On this week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we talk with Nazma Qurban, Chief Revenue Officer of Cognism about how she has managed to build a predictable outbound sales machine in the past 2.5 years. When Nazma joined Cognism she was the first sales employee. The company had one paying customer so the world was hers to conquer and bring in the revenue. Nazma knew the way to go was outbound so she started building a predictable outbound strategy. Driven and ambitious, Nazma would go to every networking event she could and knock on many doors to get a ton of advice and spur as much interest about Cognism as possible. Two and a half years later she has built a team of 25, mostly comprised of graduates that she carefully upskills. The learning mentality is still present among them and you would be hard-pressed to go to a meetup in London and not run into someone from Cognism. The efforts have paid off. The retention of employees is incredibly high and nowadays Cognism earns $5M in ARR. Cognism’s is a truly remarkable story, with outstanding salespeople in the heart of it. Listen on to hear: How Nazma makes sure the graduates she hires stay in the company  The secret to upskilling graduates One key tenet to building a predictable revenue machine Nazma Qurban is one of many excellent speakers we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October who will help you improve your sales efforts. During the three days, you will learn much more from the likes of Jacco vanderKooj, CEO of winning by design, Steli Efti, CEO of Close.io, Patricia Duchene, VP Sales, and GM Europe, Wrike and many others. Grab a ticket now at saastock.com for the best possible price. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this month’s episode of the Struggle, with talk with Joachim Klein, President of ThreeKit. Originally from Germany, Joachim has been living in San Francisco for the past three years.  ThreeKit is Joachim’s fourth foray into Enterprise SaaS, a field he is fully subscribed to at this point. He started off his path in a company called BigMachines, the subject of the conversation on this episode.   Joachim joined it in September 2000 as EMEA MD, nine months after BigMachines had been started. The startup helped manufacturing companies provide the best possible quotes for their big machines. Joachim remembers the first year as particularly exhilarating. They were receiving a lot of interest from prospects, had many great conversations with them and all in all got a lot of praise for the problem they were tackling. On top of that, they had raised $30 million in funding so there was plenty of money in the bank. Bullish about the future of the company, BigMachines hired a lot of people that year, preparing for the demand they would get once these prospects became customers.  Sounds great, doesn’t it? This wouldn’t be an episode of the Struggle if BigMachines lived happily ever after, would it? They ran out of money before they had sold anything. On the verge of bankruptcy, BigMachines was forced to lay off 70% of its workforce. Joachim lost his entire team. One night during this rocky period, Joachim's wife asked him, "Would you invest in BigMachines right now?" and Joachim admitted, "No, I wouldn't put even $100 in. The company is dead."  The company didn’t die and instead eventually got acquired by Oracle but not before a major turnaround, achieved thanks to a lot of self-reflection, change, and learning how to sell. That’s the story of this episode of the Struggle.   If you can be as honest and open as Joachim or any of the other guests we have hosted on the Struggle, get in touch and send us your story on podcast@saastock.com. Thanks for listening, see you next time. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

This week’s guest on the SaaS Revolution Show is John Doran, Director of Engineering at Phorest Salon Software, a cloud-based management solution and marketing suite for salons and spas.  Born and bred in Dublin, John has always loved building product and iteratively improving it. Phorest is the first SaaS product he was involved with, jumping in from professional services. which he found far more unsatisfactory. When John joined Phorest four years ago, there were only 5-6 engineers who all reported to Ronan Perceval, CEO and Founder of Phorest.  Two years into his tenure, John became the Director of Engineering. For a while, he continued operating under the flat structure he inherited but quickly that began to cause problems. Individually siloed and not in sync, the engineering development suffered. John and his team began to experiment with changes and are on a journey of continuous improvement. Listen on to learn: The warning signs that the engineering team will need to be restructured One change John and the Phorest team implemented How John keeps the engineering team aligned John Doran will be one of many speakers we are bringing to SaaStock 19 to talk about engineering and product. He will be joined by Des Traynor co-founder of Intercom, Janna Bastow, Co-founder Mind the product, Dan Martell, 5-time founder and chief instigator at the SaaS Academy and many others. Use code IRINA20 to get a ticket at the best possible price. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On the latest episode of the SaaS Revolution Show we chat with SalesLoft CMO, Sydney Sloan. She shares lessons from her vast experience in customer-focused marketing and the metrics she has learned to swear by and report.  Sydney has always been customer focused. Even back in the 90s when there were no CRM systems and no one spoke about the importance of myopically focusing on the customer. At the time she was doing what would end up a 15 year stint at Adobe - the place Sydney says she grew up in a way. At trade shows she would stand beside her sales colleague and have long conversations with people who visited their booth about their problems and challenges. Towards the end of her time in Adobe, she finally had a more customer experience role, leading the Customer Marketing. From then on, there was no going back. Her career would see her work for companies such as Jive Software and Alfresco. A little over a year ago, she joined Salesloft where she has been building a strong relationship between Marketing and Sales and has influenced how the work of marketing is reported to the board. Listen on to hear: What are the most important metrics in B2B marketing  Which are the ones that Sydney focuses as CMO specifically Why marketing should own the pipeline Sydney Sloan is one of many excellent speakers we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October alongside Claire Hughes Johnson, COO, Stripe, Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Kathryn Petralia, Co-Founder and President, Kabbage, and Girish Mathrubootham, CEO, Freshworks. Grab a ticket now at the best possible price. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

This week’s guest on the SaaS Revolution Show is Sophia Eng, VP of Growth Marketing at Trade the Fifth and Founder of Women in Growth, a support group for female executives. In August 2017 an article she wrote in response to an internal memo that a Google engineer had written to discredit the ability of women to be in STEM careers, became viral overnight. Quoting outdated facts, the internal memo was leaked to the public and as soon as Sophia read it, she wrote a manifesto to urge women and other minorities to speak up and tell their stories so the facts can be straightened.  On the episode, Sophia shares more about the experience and what has happened since. She talks in detail about the continued importance that people of diverse backgrounds tell their story, how vital it is not too give up on efforts to bring more diversity and inclusion in tech as we are only at the tip of the speer and one characteristic that women and other minorities possess that is essential for innovation. A child of Vietnamese immigrants, Sophia experienced a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed from a young age. She developed a strong sense of dedication, resilience, and grit. Her upbringing helped to foster her growth-hacking mindset from a very young age, which she has applied at every job she has had. She worked harder than any of her peers but the negative part of growing up like this was that Sophia didn’t know how to speak up for herself. Consequently, she has learned to do that very well, as you will hear on the podcast. Sophia is one of many excellent speakers we will host at SaaStock West Cost the most actionable conference for growth stage SaaS Founders & Execs, taking place in San Francisco on September 10th and 11th. There she will be joined by speakers such as Sonja Gittens Ottley, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Asana, Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Dan Adika, CEO and Co-founder of WalkMe and many others. Grab a ticket now at the best possible price. Find out more about the initiatives we have in regards to fostering Diversity and Inclusion through the Taking Stock Program. If you have experienced any form of discrimination, which prevents you from attending SaaStock West Coast or any other of our conferences, please apply for our Taking Stock Scholarship.  Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

The start of Dan Martell entrepreneurial path has all the markings of a Hollywood film - driving a stolen car, chased by police, with a gun beside him. The latest guest on the Struggle, the Canadian 5-time founder has quite the story of trials, tribulations on the way to success. Beyond being a dad, a husband and a Canadian, Dan would tell you that his defining characteristics are someone who is driven, someone who constantly asks what is possible and what does he need to do to fulfill his dreams and goals. We know where, when and how his entrepreneurial story begins but what has followed since is as interesting, tough and educational. A lot of it was, in his words, soul crushing. It took him nearly 10 years and 2 failed companies to get a better idea of how to do business right. That coupled with coming across the book “Love is the killer app” gave him the knowledge to be successful. 15 years and three more companies after, Dan has managed to achieve successful exits all the while learning a massive amount of lessons when it comes to running SaaS companies. This total of 25 years from that night when he was 17 and the honesty with which he is able to speak about them, makes him a true treasure trove and we are grateful for the time he gave us on this extended conversation. Hope you enjoy the interview and pick up some of the many lessons about building companies the right way. If you can be as honest and open as Dan or any of the other guests we have hosted on the Struggle, get in touch and send us your story on podcast@saastock.com. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On the latest episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we host Rory O’Driscoll, Partner of Scale Venture Partners and talk about the things he believes SaaS entrepreneurs should be mindful of even as the SaaS industry seems to be thriving. Originally from Ireland, Rory moved to California 28 years ago. For 25 of those, he has been investing in enterprise software with Scale Venture Partners and its predecessor. In that time he has learned a lot of things about the world of venture funding, starting with the fact of just how deceivingly easy all of it seems, yet how difficult it is to make the right decisions about entrepreneurs and their companies and have the conviction to see them through the tough times.   Rory has also learned to count his blessings and remember that a lot of the successful bets he has made have a lot to do with luck. That humbleness is what keeps him cautious even in the best of times for SaaS and in this interview he shares some of his reservations about valuations, market saturation, the increasing competition, making the economics work and others. Listen on to hear: How worrisome is the market saturation in SaaS How other companies are dealing with that issue How to become recession proof Rory O’Driscoll is one of many excellent speakers we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October alongside Claire Hughes Johnson, COO, Stripe, Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Kathryn Petralia, COO, Kabbage, and Girish Mathrubootham, CEO, Freshworks. Grab a ticket now at the best possible price. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

One of the last sessions at SaaStock18 was a bonus chat that brought a double dose of Canadian accents - April Dunford, the world’s foremost expert on positioning sat for a conversation with Mark Organ, CEO and founder of Influitive. Even though they spoke at 4;20 on the day weed was legalised in Toronto, the topic they covered on the day was slightly different - category creation. On this week’s episode we are bringing you their entire chat. Category creation had been coming up again and again during the two days of the conference. It’s something that Mark, who has started 7 companies in his career, two of which category creators, is all too familiar with. His first one was Eloqua, which he founded 20 years ago and the second is his current company, Influitive, which he started 8 years ago. In their conversation, April and Mark talk about the origin story of each, to what extend Mark realized he was creating categories at the time, how he sold the idea to funders and customers, and many other. Both agree just how difficult category creation is and why you need to be built for the ordeal it would take. Mark and April also touch on the subject of the future of marketing and where the industry as a whole is going. Both Mark and April will be returning to Dublin, for SaaStock19. There, they will be joined by SaaS thought leaders such as Claire Hughes Johnson, COO, Stripe, Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Kathryn Petralia, COO, Kabbage, and Girish Mathrubootham, CEO, Freshworks. Grab a ticket now at the best possible price. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On the latest episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we speak with Alison Murdock, CMO of SocialChorus, a platform for planning, creating, publishing, and measuring employee communications. Alison has spent the last 25 years in Silicon Valley working in a variety of media and SaaS companies. She started her career wanting to be a writer and her very first job was writing for a magazine in Paris. As she transitioned more into marketing, writing remained a fundamental skill for her and to this day, Alison believes that what companies choose to write or speak about matters most. Everywhere she has worked, she has always aimed to find the crux of the issue that companies are trying to nail with content and the story they are trying to tell. When it comes to Social Chorus that is a particularly important thing to focus on as they sell to a plethora of companies, that are often undergoing digital transformation. In this interview Alison shares many nuggets from her experience including: How to stand out in the sea of content How content marketing works in the context of selling to enterprises An example of great use of content marketing that Alison admires Alison Murdock is one of many excellent marketing executives that we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October including Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Sydney Sloan, CMO, Salesloft, Dave Gerhardt VP Marketing Drift and Kieran Flanagan, VP Marketing HubSpot. Grab a ticket to see them and many other fabulous marketers who will be in Dublin. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this month’s episode of the Struggle, Alex Theuma speaks with Liam Boogar-Azoulay, Head of Marketing at MadKudu, a predictive lead scoring solution for SaaS companies. Liam has had somewhat of an unusual path professionally and personally. When everyone was moving to Silicon Valley, he moved away from it, landing in Paris. While most people would hone their skills in a particular area first and then dare to start their own company, Liam’s first job was starting Rude Baguette, a blog devoted to startups.   He had started it almost as soon as he moved to Paris. Rude Baguette would end up being one of the biggest startup publications in France, which employed 10 people. That is until Liam brought it to bankruptcy, a slow one as you will hear him describe in this interview, but a bankruptcy nevertheless. In retrospect, he knows exactly what went wrong but at the time some of his flaws were hidden. One thing he realized from the experience is that he had enjoyed building the brand far more than being a CEO. With that in mind, he joined Algolia as their first ever Brand Director, 11 weeks after he had filed for bankruptcy. They caused mistakes, which he would repeat at Algolia, a company he joined 11 weeks after filing for bankruptcy. He would spend a total of a year and a half at Algolia, leaving it in almost as dramatic a fashion as folding Rude Baguette. His time there was marked by some incredible feats like a full rebrand but also some pretty big mistakes, deriving from often not knowing what to do but never admitting to it or asking for help, his innate need to always portray he knew the answer getting in the way. By the time he started with Madkudu, Liam knew there were major gaps he needed help with or he would fail again. Admitting to his vulnerabilities openly Liam asked for an executive coach. MadKudu’s founders said yes. As with all the other guests on The Struggle, we have the utmost respect for Liam for his openness, honesty, and willingness to learn from his shortcomings so others can learn from them too. As you will hear in the interview, Liam met Madkudu’s founder Frances at SaaStock. In fact, for a long time, Liam used to think SaaStock was called SaaStalk because of all of the invaluable conversations that take place during our conference for founders, executives and investors. If you want to partake in the networking, the life-changing conversations and lasting relationships, join us in Dublin this October for SaaStock19. Check out the other ways SaaStock is serving SaaS founders🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: 13-15 May 2025 | Austin, Texas. Connect, learn and thrive at the leading conference for B2B SaaS Founders, Operators and Investors from Pre-Seed to Series C. (https://ti.to/saastock/saastock-usa-2025)🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe 2025: 12-14 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland. "The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period." - Christoph Janz, Partner, Point Nine. (https://share.hsforms.com/1FbUpCXpJT8um3MehUUYcAg3upof)🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)