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The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

865 episodes — Page 11 of 18

SaaStr 367: Zoom's Head of Global Sales Operations on Sales Ops vs Revenue Ops, The Biggest Areas of Operational and Strategic Debt for Sales Teams Today & The Importance of Documentation and The Dangers of Dirty Data

Hilary Headlee is Head of Global Sales Operations and Enablement @ Zoom. Prior to joining Zoom, Hilary was VP of Global Sales Operations and Productivity @ MindBody and before that enjoyed similar roles with Alteryx, Invoca and Lynda.com. At Lynda.com, Hilary grew the support teams from 6 to 60 people and supported more than 60 net new reps in just 3 years. If that was not enough, Hilary is also a Limited Partner in Stage 2 Capital, the venture firm focused purely on go-to-market. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How did Hilary make her way into the world of SaaS and come to be the sales leader she is today with the global communications leader, Zoom? When thinking about sales ops vs revenue ops, what are the 4 key points to consider for founders? How does lead management and onboarding alter the question of sales ops vs revenue ops? Where does Hilary see operational debt the most? How does she advise founders on removing it? Given the broad scope of sales ops and engagement, is it not just rebalancing culture, comms and change? As a business scales does there not come a time where it unbundles and scales out of sales vs revenue ops? How do the roles change with time and scale? Where do the breakpoints occur? Why does Hilary believe documentation is so important today? What is the toolset Hilary uses for documentation? How does Hilary train her team around the right strategy to document their processes? Where do many go wrong here? Where can you pick up small wins? Hilary's 60 Second SaaStr: What is the hardest element of Hilary's role today with Zoom? What would Hilary most like to change in the world of SaaS today? What does Hilary believe that most around him disbelieve? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-367-with-zoom-head-of-global-sales-operations-and-enablement-hilary-headlee/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr

Aug 26, 202034 min

SaaStr 366: Digital Transformation At Warp Speed with Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder @ SaaStr, and Aaron Levie, CEO, Co-founder and Chairman @ Box

The buzz that accompanies digital transformation trends is infinite. Cut through the noise with Aaron Levie, CEO of Box and Jason Lemkin, CEO & Co-founder of SaaStr as they share insights on what will make a lasting impact and what may fail to materialize in the future of work. This episode is an excerpt from Jason and Aaron's session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise. Full video: https://youtu.be/vBQR7G6YHFQ Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-justin-bedecarre-jen-nguyen-jason-lemkin-and-aaron-levie/

Aug 21, 202052 min

SaaStr 365: The Office of the Future, How Everything's Changed and What 2021 Will be Like with Justin Bedecarre, CEO @ HelloOffice and Jen Nguyen, Founding Partner @ TEAMWERC

Centralized HQs with all the perks and amenities "under one roof" have traditionally been used as recruiting tools to attract and retain top talent. In this episode, Justin and Jen discuss what the Office of the Future will be like. This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise. Full video: https://youtu.be/dT04zc22ZH4 Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-justin-bedecarre-jen-nguyen-jason-lemkin-and-aaron-levie/

Aug 20, 202021 min

SaaStr 364: Figma's Head of Sales, Kyle Parrish on Why Scaling From 0-1 In Sales Is So Damn Hard, The Biggest Lesson From Moving Sales Outside Core HQ & How To Create A Performance Led Culture

Kyle Parrish is the Head of Sales @ Figma, the company that helps teams create, test and ship better designs from start to finish. To date the company has raised over $132M in financing from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, a16z, Index, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins to name a few. As for Kyle, prior to Figma he spent over 5 years at Dropbox achieving some incredible milestones including launching and scaling the Austin, Texas office from 3 to 80 people and being responsible for growing Dropbox's leading partner ecosystem. Before Figma, Kyle spent close to 3 years as an Account Executive at ADP. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Kyle made his way into the world of SaaS and sales and came to be Head of Sales at one of the fastest-growing companies in Figma? Kyle was in charge of creating the Austin, Texas sales team @ Dropbox, what were some of his biggest lessons when it comes to moving sales outside of HQ? What worked? What did not work? At what stage does culture and process really start to break? Why is it so hard moving from 0-1 in sales? How does Kyle advise founders when it comes to making your first sales hire? Does Kyle agree that it has to be the founder who develops the sales playbook? How does one create sales targets that are both ambitious but also achievable? What is the balance? What does it take to create a performance led sales culture? Where do many people go wrong here? How is the best way for sales and product to work together? What can one do to proactively make those discussions with sales and product both frequent and productive? Kyle's 60 Second SaaStr: What is the hardest element of Kyle's role today with Figma? What would Kyle most like to change in the world of SaaS today? What does Kyle believe that most around him disbelieve? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-364-with-figma-head-of-sales-kyle-parrish/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Kyle Parrish The future of work is here and digital automation is now essential for today's workforce. Tools have improved, but companies are STILL using outdated and manual processes to conduct business. Enter Pipefy. Pipefy is a workflow management software that makes business processes such as purchasing, onboarding, and recruiting—hassle-free, so requesters, processors and managers are more efficient. Pipefy seamlessly integrates with other tools in your toolchain to ensure a completely automated experience with a low to no code implementation. Dispersed or remote team members? NO PROBLEM! Pipefy can automate your requests from anywhere. Scroll over to pipefy.com/saastr to try it out and get 10% off your first 3 months. Empower your teams everywhere with Pipefy.

Aug 18, 202038 min

SaaStr 363: How to Make 1,000,000 Customers Happy with Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder @ SaaStr, and Loren Padelford, General Manager @ Shopify Plus

Small, Medium, or Enterprise, SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Shopify Plus GM, Loren Padelford, to discuss how to keep your customers happy at all stages. This episode is an excerpt from Jason and Loren's session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise. Full video: https://youtu.be/kQPjPiVbcqk Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-bernadette-nixon-jay-snyder-nick-mehta-loren-padelford-and-jason-lemkin/

Aug 14, 202049 min

SaaStr 362: The Future of the Customer with Bernadette Nixon, CEO @ Algolia, Jay Snyder, Chief Customer Officer @ New Relic, and Nick Mehta, CEO @ Gainsight

Customers' expectations are higher than ever with more access to information and options. This dynamic trio of SaaS experts share how to stay customer-centric and set yourself apart in today's rapidly changing environment. This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise. Full video: https://youtu.be/DNMId8gYj80 Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-bernadette-nixon-jay-snyder-nick-mehta-loren-padelford-and-jason-lemkin/

Aug 13, 202024 min

SaaStr 361: The 4 Phases of Company Growth & What Breaks At Each Stage, How To Instill Process with Scale Without Adding Barriers and What Great Change Management in a COVID World Looks Like with Lara Caimi, Chief Customer and Partner Officer @ ServiceNow

Lara Caimi is the Chief Customer and Partner Officer @ ServiceNow, the company that allows you the power to make work, work better. Prior to their IPO, ServiceNow raised funding from some of the best in the business including Sequoia Capital and Greylock. As for Lara, she joined ServiceNow in 2017 and spent 3 years as Chief Strategy Officer before assuming her current role just this month. Before ServiceNow Lara spent an incredible 17 years at Bain & Co across a variety of different projects and roles. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Lara made her way into the world of ServiceNow and SaaS having spent an incredible 17 years at Bain & Co? What does the role of Chief Strategy Officer really entail? How did the role change in Lara's 3 years in the position? What is the optimal relationship between the Chief Strategy Officer and the CEO? How does Lara advise founders on when to hire their Chief Customer Officer? How does Lara see the 4 phases of startup growth? What are the most challenging elements within each? How does one instil process and discipline without losing agility and speed? How does one set targets that are a stretch but also not a stretch too far? What is the right balance? How does Lara think about what great change management looks like today? How does that change in a COVID world? How does Lara approach the right way to address enterprise customer communications? Why has that been made easier in COVID times? Lara's 60 Second SaaStr: What would Lara most like to change in the world of SaaS today? What is the hardest element of Lara's role with ServiceNow today? The biggest surprise for Lara internally since the start of COVID? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-361-with-servicenow-chief-customer-and-partner-officer-lara-caimi/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr The future of work is here and digital automation is now essential for today's workforce. Tools have improved, but companies are STILL using outdated and manual processes to conduct business. Enter Pipefy. Pipefy is a workflow management software that makes business processes such as purchasing, onboarding, and recruiting—hassle-free, so requesters, processors and managers are more efficient. Pipefy seamlessly integrates with other tools in your toolchain to ensure a completely automated experience with a low to no code implementation. Dispersed or remote team members? NO PROBLEM! Pipefy can automate your requests from anywhere. Scroll over to pipefy.com/saastr to try it out and get 10% off your first 3 months. Empower your teams everywhere with Pipefy.

Aug 10, 202031 min

SaaStr 360: What's Changed Since March 15 The Cloud at Hyperspeed. The World in Flux with Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder of SaaStr, and Rob Bernshteyn, CEO and Founder of Coupa

Digital transformation marks a radical rethinking of how companies use tech, people, and operations to fundamentally change their business performance. Coupa CEO, Rob Bernshteyn, and SaaStr CEO, Jason Lemkin, will discuss how the Cloud has changed in 2020. This episode is an excerpt from Jason and Rob's session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise. Full video: https://youtu.be/t9sSY6owgTo Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-matt-garratt-trisha-price-david-schmaier-rob-bernshteyn-and-jason-lemkin/

Aug 7, 202051 min

SaaStr 359: The Secrets to Vertical Growth, What it Really Takes to Build a $1B SaaS Company with Matt Garratt, SVP, Managing Partner @ Salesforce Ventures, Trisha Price, Chief Product Officer @ nCino and David Schmaier, CEO & Founder @ Vlocity

From strategies in recruitment and team building to sales tactics, these leaders from Salesforce, nCino, and Vlocity, will discuss the top tips for moving beyond horizontal SaaS and building a billion-dollar SaaS company. Matt Garratt, SVP, Managing Partner, Salesforce Ventures Trisha Price, Chief Product Officer, nCino David Schmaier, CEO & Founder, Vlocity This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise. Full video: https://youtu.be/ZxmCVOTW1lQ Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-matt-garratt-trisha-price-david-schmaier-rob-bernshteyn-and-jason-lemkin/

Aug 6, 202023 min

SaaStr 358: Why Ignoring Customer Feedback Can Be Critical To Success, Why Founders Need To Change The Way They Think About LTV and How To Create a Pricing Model That Aligns Your Success To Your Customer's with Chen Amit, Founder & CEO @ Tipalti

Chen Amit is the Founder & CEO @ Tipalti, the only global payable automation platform that scales with you and now remitting $5Bn annually across 3M suppliers. To date, Chen has raised over $146M with Tipalti from the likes of Oren Zeev, Dan Rose, Mike Chalfen and then Greenspring, Truebridge and 01 Advisors to name a few. Previously, Chen was CEO of Atrica, acquired by Nokia-Siemens. He also was co-founder and CEO of Verix. At ECI Telecom, Chen founded its ADSL business unit and led it from inception to $100 million in annual sales. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Chen made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found the leader in account payables with Tipalti? Why does Chen believe so much of his success is derived from saying no to customers? How does Chen determine which customer feedback to ingest vs to reject? If rejected, how can startups do this in a polite and respectful way? How can startups give the appearance of a large company to enterprises? Given the infinite supply of capital, how does Chen think about unit economics? How does Chen think the right way to calculate LTV is? Where do many go wrong? What can we learn from Amazon when it comes to LTV? How does Chen advise founders to think about annual dollar churn? How does Chen think about optimising pricing models today? How can SaaS companies have variable pricing mechanisms without disincentivizing usage? How does Chen think about aligning revenue scale to your customers? How can this be done? What are the benefits? Chen's 60 Second SaaStr: What is the hardest element of Chen's role today with Tipalti? What would Chen most like to change in the world of SaaS today? What does Chen believe that most around him disbelieve? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-358-with-tipalti-founder-ceo-chen-amit/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr The future of work is here and digital automation is now essential for today's workforce. Tools have improved, but companies are STILL using outdated and manual processes to conduct business. Enter Pipefy. Pipefy is a workflow management software that makes business processes such as purchasing, onboarding, and recruiting—hassle-free, so requesters, processors and managers are more efficient. Pipefy seamlessly integrates with other tools in your toolchain to ensure a completely automated experience with a low to no code implementation. Dispersed or remote team members? NO PROBLEM! Pipefy can automate your requests from anywhere. Scroll over to pipefy.com/saastr to try it out and get 10% off your first 3 months. Empower your teams everywhere with Pipefy.

Aug 3, 202036 min

SaaStr 357: Busting the Myths About Startup Success with Therese Tucker, CEO and Founder of BlackLine

Therese Tucker breaks through the dogma behind what it takes to build a successful tech company. With stories based on the founding of BlackLine — to the company's successful IPO – you'll learn the most common myths behind success and why they may be holding you back. This episode is an excerpt from Therese's session at SaaStr Annual 2018. Full video: https://youtu.be/fKptGJZcfFk Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-357-with-blackline-ceo-founder-therese-tucker-busting-the-myths-about-startup-success/

Jul 30, 202021 min

SaaStr 356: When To Hire Your First Sales Reps, What To Look For In Those Hires, What Good Sales Rep Onboarding Looks Like, Leading Indicators of Sales Rep Success and more with Pete Kazanjy, Co-Founder @ Atrium

Pete Kazanjy is the Co-Founder @ Atrium, the startup providing proactive, always-on insights for sales operations, managers, and leaders. Stop asking questions. Start getting answers. Alongside Atrium, Pete is also the Founder of Modern Sales Pros, a community of 15,000 focused on sales operations and sales management. Pete is also the author of Founding Sales, the canonical writing on early-stage startup sales. Prior to founding Atrium, Pete founded TalentBin, culminating in their exit to Monster Worldwide in February 2014. Finally, before TalentBin, Pete founded Honestly.com building the world's first professional reputation clearinghouse and raising funding from CRV and First Round in the process. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Pete made his way into the world of SaaS and how he came to be one of the leading figures on sales operations and management that he is today? Why do founders have to sell the product themselves at the start? When is the right time to hire their first sales reps? What profiles should founders look for in these first reps? What are the most common mistakes founders make when hiring their first reps? How should they structure their comp plans? How do the best onboard their sales reps? What can be done to minimise ramp time of new reps? How is the documentation used most effectively? How can sales calls be used for new rep onboarding? How does Pete think about optimising payback period on a per rep basis? What are the leading indicators that a sales rep is successful? What are the core metrics founders should measure to determine the effectiveness of their reps and sales teams? How does this differ between SMB and enterprise? What are the challenges with enterprise given the long sales cycles? Pete's 60 Second SaaStr: Hardest element of Pete's role today with Atrium? What would Pete most like to change in the world of SaaS? What sales leader does Pete most respect and why? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-356-with-atrium-co-founder-pete-kazanjy/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Pete Kazanjy

Jul 28, 202041 min

SaaStr 355: The PPP You Really Need for Raising Capital During a Pandemic with Satya Patel, Partner at Homebrew

Despite the global pandemic, seed investing remains hyperactive amongst VCs. Satya Patel of Homebrew shares his expert advice on how to raise seed capital in 2020. This episode is an excerpt from Satya's session at SaaStr Summit: The New New in Venture. Full video: https://youtu.be/xXNLUKzcESg Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-355-with-homebrew-partner-satya-patel-the-ppp-you-really-need-for-raising-capital-during-a-pandemic/

Jul 23, 202021 min

SaaStr 354: 10 Things I Wish My Board and Investors Had Told Me with Jason Lemkin, CEO, and Founder of SaaStr

Whether you've just raised your first round or are in hypergrowth mode, here are the 10 things SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin, wishes his board and investors had told him. Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/10-things-wish-board-vcs-told/

Jul 17, 202019 min

SaaStr 353: Unicorns and Decacorns in 2020: What's Changed and What Hasn't with Keith Rabois, General Partner at Founders Fund and Jason Lemkin, CEO, and Founder of SaaStr

Keith Rabois (Paypal, Linkedin, Square) and SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin talk about the landscape of SaaS & Cloud fundraising and valuation in 2020. This episode is an excerpt from Keith and Jason's session at SaaStr Summit: The New New in Venture. Full video: https://youtu.be/KxTZfx_QpjY Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-keith-rabois-and-jason-lemkin/

Jul 16, 202028 min

SaaStr 352: SaaS Decacorns and The Covid Beneficiaries with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin

Decacorns ($10B+ valuation) are everywhere in SaaS, despite the downturn. SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin discusses what the new landscape of SaaS means for you in 2020. Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-chris-oneill-and-jason-lemkin/

Jul 10, 202014 min

SaaStr 351: How to Adjust your Sails to Navigate Today's Choppy Waters with Chris O'Neill, Partner at Portag3 Ventures

Chris O'Neill (Google, Evernote) shares his lessons from previous downturns and how to chart a new course for growth in today's changing market. This episode is an excerpt from Chris's session at SaaStr Summit: The New New in Venture. Full video: https://youtu.be/ZYdcMpAFQas Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-chris-oneill-and-jason-lemkin/

Jul 9, 202023 min

SaaStr 350: Scaling SaaS To Well Over $1M ARR with No Funding, How Being A Sommelier Helped Neha Break The Glass Ceiling of Business & How to Successfully Scale Remote Teams Efficiently

Neha Sampat is the Founder and CEO @ Contentstack, a modern content management system bringing business and tech teams together to deliver personalised, omnichannel experiences. Atypical in our world, but Neha scaled the business to well over $1M in ARR before raising funding. Now Neha has raised over $31M from the likes of Insight Partners and Illuminate. Prior to Contentstack, Neha was the Founder and CEO @ Built.io and before that spent 10 years as the Founder and CEO @ Raw Engineering, building a leading digital transformation consultancy. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How did Neha make her way into the world of SaaS and content management systems having previously built a digital transformation agency? How the heck did Neha scaled Contentstack to over $1M in ARR without raising capital, whilst being based in the Bay? What were the signals that made Neha realise she had a scalable software business? What did Neha look for in her first seed round investors? How did that profile change when she went out to raise the Series A? How has being a sommelier helped Neha break the glass ceiling of business? What are some lessons Neha has learned in terms of build true and genuine relationships with customers beyond the transaction? What are the counter-intuitive strategies Neha has found works when it comes to motivating remote teams? Why did Neha decide to build out so much of the tech team well outside of the Bay in a town outside of Mumbai? Does Neha believe the future of tech is in the valley or decentralised? Neha's 60 Second SaaStr: Neha's biggest strength and biggest weakness as a leader? What does Neha believe that many around her do not? The biggest obstacle to the success Neha has achieved? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-350-with-contentstack-founder-ceo-neha-sampat/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Neha Sampat

Jul 6, 202035 min

SaaStr 349: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup Into an Army with David Sacks, General Partner at Craft Ventures

Startups can get messy. Especially in growth. David Sacks (Yammer, PayPal) shares how to navigate from 50-500 employees. This episode is an excerpt from David's session at SaaStr Summit: The New New in Venture. Full video: https://youtu.be/G0sMviH3G24 Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-349-with-craft-ventures-general-partner-david-sacks-how-to-turn-your-saas-startup-into-an-army/

Jul 2, 202028 min

SaaStr 348: How To Align Your Pricing To The Success of Your Customers, What Does Great Change Management Look Like and The Right Balance Between Software vs Services Revenue with Kurt Muehmel, Chief Customer Officer @ Dataiku

Kurt Muehmel is the Chief Customer Officer @ Dataiku, the platform democratizing access to data and enabling enterprises to build their own path to AI in a human-centric way. To date, the company has raised over $146M in funding from some of the best in the business including ICONIQ, Firstmark, Battery Ventures and CapitalG to name a few. As for Kurt, he joined the company over 5 years ago and has risen from AE to VP EMEA to VP Sales Engineering to today as Chief Customer Officer. Before Dataiku, Kurt spent 5 years at Deloitte as a Manager advising primarily European public authorities on sustainable development policies. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Kurt made his way into the world of enterprise SaaS with Dataiku having started his career at Deloitte in Paris? What does it take to go from 0-1 in implementing both AI and data science disciplines in 20th-century companies? Where do many go wrong with their first steps? How can one assist them in the right way? How does Kurt feel about services revenue? At what stage or ratio does it become too much? How does Kurt approach the challenge of change management? What does great change management look like? Where do so many go wrong? How can content be used to efficiently scale change management practices? How does one need to engage different teams for effective change management? How does Kurt think about the right pricing mechanism for the customer today? How does one find a mechanism that does not disincentivize the customer with usage? How does Kurt feel about discounting? To what extent is Kurt and Dataiku willing to engage with pilots and POCs? Where do many go wrong here? Kurt's 60 Second SaaStr: Biggest challenge of Kurt's role with Dataiku today? What does Kurt know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of SaaS? Who does Kurt look up to in the world of customer experience? Why? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-348-with-dataiku-chief-customer-officer-kurt-muehmel/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Kurt Muehmel

Jul 1, 202031 min

SaaStr 347: Top 10 Questions to Ask a VP of Sales with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin

Ready to hire your first VP Sales? But haven't done it before? SaaStr CEO, Jason Lemkin shares his interview checklist. Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/10-great-questions-to-ask-a-vp-sales-during-an-interview-2/

Jun 26, 202017 min

SaaStr 346: What Nobody Tells You About Seed Investing, The Inside Scoop with Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures and Jason Lemkin of SaaStr

Aileen Lee is a U.S. seed investor. A venture capital investor, she is the founder of Cowboy Ventures. Lee coined the often-used Silicon Valley term unicorn in a TechCrunch article "Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups." In this episode of the SaaStr podcast, Aileen and SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin take a deep dive on how Aileen finds deals, her tips for a winning pitch, and the state of VC in 2020. This episode is an excerpt from Aileen and Jason's session at SaaStr Summit: The New New in Venture. Full video: https://youtu.be/J5bhChbqcLU Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-aileen-lee-and-jason-lemkin/

Jun 25, 202019 min

SaaStr 345: PagerDuty CMO Julie Herendeen on Attribution and Accountability within Marketing Teams, The Optimal Relationship Between Marketing & Product & Why Customer Success and Marketing Have Never Been Closer

Julie Herendeen is the CMO @ PagerDuty, the real-time operations platform ensuring less downtime and fewer outages, meaning happier customers and more productive teams. Prior to their IPO in 2019 PagerDuty raised funding from some of the best in the business including Accel, a16z, Baseline, Bessemer and Harrison Metal to name a few. As for Julie, prior to PagerDuty she was Vice President of Global Marketing @ Dropbox. Before Dropbox Julie was CMO @ Lookout and before Lookout, Julie enjoyed VP roles at both Yahoo and Shutterfly. If that was not enough, alongside her role at PagerDuty today Julie is also an angel with Broadway Angels and a Board Member @ Hubspot. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Julie made her way from the world of consumer into the world of enterprise and came to be CMO @ PagerDuty today? What were some of Julie's biggest lessons from her time as VP Global Marketing at Dropbox? Does Julie believe that marketing should be held accountable to a number tied directly to revenue? How does Julie believe sales and marketing should work in unison? How can sales be involved in pipeline generation meetings? Should AEs make themselves responsible for sourcing new leads also? What does the ideal handoff look like? How does Julie see the best marketing and product teams working together? What can marketing do to collect the most valuable data to inform product decisions? In what forum should they be relayed to product teams? How should product and marketing leaders interact most efficiently? How does Julie think about the relationship of customer success and marketing? Does Julie agree that with the increasing amount of marketing content used post-sale, marketing is doing much of the work of CS? Where does Julie see many going wrong when investing heavily into thought leadership and content marketing? Julie's 60 Second SaaStr: Which marketing leader does Julie most respect and why? What would Julie most like to change about the world of SaaS today? What is the optimal relationship between the CEO and the CMO? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-345-with-pagerduty-cmo-julie-herendeen/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Julie Herendeen

Jun 23, 202033 min

SaaStr 344: 16 Mistakes Founders Make Pitching to VCs with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin

Given that so many VC pitches are over Zoom now, we thought it would be worth sharing the things it's easy to get wrong when pitching investors. Pitching VCs is like anything. You'll get better at it over time. Later, you'll even get great at it. Once you know how it works, it's not even that hard to knock it out of the park. But until then, so many founders make unforced errors. Rookie errors. Here are 16 that you can easily avoid / fix right now today. Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-344-with-saastr-founder-jason-lemkin/

Jun 19, 202022 min

SaaStr 343: Point Nine Capital Managing Partner, Christoph Janz, On Fundraising During a Pandemic

On today's episode, Christoph shares his five tips for fundraising during a pandemic. Have a clear COVID-19 assessment Start with an extra-long "long list" Disqualify ruthlessly Have a killer deck Build trust remotely Christoph has invested in more than 20 SaaS startups and lives and breathes SaaS, everything from "A as in AI-enhanced B2B software" to "Z as in Zendesk". Christoph co-founded Point Nine Capital in 2011. Before that, he co-founded two Internet startups (DealPilot.com in 1997 and Pageflakes in 2005). In 2008 he became an angel investor and discovered Zendesk, Clio, FreeAgent – and his love for SaaS. You can find the podcast transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-343-with-point-nine-capital-managing-partner-christoph-janz/ This episode is an excerpt from Christoph's session at SaaStr Summit: The New New in Venture. You can see the full video here: https://youtu.be/2VGglwbl_Gs

Jun 18, 202019 min

SaaStr 342: Zapier CEO, Wade Foster, and SaaStr CEO, Jason Lemkin, on Distributed Teams and Building a Cloud Product

On this episode of the SaaStr podcast, our CEO, Jason Lemkin, chats with Zapier CEO, Wade Foster, on Distributed Teams and Building a Cloud Product. Zapier is a global remote company that allows end-users to integrate the web applications they use. Although Zapier is based in Sunnyvale, California, it employs a workforce of 250 employees located around the United States and in 23 other countries. This interview was recorded in February 2020. Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-342-with-zapier-ceo-wade-foster/

Jun 11, 202025 min

SaaStr 341: Leading Indicators Individuals Can/Can Not Scale with the Company, What Radical Transparency Truly Means and How To Implement It & Enterprise Adoption Of Cloud During COVID Times with David Politis, Founder & CEO @ BetterCloud

David Politis is the Founder & CEO @ BetterCloud, the company that helps IT discover, manage and secure the digital workplace. To date, David has raised over $186M in funding with BetterCloud from the likes of Accel, Warburg Pincus, Greycroft, Flybridge and Dropbox to name a few. Before founding BetterCloud, David was an early employee of Cloud Sherpas (acquired by Accenture), where he led the company to become the leading cloud services partner to SMB worldwide. Prior to Cloud Sherpas, David was a founding employee and General Manager of Vocalocity (acquired by Vonage), which he grew into one of the top providers of cloud PBX technology. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How David made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found BetterCloud? How has David seen the rate of cloud adoption within enterprise over the last 5 years? Has it been faster or slower than he thought? People often suggest operators are suited to certain stages of a company lifecycle, does David agree with this? What are the leading indicators an individual is struggling to scale? How does one communicate that to them effectively? How does David think about the decision to move an individual to another role vs release them? What does radical transparency really mean to David? How does the ability to have radical transparency within your org change when the org is 10 people vs 100 people? What are the biggest challenges of scaling transparency? From a meeting structure view, what can leaders do to encourage transparency? How does David feel about the method of OKR setting? How has his mindset changed towards OKRs? What does the decision-making process look like for deciding which OKRs to focus on? What OKRs do they focus on at BetterCloud? How does one know when they need to change their OKRs? David's 60 Second SaaStr: What would David most like to change in the world of SaaS? How has David seen himself emerge and develop as a leader? What is the biggest challenge of David's role within BetterCloud today? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-341-with-bettercloud-founder-ceo-david-politis/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr David Politis

Jun 9, 202033 min

SaaStr 340: Mark Suster, Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures, on Funding In the Time of Coronavirus

Mark Suster is a managing partner at Upfront Ventures, the largest venture capital firm in Los Angeles, and a prominent blogger in the startup venture capital world. In this episode of the SaaStr podcast, he shares his learnings on the current landscape of funding in the time of Coronavirus, including: Valuation and compression Forecasting market trends The slowdown in VC His best advice for surviving the downturn and raising a round of funding You can find the full video and transcript of this talk on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/funding-in-the-time-of-coronavirus-with-mark-suster-video-transcript/

Jun 4, 202029 min

SaaStr 339: Why SaaS Playbooks Are For Suckers, How To Make Sales Data Truly Actionable & The Right Way To Run Sales Meetings with Michael Katz, Founder & CEO @ mParticle

Michael Katz is the Founder & CEO @ mParticle, the customer data platform for brands leading the customer data revolution with clients from Airbnb to Spotify to Postmates. To date Michael has raised over $120m in funding with mParticle from GV, Social Capital, Greylock, Bain Capital Ventures and a friend of the show in Zach Coelius. Prior to founding mParticle, Mike was the Founder & CEO @ Interclick, where he organically grew revenue to over $140m in 5 years. The company went public in 2009 and was acquired by Yahoo in 2012 for $270m, a 50% premium on existing share price. If that was not enough, Michael is also on the board of Brightline and a mentor with Techstars. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Michael made his way into the world of SaaS and enterprise SaaS having founded and IPO'd an adtech business previously? Why did Michael make the move to CRO 8 months ago? How does Mike think about when is the right time to hire your first CRO? How does this hire correlate to your hiring in sales enablement? What are the different CRO profiles Mike has seen? How does Mike advise founders on those that work best for early-stage? Why does Mike believe that playbooks are for suckers? What is the reasoning for the reductionism towards the power of the playbook? How does Mike think about the relationship between playbooks and predictability? How does Mike make sales data really actionable within the company? What is the right way for founders to do post-mortems on won and lost deals? What is the right way to structure their sales pipeline? Who should be involved in analysing this data? What can be done to incentivize sales to be accurate in their sales data? Why does Michael believe that most sales meetings are unproductive? What is the right way to structure your sales meeting? Who should be brought into the meeting other than the sales team? How does Michael advise sales reps to maintain customer relationships post-sale? Where do many go wrong here? Michael's 60 Second SaaStr: What would Michael most like to change about the world of SaaS? What is the hardest element of Michael's role today with mParticle? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-339-with-mparticle-founder-ceo-michael-katz/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Michael Katz

Jun 2, 202029 min

SaaStr 338: Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield on Taking Care of Your Team and Your Customers

These are unique times. In some ways, we can use our playbooks, make adjustments, and in other ways, things are very different. What isn't likely to be very different is that recurring revenue … recurs. This is the bedrock of SaaS. Hear how Slack CEO, Stewart Butterfield, is adapting to change and his advice on how to take care of your team and customers. This podcast is an excerpt from Stewart's session at SaaStr Summit. You can see the full video here: https://youtu.be/5kG3WfUyBJc

May 28, 202025 min

SaaStr 337: Scaling A SaaS Business Within A Non-SaaS Business, What CIOs Want To See In Pricing Models and What Great Change Management Looks Like with Head of America's for Facebook's Workplace, Christine Trodella

Christine Trodella is Head of Americas for Facebook's Workplace product, the communication tool that connects everyone in your company, through Groups, Chat, Rooms and Live video broadcasting. Prior to Workplace, Christine was Head of America's for Facebook's Audience Network and before that spent 5 years as a Group Director across multiple different sales and account teams within Facebook's mid-market channel. Before Facebook, Christine was an Executive Director @ WebMD and before that spent close to 3 years in media sales at Yahoo. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Christine made her way into the world of SaaS as part of a non-SaaS company and how that led to her leading Americas for Workplace by Facebook? What have been the biggest benefits of scaling a SaaS company within a non-SaaS company? What are the biggest challenges or misalignments of scaling Workplace within Facebook? What have been some of the core and early mistakes the team made in their strategy to build out the Workplace sales and marketing machine? What have been Christine's biggest lessons on what it takes to sell really effectively to some of the largest enterprises in the world? What do CIOs most want in pricing? How does Christine think about the pricing problem of having a variable pricing mechanism without disincentivizing usage? How does Christine think about and approach discounting? Does Christine believe remote is the new normal? What really interesting data have Christine and the Workplace team seen since the world has move to work from home? How has behaviour changed on the platform with the rise of remote work? Christine's 60 Second SaaStr: What would Christine most like to change in the world of SaaS? When I say success, who is the first person that comes to Christine's mind? What is the biggest challenge of Christine's role within FB today? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-facebook-workplace-and-slack-may-29-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Christine Trodella Lower your burn by leveraging AI to claim R&D tax credits for a flat fee. Cash on hand is more important than ever, CrossBorder Solutions helps you keep more of your money. See why AI is the rational choice, request a demo today. [crossborder.ai/20]

May 26, 202025 min

SaaStr 336: Salesforce Ventures Managing Partner Matthew Garratt and Salesforce SVP of Commercial Sales, Adnan Chaudhry on Shifting Your Sales & GTM Strategy in Uncertain Times

Leveraging survey data from 66+ enterprise SaaS companies, Matt Garratt, Managing Partner of Salesforce Ventures shares the landscape of how businesses are shifting their sales & GTM strategies to react to today's uncertain times. Adnan Chaudhry, SVP of Sales at Salesforce then provides actionable takeaways on how to refocus your sales teams, engage with customers, adjust your sales comp and how you can properly forecast in today's new landscape. This podcast is an excerpt from Matt and Adnan's session at SaaStr Summit. You can see the full video here: https://youtu.be/3Li7tuLQidY

May 21, 202024 min

SaaStr 335: How To Plan, Organise and Execute A World Class Virtual Event in a COVID World with David Spinks, Founder @ CMX Media

David Spinks is the Founder @ CMX, the premier network for community professionals. In 2019, CMX was acquired by Bevy, where David now serves as the VP of Community. Bevy is a customer-to-customer community management platform, building products that brands use to build, grow and manage their community event programs, both virtual and IRL for companies like Slack, Twitch, Salesforce, Atlassian, and Duolingo. Prior to CMX, David founded 2 prior startups centred around different forms of community building and before that was Community Manager in the early days of LeWeb the largest tech/startup conference in Europe. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How David made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found CMX? Why David believes that community is so central for all SaaS companies today? How does David advise teams on expectation setting around virtual events? How ambitious should they be? What big mistakes does David often see in the early days of the planning? How does this differ if you have an existing cohort of users vs are starting new with no audience? How dependent is the success of the community on the platform it is hosted on? What is the ideal size for Slack, Telegram and Whatsapp communities? Should the host seed the discussion or allow it to be natural? How important is it to establish a handbook of expected actions and behaviours? Should you cull members who are inactive? What does David believe separates good from great when it comes to discussion groups? What innovative strategies has David seen work when it comes to bringing a virtual event to life? What is the right amount of people in that discussion group? What is the core role of the moderator for the group? David's 60 Second SaaStr: Biggest misconception around virtual events? Virtual events: Permanent tide change or purely in the COVID world? What has been David's favourite virtual event? Why? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-cmx-media-and-salesforce-may-22-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr David Spinks Lower your burn by leveraging AI to claim R&D tax credits for a flat fee. Cash on hand is more important than ever, CrossBorder Solutions helps you keep more of your money. See why AI is the rational choice, request a demo today. [crossborder.ai/20]

May 19, 202035 min

SaaStr 334: Cloudflare COO Michelle Zatlyn on The Top 10 Lessons Learned Starting Something Big During Tough Times

Hear from Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder and COO of Cloudflare. Michelle started the company during an economic downturn in 2009. Now, Cloudflare runs one of the world's largest networks that helps make the Internet more secure, fast, and reliable, with a market cap of more than $6B. Despite the challenges of uncertainty, money not flowing, and a generally dark mood, she was able to do it and learned a lot along the way. In this talk, Michelle will share how she made her business idea come to life and some lessons learned that can help other entrepreneurs—from solving a real, meaningful problem, to communicating in a crisis, prioritizing when there's a true lack of resources, and more. This podcast is an excerpt from Michelle's session at SaaStr Summit. You can see the full video here: https://youtu.be/WplZkOLl-k4

May 14, 202021 min

SaaStr 333: How To Create and Structure Your Customer Success Strategy, How Customer Success Teams Can Build Relationships of Trust with Customers and How Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Drives Customer Success Roadmaps with Bridget Gleason, Head of Sales & C

Bridget Gleason is the Head of Sales and Customer Success @ Tidelift, the company providing managed open source, backed by maintainers. Tidelift has raised over $40M from some of the best in the business including Foundry Group and General Catalyst. As for Bridget, she has the most incredible track record. Before Tidelift, Bridget was VP of Sales @ Logz.io and before that was VP of Corporate Sales @ Sumo Logic where she drove ARR up by a record 237%. Prior to SumoLogic, Bridget was VP of Sales @ YesWare where she increased MRR per rep by 450%. Finally, before YesWare, she was VP of Sales @ Engine Yard, where she tripled monthly recurring revenue, over the course of her 3+ year tenure, in 3 key leadership roles. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Bridget made her way into the world of SaaS and Sales and came to be Head of both Sales and Customer Success at Tidelift? Why does Bridget believe the best starting point for customer success is "company culture and value"? How does company culture impact the quality of customer success? In practice, what can one do to improve it? Who has done this well? How does value drive customer success forward? How does Bridget think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs drives the roadmap for customer success? What core elements does it change? Where do most teams go wrong in implementing the role out of their CS strategy? When should one hire their first CS rep? What should that hire look like from an experience perspective? How does Bridget advise her CS reps the best ways for them to build trust with their clients? What works? What does not work? Does Bridget believe CS teams should be involved in the upsell process? Does that endanger the element of trust? Bridget's 60 Second SaaStr: What does Bridget know now that she wishes she had known when she entered the world of SaaS? What would bridget most like to change about the world of SaaS today? What is the most challenging element of Bridget's role with Tidelift? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-tidelift-and-cloudflare/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Bridget Gleason Lower your burn by leveraging AI to claim R&D tax credits for a flat fee. Cash on hand is more important than ever, CrossBorder Solutions helps you keep more of your money. See why AI is the rational choice, request a demo today. [crossborder.ai/20]

May 11, 202037 min

SaaStr 332: Initialized Capital Co-Founder and Managing Partner Garry Tan on The New Normal

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Hear from Garry Tan, co-founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital, about how to protect your business during a crisis. He'll cover remote work, team management, sales, marketing, product development and more. This podcast is an excerpt from Garry's session at SaaStr Summit. You can watch the full video on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/lIZDFQscwQM

May 7, 202022 min

SaaStr 331: The Right Way To Structure Enterprise Pipeline Reviews, How COVID Is Impacting New Enterprise Deals, How SaaS Companies Can Not Only Decrease Churn But Increase Upsell Today with Jessica Lin, Co-Founder @ Work-Bench

Jessica Lin is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Work-Bench, one of New York's leading early-stage enterprise funds with a portfolio including the likes of Cockroach Labs, X.ai, Dialpad, VTS and Catalyst to name a few. Prior to Work-Bench, Jessica was a Learning and Development Manager at Cisco Systems, where she worked with the Engineering organization on Agile transformation, innovation and culture. Jessica is actively involved with the education and workforce development community in New York City and as chair of the Industry Advisory Board at Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Jessica made her way from learning Swahili into the world of enterprise and into the world of venture with the founding of Work-Bench? How should founders expect to see their new business pipe be impacted by COVID? What does Jessica believe is the right way to do proper pipe reviews? What specific elements does Jessica really double click on in reviews? Where does Jessica find managers and founders do pipe reviews wrong? What does Jessica believe is the right way for sales reps to engage with new customers during this time? What is the right tone to adopt that achieves both empathy and a business objective? How should sales teams and CS respond to requests for discounts? What should be the compromise with discounts? What specific and deliberate things can startups do not just to prevent churn but also to increase usage and upsell? Does Jessica agree with the rule of thumb that in enterprise, on an annual basis, 95% of your customers should retain? What other strategies has Jessica seen work really well for retention? Jessica's 60 Second SaaStr: What would Jessica most like to change about the world of SaaS? What is the hardest element of Jessica's role today with Work-Bench? The NYC ecosystem, pros and cons? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-work-bench-and-initialized-capital-may-8-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Jessica Lin Lower your burn by leveraging AI to claim R&D tax credits for a flat fee. Cash on hand is more important than ever, CrossBorder Solutions helps you keep more of your money. See why AI is the rational choice, request a demo today. [crossborder.ai/20]

May 6, 202029 min

SaaStr 330: TripActions CMO Meagen Eisenberg on Making Trade-Offs In Marketing

The true test of marketers. Are you a revenue driver or a cost center? You cannot afford to be the latter. Marketing leaders must focus their teams on the areas that will drive revenue while they cut costs - the biggest impact for the business. Join TripActions CMO Meagen Eisenberg at SaaStr Summit as she highlights her approach to ensuring Marketing delivers on its mission-critical role even in times of uncertainty or crisis. This podcast is an excerpt from Megan's session at SaaStr Summit. You can find the full video and transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/making-trade-offs-in-marketing-with-meagen-eisenberg-video-transcript/

Apr 30, 202032 min

SaaStr 329: How Renewals and Discounting Will Be Impacted by COVID & How Enterprise Founders Should Approach Capital Allocation & Efficiency Today with Navin Chaddha, Managing Director @ Mayfield

Navin Chaddha is the Managing Director @ Mayfield who just last month announced $750M in new funds split across their core and select funds. As for Navin, under his leadership Mayfield has raised over $2.2Bn in new funds and he has backed some of the best of the last decade including Poshmark, Lyft, Hashicorp, CloudGenix and more. During his career Navin has invested in 50 companies, 17 have gone public, 20 have been acquired. Prior to VC, Navin was an entrepreneur where he co-founded or led 3 startups, all of which had successful exits with one being acquired by Microsoft. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How did Navin make his way into the world of venture from successfully founding and exiting 3 businesses? What made him take the jump into investing full-time from being an EiR? How does Navin expect the B2B landscape to be impacted by COVID-19? How does Navin advise B2B founders to think about how renewals will be impacted? How does Navin advise founders to think through how to approach the topic of discounting with their customers? In what situations does Navin agree to provide discounts to customers? How does Navin foresee the B2C landscape to be impacted? How does Navin advise founders to think through the level of aggression with which they pursue traditional marketing channels, now with much lower CACs? Will these CACs remain low priced? How does Navin expect company pricing to change over the next few months? How has Navin seen himself evolve and change as a board member over the last decade? What have been his major moments of learning? What advice would he give to new board members joining their first boards? What can board members do to build a relationship of trust and intimacy with their founders? What works? What does not? Navin's 60 Second SaaStr: What does Navin know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of venture with Mayfield in 2004? What is the hardest element of Navin's role with Mayfield today? What would Navin most like to change about the world of venture? Why? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-mayfield-and-tripactions-may-1-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Navin Chaddha

Apr 29, 202024 min

SaaStr 328: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Gorgias CEO Romain Lapeyre on What They're Seeing with SMB E-commerce Customers

Romain Lapeyre is CEO of Gorgias. Gorgias is the leading help center on the Shopify platform, and that gives them a pulse into a large segment of SMBs in particular. They have almost 2,500 customers in segments both struggling (fashion, luxury), and growing (electronics, etc.). They are coming up on $10m ARR but aren't there quite yet, so a lot like a lot of you, or where you'll be soon enough. You can find the video and notes from this discussion on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/what-are-you-seeing-001-with-romain-lapeyre-ceo-of-gorgias-2500-smb-e-commerce-customers/

Apr 23, 202022 min

SaaStr 327: Domo's Chief Strategy Officer, John Mellor on Why COVID Will Do More For Digital Transformation Than Any Other C-Level Initiative, What Great Change Management Looks Like In Practice & How To Gain True Bottoms Up Adoption When Also Selling Top

John Mellor is Chief Strategy Officer @ Domo, the company that allows you to leverage BI at scale to empower your team with data. Prior to their IPO, Domo raised funding from the likes of Benchmark, Founders Fund, a16, Greylock and IVP to name a few. As for John, prior to Domo he served as vice president for strategy and business operations for Adobe's Digital Experience business, driving more than $3 billion in annual revenue. John joined Adobe through the company's acquisition of Omniture in 2009, where he served as executive vice president of marketing, driving all marketing efforts to strategically advance the industry's largest standalone web analytics business. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How did John make his way into the world of SaaS over 2 decades ago and how did that lead to his running a $3Bn ARR business line at Adobe and lead to his joining Domo? What were John's biggest takeaways from his decade at Adobe? Why does John believe that COVID will be a bigger accelerant than any other C-level led initiative? For vendors going through that digital transformation with their customers, what is the right tone to adopt that is both empathetic and achieves business objectives? Is digital transformation a technology challenge or a behavioural challenge? How will a 100% virtual event environment impact physical events when and if they do come back? What were John's biggest takeaways from running Domo's annual event virtually? What worked? What did not work? On a conversion basis, how did it compare to in-person events? How should we structure content for these virtual events? How does John think about the role of leadership in a crisis such as this? What is the right tone for the leader to adopt? Where does John believe many leadership teams go wrong in times such as this? How can leadership teams ensure that a crisis is not self-fulfilling and how can one prevent that mindset? John's 60 Second SaaStr: What does John know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of SaaS? What is the optimal relationship between the CEO and Chief Strategy Officer? What would John most like to change about the world of SaaS Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-domo-and-gorgias-april-24-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr John Mellor

Apr 21, 202032 min

SaaStr 326: Gusto COO Lexi Reese on The Playbook to Scaling High-Performance Teams

Gusto's Lexi Reese walks you through scaling high performance teams. Is trust earned or given? How do you communicate for impact? This podcast is an excerpt from Lexi's session at SaaStr Scale. You can find the full video and transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/high-performance-teams/

Apr 16, 202023 min

SaaStr 325: How Marketing Teams Can Replace The Leads Lost From Events in A COVID World & The Right Tone To Adopt With Clients That Is Caring and Achieves Business Objectives with Carolyn Guss, VP Corporate Marketing @ PagerDuty

Carolyn Guss is VP of Corporate Marketing @ PagerDuty, the company keeping your digital operations running perfectly with their real-time operations platform. Prior to their IPO in April 2019, PagerDuty had raised funding from some of the best in the business including a16, Bessemer, Meritech, Harrison Metal and Elad Gil to name a few. As for Carolyn, prior to joining PagerDuty she spent 5 years as the GM of Method Communications San Francisco Office and before that spent time on the other side of the pond with a close to 7-year stint at Orange as Head of Corporate PR and Head of US Communications. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Carolyn made her way across the pond from Head of US Communications at Orange to GM of Method in SF to then playing a key role in the marketing team at PagerDuty? How does Carolyn think startups and larger companies can replace the leads that are lost from having no events in a COVID world? How are PagerDuty shifting their strategy? How does PagerDuty think about brand marketing? Does it have to be tied to a number directly tied to revenue? What are the challenges with brand marketing? What does Carolyn believe is the right tone to approach customers within this time? How can one be supportive but also drive towards business objectives? In terms of tone, what is the right tone to approach the broader team with? How does PagerDuty gain a sense of company morale at scale? What tools do they use? How does Carolyn think about the benefits of transparency both with employees and with customers? Is there an extent to the benefits of transparency? Can one ever been too transparent? How does one think about this in a very corporate perspective with PagerDuty now being a public company? Carolyn's 60 Second SaaStr: What does Carolyn know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning of her time in marketing? Hardest element of her role with PagerDuty today? Who is killing it in the world of SaaS marketing? Why? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-pagerduty-and-gusto-april-17-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Carolyn Guss

Apr 14, 202029 min

SaaStr 324: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Bessemer Venture Partners' Partner Byron Deeter on The Current State of Venture Capital & Cloud

Join SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Bessemer Venture Partners Partner Byron Deeter for a deep dive on what's going on in Venture Capital and Cloud. This podcast is an excerpt from Jason and Byron's webinar "Bridging the Gap: The Current State of Venture Capital and Cloud." You can find the full webinar on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/UDfIC5prskA

Apr 9, 202039 min

SaaStr 323: The Core Challenges in Moving To Remote Work Overnight, What Does Great Change Management Look Like & The Optimal Position For Customer Success In The Organisation with Bhavin Shah, Founder & CEO @ Moveworks

Bhavin Shah is the Founder & CEO @ Moveworks, the cloud-based AI platform, purpose-built for large enterprises, that resolves employees' IT support issues⁠—instantly and automatically. To date Bhavin has raised over $108M with Moveworks from the likes of Mamoon Hamid @ Kleiner Perkins, Arij Janmohamed @ Lightspeed, Bain Capital, Sapphire Ventures and ICONIQ. Prior to Moveworks, Bhavin was the Founder and CEO @ Refresh which was later acquired by LinkedIn and then before that founded Gazillion Entertainment, a company he scaled to over 200 employees. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Bhavin made his way into the wonderful world of SaaS and came to found Moveworks? What are the core challenges IT teams are facing as a result of the move to remote work? Where do many make mistakes here? What can one do from a structural perspective to set them up for success when moving to remote? What does great change management look like in Bhavin's mind today? Where do so many go wrong here? How does this change in the world of remote? Who should be involved in executing on the change management plan? How does Bhavin think about the role of customer success today? Why does Bhavin believe that customer success and product should be in one org? How does Bhavin think about the interplay of marketing and customer success? Is marketing moving closer and closer to customer success with their content? Bhavin's 60 Second SaaStr: What is the hardest element of Bhavin's role with Moveworks today? Hardest role to hire for today? Why? If Bhavin could change one thing in the world of SaaS today, what would it be? Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-moveworks-and-bessemer-venture-partners-april-10-2020/ If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Bhavin Shah

Apr 6, 202031 min

SaaStr 322: ICONIQ Capital General Partner Doug Pepper on Key Lessons from a $5B SaaS Category Leader

Many people make the false assumption that the path for a highly successful SaaS company is straight "up and to the right". Of course, for those involved, the reality of the journey is characterized by a series of obstacles that must be navigated. Fmr. Shasta Ventures Doug Pepper will share the key challenges that were overcome to allow Marketo to become a $5B SaaS Category Leader in Marketing Automation. This podcast is an excerpt from Doug's session at SaaStr Europa. You can find the full video and transcript on our blog.

Apr 2, 202022 min

SaaStr 321: Front CMO Anthony Kennada on Adapting Marketing Playbooks To Changing ACV's and Sales Cycles, The Right Way To Think About Brand Marketing and How To Fundamentally Build a Challenger Brand

Anthony Kennada is the CMO @ Front, the startup that provides your team with better email so they can treat every customer like your only customer. To date, Front have raised over $138M from some leading names including Sequoia, Eric Yuan @ Zoom, Ryan and Jared Smith @ Qualtrics, Michael Cannon-Brookes and Jay Simmons @ Atlassian and Frederic Kerrest @ Okta to name a few. As for Anthony, prior to Front Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight where he and his team are credited with creating the Customer Success category. At Gainsight Anthony and the team developed a new playbook for B2B marketing that fueled the company's growth from $0 to over $100M of ARR. If that was not enough, Anthony is also the author of Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love. The book debuted as a number one new release on Amazon. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Anthony made his way into the world of SaaS starting in the sales team at Box and how that led to his entering the world of marketing and creating the customer success category? How does Anthony marketing playbook change when making the move from Gainsight with higher ACV's and longer sales cycles to Front with lowers ACV's and much higher volume? How does Anthony think about ABM today with Front given the lower ACVs? At what ticket size does ABM make sense? How does Anthony feel about brand marketing? Why did Anthony and Front decide now was the right time to engage with billboards? How does Anthony think about data and tracking for brand marketing? Does Anthony believe that all marketing has to be tied to a number directly related to revenue? How does Anthony seeing a changing relationship between customer success and marketing? How is marketing being pushed further into the realms of CS? What is the optimal relationship between CS and marketing? How does this compare to the relationship of sales and marketing more traditionally? Anthony's 60 Second SaaStr: What does Anthony know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time in marketing? What is the hardest element of Anthony's role with Front today? Who does Anthony think is killing it in the world of marketing today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Anthony Kennada

Mar 30, 202030 min

SaaStr 320: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta on What It Was Like in 2008-2009 and What We Can Expect for 2020

We're obviously in a very unique situation today. The pace at which Corona is impacting us all right now is so fast, it's hard to keep up. Today is different from other times but in SaaS. It will probably be like '08-'09 downturn — just faster. Join Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder of SaaStr, and Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, as they take a look back at what happened to them as a SaaS vendor in '08-'09, and what learnings you can leverage. This podcast is an excerpt from Jason and Nick's webinar "What We're Doing Now. And How We Got Through '08-'09." You can find the full replay here.

Mar 26, 202033 min

SaaStr 319: How To Think About And Make Pre-Emptive Burn Cuts, Operational Survival In Times Of Uncertainty & Managing Your Psychology As Founder & CEO with May Habib, Founder & CEO @ Qordoba

May Habib is the Founder & CEO @ Qordoba, the platform that helps everyone at your company write with the same style, terminology and voice. To date, May has raised over $21M in funding with Qordoba from the likes of Upfront Ventures, Aspect Ventures, Bonfire Ventures and Michael Stoppelman to name a few. Before entering the world of SaaS, May was a vice president at one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, where she was the first employee on the technology investment team, building a portfolio now worth over $20B. Before that, May started her career in the New York Office of Lehman Brothers raising capital for software companies. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How May made her way into the world of startups and SaaS from being a VP at one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East? How does May think about and assess operational survival in times of such uncertainty? Why does this downturn feel so different to prior downturns? Operationally, what needs to fundamentally change about your processes? How does May think about when is the right time to engage with pre-emptive burn cuts? Where does one look first in the organisation when making these cuts? How does one structure those discussions? What is the right way to do it? What is the right way to communicate the cuts to the team, customers and investors? How does one keep the existing teams spirits high when they have just seen many of their friends be released? What is the right way to manage those discussions? What can founders do to build unity in their team now everyone is WFH? What has worked well for the Qordoba team? Where do many go wrong here? May's 60 Second SaaStr: What is the most challenging element of May's role with Qordoba today? What does May know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? If May could change one thing about the world of SaaS, what would it be and why? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr May Habib

Mar 23, 202031 min

SaaStr 318: Doctolib CDO Agnes Bazin on The Secrets to SMB Sales

The first step in success with SMB clients is to recognize that it's not a one size fits all scenario. Companies need a specialized approach for SMB accounts, different than the tactics used for Enterprise. Andrei Brasoveanu will sit down for a conversation with Agnes Bazin, CDO of Doctolib, on how to create a targeted and effective sales process tailor-made for SMB. This podcast is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Europa 2019. You can find the full video and transcript on our blog.

Mar 19, 202021 min