SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Jay is responsible for all revenue-generating activities of Atlassian, including customer success and retention, operations and marketing. Jay joined Atlassian in 2008 as vice president of sales and marketing to lead Atlassian's pioneering efforts to develop a high-velocity, low-touch sales model. He's overseen the company's global expansion, introduction of its Starter License program (a disruptive approach to "freemium" where the company donates all proceeds to a charitable cause), and its growing worldwide customer community and programs. In 2011 Atlassian introduced its cloud-based offering Atlassian On-Demand, an evolution of its fast-growing SaaS platform. Jay has more than 18 years of experience in the software industry. He began his career at Plumtree Software where he held a variety of senior marketing and sales roles. Significantly, Jay oversaw the company's expansion throughout Europe and Asia Pacific. When Plumtree was acquired by BEA Systems in 2005, Jay became vice president of marketing for BEA Systems, which was later acquired by Oracle in 2008. Jay holds a bachelor's degree in political and environmental science from the University of Washington.

Carbon Black solutions enable customers to defend against the most advanced cyber threats, including malware, ransomware, and non-malware attacks.

Ryan Carson is the CEO & Founder of Treehouse, an online technology school with more than 80,000 enrolled students and 850,000 students taught in the past 8 years. Treehouse takes people from zero experience to job-ready in as little as six months. He also founded Carsonified and DropSend.

Kevin is the founder and CEO of TribeBoost, the first company to offer Twitter audience growth as a service. He is a serial entrepreneur and has also founded ThoughtFlame, MoSquatch, and others. Early in his career Kevin one of the first employees of USinternetworking – maybe the first SaaS business ever.

Jon Wuebben is the CEO and Founder of Content Launch. He's also the author of 3 marketing books, including "Future Marketing: Winning in the Prosumer Age"

Entrepreneur, journalist, developer and passionate about innovation. More than 8 years building software in Brazil and deep learning how to deliver value to customers through IT. Today I advocate a safer, faster and more scalable internet through entrepreneurship. Have you met Netzei yet?

Internet strategist and entrepreneur Fritz Brumder is the founder and COO of Brandlive, a SaaS live video platform used by brands and retailers to create highly engaging live content for marketing, training and commerce events. Fritz has been developing digital media solutions for the world's best brands for over 10 years.

Ricky is CEO at Shorthand, maker of the visual storytelling platform trusted by the BBC, Business Insider, Refinery29, Honda UK, Save The Children, Cambridge University and hundreds of other publishers, brands, non-profits and universities. We make it simple for storytelling teams to create memorable stories that audiences want to share.

In 2009 I pulled a life 180, quit my sales job, taught myself how to code and launched a profitable SaaS in exactly one year. Seattle native, Texas Hill Country transplant. Working with an entirely remote team across three countries.

Ricardo Lasa – Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer Ricardo and Don Berndt co-founded SiteWit to bring the power of digital marketing to small business owners. Ricardo is product owner for SiteWit and has a deep understanding of website builder platforms, ecommerce platforms, predictive analytics, digital marketing, and SMB SaasS solutions.

Matt is the Founder & CEO of Stackify. He has been a developer/hacker for over 15 years and loves solving hard problems with code. While working in IT management he realized how much of his time was wasted trying to put out production fires without the right tools.

Stacey has extensive experience in generating demand, fueling growth, and building brand name global recognition for technology companies. She brings two decades of cloud, social, and mobile enterprise technology experience to her role as CEO of Zinc. Prior to Zinc, Stacey was Chief Marketing Officer at ServiceMax where she helped fuel 5 consecutive years of triple-digit growth leading to a $1b acquisition by GE in 2017. Before ServiceMax, Stacey was the Vice President of Global Marketing Communications at SuccessFactors. Stacey pioneered the marketing function at SuccessFactors in 2005, and was instrumental in the company's successful IPO in 2007, which led to a $3.4B acquisition by SAP in 2010. Prior to SuccessFactors, Stacey held leadership roles at Oracle, Clarify, and ServiceSource. Stacey holds a BA in English from Emory University, where she was a four time first team all-conference soccer player. She loves deep steep powder, chasing around her two young daughters, and cheering loudly as her husband coaches basketball. She frequently writes on leadership, innovation, and women in business for Inc, Fast Company, and BizJournals, which can be found at staceyepstein.com.

Jeremy Bodenhamer is the Co-founder and CEO of ShipHawk, a Smart Transportation Management System. He is a leading expert at the intersection of shipping and commerce, and has been featured in TechCrunch, AOL, WSJ, Fortune, Internet Retailer, Inc. and Entrepreneur, and is a frequent speaker on innovation and technology.

I started Hiver in late 2011, and over the last 7 years, have virtually bootstrapped it to $1.5 million in ARR. Our MRR grew 60% in the last 5 months, and we're now growing 10% mom. Announcing Series A soon.

I founded Wyzowl, one of the world's leading explainer video production agencies & publi.sh, a marketing content creation agency. We create exceptional marketing content for our customers through both brands. I share my knowledge online with regular marketing strategy videos and through a weekly podcast called the "Marketing Strategies Podcast".

I started an exotic car rental company out of my dorm room at Georgia Tech. I was Director of Sales at Lamborghini Atlanta for 6 years. In 2016, I founded VINwiki with a team of developer friends as a way to crowd source vehicle history & empower stakeholders. I also hold the Cannonball Run World Record.

An entrepreneurial executive, Gilad enjoys visioning and creating innovative solutions for cloud, mobile and web technologies. Gilad to co-founded eClincher, a platform to manage and analyze social media and online presence. Previously, Gilad held senior management positions at Ultratech, Bloom Energy, Verigy, KLA-Tencor, and Applied Materials. Gilad has proven track record in Business Management, Product Management, Engineering Management, New Product Introduction (NPI), and Manufacturing and Support.

Adam Harris is the Co-founder and CEO of Cloudbeds. Together with Co-founder Richard Castle, Adam has led Cloudbeds from a small startup to an award-winning company that powers tens of thousands of hospitality properties in over 135 countries. Adam started his career as an investment banker until his love of entrepreneurship and travel pulled him from Wall Street to some of the most remote corners of the planet. He has many years of experience in consulting, has built and sold multiple companies, and has traveled to more than 51 countries over the course of his career. Adam believes that travel and food are the keys to understanding the world and that, in particular, unique properties give travelers the best opportunity to explore and experience local culture.

Pat Sullivan has been building software for over 30 years. Along the way, he was named one of the "80 Most Influential People in Sales and Marketing History" along side Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Jack Welch and Bill Gates by Sales and Marketing Management. He was also twice named Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" for both ACT! and SalesLogix software.

Roger Wu is co-founder of Cooperatize, a marketplace connecting brands with bloggers. Prior, he had started e-commerce site, Giftfinder.com, and interactive video software, Klickable.tv. Roger was on the founding team of Bloomberg Law and started his career on Wall Street. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Management and Technology Program.

Adam Saven, Co-Founder & CEO of PeopleGrove Adam is the co-founder of PeopleGrove and has served as its Chief Executive Officer since inception. He previously worked at Google as a Business Analyst from 2013 to 2014, performing data analysis as well as informing strategic decisions for the Online Partnerships Group (OPG). Prior to Google, he served as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Global Technology Group of Credit Suisse.He holds a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The impetus for starting PeopleGrove came from a realization of how powerful mentors and the Penn alumni network had been in helping Adam to explore various career paths and access great opportunities. While at Google, Adam embarked on an after-work side project that would eventually become PeopleGrove. PeopleGrove has grown to reimagine mentoring for today's college students and professionals at over 120 colleges and organizations across the country.

Philip Soffer has been the CEO of test IO since May of 2016, splitting his time between Berlin and the SF Bay Area. Prior to test IO, he held senior leadership roles in product, development, and marketing at Plumtree Software, Lithium Technologies, and Piazza.

Dan Reich is the Co-Founder and CEO of Troops, a venture-backed technology company that is building artificial intelligence for work. Troops is working with hundreds of companies and has raised about $17 million in venture capital. He is also the Co-Founder and President of TULA, a health and beauty business that has created the world's first probiotic-based line of skincare products. He has been involved with companies that have raised over $100 million in venture capital and have exited for over $1 billion in mergers and acquisitions. Prior to Troops, Dan started a software company called Spinback which he sold to Buddy Media, and then to Salesforce.com for about $850mm. He has a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a contributing writer for Forbes and has been named Silicon Alley Top 100 by Business Insider.

Ian has been involved in technology businesses and start-ups for over 22 years and has built businesses in Australia, Taiwan, Silicon Valley and the UK. Ian has grown Adthena since 2012 to its current position as the premier global provider of competitive intelligence. While Adthena itself has won many major industry awards, Ian's entrepreneurial determination has also been recognized with the Developing Entrepreneur Award at the WCIT Enterprise Awards – commonly regarded as the 'Oscars for technology entrepreneurs'.

Gabriele joined Doodle in 2016 to transform it into a SaaS business. After studying physics, he went into consulting, got an MBA at London Business School and joined Doodle's mother company Tamedia. Swiss and Italian, Gabriele is a polyglot and loves the Mediterranean, the Swiss Alps, seafood and Swiss cheese.

As Riddle's co-founder, I'm a Californian who fell in love with living abroad in Europe over a decade ago. Since then, I've helped a string of start-ups and European companies (gaming companies Kabam and Marvelous AQL, Monster, and restaurant finder app CityHawk). I wear many hats - our quiz maker makes it easy for brands like the BBC and the NFL to engage their audience and collect leads with their own Buzzfeed-style quizzes, polls, and more.

In 2010, Drew Sheahan started a GPS Fleet Tracking Business from his up-stairs bedroom that would eventually rank #126 on the 2014 INC500 List. He sold that company in 2016 to pursue solving the #1 issue he encountered while scaling a business that generates website leads. That business became BirdSeed.io

Alex Bates is an angel investor and a Member of Peter Diamandis's Abundance 360 Network. He has spent the last decade bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to the forefront of the industrial market. From leading DARPA funded research in neural networks, to applying analytics for the world's largest data warehouses at Teradata, to creating Mtell, a machine learning company acquired by Aspentech (NASDAQ: AZPN), he believes the coming wave of human-centered Al has the potential to make us superhuman and create a world of abundance.

Matthew is a seasoned growth-stage technology investor and career VC, having originated, managed and completed dozens of transactions. As General Partner at Plaza Ventures, Matt specializes in deal flow, investment transaction processing, ecosystem development and investor relations. He sits on the board of numerous companies, as well as various accelerators and charities.

Software veteran Dave Keil brings a growth-oriented leadership approach to his job as CEO of QASymphony. For more than 25 years Dave has built a strong track record of business success. Prior to QASymphony, Dave was CEO of Digistrive, a provider of e-commerce solutions to large membership based organizations. He grew and eventually sold that business to a large private company. Before joining Digistrive, Dave was CEO of Integrated Broadband Services (IBBS), a software and services company. During his tenure, the company doubled in size, completed two strategic acquisitions and established a market leadership position in the "Tier Two" broadband space. Earlier in his career, Dave served as Chief Strategy Officer and later as Senior President and General Manager at ChoicePoint, a NYSE listed global information services provider (acquired by Lexis Nexis in 2008). Dave has also held senior executive roles at Novient, and Robinson Humphrey (now part of SunTrust). He received a MBA from The Wharton School and a BS in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Brown University. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and two kids.

LBA Ware™ CEO Lori Brewer is an accomplished entrepreneur and technology leader. Following the conclusion of her service in the U.S. Air Force, Brewer has dedicated her talents to improving the mortgage industry. She founded LBA Ware in 2008 to deliver business process optimization through LBA Ware's flagship products CompenSafe™ and LOS Talker™.

Payman Taei is an avid technologist who loves new trends and tries to keep up with the ever-evolving internet. Taei's background in Biology led him to truly believe in the art of evolution: everything changes in time and you either follow or create new trends or are left behind. Taei founded HindSite Interactive, a digital agency, in 2001 and out of that in 2014 incubated Visme, one of the leading presentation and infographic tools online. Visme empowers more than a million businesses, non-profits and individuals from over 90 countries, including NASA, IBM, and SONY, by improving the way ideas are visualized into engaging presentations, infographics and other forms of visual content.

Jeremy has spent the last 15 years in the tech-industry as a serial entrepreneur, startup adviser, and occasional investor. Jeremy has helped dozens of B2B companies drive adoption of digital commerce, and is still an active board member at a number of fintech companies. He started his career in technology as an engineer at nanotech startup Digital Instruments, which was acquired by Veeco (NASDAQ: VECO). Jeremy holds a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of California and a Masters in Business from the University of Massachusetts.

After working inside newspapers for 10+ years, Lloyd started OwnLocal to fix the business of news. With initial seed investment from Y Combinator, OwnLocal has grown to work with 276,000 SMBs through 3,500 newspaper partners all over the world. Today, OwnLocal is profitable and growing with 8-figure revenues.

James is the founder and CEO of Adzerk, an API company that powers native ads, promotions, and sponsored listings for companies like Ticketmaster, Wattpad, imgur, and many others. Prior to Adzerk, James co-founded TekPub which was acquired by PluralSight.

Web entrepreneur with an IT background working on his second startup.

Worked in Telecom for much of my carrier. Starting as EIR at IDT Telecom. Then worked as director of mobile apps for PCS wireless. It's there that I saw the market opportunity. I left PCS, sold my home and launched UpChannel.

Chad Rubin (Ecommerce Renegade) builds e-commerce businesses. Fresh out of college and Wall Street, he took his family vacuum business online and built his own direct to consumer e-commerce business called Crucial Vacuum. He grew it from 0 a $20 million dollar valuation in just 7 years. He happens to be a top 250 Amazon seller. He co-founded Skubana with DJ Kunovac and built one of e-commerce's hottest operational softwares.

For the first 18 years of my career, I built and scaled sales organizations at both Gartner and CEB. The corporate cultures instilled a sales rigor and discipline that has helped me to appreciate the complexities of sales management, operations, as well as the development of reps and their managers.

Serial Entrepreneur (1 Acquisition & 2 disastrous failures prior to this venture) and Online Advertising expert with more than 8 years of experience in advertising for retail brands and their retail locations.

Deb Noller is the dynamic CEO and co-founder of Switch Automation, a smart building software company specializing in building performance optimization. With 20+ years of experience in real estate, technology and sustainability, she is passionate about helping enterprises leverage next-generation facilities management technology to execute more efficient business operations.

Chris started Versium six years ago with the vision of helping marketers to utilize data and data technologies to improve their marketing and ROI. He lives and breathes technology innovation. Being involved in several early-stage technology ventures, his success spans enterprises in the Internet, mobile, and SaaS spaces.

Angam Parashar is a founder of ParallelDots. He is a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. After his graduation and before starting ParallelDots, he worked as a consultant at Opera Solution, a niche big data consulting firm.

Lover of dogs, people, uncontrollable laughter, and of course water fountains

Nicole Verkindt is the Founder & CEO of Canadian technology company, OMX (theomx.com). Previously, she led a high tech manufacturing business selling to Governments around the world. Nicole is on the Board of the Canadian Crown Corporation, CCC (Canadian Commercial Corporation) that performs government to government contracts between Canada and other countries around the world. She is also on the Advisory Board of the Peter Munk School of Global Affairs, known for their Munk Debates. She is a commentator on CBC and columnist for Vanguard magazine focusing on technology and business news and a "Dragon" on CBC's Next Gen Dragon's Den, which is dedicated to early stage technology businesses. She was named Canada's national woman entrepreneur of the year in 2017. She joined Gimlet media's show "The Pitch" as the 4th investor for the 2018 season.

CEO & founder of Pingboard, which provides live org charts & planning software to thousands of companies. Prior to Pingboard, Bill was CTO & co-founder of Webmail, the largest B2B email provider before Gmail. After Webmail was acquired by Rackspace, Bill co-founded Capital Factory, which helps entrepreneurs in Austin build great companies

'm currently 25 years old and is the co-founder and CEO of two software startups. I started coding at the age of 13. Started my first software business at the age of 18. I founded a web called Cloudfoyo in 2015, which was a web development agency. In 2017, I started Engagespot as a side project which is currently one of the leading push notification platforms, that sends around 400M notifications a month.

Ofer is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and led several companies in the areas of data communications, telecommunications, Internet, homeland security and medical devices. Ofer was founder & CEO of RIT Technologies (NASDAQ: RITT), a provider of sophisticated telecommunications and data communications systems to major world carriers. He began his career as an aerospace engineer in the Israeli Air Force and then built his own aerospace engineering consulting firm. As a hobby, he has also invented, developed and licensed toy concepts to companies such as Milton Bradley, Hasbro and Tomy. Ofer holds a Bachelor of Science (cum laude) in aerospace engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

Nick Francis is Co-founder and CEO of Help Scout, where he is on a mission to make every customer service interaction a more human one. His two passions — technology and entrepreneurship — led him to start a web consultancy soon after college where he learned how to craft user experiences with his partners, Denny Swindle and Jared McDaniel. In 2010, the trio founded Help Scout and left their hometown of Nashville to join the TechStars accelerator program in Boston. That program, along with the Boston startup ecosystem, helped transform Help Scout into something real — a successful, remote company now serving more than 8,000 customer support teams around the globe. Nick lives and breathes product design, customer experience, and building a thoughtful, thriving company. He feels lucky to wake up every day and work alongside people who challenge him to grow and do great work.