBs & Creating A Sales Model That Scales with Jens Nylander, Founder & CEO @ Automile Jun 26, 2017

Show notes

Jens Nylander is the Founder and CEO @ Automile, the startup that makes fleet and asset management much much easier. They have backing from some of the best in the business including Godfather of SaaS himself Jason Lemkin, the wonderful team at Point Nine, Justin Kan and Dawn Capital in London. As for Jens, he really is a serial entrepreneur with past endeavours including creating Sweden's largest music player and founding Jays, the manufacturer and developer of innovative headphones that went public and is listed on the NASDAQ.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How did Jens make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Automile?
How does Jens look to build a repeatable scalable sales process with Automile? What are the core infrastructure requirements needed to make the process as automated as possible?
How does Jens evaluate selling into the SMB market? How does Jens look to optimise the onboarding process to maximise conversion? How does Jens look to minimise churn with a market as potentially unstable as SMB's?
Why does Jens prefer technology minded sales teams? What benefits do they bring in terms of process to the sales cycle? What should founders look for in potential new engineering led sales teams?
Jens is increasing transparent, posting numerous figures on Twitter, what are the benefits of such transparency? How does that help the team to achieve the wider goal? Are there any cases, such as fundraising or exits, where transparency has negative consequences?

60 Second SaaStr

What was the hardest element of leaving Europe to go big in the US?
What does Jens know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What hires does Jens wish he had made earlier?

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

SaaStr 130: Accel's Steve Loughlin on Founding RelateIQ & Lessons From Working with Marc Benioff, How Founders Can Determine Which Is The Right Market For Them & Evolutions in The Enterprise AI/ML Landscape Jun 19, 2017

Show notes

Steve Loughlin is a Partner @ Accel in San Francisco, one of the leading funds with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Dropbox, Atlassian, Slack and many more incredible companies. Prior to Accel, Steve was the CEO and co-founder of RelateIQ, later named SalesforceIQ following the acquisition of the company by Salesforce in 2014 for $390 million. Steve was also president and CEO of Affinity Circles, a professional social network that connected more than 18 million professionals. Steve has also advised or invested in the likes of Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and Roam Analytics.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How Steve made his way into the world of SaaS with the founding of RelateIQ and then came to be a Partner at Accel on the other side of the table?
Why does Steve believe the hardest balance a founder has to consider is the balance between building for the future and building for the present? How can this short to long term dichotomy be considered effectively by the team?
RelateIQ was early to the AI/ML landscape, what does Steve think they did so right with RelateIQ? Does Steve agree that for an enterprise ML play to be interesting it must fundamentally change the go to market strategy?
What were the key learnings from working so closely with Marc Benioff on the Salesforce exec team? What is it about the internal structure and operations of Salesforce that make it the massively profitable behemoth that it is today?
Having been a founder himself and now a VC, how does Steve look to help founders specifically? Where has Steve found that early stage founders need the most help? Where do VCs proclaim to help the most but really do not at all?

60 Second SaaStr

What is the worst advice Steve often hears being given?
What is something that Steve has changed his mind radically on over the last few years?
What is Steve's favourite SaaS reading material?
What does Steve 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 129: How To Quadruple MRR Growth With SDR Training, The Right Way To Scale Prospect Search & Why Startups Can Immediately Be In The Enterprise Market with May Habib, Founder & CEO @ Qordoba Jun 16, 2017

Show notes

May Habib is the Founder & CEO @ Qordoba, the best platform for building truly localized products across apps, websites and marketing content. It is the fastest, most scalable way to grow from one market to many. We do also want to say a big congratulations to May for recently raising a fantastic Series with the likes of Upfront Ventures and Rincon Partners leading the round. Prior to founding Qordoba, May was Director of M&A at Mubadala and an investment banker at Lehmann Brothers and Barclays in New York. May has also been named to the 30 Under 30 and CEO of the Year award.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

How May made her way from North Lebanon to founding one of the hottest early stage SaaS companies on the West Coast?
May has quadrupled her MRR growth since last year through 'turning her SDR's into the smartest people in the space'. What does this mean? How can this be done and replicated? What "SDR best practices did May follow that damaged her?
May has a unique approach to scaling prospect search, how does this play out Does May agree with Mark Suster with regards to always calling high on customer outbound? Why does May think there is only value in outbound to seriously qualified leads?
Why does May believe that startups are wrong to think that they have to start at SMB and then move up to enterprise? How can startups immediately start with enterprise? What advice does May have in terms of asking for those big ACV's as a small startup?
What advice did May receive during her fundraising that she found particularly jarring? What other than funds does May believe fundraising can be particularly good for?

60 Second SaaStr