The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Former Brex CRO Sam Blond shares 9 sales concepts: Don't outsource recruiting, focus on demand, stand out, leverage happy customers, focus on distribution, be prescriptive, presumptive close, meet customers in person, obsess over implementation.

Former CPO at Slack and Partner at IVP, Tamar Yehoshua, along with Anneka Gupta, CPO of Rubrik, share top secrets for building great products at SaaStr. They discuss building trust with CEOs, aligning on vision and strategy, staying focused on customer problems, navigating misalignment, and building great teams.

Gong's CEO Amit Bendov discusses the future of AI in sales, struggles with raising funds due to AI skepticism, and the potential of AI in enhancing customer understanding. Topics include AI in sales within two years, managing competition, expectations for next year, and handling customer preferences and challenges.

Jason Lemkin, SaaStr Founder, discusses the Top 10 GTM mistakes founders make today, including hiring, product understanding, AI adoption, marketing metrics, customer relationships, and churn prevention. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding common pitfalls and implementing effective strategies in sales, marketing, and customer success.

Jason Lemkin, Founder and CEO of SaaStr, discusses the three key SaaS metrics for 2024: net new customer count, growth vs. efficiency, and the bar to IPO. He analyzes recent SaaS IPOs, highlights challenges in metric clarity, and shares strategies for navigating the tough IPO benchmarks. The podcast also explores sales and marketing efficiency, revenue management, capital raising, and the importance of a strong balance sheet for SaaS companies.

Head of AI at Shopify, Mike Tamir, and Rudina Seseri from Glasswing Ventures discuss AI adoption in enterprises, explaining complex AI terminology for non-technical leaders. They cover topics like AI implementation at Shopify, search relevance optimization, interdepartmental collaboration, multimodal LLMs, and leveraging AI for dynamic pricing in Shopify.

Guest Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner.com, shares insights on building GTM efficiency in SMB sales. Topics include staying focused, scaling without inefficiency, and operational excellence. Discussions on prospect data enrichment, optimizing sales infrastructure, content production efficiency, sales rep compensation, and transitioning to outbound sales models.

Harry Glaser, founder of Periscope Data, shares insights on selling his company for $130M. He discusses the challenges of rapid growth, negotiating deals, and navigating the post-acquisition journey. Learn about the emotional journey of selling a startup and the importance of transparency and empathy in entrepreneurship.

Jennifer Tejada, CEO of PagerDuty, discusses the impact of AI on business workflows and the role of AI in managing incidents and changing decision-making in enterprises. The conversation with SaaStr CEO delves into automating operations, maintaining customer trust, and navigating generative AI challenges. They address the coexistence of AI and human roles, foreseeing a shift towards high-value work as automation increases, emphasizing the need for leaders to embrace AI's potential.

SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin delves into the latest trends in Series A rounds and AI growth rates. The podcast highlights the challenges of justifying unicorn valuations, the caution surrounding high growth expectations in AI investments, and fluctuations in SaaS buying behavior.