SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Mike Land is the Founder and CEO of Rela (www.RelaHQ.com), a cloud based digital marketing platform for real estate agents and brokers. Rela allows real estate professional to create amazing digital experiences that promote their listings, enhance their online presence, and drive new business. Prior to Rela, Mike was the founder and President of a digital marketing and software development agency in Newport Beach, CA.

CEO – Luther Birdzell Luther is an entrepreneur, data scientist and engineer passionate about energy efficiency, AI and self-service machine learning. From boardrooms, to oilfields, to data centers, Luther has been building tools that transform data from a cost to an asset for over 20 years. He founded OAG Analytics in 2013 to build an AI and self-service machine learning platform for the oil & gas industry.

At 23 Spencer accepted his first Sales Director role and a year later was promoted to VP of sales for an e-commerce doing $5M+ in revenue. Spencer went on to begin is own company then found himself working at PandaDoc, a hot Silicon Valley startup before founding Cliently.

I'm a founder and CEO of Qlicket. We help enterprises and midsize businesses reduce turnover by giving frontline employees a voice. Before Qlicket, I worked at Blackstone in New York, and as a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners. I graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Matthew Prince is co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. Cloudflare's mission is to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world's largest networks: powering more than 10 trillion requests per month, nearly 10% of all Internet requests, for more than 2.5 billion people worldwide. Matthew is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, winner of the 2011 Tech Fellow Award, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. Matthew holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a George F. Baker Scholar and awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship. He is a member of the Illinois Bar, and earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago and B.A. in English Literature and Computer Science from Trinity College. He's also the co-creator of Project Honey Pot, the largest community of webmasters tracking online fraud and abuse.

Mr. Claudio Erba is the Founder of Docebo S.p.A and has been its Chief Executive Officer since March 2005. He serves as a Director at Docebo S.p.A. Mr. Erba served as a Board Vice President of RYSTO srl from July 2013 to December 2014. He served as Project leader of MHP Srl from October 1999 to June 2001 and Product Manager of Selpress from 1996 to 1997. Mr. Erba is also engages in diving into the topics of AI, learning automation, and the future of online learning at DoceboInspire. Mr. Erba lectured at the University of Florence, before founding Docebo S.p.A in Milan in 2005. He regularly appears on thought leadership and "movers and shakers" lists in the learning technology industry. Mr. Erba was a Guest Lecturer - Content Management System at University of Florence from March 2001 to July 2005. He studied Laurea in Economy and Marketing at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore from 1995 to 2001.

Case is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of PRSUIT - a top daily email focused exclusively on self development content. Named a top email newsletter by Entrepreneur Mag and features in Inc, Forbes, Chicago Tribune and more. 152K daily email subscribers and growing. Case is also the host of the New Mindset, Who Dis podcast, an iTunes top 50 podcast focused on real and no BS self development content.

Dan is president and co-CEO of AppDirect, the only end-to-end cloud commerce platform for succeeding in the digital economy, which he co-founded in 2009 with Nicolas Desmarais. He and his co-founder dreamed to someday build a business worthy of the Inc. 500 list. Since starting his entrepreneurial journey, Dan and his co-founder officially launched their company in 2011, raised over $245 million in venture financing and reached a company valuation of more than $1B. The AppDirect ecosystem now powers millions of cloud subscriptions worldwide and connects channels, developers and customers to simplify the digital supply chain by enabling the onboarding and sale of products with third-party services, for any channel, on any device, with support.

David Canek is the founder and CEO of Memsource, a software company providing cloud-based translation technology headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. David, a graduate in Translation and Comparative Studies, received his education at Charles University in Prague, Humboldt University in Berlin as well as University of Vienna.

Geoff Roberts is Co-founder of Outseta, a software platform that gives SaaS companies all the tools they need to launch and scale a subscription business.

Elizabeth specializes in strategy, market and product development for media companies and brands navigating a changing media landscape. As head of revenue for LAKANA she oversees platform strategy, business development and go to market for a leading content management platform powering 150 + million unique users a month across 60 % of local markets. Her firm The Osder Group has worked with brands including AOL, Univision, Associated Press, Kimpton Hotels, Ogilvy Mather and Group M on critical strategies for related to digital transformation.

David Naffziger is CEO and co-founder of BrandVerity, a provider of enterprise technology solutions that combat online trademark abuse and help advertisers ensure compliant marketing programs. BrandVerity's services enable clients to identify abuse and efficiently take action to resolve the issues discovered. David received his BS from MIT.

Kirk is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Wave, which he has led to nearly 3.5 million small businesses registered, with $100 million in funding raised from investors around the world. Kirk believes in giving back to the tech community, as a mentor and angel investor.

Conor Lee is the founder and CEO of HipLead. The company helps leading B2B companies scale their outbound sales with high quality lead generation outbound campaigns. Before founding HipLead, Conor founded several other companies including TellFi which was in the Y Combinator, Winter 2011 batch. Prior to that, he worked as a lobbyist in statewide political campaigns.

Patrick is a high school drop out turned serial entrepreneur. He's started 8 companies and has been the CEO of a public one. He's sold several million with video online but was frustrated with the existing video platforms; so he founded Vidaytics.com. Which is the highest converting video platform for online marketers. He also wakes up to Eye of the Tiger everyday. ;)

Vlad is the CEO of Webflow, which he co-founded with his brother and a close friend. While studying 3D animation (with dreams of working for Pixar) in art school, he fell in love with the power of programming. He lives near San Francisco with his wife and two daughters.

Capitalistbook.com: My new SaaS book on buying and selling companies, locking up distribution channels, launching with $5k side hustle

Capitalistbook.com: My new SaaS book on buying and selling companies, locking up distribution channels, launching with $5k side hustle

Founder and CEO of Slidebean. TEDx Speaker. Graphic designer transformed into growth hacker. Frequent flyer miles hoarder.

Founder/CEO at Join It -- a platform that helps nonprofits and organizations manage their memberships. Previously at Eventbrite for 6 years, where I worked on the API and Developer platform.

Capitalistbook.com: My new SaaS book on buying and selling companies, locking up distribution channels, launching with $5k side hustle

3rd time entrepreneur, now on my first Saas. Spaniard between Barcelona and San Francisco. Trained in business, always worked with technology.

Kim started her 3rd company, Trials.ai after her best friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given five months to live. What began as a passion project has turned into a mission-driven, venture-backed startup that is turning the clinical trials ecosystem on its head.

Capitalistbook.com: My new SaaS book on buying and selling companies, locking up distribution channels, launching with $5k side hustle

I am Ish, founder of Tars. I have been working on startups/products for the last 5 years now. Have seen both B2B and B2C. Very bullish about the future of SaaS and how you can build profitable bootstrapped companies.

CEO of Ruby on Rails Full Stack and DevOps

Studied Marketing & Mass Comm in the US. Transferred to Int. Business in NL. Started in biz dev on market intelligence products. Transitioned into management consulting. Later and for the longest in political consulting. Interest of social processes and information dissemination led to consent.io startup. 2 failed starts, bad timing, not right team. Now third time lucky and going strong for 2 years.

The CEO and co-founder of Float.com, the resource scheduling app helping agencies, studios and firms keep track of who's working on what and when. Float.com is bootstrapped, profitable and 100% remote, with Glenn currently based in Melbourne, Australia, where he has ready access to a good flat white.

Studied Computer Science at UCLA and Stanford. Founded Ronin (roninapp.com) in 2008, sold to GoDaddy in 2013 (since reacquired). Founded Reamaze in 2012.

Co-founder/CEO of Freshdeal, and previously Fruitspot, leading Agtech start-ups focused on the Produce Industry. He has built and led digital businesses worth +$2 billion for leading brands like P&G, Google, Nike, Coke, and Diageo. Jose has +15 years of experience in business strategy, digital, and marketing. As Director of Strategy at Hugeinc.com, and while developing through the ranks at P&G and Booz&Co., Jose has led business worth +$2B for brands like Procter & Gamble, Google, Nike, Coke, and Diageo.

Michael Chasin is the co-founder and CEO of the legal tech company, Lexicata, the world's #1 client intake and CRM software for lawyers. With thousands of law firms on the platform across 20+ countries, Lexicata helps bridge the technology gap many law firms face as more and more professional services move online to the cloud. Prior to Lexicata, Chasin founded LawKick in 2012, a leading online marketplace for seamlessly connecting clients to the perfect lawyer for their needs. After running LawKick for several years, Chasin became intimately familiar with the fact that lawyers often struggle to manage their leads effectively. As such, Lexicata was born in 2014 and has been helping law firms grow ever since. Before running two successful businesses, Michael attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning his dual degrees in Entrepreneurship and Economics, before moving onto Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School to earn his M.B.A. and J.D., respectively. Michael currently resides in Los Angeles, CA where he spends his free time surfing and playing golf and basketball

Jake Diner is an innovation and technology expert with two decades of experience in product management. He graduated from MSU with a degree in computer science. After working for over a decade in corporate leadership roles, including positions at Belkin and Dell, Jake decided to use his experience to build start-ups with a focus on those serving the insurance industry. After exiting from his first InsureTech venture-backed startup he co-founded seven years ago, he currently serves as CEO of Elafris, a San Francisco-based company that has built artificial intelligence-powered chatbot technology designed to help insurers meet the engagement expectations of today's consumer.

Atul Poharkar is the Founder and CEO of Plobal.ai. In 2016, Atul realised that even though mobile apps were the default future, the technology was limited to just the bigger players. That's when Plobal was born. He and his team built a platform for developing mobile apps and setting up the mobile commerce success journey for businesses without compromising on any tech abilities. Today, Plobal powers mobile commerce for hundreds of fast growing Shopify and Shopify Plus stores and has partnered with some of the biggest tech companies, including Google (Instant Apps), to bring the most cutting edge tech to their businesses. The team is building towards putting m-commerce on autopilot viz. autonomous commerce. Atul's future plans include roaming around the globe, gaining new experiences while serving as a bartender at local watering holes.

Robert Frederick, founder and CEO of Sirqul, has been focused on connected communities of devices, people, and businesses since 1993. He was inspired by the boundless future potential of smart connected devices and leveraged this passion to attend MIT, to work on projects in the MIT Media Lab, and to join one of the first startups focused on standards that would later be called BlueTooth in the late nineties. The startup's licensed product, DeviceTalk.com, was a central server running Intelligent Agents that used event-based logic to complete actions on behalf of its users via simple commands and conditional triggers. Identity and Presence were important then and still tends to be important now. Amazon acquired the company in 1999, and Robert led the internal team, Amazon Anywhere, that focused on making it possible to interact with Amazon Anywhere, Anytime, on Any device. After becoming the technical co-founder of Amazon Web Services and setting the stage for Amazon to become profitable leveraging the Cloud, Rob started Sirqul to create an Intelligence of Things (IoT) ecosystem on top of the cloud that also works at the edge. Sirqul has numerous partners that span Retail, Smart Buildings, Autonomous Vehicles, and Robotics.

Dave is an entrepreneur specializing in high-growth tech businesses, and a video insight evangelist with global ambitions for growth and adventure. As CEO at Voxpopme, he has redefined the possibilities of video for market research and customer feedback. The solution Voxpopme has built provides an end-to-end software solution for video research, enabling researchers to capture video feedback at speed, analyze it at scale and share it with ease. With Voxpopme, video is now truly agile.

Max Kolysh is a serial entrepeneur and investor. After graduating early from MIT with a degree in Computer Science, Max started Zinc.io (YC W14), a 20 person startup in SF which now powers tens of thousands of ecommerce companies around the world.

An early fascination with Google Adwords and analytics at the age of 18, lead me to start Data Nerds in early 2014. We have dabbled in digital marketing and optimization in several domains albeit real estate had us hooked. Our first product was a Carfax for Homes which landed us in the prestigious Techstars Boulder 2017 program. Fast forward less than a year and we are now backed by Foundry Group and Techstars Ventures. We are primarily focused on bringing transparency, accuracy, and education to the vast and segmented real estate industry.

Lalit is an enterprise mobility veteran with 17 years of experience building over 150 products. He invented hybrid mobile programming and has a patent in visual merchandising using image recognition. His 6+ years of sales force automation experience with FMCG market leaders has resulted in Bizom being at the forefront of digital sales transformation in India, helping over 250 enterprises achieve data driven transformation via automation and analytics!

John Nardone is the CEO of Flashtalking. A first-generation ad tech pioneer, Nardone served as a founding board member of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). Throughout his career he earned recog­nition within the advertising community for his ground-breaking work at Pepsi, Modem Media and Marketing Management Analyt­ics (MMA), culminating in his receiving the Ad:Tech Industry Achievement Award in 2012.

Entrepreneurial leader and team motivator with the ability to proactively identify market opportunities and solve challenging business problems. Keen sense of time-to-market and the bottom-line. Passion for new product/service innovation, startups, helping entrepreneurs, driving business acceleration and business execution. Experienced in Business Development, Product Management, Marketing, and Business Mgt & Operations in ecommerce and Marketing Systems, Mobile, Print-on-Demand, IPTV, 3D Printing and Automotive Telematics.

Matthew Schiltz is an experienced senior executive with a proven track record in building successful, high growth technology and cloud companies ranging from private startups to public companies. Matthew is CEO at Conga, directing the company's growth strategy, which includes financing, driving global sales and expanding product offerings. Matthew's extensive executive management and leadership experience is driving strong company growth which has resulted in several Inc 500, Fast 50 and Top 100 Places to Work awards. Past CEO successes include Insightful Corporation, CourtLink, DocuSign, Tier 3 and Blue Box Group. Matthew has received several industry accolades in recognition of his past successes and is considered an expert on software, technology, and cloud business practices.

Simeon has lived in 6 countries and 11 cities. Having helped sell real estate all over the globe, he now runs Spark, a software platform for new development projects with a team of 20 based out of Vancouver. His goal is to change the way new real estate is sold and marketed.

Matthew Glotzbach is the CEO of Quizlet. He joined Quizlet from 12 years at Google, where he was most recently VP Product Management at YouTube. Prior to YouTube, he was on the founding team of Google Apps. Matthew studied mechanical engineering at Cornell and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Abhinav Ansthana started Postman a side-project in 2012 to simplify API development. Postman has grown to become an industry standard API Development Environment with more than 5 million users and is used in every country and every industry sector, bringing API developer collaboration to enterprises and individuals alike.

Founder & CEO of ClearMetal

Venky Balasubramanian is the co-founder and CEO of Plivo, a cloud-based communications platform that simplifies how businesses integrate communications into their applications. Today Plivo has grown to over 200 employees across 3 offices globally and has been profitable since 2015. Plivo has expanded exponentially over the last few years serving over 70,000 customers and now handles billions of voice calls and SMS every year from businesses around the world. Prior to founding Plivo, Venky has had a number of years of telecom industry experience working in technical capacities with global telecom giants like Huawei Technologies.

Reggie Aggarwal is the CEO and Founder of Cvent, the leader in meetings, events and hospitality software. A lawyer by trade, Aggarwal founded Cvent in 1999 as a two-person startup, with the goal of making meeting planning easier for his peers in the business community.

Sharon Taylor is the Chief Executive Officer of Omny Studio – an advanced audio-on-demand platform built for enterprise audio publishers. With over a decade of leadership experience in the technology industry, at Omny Studio she drives awareness of podcasting around the globe - working with radio networks and podcasters to navigate and excel in the space.

Derek O'Carroll is CEO of Brightpearl, a cloud-based ERP built solely for retailers and wholesalers. Co-author of the Omnichannel Survival Guide, Derek is recognised as a leading retail expert leading BP that trades $1.8bn of business globally each year, cementing its position as an invaluable asset for mid-sized merchants seeking a competitive edge.

Internet executive with over 10 years of experience, including general management of small to mid-size organizations, product development, business operations, and strategy. Have conceptualized and grown multiple businesses from zero to multi-million dollars in North America and in the Middle East.