SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

The team is led by CEO & Founder, Tarik Khribech. Tarik is supported by Director, Consultant, Terri Friel and various mentors at 1871, Chicago's Premier Incubator. Tarik is a serial Entrepreneur, with expertise and passion that sits at the nexus of technology, innovation, lifestyle and social innovation. He built l'Or d'Afrique, a line of beauty products currently in 400 outlets and eCommerce. Tarik built the ChoreRelief platform.

Jay is the Founder and CEO of a B2B SaaS company called CloudSponge which sells an Address Book Widget and Contacts API that companies like Airbnb, Nextdoor, Yelp, GoFundMe and Stitch Fix use to grow their customer bases virally.

Ravi Sahu is a founder and CEO of Strayos. Before founding Strayos, he spent more than 12 years working globally with Fortune 500 companies like AT&T, Verizon and British Telecom in various roles, from product management to the building of teams for large digital transformation projects. His area of expertise is in Artificial intelligence and data analytics. He holds an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and Computer Science engineering degree from India.

Andrew Filev is the founder and CEO of Wrike, a SaaS-based work management platform that helps teams achieve operational excellence. Founded in 2006, Wrike now serves more than 15,000 customers in 130 countries, and employees 600 people across 5 offices. The company has raised north of of $26 million from Bain Capital Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, DCM Ventures and TMT.

Nicolas Dessaigne is co-founder and CEO of Algolia, the leading Search & Discovery API for websites and mobile apps. Launched in 2012, Algolia is now used by over 5,800 companies around the world. Prior to Algolia, Nicolas spent over 12 years working on information retrieval at Exalead and Thales.

Olof Mathé is the CEO and a co-founder of Mixmax, a company that is "bringing the power of the Web to email" by creating richer email experiences with embeddable Slack-style commands to trigger polls, video, calendar invites, and more without leaving the message. Mixmax was founded in 2014 and received a $1.5 million seed investment round from a number of individual investors in April 2015.After finishing his engineering degree in France, Olof previously worked at Skype and McKinsey. He also helped grow Inkling Habitat, a cloud-based authoring environment for writers and publishers.

Carlo Cisco is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple successful companies and helped grow category-defining brands. Carlo is currently the Founder & CEO of SELECT, which has been heralded as "AMEX for the Next Generation" and "The Black Card for Millennials". Carlo is also a member of YEC and has been featured in 100+ stories across numerous media outlets including Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Huffington Post.

Originally from Guatemala, moved to madrid to build a virtual workplace that enhances productivity for remote work; I genuinely believe it can be done. With this, there'll be no limits for undeveloped countries, which have so many people with an unmeasurable desire for success but lacks education, and decent, fair job offers.

Allie Magyar, Hubb CEO, is a skilled entrepreneur and technology maven with over 15 years of experience driving successful technology enabled service companies. Allie has been named a 2017 Portland Business Journal's 40 Under 40, a 2017 Top Woman Entrepreneur by Smart Meetings Magazine and, in 2018 was an EY Pacific NW Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.

nathanlatka.com/youtube

Full stack developer, co-founder of Digicoop, the company behind Kantree.

Master degree in Electronic Engineering in 1992, worked initially in the aerospace industry in Italy, England and the Netherlands. Founded his first company in 1995 (system integrator still active with 20+ employees), then a FHOSTER in 2008 (raised €1.2M from private investors and a VC fund), recently a company in the IoT industry.

Husband to Irene. Father to Abbey and Mike. Studied Statistics at Michigan. Play sports, especially golf and paddle tennis. Love to use data to analyze things. Professionally that means using data to help CPG companies make better decisions. Personally, that means a love for poker and wagering.

Sujoy is Cofounder and CEO at Airim. It was founded in April 2017. Airim is a virtual assistant that reduces the huge time and effort users spend in trying to find relevant information for them while exploring a website or a web app. Currently, it is used 2 million times a day in websites of businesses of all sizes across four continents.

I help companies to maximize their email channel ROI by providing the tools and knowledge to achieve just that. I play an active role in overseeing all product development, international marketing initiatives, and channel development. I believe people that I work with appreciate my creative & innovative thinking. I'm not all work, I love extreme water sports.

French internet pionnier. PhD in theoretical physics. Co-founded Weborama in 1998, survived the internet bubble crash, got listed on the french stock market in 2006. Founded Yoolink in 2008, pivoted to noCRM 4 years ago. Now more than 2 500 customers worldwide using our SaaS software to close more deals.

Nonprofits struggle to identify the right KPIs that enable them to evaluate whether the projects they do are truly making a lasting impact. Makerble suggests KPIs to nonprofits and provides them with a database, survey tool and analytics platform which lets them track their impact in real-time and share that data with their funders and donors.

Serial entrepreneur, working online since 1998. Investing.com is on its way to becoming a privately funded unicorn - offices across the globe over 300 employees and 60m in revenue. Oitchau is a time an attendance solution which started in Brazil to Solve the problem of 3m annual labor law related lawsuits in the country.

Tom Cameron abandoned a Structural Engineering career in 1997 to pursue Internet technologies. He has founded multiple small businesses and 2 Internet SaaS businesses. He currently lives in Brisbane Australia where he co-manages a coworking space, manages todo.vu and still has a hand in a web consulting business he founded 18 years ago.

I worked during 12 years in Pepsico Mexico and Latin America in several positions, started as Senior Financial Planning, and finished as Finance Director for IT & Innovation Area for Latam.

Dave Bell is an entrepreneur and recognized pioneer in the fields of mobile entertainment and digital content distribution. He has been featured in and is a frequent contributor to Inc. Magazine, Newsweek, VentureBeat, Website Magazine, Mobile Marketer, Mobile Retailer and numerous other publications. Dave is currently the Co-Founder & CEO of Gummicube - the leading global provider of data, technology, and services for App Store Optimization.

Joel Carusone is the CEO of Radius, the first B2B enterprise customer data platform. Joel holds a wealth of knowledge on, and passion for, the CDP space, and was one of the original architects of Radius Unify, the first ever, fully-flexible B2B CDP, bringing the new solution to market.

Dr. Don Brown's first company was acquired by EDS in 1986. He founded Software Artistry in 1988 which became the first software company in Indiana to IPO. Don then founded and served as CEO of Interactive Intelligence which went public in 1999 and was acquired in 2016 for $1.4 billion. He started LifeOmic in late 2016. Don received a BS in physics, a MS in computer science, and an MD from Indiana University. He also received a MS in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University in 2017.

Rich's passion for inventing and tinkering was ignited at an early age, when he attached some wires to a battery and a lightbulb and lit up his childhood bedroom for the first time. It also happened to be around the time he saw the movie Flubber, so it's safe to say his fate was sealed. Rich has a patent related to the military space and has experienced how difficult it is to get the products he'd spent years developing and prototyping actually made- this led to the creation of Inventaprint with his twin brother, Roland. Rich has worked on numerous critical global supply chain initiatives across various multi-billion dollar industrial companies in the Aviation, Oil & Gas, Locomotive, and Renewable Energy sectors. He advises on hardware-related inventions and can be found doodling designs for new product ideas in his (non-existent) free time.

inCast is a leading influencer marketing platform focused on Instagram. inCast works with top Instagram celebrities and micro-influencers on marketing campaigns in Brazil and United States. inCast is a member of Startup Farm Incubator program based at Google Campus Sao Paulo.

Founder/CEO of Motiva AI, Partner at venture studio The Data Guild, David is a serial entrepreneur. Previously he founded Social Kinetics (sold to RedBrick Health) and Proximal Labs (sold to Jive Software). He served as Chief Social Scientist at Jive and part of the team that took Jive to an IPO in 2011. He began his career as Program Manager for DARPA's CALO, the largest machine learning project funded by the US Government. Today he's an active early stage investor and advisor.

Jay Hakami is the Founder, President, and CEO of Sky IT Group an 18-year-old SaaS solutions provider, headquartered in NYC. Mr. Hakami's 30+ years of successful executive leadership roles have always focused on in depth understanding of business challenges and solving them with deployment of creative and practical IT solutions. Prior to founding Sky IT Group, for a period of 10 years, Mr. Hakami served as Senior VP at large system integrator with overall responsibility of operations, marketing, sales, and services delivery of an ERP and business intelligence solutions to the apparel manufacturing and distribution industries. In 2000 Mr. Hakami has founded Sky IT Group. During the first few years the business focus was around business intelligence and data warehouse projects specifically within the fashion industry. The industry and technology expertise offered by Sky IT Group have helped create one of the most successful industry focused technology company in the US. In 2007, recognizing the need to improve the communication between the brands/suppliers and retailers with timely, accurate product sales performance trends and insights, Mr. Hakami - with the help of data scientists and industry experts – launched the development of a SaaS platforms; SKYPAD for Wholesalers focuses on sell-through data collection, cleansing and insights for suppliers across all their sales channels and SKYPAD for Retailers that provides large multi-vendor retailers with a platform to accurately and securely distribute their sell-through data to their brands/suppliers. SKYPAD is considered today to be the most comprehensive, scalable, and secure SaaS B2B platform for product sales trends and insights for both retailers and their suppliers/brands. SKYPAD collects sell-through data from 170+ retailers globally across 4 continents, servicing 500+ mostly luxury and beauty brands and being utilized daily by 1400+ users to make business decisions based on facts.

Sam Pollaro is the CEO of Venga, a Washington, DC-based technology company that uses big data to help restaurants and fitness companies better understand and engage with their guests. Before co-founding Venga, Sam was the founder of Petals for the People, a business that revolutionized the sale and distribution of fresh cut flowers. Mr. Pollaro holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Clipr is a solution to create and publish mobile webpages inspired by stories format (insta & snap). Since companies struggle to convert on mobile, we make them achieve their objectives (sales lead loyalty) & monetize attention.

Founder and CEO of LogSentinel. Senior software engineer and architect with experience in big companies like Ericsson and TomTom. Former IT advisor to the deputy prime minister of Bulgaria. Regular speaker on IT conferences and technical blogger. Member of the jury of the International linguistics olympiad. Author of algorithmic music composer.

With over 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Marc is helping to revolutionize manufacturing sales enablement technology as part of the global Industry 4.0 movement. Atlatl Software offers a portfolio of disruptive software solutions that are the most efficient way to transform sales prospects and opportunities into customers while driving revenue in a matter of minutes.

Benjamin Dell is the founder and CEO at Missinglettr (a social marketing automation company that automatically creates 12 months worth of social content for each blog post you publish). He previously owned a web agency for over 10 years (acquired). During this time he also launched a number of SaaS startups (two of which were acquired). Benjamin is passionate about empowering businesses and brands with tools that help them succeed.

Guru founded Boomerang Commerce with a vision to power intelligent commerce. Formerly a leader at Amazon, Guru worked in the inceptive stages of Amazon's supply chain and merchandising organizations. He co-founded one of Amazon's cloud businesses, established Amazon's first B2B marketing channel and invented Amazon's Selling Coach to help brands and sellers to be successful with Amazon. At eBay, as the GM of Marketplace Experience, he led the global team that launched eBay's fast shipping program. Guru earned his MS in Computer Engineering (a focus on Machine Learning) from the University of Texas at Austin, and his MBA from the Wharton School. Boomerang's CommerceIQ powers Growth Automation on Amazon for Kellogg's, Kimberly Clark, Logitech and numerous other top tier brands.

I started in the Internet Marketing space in 2000, when I co-founded one of the world's first email service providers, CoolerEmail. As a pioneer in responsible email marketing, we grew CoolerEmail into a global software company specializing in marketing communication with over 1,500 clients. In 2010, after spending several years designing and implementing a more comprehensive way to meet the needs of small and mid-sized businesses, I launched GreenRope, a cloud-based platform that simplifies and consolidates a company's sales, marketing, and operations. GreenRope currently provides technology solutions to over 3,000 companies worldwide.

Naeem Zafar is a Professor of the Practice at Brown University and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a serial entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of TeleSense, an AgTech startup company. His last startup, Bitzer Mobile, was acquired by Oracle. Naeem has authored five books on entrepreneurship www.NaeemZafar.com.

Armand Thiberge, founded SendinBlue in 2012 with the goal of making effective marketing tools available to small and medium-sized businesses at a price they can afford. In September 2017, SendinBlue raised 30 million euros to accelerate product development and continue growing their team of 150 employees spread across 3 global offices located in Paris, Delhi, and Seattle. The company now services +60,000 SMBs in 160 countries.

Yash did his Mechanical Engineering and then worked as an Investment Banker before founding Gridle. He is a CNBC TV 18 Young Turk, Kairos fellow and MITx bootcamper. Currently, he serves as Co-founder & Chief Executive at Gridle where he looks after Finance, Resource Mgmt & Business Strategy.

I build things. Began playing with computers at age 13. At VSH Solutions we've launched many successful software applications and businesses alongside them which has grown our business as well. Throughout my life I've been focused on exploring new technologies and creating meaningful and enjoyable products with them. Now most of my time via VSH Solutions is concentrated on working with companies to continue exploring this passion.

Following my studies at KCL in London and my first experience of scaling a Rocket Internet company all the way to IPO, I initially worked as a Consultant for a boutique consultancy which focusses on procurement and restructuring, where I was also involved in HR and reorganisation projects. Two years later, I moved to help scale an InsureTech organisation from 15 to 160+ employees within 3 years, supporting their internationalisation strategy. It was during this experience that I discovered a gap in the market for a one-stop tool to scale companies and digitise HR (everything from recruitment to off-boarding), whilst really focussing on the needs of the employees. A few colleagues and I decided to start our own company, OrgOS, which is now just over a year old. We are a fast-growing HR software as a service (SaaS) start-up with over 15 employees and a diverse range of clients – from prominent brands to other developing start-ups.

Co-Founder & Managing Director Heiko Schwarz is Founder and Managing Director of riskmethods. Heiko is an expert in both software and strategic purchasing, and has spent 20 years successfully helping supply chain and procurement organizations implement solutions to increase performance, reduce cost and minimize risk. He has been honored with the Pro To Know award from Supply & Demand Chain Executive for his forward-thinking approach to the topic of supply chain risk management.

Amanda Lannert is CEO of Jellyvision, one of Chicago's fastest growing tech companies that serves 1400 customers with ALEX, the most helpful employee decision support platform on the planet. Jellyvision's been recognized as the Best Software Company and Best Culture by the Moxies, the Lighthouse winner by the ITA, and a top place to work in Chicago by The Chicago Tribune and Crain's.

Serial software entrepreneur. I've founded 5 software companies and made 3 exits so far. In 2002 I founded Solinor (Software development company) which was acquired by Gofore in 2018. In 2004 I founded Snoobi (Web analytics SaaS company) which was acquired by Fonecta 2012. In 2011 I founded Payment Highway (Payment gateway SaaS company) and that was acquired by Osuuspankki in 2017. Currently, I'm Founder and CEO at Leadfeeder (Lead generation SaaS company).

Having worked in sales and marketing for three software startups for years, Hewitt decided to launch a software company with his college roomate with the decision to bootstrap without any outside capital. With a strong passion for sales and athletic performance, the company has grown to nearly 10 employees and over $1mm in ARR.

Emna is the CEO and co-founder of Veamly. Prior to Veamly, Emna helped launching several companies as a global director of the Founder Institute and built several products as part of her previous company. Emna has a dream to change the way people communicate and kill the world of assumptions.

Product leader on a mission to use technology to understand each other better. Over a decade of nose-to-tail experience in the Silicon Valley has enabled Dmitriy to hone a distinct data-driven vision and cultivate an aptitude for creating dramatic category growth. Prior leadership roles at ADP, Duda, Conduit, Wellsphere and TiraWireless.

Rajeev Gupta has an extensive experience with application architecture and on-demand computing, and over 16 years starting and growing tech companies. In 2002, Rajeev co-founded Avankia which was one of the first companies incubated by Salesforce.com. This enterprise gave raise to DBSync, a Data Management Platform that provides a wide range of functionalities, including integration, backup, archiving, etc.

A 25 year payments veteran, Ralph Dangelmaier brings a wealth of knowledge leading strategy, marketing, sales, and product development as BlueSnap's CEO, thought leader, conference speaker, Top 50 SaaS CEOs (The SaaS Report), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, and Inc. 5000's Fastest-Growing Private Companies.

Michael believes that technology can make healthcare more efficient, more personalized, and help provide healthcare to more people. Michael co-founded DrChrono with Daniel Kivatinos in January 2009 and built the first-ever native iPad EHR app. Before DrChrono, Michael worked at Bloomberg LP where he architected components of the Bloomberg Terminal used by customers worldwide. Michael has a B.E. in Computer Engineering & Computer Science from Stony Brook University has been named to Stony Brook University's 40 under 40 outstanding alumni award in 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Chris Hall, the CEO of Bynder has grown his company to over 350 employees with seven international offices in just 4 years. He first conceptualized Bynder in 2010, while working to establish a web development company, Label A (still in business). In 2012, the Bynder was incorporated and by early 2013 had a license for business. Chris is an entrepreneur at heart, has successfully setup and scaled multiple SaaS companies, Bynder being most notable to date. He is a mentor and coach for young professionals interested in tech and entrepreneurship.

Co-Founder & CEO. Bootstrapped the company to $25M in ARR. Now 3 Acquisitions later backed by The Carlyle Group and TA Associates at $165MM ARR.