SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Jon holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley and currently resides in Hillsborough, CA with his wife and two daughters. He's a big fan of aquariums and is known for his epic all hands speeches.

2X Founder with experience of building martech products. Experience of working across telecom, education and martech and building products that touched over 100Mn users. Passionate about how mobile and web are shaping the future. On the sidelines, I love cycling and catching up with my favorite podcast shows.

Sara is the Co-founder of StellarEmploy. StellarEmploy's B2B SaaS platform uses deep learning to help employers hire better hourly workers and improve retention by 30%. She developed the technology while completing her PhD at Harvard. She has ten years of international operations experience and completed her BA at Stanford University.

I was born in Minsk, Belarus, around the time USSR started to collapse. Severe infection with the entrepreneurship bug got me to do things like wash cars when I was 7 and sell berries when I was 10. Eventually, it got so bad I had to jump on a plane to USA, where this type of disease is not only not treated, but also rewarded. There, I started numerous software companies, raised multi-million dollar financing rounds, built amazing teams, and helped dozens of thousands of businesses to be more efficient.

Mat Ellis founded Cloudability in April 2011 and is its CEO. Prior to Cloudability, Mat held executive positions with four startups, and key technology roles at Frito-Lay, Pepsi Cola and Goldman Sachs. He currently sits on the boards of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and the Technology Association of Oregon. Originally from the UK and now residing in Portland, Mat is well known as a mentor and advisor to startups across the US.

Founder & CEO of Any.do

Rob Frohwein is the co-founder and CEO of Kabbage. In 2008, Rob Frohwein recognized that companies like eBay offered automated access to small business transaction data via APIs. Rob realized small businesses could simply share this data to allow underwriters to make better, faster credit decisions and provide a great user experience. He co-founded Kabbage in Atlanta, Georgia, to leverage the power of real-time data automation through technology. Before founding Kabbage, Rob advised, established and/or led several successful businesses, including LAVA Group, U.S. Micro Corporation (acquired by Arrow Electronics) and Surgical Biologics (acquired by MiMedx). Additionally, he led business development and legal for ZapMedia and Security First Network Bank (SFNB), the first online bank.

Markus Linder is the chief executive officer and co-founder of SMARTASSISTANT, the leading global technology provider for Digital Advice and Guided Selling technologies for online retailers, manufacturers and service providers. Over the last 11 years under Markus guidance, SMARTASSISTANT has grown internationally, with offices at several locations in three continents.

Niklas is co-founder of the SaaS company Filestage. Filestage is a solution web application that makes it easy to share, comment on (+draw) and approve videos, designs and documents, allowing customers and colleagues to mark change requests directly online in the file. This helps to avoid long feedback rounds via email. Before Niklas founded Filestage he used to work in different companies in marketing, advertising and e-commerce. In this time he experienced how time consuming and painful the content review process could be. Especially when done via email. So he started Filestage - his first SaaS startup.

CEO and Co-Owner of Z2 Systems, Inc. After making a few mistakes growing up and turning my life around, I decided to focus my life on helping nonprofits. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to own and run a software company that helps nonprofits work towards achieving their missions. We started the company with just two people and some friends and family money, and are now surpassing the largest competitors in the industry.

Chris Vandersluis – a veteran North American project management authority, public speaker and author – is CEO of HMS Software, publisher of world-leading TimeControl® web-based corporate timesheet software.

Dr. Yampolskiy is a recognized expert in the security field. He is CEO of SecurityScorecard, the leader in security ratings, used by hundreds of customers like GE, McDonalds, Pepsi, AllState, AIG, Bank of NY Mellon, and others. Before founding Security Scorecard, he was the CISO at Gilt Groupe, and has held lead technologist and security roles at Goldman Sachs, Oracle, Cinchcast, and Microsoft. Yampolskiy is a published author and active speaker in the security and software development communities. He has a Ph.D. in Cryptography from Yale University.

Simone Vincenzi, known as The Experts Strategist, is the co-founder of GTeX, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine and Huffington Post contributor, TEDx speaker, Host of the podcast Explode Your Expert Business, author of 3 life-changing books. Simone is passionate about turning experts into authorities using his signature EXPLODE YOUR EXPERT BIZ programs. Every year he speaks in front of more than 5,000 business leaders, which included sharing the stage with Les Brown, Dr John DeMartini, Simone Sinek, John C. Maxwell and many more. He has also organised over 600 events, including Gary Vee speaking from York Hall boxing ring, and he is currently speaking in more than 200 stages every year. Following his passion for making an impact on the younger generation, he also partners with the largest youth organisations in the UK, helping them deliver more effective courses and training. Simone cannot live without 3 things: Speaking, basketball and playing his Didgeridoo.

Vladimir launched his first SaaS-startup in 2014. Created his first customer academy for that startup and when he saw that a lot of people wanted to have the same academy, he decided to pivot his startup and in 2016 founded an academy builder for SaaS-companies.

Gleb Budman is co-founder and CEO of Backblaze, which he and his team grew to $20m in revenue and profitability, while building one of the largest and most cost-efficient cloud storage systems on the planet. Previously, Gleb led two product teams from pre-funding through acquisition, and founded three companies.

As Chief Strategy Officer Eugene helped SEMrush to more than triple it's revenue in less than 2 years and raised over $40m from Tier 1 VC firms. Before joining SEMrush Eugene was a partner at Target Global, pan-european growth stage venture fund that invests in consumer Internet space. There Eugene was in charge of US pipeline and invested in number of notable companies including Blue Apron(IPO), Lyft and Juno(acquired by Gett) Eugene started his VC career as Senior Associate and then Partner at Foresight Ventures. Foresight Ventures was focused on early stage US technology companies. Fund generated number of profitable exits over three years and was ranked top 10 Russian VC firm by Forbes in 2013.

I'm the CEO at Siftrock. I joined as ex-post-facto co-founder in Oct 2016. I'm passionate about all things related to SaaS marketing and sales. Previously founder and CEO at Simply Measured in the social analytics space. Also a BOD member at Bizible - leader in b2b marketing attribution.

Max Armbruster is the founder and CEO of Talkpush, the leading messaging recruitment platform. Max is a serial entrepreneur, and has sold his last three companies, most recently a recruitment SaaS company. Max has 17 years of international experience in the US, Europe and Asia, and has held strategic roles at SAP, CNET Networks and AT Kearney.

CEO of ProcurementExpress

43yo engineer, married, 3 children, living on a farm in North Denmark. Built up a top App agency from 2008 with 15 employees and produced over 120 apps for top danish companies. Sold the company and co-founded PRE.DO to help companies to capture, create overview and progress on ideas from their employees.

Oren Klaff - Bio, With securities markets experience in capital raising advisory leadership, Oren is Director of Capital Markets at investment bank Intersection Capital, where he manages its capital-raising platform. Since 2005, Oren has since grown the firm history to approximately $2 billion in aggregate trade volume across a diversified portfolio of companies and transactions. He is responsible for business development and product development, and oversees the firm's flagship product, the Velocity, method of corporate finance. Applying his pioneering approaches to raising capital and incorporating neuroscience into the capital markets programs, Oren has supervised the placement of over $500 million of investor capital from high net-worth individuals and financial institutions. He is the #1 best-selling business author of the McGraw Hill publication Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal.

JP Fatta is the Founder of StreaMe with a mission to leverage technology to create new entertainment experiences. He has personally funded and operated multiple startups including a production company creating non-scripted TV shows. He is talented in the creation and deployment of cross-functional teams to launch concepts to market.

Aaron is the co-founder & CEO of CloudCheckr, the cloud management company. A serial entrepreneur, he has founded and sold three successful startups. An acclaimed speaker and author on technology topics 'Enterprise 2.0 and the Oracle Security Handbook' Aaron has been awarded multiple patents in database security and social media.

Marc Zionts has successfully led companies since 1987 and is the CEO of Automated Insights, a Vista Equity Partners owned company. Zionts is an Independent Board Director for Pivot 3, TEOCO, and Friends of the Earth. Besides enjoying time with family, Zionts is an avid outdoorsman and accomplished bicycle racer.

Florian is CEO of Usersnap which helps digital businesses to get feedback, track issues, and create successful products. Companies like Google, Facebook, Dow Jones, and Microsoft trust Usersnap to get actionable insights. Florian is an enthusiastic entrepreneur and founded several companies. He has over a decade hands-on experience building SaaS businesses and delivers on rapid organizational expansion. Most recently, he has been participating in the Salesforce Incubator to launch Usersnap globally.

John James is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Engine: a cloud-based eCommerce platform focused on creating the best experience for both merchants and consumers.A serial eCommerce entrepreneur, John started his first eCommerce business in his college dorm room in 1994 and financed his medical school education with the proceeds. Since then, he has built and sold multiple businesses including Acumen Brands: a company that raised $100 million in venture capital as it grew to dominate the country wear market in the late 2000's.

Hoala Greevy is the Founder CEO of Paubox, a B2B SaaS startup that focuses on being the easiest way to send and receive HIPAA compliant email. The company is located in San Francisco and has over 1,000 customers in all 50 states. Hoala likes to go kayak fishing on his spare time.

Dave Nevogt is the co-founder of Hubstaff.com which helps teams communicate better through automatic time tracking and activity tracking. He’s been running online businesses since he was 23, and now manages a team of 40 remote employees. Dave has been honored as one of Indianapolis’s top 40 under 40 entrepreneurs, and focuses on teaching others to manage remote teams.

Sid Sijbrandij is the CEO and co-founder of GitLab, a software company that supports the entire DevOps lifecycle in a single application. Originally a computer programmer for a personal submarine company, Sid was first introduced to GitLab while working as a (self-taught) Ruby programming developer. Under Sid's leadership, GitLab has grown from 49 to 267 employees, closed $20 million in Series B funding and delivered on promises to solve the complete developer lifecycle.

Marc Kirshbaum is a business leader, strategic advisor and board member to companies in healthcare, software and information technology. Marc is retained by investors, founders and CEOs to build, grow and turn around businesses that will deliver sustainable and measurable results for investors, employees and customers. Marc has been serving as the CEO of Sococo since August 2017.

Alan Trefler is a visionary leader, a technology change-agent, an innovative philanthropist, a chess master, and a trusted advisor to business executives around the world. He founded Pegasystems to change the way the world builds software. Today, the company employees nearly 4,500 people around the world and has a market cap of almost $5B.

Nadav Kidron is the CEO & Director of Oramed Pharmaceuticals, which he co-founded in 2006 to bring oral insulin to the millions of people with diabetes. Kidron holds a bachelor's degree in law and an international MBA. He's a member of the Israeli Advanced Technology Industries, and an international lecturer on Israel's entrepreneurial and innovative culture.

As the CEO of Assembla, Paul Lynch is responsible for driving the strategic direction of the company. Prior to Assembla, Paul held multiple executive roles within cloud businesses where he drove revenue growth and international expansion. Paul has a Marketing degree from Dublin City University and is fluent in Spanish.

A tech entrepreneur who is always up to something. Studied at IIT Kharagpur (India) and started the career as a software engineer at Cisco. Moved into product management role there and then joined a small startup Calm.io. Calm.io got acquired by Nutanix. Has witnessed the Nutanix IPO and has a software patent filed in his name. Currently, he is working on his new venture Clappia that bridges the business apps innovation gap.

Reena, a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, interestingly dove into entrepreneurship when most women take a career break, after her first child was born. She began with a staffing company, Avankia, then moved on to TargetRecruit, the most innovative talent management platform built on the Salesforce platform, that modernizes the recruiting cycle at organizations, from front to back office. Reena was featured as CRN's 2016 Women of the Channel, in Entrepreneur Magazine, Power 50 Solution Providers and much more. From supporting girls education to providing job opportunities to stay-at-home mom's at her firm, Reena always strives to do her part to support women. In this pursuit, she has embarked on the journey of Mom Relaunch- an initiative to bring women on a career break back into the workforce. Mom Relaunch is a one-stop solution for moms to have a fulfilling and sustainable career in the HR and IT industry.

Rytis Lauris is the Co-founder and CEO of Omnisend, the powerful marketing automation platform that's focused on moving ecommerce marketers beyond the generic email marketing tools. Rytis is a successful entrepreneur who has spent the last 10 years building and driving a few startups which has brought him to ecommerce field.

Vivek co-founded Movable Ink in 2010 and has led the company through rapid growth to a leading market position with 200+ employees serving 500 of the most innovative consumer brands. Through his leadership, Movable Ink is helping digital marketers embrace a visual world with intelligent creative that adapts at the moment of engagement. Prior to co-founding Movable Ink, Vivek headed Eastern North America and EMEA sales for Engine Yard. Earlier in his career, he held senior engineering roles at Blue Martini and Cisco Systems. Vivek graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Harry has extensive contacts and experience in Canada's capital markets. He served as Managing Director of Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. from 1985 to 2015 and as Managing Director of Espresso Capital from 2015 to 2017, investing in and advising startups in the technology and natural resources sectors. A cryptocurrency evangelist since 2013, Harry is the founding CEO at HIVE and is responsible for the company's overall vision.

Shane Snow is an award-winning journalist, celebrated entrepreneur, and the bestselling author of Smartcuts and the forthcoming DREAM TEAMS (June 2018), as well as the co-author of The Storytelling Edge. He is co-founder of the content technology company Contently, which helps creative people and companies tell great stories together, and serves on the board of the Contently Foundation for Investigative Journalism. Snow's writing has appeared in Fast Company, Wired, The New Yorker, and dozens more top publications. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a recipient of Columbia University's Innovator Award for furthering the cause of journalism. He's been called a "Wunderkind" by The New York Times, a "Digital Maverick" by Details, and his work "Insanely addicting" by GQ—though he wishes they had been talking about his abs.

David Keil is the Chief Executive Officer of QASymphony and serves on the Board of Directors. Prior to joining QASymphony in June, 2014 he was CEO of Digistrive, an e-commerce software company that as acquired by Deem in 2014. Previously, Mr. Keil was the Chief Executive Officer of Integrated Broadband Services ("IBBS"), a software and services company (owned by private equity firm Pamlico Capital) serving the cable broadband industry. During Mr. Keil's four-year tenure at IBBS, the company doubled in size to nearly $40 million. Prior to joining IBBS in 2007, he served as Chief Strategy Officer and later as Senior Vice President and General Manager of ChoicePoint, a NYSE global information services provider (acquired by Lexis Nexis) where he ran the $140 million Government Services division. Before joining ChoicePoint, he served as Executive Vice President for Novient, an enterprise software vendor. He also spent five years as a Managing Director at the investment bank Robinson Humphrey (now SunTrust Robinson Humphrey).

Rob Fuggetta is the world's leading Advocate marketing expert. Rob Fuggetta (pronounced Few-jetta) is the author of Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force (John H. Wiley & Sons, Inc.), and Founder/CEO of Zuberance, the leading full-service Advocate marketing company.

Alex is an intellectually curious life-hacker, software developer, and small business owner based in downtown Austin. Formerly a Management Consultant with Accenture, he currently runs Austin Data Solutions, a five-person consultancy specializing in solving business problems with some of the latest technologies.

Avi is the CEO and Co-Founder of TravelPerk, a ground-breaking business travel platform offering companies of any size, a one-stop-shop to book and manage all their travel in one place. TravelPerk is one of the fastest-growing tech startups in the world (http://saas1000.com/ we're number 4), and raised $30m from some of the world's leading investors including Spark Capital, investors in Twitter, Slack and Trello as well as Felix Capital, Target Global, LocalGlobe, Sunstone, Amplo and others. Prior to founding TravelPerk, Avi was Co-Founder of Hotel Ninjas, which was acquired by Booking.com in 2014, and VP Product at Budgetplaces, which was acquired by Palamon in 2011. Avi started writing code when he was 12 years old, holds an MBA from IESE, and is a recognized travel-tech thought leader and a frequent speaker at industry events. He lived in three countries and speaks English, French, Spanish, Hebrew, and Klingon.

Andrew is the Co-CEO of Aperture, a real estate tech and investment company that has systematized the acquisition, rehabilitation and sale of distressed residential real estate across the US and is producing unlevered IRRs in excess of 50%. Aperture is launching its Property Coin ICO (security token), the first professionally managed portfolio of real estate assets and loans available via the blockchain to help fund the growth of its existing business. Prior to forming Aperture, Andrew was co-head of capital markets at the largest fix and flip operator in the US and before that was an investment banker focused on the residential real estate and mortgage industries for 12+ years. Andrew graduated from Babson College with a major in Finance.

Sunil is Founder and CEO of Perkville, a rewards platform for local businesses. He started Perkville to help SMBs compete with large companies by giving them a powerful, yet affordable program. He now works with companies of all sizes with over 2,000 locations and 1 million consumers participating each month.

Eyal Grayevsky is the CEO and Co-founder of Mya Systems (formerly FirstJob), creators of Mya, the industry's leading AI recruiter. His 12+ years of experience co-managing his family's recruiting agency and operating FirstJob inspired him to solve the major inefficiencies in the recruiting space. Prior to Mya Systems, Eyal co-founded FirstJob, a job site for companies looking to attract, engage and hire qualified early-career talent from the company's network of over 11M active millennial job seekers. Eyal is also a Founding Partner at DoubleTap Ventures, a community of startup founders that provides an environment for entrepreneurs to share advice. He received his bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Colorado.

Guillaume Moubeche is Co-founder & CEO at lemlist.com. He's a SaaS lover with a passion for Growth Hacking and traveled the world for a year using social networks to stay at locals' for free. He holds 2 Masters degrees, one in Chemical Engineering and one in Marketing.

Will Herman is an entrepreneur, active angel investor, corporate director and startup mentor. He has started and managed five companies, resulting in two IPOs and two corporate sales. Will has also invested in over seventy startups, sat on the boards of twenty and has advised over a hundred more.