
SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
3,082 episodes — Page 43 of 62
970 28 Year Old Turns Down $12m Acquisition Offer, Doing $65k in MRR in CoBrowsing, Live Chat Space
Founder and CEO at Tagove. Loves to research in AI, Machine Learning, chatbots, NLP, neuroscience.
969 How Scribd Passed $54m in ARR Building Netflix for Books
Trip Adler is an American entrepreneur. He is the CEO and co-founder of Scribd, a digital library and document-sharing platform. Trip grew up in Palo Alto, California and graduated from Harvard University. Scribd was launched in 2007. Scribd has over 80 million monthly readers and 500K subscribers.
968 How Tumult Hit $5m in Sales, Handled Co-Founder Leaving for Apple
Jonathan is the founder and lead developer of Tumult Hype. He's always had one foot in the programming world and the other in visual arts. He previously was an engineering manager at Apple on various macOS projects. Jonathan was born in St. Louis, educated at Purdue, and now resides in San Francisco.
967 With $1b+ In Transaction Volume, He Helps Merchants Get Power of Amazon Checkout
Ralph Dangelmaier is the CEO of BlueSnap, a leading global e-commerce payments company. He is a 'FinTech payment veteran' with a wealth of experience creating innovative product solutions for retailers and financial institutions worldwide. He has a strong track record of growing private and public companies, both organically and through M&A activity. Ralph formerly served as the President of ACI Worldwide, a billion-dollar global provider of payment software and solutions. Before joining ACI, Ralph was the CEO of P&H Solutions who in 1997 pioneered internet banking for businesses. He grew the VC-backed company to be the leader in the space. Ralph's career has focused on using technology to innovate and simplify payments for businesses and consumers around the world. He has authored numerous articles leading to television and speaking appearances, including features on Bloomberg, NPR, 21st Century TV with Donald Trump Jr., WEEI Radio with Barry Armstrong, World Business Review with Alexander Haig, New England Cable News, PYMNTS.com, and Cowen PayFac Reporting. He has also written popular guest posts in TechCrunch, GigaOm, TechCity News, and VentureBeat. Ralph is frequently invited to speak at industry and investment conferences that focus on payments, mobile, and technology. His speaking engagements include Zuora Subscribed, PYMNTS Innovation Conference, Card Not Present Expo, Mass Innovation Technology Exchange (MITX), Mobile Monday, TiECon East, Sibos, Goldman Sachs Future of Finance, William Blair, Credit Suisse Future of Commerce Payments, Gerson Lehman Group, Citi FinTech Conference, and Pacific Crest.
966 "We'll Process $1b in Corporate Travel Expenses Over Next 24 Months" Says RocketTrip CEO
Dan Ruch is the Founder & CEO of Rocketrip, the leading tech platform for reducing corporate travel costs. Rocketrip motivates below policy spending by giving employees data-based trip budgets and letting them keep half of what they save. Venture-backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Genacast Ventures, and Y Combinator, Rocketrip helps clients including GE, Edmunds, and Twitter create a positive culture around spend management.
965 Why This $14m ARR Company "Went Public" To Win Marketing Automation Space
Mr. Carlson is the founder and CEO of SharpSpring, Inc. (NASDAQ: SHSP), a next generation marketing automation platform. In his 20-year career, Carlson has held numerous sales, marketing, and product roles for Internet companies, and is considered an expert at sale and marketing.
964 How SocialBakers Went From $27m to $35m in ARR Over Last 12 Months
uval is the CEO of Socialbakers. He has more than twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in both private and public companies. Before joining Socialbakers, Yuval served as CTO at Outbrain, the leading content discovery platform, managing a global team of 200 people. Prior to that Yuval spent 5 years as CTO at AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG), where he played a key role in taking the company public. Before joining AVG, Yuval was CTO of the cybersecurity company Finjan, where he led six international groups. He is also the co-founder of the web application security software company, KaVaDo. Yuval is a graduate of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and a holder of 20 U.S. patents. He is a frequent commentator in the media and speaks regularly on technology topics.
963 How Ping Identity Moved $75m One Time Revenue to $100m+ Recurring and Sold for $600m in 2016
Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity, is on a mission to simplify how enterprises provide secure and seamless digital experiences. In 2002, Andre founded Ping Identity with a vision of securing the Internet through identity. He recently sold his company to Vista Equity Partners. Before that, Andre co-founded and was CEO of Durand Communications, which was sold to Webb Interactive in 1998, and in 2002 he founded Jabber Inc., which was sold to Cisco in 2008.
962 Why Hubspot Spent 1000's+ Hours On Pricing
Brian Halligan is Co-founder and CEO of HubSpot. He has co-authored two books, 'Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media', and 'Blogs Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead'. Recently, he's been writing about how to turn your startup into a scale-up. Top 10 Highest Rated CEO by Glassdoor in 2014, 2015, and 2017. He was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of the Year in 2011 and an Inc. Founders 40 in 2016. Brian is a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School Of Management. His favorite charity is Camp Harbor View.
961 How He Sells Commercial Real Estate Data to PE Firms for $5m+ in ARR
Michael is Co-Founder + CEO of CompStak. CompStak creates transparency in commercial real estate by gathering information that is hard to find, difficult to compile or otherwise unavailable. The world's largest brokerage firms and most preeminent real estate investors use CompStak's commercial real estate data to compare properties and make investment decisions. Since launching CompStak in early 2012, Michael has helped navigate the company through tremendous growth, with $20 million raised, 70 markets launched, and a 50 person team. He has been named 30 Under 30 by Real Estate New York, and a Rising Star by The Real Deal. Michael is a regular speaker on the future of commercial real estate, real estate technology, and data transparency. His speaking engagements include talks for the Urban Land Institute, the CCIM Institute, NAIOP, the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at Wharton, the GSAPP program at Columbia University, the Schack School at NYU, Drexel University and Babson College. Michael has also appeared on Fox Business and National Public Radio, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek and other notable publications. Before starting CompStak, Michael led the NY metro data center practice for Grubb & Ellis, where he was named National Rookie of the Year. He graduated Babson College in 2005, where he led the Babson Entrepreneurial Exchange and was a member of the world's first live-in business incubator, the e-tower. Michael is also a proud alum of the 500 Startups accelerator in Mountain View, California.
960 How SmartBear Passed $90m in ARR Helping 10,000 Customers Test Software
https://smartbear.com/company/team/featured-people/justin-teague/ Justin is responsible for SmartBear's strategic direction and overall operation. Prior to his role as CEO, Justin served as SmartBear’s COO and President where he oversaw all sales, marketing, product management and strategy functions as well as execution for the company. Justin came to SmartBear from Bullhorn where he was COO.
959 Zoho Founder's New CRM Passes $300k MRR from 3000 Customers
I am from Hyderabad (South India). I studied BTech at JNTU (Hyderabad) and MS at University of Delaware. I worked at AT&T for 2 years. In 1995, i joined Tony Thomas shortly after he founded Zoho Corporation (formerly Adventnet). In 2004, i then followed Tony when he launched another startup, which transformed to become Vtiger in 2007. I have been CEO at Vtiger since 2008.
958 When Founders Died, He Acquired $50m+ SaaS Company That Helps You Hire Smarter
Mike Zani is the CEO of The Predictive Index. He also runs a search fund called Phoenix Strategy Investments. Mike was previously the CEO of LEDCO and ShapeUp. Prior to running companies, Mike was the 1996 Olympic Sailing Team coach, and he was named Coach of the Year for the sport of sailing.
957 Why He's Moving from Self Serve to $3k/yr Plans in Recruiting Space
Raj is the co-founder & CEO of Recruiterbox, a saas recruiting software with 2100+ customers. He is fortunate to work with 35 passionate team members across two countries and has bootstrapped Recruiterbox over the last six years. He is also the author of prePARE, a hiring guide for founders and first-time managers.
956 How Does He Find Sharp People At $900/mo For BI Tool Doing $75k in MRR?
Mohit is the founder and CEO of Contify, a market intelligence product that enables businesses to track competitors, industries, markets, and industries. He has 16 years of experience across media, consulting, and technology. Mohit has spent the last 8 years building and scaling Contify with the objective of organizing intelligence from the web. As CEO he plays a key role in developing a long-term roadmap and daily execution. Mohit started his career with Deloitte in the US. Prior to founding Contify, he held leadership roles at The Indian Express group and Hindustan Times. He is a graduate of IIT Delhi and INSEAD.
955 How Skillshare Doubles YoY to $30m+ With Huge Content Library
Michael is the founder of Skillshare, which is a learning community for the new economy.
954 Launched in 1991 How is Agiloft Closing $1.8m Deals?
Colin is the CEO/founder of Agiloft. Before Agiloft, he worked at IBM, GE and start-ups as developer, product manager and CIO. His vision was to dramatically boost the agility of business applications by removing the need for manual coding and Agiloft has become the market leader in no-code enterprise software.
953 Why Wishpond Pivoted Into Marketing Automation Space and $7m in ARR
I lead Wishpond, a marketing automation platform built to help businesses grow online.
952 How Teamwork.com Got 20,000 Customers and $18m in ARR With No Funding
Teamwork.com provides a suite of 3 software apps that can help run your business and are used by over 25,000 businesses all around the world, including some of the biggest brands names like Netflix, Airbus, and Walt Disney. Our flagship product is Teamwork Projects which is the best project management app on the web aimed at professionals.
951 How He Created LiteCoin, the Silver to Bitcoin Gold
Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin, the most popular alternative currency to Bitcoin. He was previously Director of Engineering at Coinbase, the most popular crypto-currency wallet and exchange. Prior to joining Coinbase, he spent 6 years at Google working on YouTube Mobile, Chrome OS, and the Google Play Games platform. Charlie earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science from M.I.T.
950 How Clickfunnels Grew From $14m to $60m in ARR in 18 Months
Over the past 10, years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.
949 API Plubming for Internet Passes 200 Customers, $10m ARR
Mark Geene, co-founder & CEO of Cloud Elements, is recognized as a leading visionary for unifying the world's APIs by defining the first API Integration platform. This revolution of API integration is the next frontier in API Management as developers address the challenge of consuming millions of disparate private and public APIs.
948 How Barcelona Company Grew Past 600,000 Users With Email Open Tracking
Founder and CPO of Mailtrack.io. Previously founder of Panoramio.com (acquired by Google) and partner at Loquo.com (acquired by eBay). Background in Psychology/UX.
947 Is He The New King of Education? 80k Student Customers and $24m in Revenue Says "Yes!"
Ryan is the Founder and CEO of Treehouse. His mission is to create the future of education, so he can help as many people as possible. He's also obsessed with Spartan Racing.
946 He Changed Ideas 7 Times at Y Combinator, Now 500,000 Employees More Engaged Because of Him
Taro co-founded Fond in 2012 and serves as the CEO. Born and raised in Tokyo, Taro is a Y Combinator graduate and part of the first Japanese team ever to be admitted to the program. He studied Law at Keio University in Tokyo and was named one of Business Insider's "Silicon Valley 100: The Coolest People in Tech Right Now."
945 He's Democratizing Health Data Across Big Pharma With 200 Customers, $3.5m Revenue
Ex BCG, EY with a PhD from EBS Frankfurt and grad degree from IIT Bombay. Ex board member at think tanks working in complexity science and Innovation management. Advisor to Government and Big Pharma in future management and Digital. Teaches at B schools, key note speaker, published in scientific and management Journals, coauthored a Book; In editorial boards of scientific journals.
944 Why He IPO'd CyberSecurity Company and How He Did $230m in 2017 Revenue
Qualys helps organizations streamline and consolidate their security and compliance solutions in a single platform and build security into digital transformation initiatives for greater agility, better business outcomes and substantial cost savings. The Qualys Cloud Platform and its integrated Cloud Apps deliver businesses critical security intelligence continuously, enabling them to automate the full spectrum of auditing, compliance and protection for IT systems and web applications on premises, on endpoints and elastic clouds.
943 Bootstrapped and Rich, $14m 2017 From Helping Suppliers Accurately Print
Reuben Malz founded GlobalVision in 1990. A friend in the printing industry told him about quality issues he was facing, and Reuben became interested in solving his problem. He founded GlobalVision to respond to the lack of quality control in commercial printing. The company grew from there, moving with the changing technologies and adding inspection capabilities that now cover the entire printing process.
942 0-50m Users Now Launching Paid SaaS Model at $120/yr To Gamify Learning
Erik Harrell is the Chief Executive Officer of Kahoot!, the global game-based learning platform with more than 50 million users. Prior to that, Erik held several C level roles for more than 10 years at Opera Software (COO, CFO, CSO) and VP roles at J.P. Morgan & Co. in New York. Erik is also an angel investor and has extensive experience as a board member of organizations such as the board of the Alliance Venture Spring Fund, a leading V.C. fund in Norway, with $100 million under management. He was also on the board of Opera Software’s joint venture in China. Erik has an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and an MA and BA (Phi Beta Kappa) from The Johns Hopkins University. Originally from the U.S., Erik lives in Oslo, Norway, is a passionate tennis player, and is a father of three children.
941 From Affiliate Marketer to $150k MRR SaaS Entrepreneur
Jimmy Kim is the CEO and the co-founder of Sendlane - an email automation company. Over the past 8+ years as a digital marketer, his need for a reliable platform that understands digital marketers, lead him to build his own platform just 4 years ago. Since opening doors in just 2 years, he's helped over 30,000 businesses and entrepreneurs deliver their messages to their subscribers and followers, with heavy focus on digital marketers, eCommerce owners, and affiliate marketers.
940 5000 Enterprises Pay Him $100m+ in ARR To Battle CyberSecurity Threats
Tom Kemp is co-founder and chief executive officer at Centrify. Under his leadership, the company has become one of the fastest growing security vendors in the industry with over 5,000 customers, including more than half of the Fortune 50. Prior to Centrify, Kemp held various executive, technical and marketing roles at NetIQ Corporation, Compuware Corporation, EcoSystems Software, and Oracle Corporation. Mr. Kemp was also an Entrepreneur in Residence at leading venture capital firm Mayfield. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and History from the University of Michigan.
939 How he Bootstrapped To $15m in ARR Before $20m Round from IVP
Chris Hall, the CEO of Bynder has grown his company to over 200 employees with six international offices in just 3 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. Chris built these companies on the belief that young people, with the right attitude and coaching can achieve great results. Chris is currently a coach and mentor for young entrepreneurs, interested in tech and startups.
938 Will 28 Year King of Malware IPO with $130m in ARR in Next 12 months?
Marcin Kleczynski is the CEO and co-founder of Malwarebytes. Kleczynski co-founded Malwarebytes in 2008. By 2014, Malwarebytes had treated over 250 million computers worldwide. Kleczynski was named one of Forbes Magazine's '30 Under 30' Rising Stars of Enterprise Technology in 2015.
937 SaaS: How He Gets 100-150% Expansion Revenue in Customer Year 2
Pierre-Loic Assayag is the CEO and Co-Founder of Traackr. A veteran of the internet economy, Pierre-Loic is focused on using technology as an instrument of change and innovation to transform companies and industries as he did successively at Viant (first internet pure play consultancy), Invivia (seamless computing), Optaros (SaaS implementation for e-commerce), and now at Traackr. He sees Traackr, and the underlying practice of influencer marketing the company founded, as a catalyst for inevitable change for all organizations to regain the trust and attention of their customers.
936 He Made $8m Last Year Getting Ordinary People On Stage with Bon Jovi
935 How to Reset After Raising $27m and Hiring Too Fast
Fred Shilmover is the CEO and co-founder of InsightSquared. He has helped grow the sales intelligence company from a single spreadsheet into one of Boston's premiere tech startups. Prior to founding InsightSquared, Fred was a corporate development associate with Salesforce Ventures and before that he held several key roles at Bessemer Venture Partners including associate and Director of IT. He is a board member of TUGG, an organization that brings together tech entrepreneurs with social enterprises that support at-risk youth. Fred received his B.A. from Tufts and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is an mediocre triathlete and runner, but he tries hard. In fact, he managed to complete the last three Boston Marathons. He enjoys turning large pieces of wood into small ones. Fred is also an avid wakeboarder.
934 The Acquired Company at $160k MRR, 12 Months Later at $500k+ MRR, Here's How
Prior to coming to RingLead, Chris founded and presided over one of the fastest growing divisions at CA Technologies the Security and Storage Division. Chris served as Senior Vice President of the division. Chris also founded Total Defense, a cloud-based endpoint security company for consumer, SMB, and enterprise. Following his time at Total Defense, Chris served as President of Teq's cloud-based SaaS educational platform. Teq was one of the first companies to build a robotics program for New York and New Jersey schools. Teq remains one of the largest independent educational resellers. Chris is married to his wonderful wife, Denise Hickey. Together they have two beautiful children, Lauren and Tyler. Chris is involved in many charities and is a major supporter of the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children. One of Chris' first objectives as CEO was to create a performance-based culture and ensure that all RingLead employees are eligible for equity stake at RingLead upon meeting their expectations. Chris is a huge advocate of performance-based cultures and has successfully introduced the culture at the last three companies he lead. Chris is devoted to increasing the productivity of your company by bringing you an end-to-end, industry-leading data management solution, and world-class customer support.
933 Why Wordpress CEO Raised $300m, Replaced Himself, and New Gutenberg
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder, WordPress; founder & CEO, Automattic Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of the open-source blogging platform, WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web, and the founder & CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company. He has been recognized for his leadership and success by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc Magazine, TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, University Philosophical Society, and Vanity Fair. Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. Matt splits time between Houston, New York, and San Francisco.
932 How ShareASale CEO Kept 100% Equity, Sold For $35m+
As the founder and CEO of ShareASale, Brian has connected thousands of merchants and affiliates alike, ensuring mutual profitability while preserving the spirit and core values of the affiliate marketing industry. Since 2000, his leadership and vision have helped shape the industry into what it is today. ShareASale currently supports over 4,000 retailers on the ShareASale Network, working strategically with its clients, both on the advertising and publishing end, to maximize their individual potential. Brian is a three-time winner of the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award for Affiliate Marketing Advocate of the Year, and has served as the President of the Board of Directors for the Performance Marketing Association. In January 2017, ShareASale was acquired by global Affiliate Marketing network Awin.
931 Qualtrics "Well Past" $250m in ARR, When Will The Go Public?
Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with the goal of making sophisticated research simple. Ryan is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is a frequent guest lecturer at Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.
930 How a $10m Software Guy Ends up In Furniture Business and Tony Robbins
Founded Timeslips - grew to 10m sold for 8 figures, CEO of Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes Business Breakthroughs Int'l then wrote my book: The Invisible Organization and now I build Certification Programs.
929 MuleSoft 2.0? Passes $40m in ARR Integration Platform as a Service
George has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the enterprise software space. Prior to Jitterbit, George was a founding member of C3, a Tom Siebel venture focused on energy and carbon management. Previously, George was vice president of worldwide sales at Cast Iron Systems, leading global field operations for the integration appliance vendor prior to its acquisition by IBM. George has also served as regional vice president at Oracle and Siebel Systems, leading the most successful sales team in the history of the company.
928 1.5m Pay Their Parketing Meters Every Month Using This App
927 SaaS Security Company Hits $40m in ARR, $.50c on $1 to Bottom Line
RedSeal's network modeling and risk scoring platform is the foundation for enabling enterprise networks to be resilient to cyber events. Government agencies and Global 2000 companies rely on RedSeal to help them improve their overall security posture, accelerate incident response and increase the productivity of their security and network teams.
926 How Teen Launched $250k Record Label, Then Kidney Failure, Now $1.5m Agency
I had built a successful record label and toured the world before turning 24. Then, I was diagnosed with end stage kidney failure. Today, I run a digital agency which works with exciting early stage companies and I want to inspire people to find their purpose through the pain.
925 How to Grow ARR 48% YoY from $17m to $28m in SMB SaaS Space
Intense, boisterous, imaginative. Brendan King, CEO of Vendasta is the innovative force of the company. Constantly in discussion with partners, Brendan is committed to finding new ways to help enhance brand awareness, increase revenue and drive down cost of acquisition. It’s his ability to look at the big picture while maintaining quality on the finest details that ensures Vendasta's success.
924 How to Spin a Million Dollar SaaS Company Out of Media Agency
Matt is America's leading expert on the millennial generation, having consulted for over half of the Fortune 500. In 2002, he founded MRY, which grew to 500 employees and was acquired in 2011 by the Publicis Groupe. In 2016, Matt joined Crowdtap as CEO (a company spun-off from MRY), and has since focused on bringing Crowdtap's real-time consumer research product, Suzy, to market.
923 He's Doing $10m-$30m in ARR Between Adtech and SaaS
Amit is the founder and CEO of Taykey, a real-time data company. He started programming at the age of 10. After high school, he went to work developing innovative technologies for the Israeli Defense Ministry. Amit is also the founder of bWitty and I WittySearch, an award winning search engine.
922 SaaS: Is $120m ARR Workfront About to IPO?
As President and CEO, Alex drives Workfront's overall strategy, vision, and execution, ensuring Workfront is a dedicated partner in helping customers transform the work experience. Shootman brings over 25 years of experience in all areas of revenue and profit generation for technology organizations, with significant experience leading SaaS-based companies.
921 SaaS: How to Get 500k Consumer Customers Paying $40/yr To Turn Into Business Customers
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. 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.