SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Go-to-market specialist within vertical SaaS (B2B). As partner in Serendipity (one of Swedens most well renowned private incubator) Sebastian has worked and implemented a number of go-to-market strategies for SaaS-companies. Like to work close to customers revenue streams and with high ACV.

As the founder & CEO of SaleCycle, I am focused on utilizing customer data to drive conversions and ROI through behavioral marketing.

Victor Levitin took his ecommerce company to $4.5m rev and took Crazylister to $1.5m ARR by making online selling 10x easier for retailers.

Myles is Founder and CEO of BrightLocal. He has worked in the local search industry since 2009 and has been a contributor to the Local Search Ranking Factors Study. He has written a regular column for Search Engine Land and spoken at SEO conferences in the US and UK.

Colin Day is chairman and CEO of iCIMS. Day incorporated iCIMS in 2000 with a vision to deliver applicant tracking software emphasizing ease-of-use and an unparalleled customer service. Under his leadership, iCIMS has grown to become the leading best-of-breed provider of talent acquisition software in the industry.

Taavet Hinrikus is the Co-founder & chairman of @TransferWise the international money transfer platform with over 4 million customers and valued at over $1.6billion makes sending, receiving, and spending money around the world as cheap as possible at the real exchange rate. Previously built @Skype as 1st employee, from Estonia, adventurer, disruptor and investor.

Brett Owens has co-founded and successfully bootstrapped two software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies that are growing and profitable today. He is currently the Marketing Director and Co-Founder at LeadDyno, an 'instant affiliate marketing' solution for small businesses.

In 2012, Wayne Johnson co-founded encompass corporation, a SaaS business driven by the belief that the best decisions are made when people understand the full picture. As CEO of encompass, Wayne has lead the creation of the company's Know Your Customer (KYC) automation software for the banking, finance, legal and accountancy sectors.

Felix Van de Maele Co-founder, CEO Felix co-founded Collibra and serves as the company's Chief Executive Officer. As Collibra's CEO, Felix is responsible for the company's global business strategy and has led Collibra from idea to founding to more than ten years of record growth and industry leadership. Prior to co-founding Collibra, Felix served as a researcher at the Semantics Technology and Applications Research Laboratory (STARLab) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, where he focused on ontology-focused crawlers for the semantic web and semantic data integration. He holds a Masters degree in Applied Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, a Master of Science degree in software engineering from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Master of Science degrees from Ecole des Mines de Nantes (France) and Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina), and a Master in General Management degree from the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.

Energetic, hard-working and determined. Always learning and eager to help fellow entrepreneurs. She has been leading Gaszen and it's team for 3 years now, from idea to product and raising more than USD700K in Mexico. Gaszen is raising interest in 4 countries in Latin America.

H. John Oechsle is President and CEO at customer relationship management and marketing automation software provider, Swiftpage. John has a 30-year track record of building highly profitable and sustainable revenue growth for emerging companies and established global leaders. He has been recognized several times for his involvement in the tech industry.

Emmanuel is the CEO of Dashlane, the world's best password manager. He has over 20 years of management experience across the technology and media sectors. Prior to Dashlane, he was CEO of CBS Outdoor France, EVP at Vivendi Universal Games, and the Founder and CEO of Flipside.com. He began his career focused on navigation algorithms for the Mars Exploration Rover. Emmanuel has a Master's in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Universite de Toulouse; he also completed the Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School.

Luke's the co-founder and VP Sales at GrowSumo, a Y Combinator and venture-backed company. Before GrowSumo Luke helped his dad build a blues theatre attached to the back of his house, and was active in nonprofit communities

Bernadette Nixon, Alfresco's CEO, leads the company's strategy for growth, customer commitment and culture. Bernadette is an experienced global leader with a proven track record of growing some of the leading companies in the market and has a wealth of experience in the process and content management industry. Before joining Alfresco, Bernadette served as President of SDL PLC., a global software and professional services company, after having grown its sales team as chief revenue officer. Prior to SDL, she held positions at OpenText, a leading ECM company, as General Manager and Senior Vice President of its BPM Business Unit & Corporate Sales. She was EVP of Sales for the Americas at Metastorm, and served in similar roles at CA Technologies, InterQuad and NCR. Bernadette also held the position of Deputy CIO for the United Nations in Geneva. Bernadette received a BA in Business Studies in Marketing from the University of Hertfordshire. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernadettenixon/

Adam Hildreth is one of the foremost global experts on how to keep people safe from the dangers resulting from user generated content posted online. He has worked with global brands, governments and law enforcement for the past 12 years on issues including child grooming, security threats and reputational issues.

Chris Byers is the CEO of Formstack, a versatile online form solution that streamlines processes for capturing and managing information. With a mission to empower business professionals through simple and elegant tools that remove complexity from everyday business processes, Formstack is committed to pursuing sustainable growth. Chris works with Formstack's leadership team to advance the company's initiatives, including its culture code and vision, which focus on relationships, results, and community.

Nikos is the CEO of Workable, makers of the popular recruiting software used by 6,000 companies in 80 countries. He led the company from its inception in 2012 to a fast-growing organization with 185 employees in USA and Europe, raising $40m of venture financing from elite European investors. Nikos has appeared as a speaker at the Nantucket Conference, SaaStr and SaaStock, and has been interviewed in popular podcasts and media like Forbes and the New York Times. Nikos holds a Computer Science degree from Imperial College, London. He lives with his wife and two children in Boston, MA. His twitter handle is @moraitakis.

Alison does not like writing 50 word bios - but does like talking about SaaS, Healthcare, Growth, Insurance Billing, Pricing, Churn, Customer Service, Sales and Human Behaviour. She is lucky to live a life that allows her to talk about all of these things every day as Co-Founder of Jane.

Brendan King captivates sales, marketing, and software professionals with his humour, intensity, and imaginative thinking. He is the co-founder, CEO and innovative force behind Vendasta. King is passionate about upholding Vendasta's core values of drive, innovation, respect, and agility while leading the company down a path of innovation.

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.