The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Today we deep dive into what startups can learn from the large SaaS incumbents of today. Sara Varni: CMO @ Twilio on her biggest takeaways from her time at Salesforce. Erica Schultz: President of Field Operations @ Confluent on her biggest takeaways from her time at Oracle. Whitney Bouck: COO @ Hellosign on her biggest takeaways from her time at Box. Leyla Seka: Partner @ Operator Collective on her biggest takeaways from her time at Salesforce. Ryan Bonnici: CMO @ G2 on his biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce. Ryan Barretto: SVP @ Sprout Social on his biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce Tien Tzuo: Founder & CEO @ Zuora on his biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce. Paul Albright: Board member @ Clarizen on his biggest takeaways from his time at SuccessFactors. Jaleh Rezaei: Founder & CEO @ Mutiny on her biggest takeaways from her time at Gusto. Eugenio Pace: Founder & CEO @ Auth0 on his biggest takeaways from his time at Microsoft. Liat Bycel: VP @ Airtable on her biggest takeaways from her time at Twitter. Mark Goldberg: Partner @ Index on his biggest takeaways from his time at Dropbox. 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

Starting a company can be daunting, exhausting, and expensive, but with the right focus and idea - extremely rewarding; take it from Andrew Filev, Founder and CEO of Wrike. In this session, he will outline the do's and don'ts that he learned bootstrapping Wrike. Where it makes sense to invest your precious resources when to outsource, and how to save yourself money without cutting corners. This podcast is an excerpt from Andrew's session at SaaStr Europa 2019. You can find the full video and transcript on our blog. This episode is sponsored by Owl Labs.

Karl Sun is the Founder & CEO @ Lucidchart, a visual workspace that combines diagramming, data visualization, and collaboration to accelerate understanding and drive innovation. To date, Karl has raised $114M with Lucidchart from some of the best in the business including K9 Ventures, Meritech, Iconiq, GV and Kickstart in Utah. As for Karl, prior to founding the company he spent 6 years at Google in some fascinating roles including Head of Patents, Head of Business Development in China and running Google's energy investments. As a result of his success, Karl was recently announced as EY's Entrepreneur of the Year. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Karl made his way into the world of SaaS with the founding of Lucidchart having been Head of Business Development for Google in China and Head of Patents? How does one know when we need to hire generalists vs specialists? How does this requirement change as the company scales? How does Karl fundamentally think about finding great talent and keeping top of funnel full? How does Karl think about working with recruiters? What works? What does not work? Karl has been in every interview for every new hire for the first 6 years of the business, why? How does Karl think about doing this at scale? How does Karl structure the hiring process today? Why do they have a hiring committee? What does the process look like? How do they assess and test for culture? How does Karl think about retaining agility and flexibility with scale? How does Karl maintain employee empowerment with the implementation of process? How does Karl think about the balance between creating accountability without a fear of failure? What are the challenges of this? Karl's 60 Second SaaStr: What is the hardest role to hire for today? Why? Hardest element of karl's role as CEO today? Why? What does Karl know now that he wishes he had known at the founding of the company? 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 Karl Sun

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and EZPR Founder Ed Zitron sit down to talk about all things PR. Who actually gets into these outlets? Is PR just pitching and getting articles? Take a listen for more. Read the full transcript on our blog.

David Skok is a General Partner @ Matrix Partners, the firm with a portfolio including the likes of Hubspot, ZenDesk, Quora, CloudBees and more incredible companies. As for David, he started his first company in 1977 aged just 22. Since then David has founded a total of four separate companies and performed one turn-around. Three of these companies went public. David then joined Matrix from SilverStream Software, which he founded in June 1996. Prior to its July 2002 acquisition by Novell, SilverStream was a public company that had reached a revenue run rate in excess of $100M, with approximately 800 employees and offices in more than 20 countries around the world. David is also the author of foreentrepreneurs.com the must read blog in the world of SaaS metrics. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How David made his way into the world of SaaS at the age of 22? How David went from founding 3 public companies to entering the world of venture with Matrix? Does David agree, "entrepreneurship does not get easier with time, it just gets different"? What does David believe is the crucial step missing in B@B when it comes to finding product market fit? What is the most common mistake B2B companies make in the hunt for PMF? How should founders think about budget and resource allocation in this search for PMF? When is to early to measure unit economics and CAC? How does David think about scaling sales teams? How does one know when is the right time to hire your first sales reps? What content and learnings should you have in place when you make the hire? How does David think about payback period on a per rep basis? What have been his lessons on optimising payback period for sales reps? What numbers is David looking for when it comes to payback period? Why is 12 months so crucial? How should founders think about sales rep compensation? What have been David's learnings on how to integrate sales and marketing so tightly? How does marketing and customer success intertwine to be successful? David's 60 Second SaaStr: Who is the best board member David has sat on a board with? Why? What advice would David have for me having just joined my first board? What would David most like to change about the world of tech and SaaS today? Read the full transcript on our blog. You can find the graphics David references here. 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 Skok

RevenueCat is managing tens of millions of dollars in mobile subscriptions and growing 20% a month. Most of us think a lot about standard b2b and Cloud subscriptions, but we're still new to the issues, challenges and opportunities in mobile subscriptions.

Jaleh Rezaei, Founder and CEO of Mutiny, previously made waves at Gusto and has a wealth of experience from tech giants like Google and Y Combinator. She dives into the importance of building a strong company culture, highlighting key lessons from her time at Gusto. Jaleh discusses the biggest challenges in B2B marketing, emphasizing the shift to account-based marketing (ABM) and the necessity for tailored approaches. She also tackles how to effectively measure marketing success and the nuances of aligning metrics with revenue.

Join Bessemer Venture Partners' Alex Ferrara as he takes a look at trends and predictions for the cloud industry in 2019. One of the most popular sessions from SaaStr Annual, this presentation will provide an in-depth look at the cloud computing industry across Europe and globally. Find the video and full transcript on our blog. Sponsor message: Remote and hybrid teams aren't the future of work-- they're the present. Owl Labs is embracing this revolution and is here to provide remote workers with a virtual seat at the table with the Meeting Owl. Their 360° smart video conferencing camera can recognize and highlight any speaker at the table using an array of 8 microphones. Check it out for yourself at owllabs.com!

Karen Page is a General Partner @ B Capital Group with a portfolio including the likes of Bird, Branch, Icertis, Evidation Health and Ninja Van to name a few. Prior to joining the world of venture, Karen was a Senior Director at Apple and before Apple, Karen spent an incredible 9 years at Box as a founding member of the executive team, where she was responsible for defining and leading Box's Industry GTM strategy. Plus, from 2007 until 2013, Karen ran all of Box's business development, partnership, and strategic alliance activities. If that was not enough, Karen is also on the board of some incredible companies including Deputy and Plastiq. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Karen made her way into the world of SaaS as one of the first employees at Box and then how that led to her transition to the world of investing with B Capital? What were Karen's biggest takeaways from seeing the hyper-scaling at Box? How did helping Aaron raise the Series B and onwards inform her view of what it takes to raise funding from the best SaaS investors? How does Karen think her mindset will shift when making the move from angel to now institutionally investing with B Capital? When does Karen think is the right time for startups to think about partnerships? What questions should they ask in the "dating" phase of a potential partnership? What are the red flags? Does Karen agree that signing a massive partner too early can be dangerous? What does Karen recommend in terms of getting in front of the best CIOs? Is Karen concerned by the compression of fundraising timelines? How does Karen meet entrepreneurs before they go out to raise? How does Karen advise founders when it comes to the question of whether they should always be raising or not? Karen's 60 Second SaaStr: What does Karen know now that she wishes she had known entering the SaaS industry? What is Karen's favourite book? Why? Can a partnership be too big too early for a startup? Read the 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 Karen Page You need to try Zoho CRM, catering to businesses of all sizes, guaranteeing shorter sales cycles and higher customer retention rates. Who does not love that? Plus, the software gives you complete visibility and control over your customer's life cycle and equips you to connect with your customers across every channel. It also offers integrations with over 300 of the most popular apps on the market. While change is inevitable, it can be comfortable with Zoho CRM. Sign up with Zoho CRM in 2 easy steps! First, visit zohocrm.com/saastr, and then hit the "get started" button. It's as simple as it sounds! Start your FREE trial button by clicking the button on the same page. You'll also be happy to know that Zoho CRM offers a version that's completely FREE! Sign up with Zoho - The worlds favourite CRM!

CircleCI VP of Revenue Jane Kim discusses 5 mistakes new sales leaders make, emphasizing the importance of resiliency, building trust, and empowering team members. The podcast delves into navigating sales challenges, embracing resilience in leadership, and scaling a sales organization.