SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Dr. Don Brown's first company was acquired by EDS in 1986. He founded Software Artistry in 1988 which became the first software company in Indiana to IPO. Don then founded and served as CEO of Interactive Intelligence which went public in 1999 and was acquired in 2016 for $1.4 billion. He started LifeOmic in late 2016. Don received a BS in physics, a MS in computer science, and an MD from Indiana University. He also received a MS in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University in 2017.

Rich's passion for inventing and tinkering was ignited at an early age, when he attached some wires to a battery and a lightbulb and lit up his childhood bedroom for the first time. It also happened to be around the time he saw the movie Flubber, so it's safe to say his fate was sealed. Rich has a patent related to the military space and has experienced how difficult it is to get the products he'd spent years developing and prototyping actually made- this led to the creation of Inventaprint with his twin brother, Roland. Rich has worked on numerous critical global supply chain initiatives across various multi-billion dollar industrial companies in the Aviation, Oil & Gas, Locomotive, and Renewable Energy sectors. He advises on hardware-related inventions and can be found doodling designs for new product ideas in his (non-existent) free time.

inCast is a leading influencer marketing platform focused on Instagram. inCast works with top Instagram celebrities and micro-influencers on marketing campaigns in Brazil and United States. inCast is a member of Startup Farm Incubator program based at Google Campus Sao Paulo.

Founder/CEO of Motiva AI, Partner at venture studio The Data Guild, David is a serial entrepreneur. Previously he founded Social Kinetics (sold to RedBrick Health) and Proximal Labs (sold to Jive Software). He served as Chief Social Scientist at Jive and part of the team that took Jive to an IPO in 2011. He began his career as Program Manager for DARPA's CALO, the largest machine learning project funded by the US Government. Today he's an active early stage investor and advisor.

Jay Hakami is the Founder, President, and CEO of Sky IT Group an 18-year-old SaaS solutions provider, headquartered in NYC. Mr. Hakami's 30+ years of successful executive leadership roles have always focused on in depth understanding of business challenges and solving them with deployment of creative and practical IT solutions. Prior to founding Sky IT Group, for a period of 10 years, Mr. Hakami served as Senior VP at large system integrator with overall responsibility of operations, marketing, sales, and services delivery of an ERP and business intelligence solutions to the apparel manufacturing and distribution industries. In 2000 Mr. Hakami has founded Sky IT Group. During the first few years the business focus was around business intelligence and data warehouse projects specifically within the fashion industry. The industry and technology expertise offered by Sky IT Group have helped create one of the most successful industry focused technology company in the US. In 2007, recognizing the need to improve the communication between the brands/suppliers and retailers with timely, accurate product sales performance trends and insights, Mr. Hakami - with the help of data scientists and industry experts – launched the development of a SaaS platforms; SKYPAD for Wholesalers focuses on sell-through data collection, cleansing and insights for suppliers across all their sales channels and SKYPAD for Retailers that provides large multi-vendor retailers with a platform to accurately and securely distribute their sell-through data to their brands/suppliers. SKYPAD is considered today to be the most comprehensive, scalable, and secure SaaS B2B platform for product sales trends and insights for both retailers and their suppliers/brands. SKYPAD collects sell-through data from 170+ retailers globally across 4 continents, servicing 500+ mostly luxury and beauty brands and being utilized daily by 1400+ users to make business decisions based on facts.

Sam Pollaro is the CEO of Venga, a Washington, DC-based technology company that uses big data to help restaurants and fitness companies better understand and engage with their guests. Before co-founding Venga, Sam was the founder of Petals for the People, a business that revolutionized the sale and distribution of fresh cut flowers. Mr. Pollaro holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Clipr is a solution to create and publish mobile webpages inspired by stories format (insta & snap). Since companies struggle to convert on mobile, we make them achieve their objectives (sales lead loyalty) & monetize attention.

Founder and CEO of LogSentinel. Senior software engineer and architect with experience in big companies like Ericsson and TomTom. Former IT advisor to the deputy prime minister of Bulgaria. Regular speaker on IT conferences and technical blogger. Member of the jury of the International linguistics olympiad. Author of algorithmic music composer.

With over 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Marc is helping to revolutionize manufacturing sales enablement technology as part of the global Industry 4.0 movement. Atlatl Software offers a portfolio of disruptive software solutions that are the most efficient way to transform sales prospects and opportunities into customers while driving revenue in a matter of minutes.

Benjamin Dell is the founder and CEO at Missinglettr (a social marketing automation company that automatically creates 12 months worth of social content for each blog post you publish). He previously owned a web agency for over 10 years (acquired). During this time he also launched a number of SaaS startups (two of which were acquired). Benjamin is passionate about empowering businesses and brands with tools that help them succeed.