The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

SaaS founder Jason Lemkin and QED Partner Amias Gerety discuss the appeal of SaaS to investors, the rise of SaaS as a valued business model, the cyclical nature of FinTech and its risks, challenges of running a lending business, and the importance of proper controls in startups.

Godard Abel, CEO of G2, discusses the original vision for G2, going multi-product, AI's importance, struggles with reviews, strategic value of data product, evaluating vendors, cautious recovery in marketing spend, balancing short-term and long-term goals, and the potential of AI in B2B sales.

Notion COO, Motive CEO, and Incredible Health Co-Founder discuss living company values while building a unicorn. They explore democratizing software tool making, enhancing healthcare hiring, and improving operational efficiency through technology. The importance of living and honoring values as a founder is emphasized, along with the process of creating and implementing company values. They also highlight the significance of living by company values and incorporating them into daily practices.

Jason Lemkin, SaaStr Founder and CEO, debunks the top 10 worst pieces of SaaS advice, including the importance of transparency with investors, the misconception about giving VPs of sales more time, and the affordability of hiring top talent for startups. They also discuss the misconceptions about adding freemium, the importance of experienced leaders, navigating RFPs and sales teams, and the value of VPs in scaling startups.

Whether you’re going from nothing to something or already scaling and thriving beyond $10-100M, healthy, sustainable growth in SaaS is on every founder’s mind.  Cockroach Labs’ CEO Spencer Kimball shares hard-won lessons from scaling from $0 to $5B and his time as an angel investor for more than 80 different startups.  He’ll walk you through the three stages of growth:  0-$1M — From nothing to something $1M-$10M — Building, innovation, and customers $10M-$100M+ — Scaling and thriving And what sustainable growth strategies you can implement (and pitfalls to avoid) wherever you’re at in your SaaS journey.   This edition of the SaaStr podcast is brought to you by: Prescient Security & Assurance. Your trusted partner in cybersecurity and compliance. Automated solutions, expert protection, regulatory compliance. Secure your future at prescientsecurity.com   Can’t afford an engineer in Silicon Valley? Tap the talent pool in Eastern Europe. Working with a global expansion partner, like Atlas, is a quick, cost-effective, and compliant solution. Visit www.atlashxm.com for a strategy call.    

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday, and the founder of SaaStr. The godfather of SaaS and founder of the world’s largest community for business software sits down with one of the most metric-oriented companies today to discuss the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023. Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, and co-founders and CEOs, Eran Zinman and Roy Mann of the wildly successful monday.com chat with Startup For Startup about ARR, NRR, CAC, and what it takes to beat the odds in a tougher environment.

Are you trying to unlock sustainable low customer acquisition costs (CAC) growth for your SaaS company? Then you need to hear what Guillaume Cabane, Co-Founder and President of HyperGrowth Partners, has to say on the subject. In this podcast, Guillaume shares the formula he used at Ramp, Gorgias, and Drift to reach explosive saas growth - showing you the secrets of smart scaling.  Don't miss out - listen now now for groundbreaking advice on generating fast CAC growth success!

Founders of 2023 ask themselves, “What does it take to raise money right now in this uncertain market environment?” Peter Specht, Partner at Creandum, shares a data-driven perspective and real-time insights into the market of very recent rounds and current VC expectations.  Unfortunately, raising money isn’t the same as raising in 2021. Specht walks you through what has happened in the last 12 months and the best practices for today.   

Some SaaS and Cloud leaders have seen big impacts from the post-Covid hangover, but others keep accelerating. MongoDB is one of those that has never stopped.    Instead of looking at those who are struggling, let’s take a look at the epic growth story of MongoDB, a company crushing it in 2023.    MongoDB is at a stunning $1.5B in ARR, 29% overall growth, and is worth $29B. That’s about as good as it gets in SaaS and Cloud!    While many less efficient public SaaS companies are trading at tough multiples of 3-4x ARR, and the average is about 6x ARR, MongoDB is almost 20x ARR.    Let’s look at nine interesting learnings about this leading company.  

2023 has been a difficult year for many tech companies. Markets have been all over the place, layoffs occurred, and investors weren’t funding as much as usual. However, Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund & Host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast, believes there are reasons to be optimistic for the rest of 2023. In a special workshop, Sam shares advice on how to spot bottlenecks, reallocate the right resources, and grow revenue in 2023.  SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays are LIVE every Wednesday. Sign up for free.