The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to +10% revenue from better search, feed, and ads ranking. My guest is Andrew Yates, Co-founder and CEO of Promoted. Andrew Yates formerly led ads ranking, auction, and marketplace engineering and research teams at Facebook and Pinterest. He specializes in designing billion-dollar content marketplaces that maximize long-term revenue while protecting both seller and user experiences. Andrew has published over a dozen patents in online advertising optimization. Andrew met his co-founder at Pinterest. That's where they built Pinterest ads together and realized they could unify ideas from ads and search engineering to make all commercial media better. This became the founding idea behind Promoted, which they started in April 2020 Their mission:  to match every buyer with every seller across every app. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Andrew to my podcast. We explore Andrews's entrepreneurial journey and ideas and what challenges he had to overcome around go-to-market, winning over the biggest skeptics, and creating a revenue flywheel. He explains how breaking away from existing structures and established norms has helped them to break through. Last but not least, his lessons learned around product strategy - and how he arrived at his first principles to drive remarkable value in the shortest amount of time.  Here's one of his quotes We didn't have an open-source philosophy when we first started. Our original philosophy was: Make sure it works. Make sure you build something valuable, put it into production, and make sure that it works and test it against good engineering teams that have the resources, time, and attention to build a similar system and it needs to outperform them.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How to break into an industry by introducing a business model that emphasizes customer collaboration and ownership How to create a shift in value by applying a proven model that's remarkable in one category on a different problem in a different category. How a development team of

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to ensure everyone with an electric car to always have access to services on the go. My guests are Gijs van Lookeren Campagne and Jan Borghuis, co-CEOs at Ease2pay. Gijs and Jan share a long history together. They started their first company, Greenwheels, together in 1995.  Together they're captivated by new technologies that can change the world, dreaming about how it can be easier, better, and especially without hassle.  With Greenwheels, this meant innovating car rental into a 24/7 self-service concept. And today, with Ease2pay (which they founded in 2017)  they are gradually making that dream a reality again, enabling managers of gas stations, charging stations, parking garages, camper sites, marinas, inland ports, and truck parks to turn their location into a self-service site. In this way, they are making the energy transition easy for everyone. And this inspired me, and hence I invited both Gijs and Jan to my podcast. We explore what stands in the way of making the rapid transition to electronic vehicles happening. The two founders discuss their journey of building the business from scratch, and how the accelerated this by leveraging M&A from the start. They share insights about the complexities of merging companies and the potential losses in synergy if done improperly. They also discuss some of the mistakes they've made along the way, including delayed integration of acquisitions and changes to pricing systems without careful consideration. Here's one of their quotes We are facilitating the energy transition. Ton, you didn't make the transition yet yourself. I didn't make that transition myself, actually. So why people don't do that transition to battery electric cars? Because it's a lot of hassle. You need to have three plastic cards if you want to go on holiday. But most people have multiple cards, and then the card doesn't work here, and it is not bookable, so you drive to France, arrive at the station to charge, and there are three people waiting in front of you. So Book, Park, Charge, and pay at the base, we think there's an innovation to be done to facilitate people. And that would drive the adoption of battery electric cars - but also ships, boats, and trucks. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to create a work environment where the team becomes your advantage. How to accelerate the process of gaining a multi-year headstart advantage and gaining product traction fast.  What they've learned from launching a new B2B concept into a market that's dominated by multinationals. What they believe is the formula to being ready for the market and shaping a sustainable business with long-term success.  For more information about the guest from this week: Gijs van Lookeren Campagne Jan Borghuis Website Ease2pay Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help us all deliver a buyer experience that wins deals. My guest is Erdem Gelal, Co-founder and CEO of Flowla.  Erdem Gelal has a wealth of work experience, beginning with an internship at PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2010, Accenture in 2011 and a Financial Analyst role at Procter & Gamble the same year. His entrepreneurial journey started when he co-founded cubic.fm in 2013 and ProceedLabs in 2015. ProceedLabs was acquired in 2018. This didn't stop his passion for exploration. In 2020, he co-founded TalentGrid, and in 2022 Flowla, where he's currently the CEO. Flowla is on a mission to build an outstanding & frictionless way to get deals done. Because it's time we all should stop relying on emails to do that. They believe B2B processes deserve a consumer-grade approach, so closing B2B deals can be as easy as checking out a cat litter box on Amazon. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Erdem to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the B2B SaaS sales process. Erdem explains the fundamental decisions that helped take the company from its idea to where they are today, why he doubled down on a bottom-up PLG approach, and what he's learned to get traction going. We discuss his big learnings to drive the adoption of the solution and to spark word-of-mouth recommendations. Last but not least, he shares how their mantra to build 100 true fans has helped to be remarkable from the start.  Here's one of his quotes When we ask our users: 'What do you like most about Flowla,' the top answer we get is: Standing out from the crowd. They like the idea of making a difference to stand out in the noisy inbox, and increase win-win rates, not only because everything is just in one place, but also because they can reduce ghosting. It definitely crosses a certain threshold when it comes to an inbox with 100s of unread emails. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to leverage AI to prepopulate templates to scale conversion, and boost user adoption How having a helpful conversation helped them to close more business How to accelerate your journey toward product-market fit How he's leveraging internal champions to do the upwards selling within their organization. For more information about the guest from this week: Erdem Gelal Website Flowla Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to enable every PLG B2B SaaS company grow their MRR without high upfront costs. My guest is Joran Hofman, CEO of Reditus. Joran is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. Back in 2020 he was an affiliate for 80+ SaaS tools and was generating an average of 30k in organic visits each month. Due to the issues he experienced with the current affiliate management software tools, it never resulted in the passive income he was hoping for. After getting frustrated time & time again by the clunky affiliate management software and losing precious affiliate revenue, he decided to solve the problem at the core. This is how Reditus was born. Their mantra: When the affiliate does well, so will B2B SaaS companies; in the end, so will Reditus. This inspired me, and hence I invited Joran to my podcast. We explore his journey into affiliate marketing and the founding of his B2B SaaS company. He shares his biggest challenges on his early journey, such as a complete rebuild of his platform - and discusses how tuning segmentation has helped to optimize traction. He also reveals the secrets to helping his customers, B2B SaaS companies, get irresistible value from his platform. Last but not least, he provides two pieces of advice that peer B2B SaaS CEOs can do their advantage with. Here's one of his quotes What we're trying to build is a huge network with people who have access to your ideal customer profile. So it's not just building a network of affiliates. It's also knowing what kind of reach they have and where they have their reach so you can really tap into their market. The ideal world is that they have a channel where they don't have to pay upfront costs to actually do marketing because that's the huge benefit of affiliate marketing. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why the definition of a Minimum Viable Product puts you on a dangerous path as a startup. His first principles (one being prioritizing quality over quantity) to create leveraged results What are the critical ingredients to get right if you want to grow your business through affiliation  How adopting a freemium model with an affiliate program can be an effective way to encourage user adoption, revenue generation and competitive advantage. For more information about the guest from this week: Joran Hofman Website Reditus Grow your B2B SaaS podcast Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that powers businesses to accurately answer the question: What will customers buy? My guest is Sebastian Baier, Founder, and CEO of Buynomics. Sebastian is a tech entrepreneur on a mission.  He was a Director with Simon-Kucher & Partners, where I worked with leading international companies on pricing and portfolio structure. That's where the idea sparked for Buynomics. In July 2018, he co-founded Buynomics. Buynomics employs large-scale simulation technologies to digitize customers and predict their behavior. Their mission: to enable companies to answer all their market-facing questions, including pricing, product offers, and promotions. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Sebastian to my podcast. We explore why it is so hard to get pricing right. And then Sebastian digs into the different ways we have to approach it and why. He shares his first principles when it comes to product development and elaborates on what he learned from initially going to market with far too broad segmentation. Last but not least, he shares a do and a don't based on what he learned in the last 5 years. Here's one of his quotes Key questions about revenue management are always the same. They're the same if you're Coca-Cola or if you're running a lemonade stand. But they are extremely hard to answer. What is the right price? What is the right promotion? And they have a gigantic impact.  What makes it really difficult to think about it is one thing and one thing only: You don't know how your customers will react. During this interview, you will learn four things: His take on building a category-defining product  What rules to apply before considering building a partner channel His lessons learned from niching down towards the optimum Why he didn't follow the guidance from VC and expert consultants to embrace a more aggressive go-to-market motion For more information about the guest from this week: Sebastian Baier Website: Buynomics Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that helps product & growth teams build product-led experiences, experiment, and validate results, fast. And my guest is Jonathan Anderson, Co-founder and CEO of Candu. Jonathan Anderson is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. He loves tech but can’t write a line of code. He's passionate about product-led selling and has launched services, strategy, operations, and analytics teams at venture-backed SaaS startups, including InsightSquared and LaunchDarkly.  Prior to startups, Jonathan worked at Bain & Company and he has a B.S. and M.S.Eng from Stanford University.  In September 2018, he co-founded Candu - a no-code tool that allows teams to collaboratively build the UI components needed to encourage the adoption of features, onboard users, and announce product news on a day-to-day basis. It's not just for the pure-play product-led companies, like Atlassian, Notion, and Loom — it's for the 'strivers' who are trying to figure out how to adjust their go-to-market motion for this new world order.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jonathan to my podcast. We explore what's holding a lot of software vendors back from shipping products to market and achieving high adoption rates. Jonathan shares his vision of how he aims to change that for good. He elaborates on the challenges he had to overcome to build traction and what that took from a product investment perspective in terms of first principles, focus, and grid. Lastly, he shares a do and a don't for B2B SaaS CEOs based on his most powerful own learnings. Here's one of his quotes We're changing the way that a business thinks about building its product. A single person, a single growth PM, can actually define an experiment in their head, grab a template, customize it, inject it into an application, preview it, and QA it themselves. So it really collapses what is basically a growth team into a single person. That makes it radically less expensive and also much, much, much faster. During this interview, you will learn four things: His approach to convincing a user/ buyer Candu is exactly what they need  How to approach getting users to start using your product and become addicted Their approach to turn their user base into their best sales force What Candu did differently by giving their ideal customers a 'name' that makes them instantly recognize if it's for them or not  For more information about the guest from this week: Jonathan Anderson Website Candu Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to each of us full control of our email inbox. My guest is Andy Mowat, CEO of Gated. Andy has spent his career building sales and marketing engines for world-beating companies. He created and scaled a customer success operations team to drive operational improvements for all post-sale services at Box. And in May 2017, he became the Vice President of GTM Operations & Growth Marketing at Culture Amp, where he drove 10x growth in ARR.  He's completed an MBA at Stanford and has a BA degree in International Economics from Princeton University. In June 2021, he co-founded Gated, which he leads as its CEO. Their mission: to fix digital overload for both buyers AND sellers.... and to do some good for the world.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Andy to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way they use email and social channels. Andy explains his vision of how he can give everyone control back and make real communication happen. He shares the big lessons learned on taking Gated from zero to where it is today -growing at 20% per month. He elaborates on his approach to monetization, to keep the tool free for those that get the most value - and how that creates network effects. Lastly, he talks about crossing the chasm and what big lessons that told him.  Here's one of his quotes There are 10,000 tools helping sellers and marketers pummel buyers. We are not building the 10,001st tool. We're building the first tool for buyers.  Building a trusted brand is a tremendous opportunity. I believe that the world needs what we're doing, especially when you think about ChatGPT and how more and more emails are sent every day. Imagine a world where, instead of 100 emails getting sent and two replies, 10 emails get sent and five replies. It's a world that's better for everybody. During this interview, you will learn four things: What remarkable solutions we can create when we take the viewpoint of the underserved receiver of your service outputs? Why you cannot start early enough thinking about building virality in your product How to build a movement around your startup Why it's critical to cast a vision that doesn't lock you in - and how to go about that.  For more information about the guest from this week: Andy Mowat Website Gated Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to unlock performance and retain great talent. My guest is Antony Thompson, Co-Founder and former CEO of Loopin.  Antony has spent a lifetime in service of others, first as a Royal Marine Commando and then as a business consultant focused on creating incredible value for the teams he worked with. After leaving the Marines, he spent time as a management consultant; fulfilling the role of a reporting manager on a £5bn infrastructure portfolio. In May 2018, he founded Vanguard Global Solutions focused on delivering people strategies, encompassing coaching, workshops, and programs.  But then COVID kicked in - completely disrupting their business model. And that event sparked the idea behind Loopin, which he and his co-founder Ben, founded in June 2020.  Their 2030 mission: provide 1 million managers the ability to reduce burnout and attrition in their teams. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Antony to my podcast. We explore the growing challenge so burnout and attrition in the market and why traditional solutions can only help us come so far. Antony then shares what needs to change and why given their experiences from the Marines and the characteristics they've uncovered about what creates high-performing overachievers.  He talks about the lessons learned from the pivot they needed to pull through. And lastly, he shares what it takes to build a successful startup and why ego doesn't have a place in that.  Here's one of his quotes One of the things which we conceptualize was this bubble idea where this bubble would rise to the top of the platform. We said, look, that's the most important thing that you as the business leader need to do today because that's the thing that's going to turn the needle. And it was with that mindset: It's all about getting the quality in engagement, surveys don't work. They're lagging indicators. Maybe there's an opportunity to create something which is a leading indicator that gives you some foresight. We're very good at doing financial forecasting. But what if we could do people or human forecasting… During this interview, you will learn four things: Why are we leaning too much toward lagging indicators when we should be focused on leading indicators What the three ingredients are for high performance, and which one, in particular, to double down on How to separate the false signs of success from the real ones How to go about having the courage to have the really difficult conversations For more information about the guest from this week: Antony Thompson Website: Loopin Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help logistic providers make their shipments cost-friendly and effective. My guest is Nayan Ratandhayara, co-founder and CEO of Shipyaari. Nayan is a Chartered Accountant by Qualification and an entrepreneur from heart.  Early in his career, he grew from Account Executive to Finance Director. The idea of doing his own start-up came out of a logistical problem they faced in the business.  It led him to co-found Shipyaari In 2013. However, that was not enough to support a single bread-earning member, so he kept his corporate job and later moved to his next corporate job at WPP. Shipyaari has been a hustling start-up for close to 7 years but came into a sustainable and scaling phase in the pandemic, which appeared to be a blessing in disguise. The growth he saw during this period forced the entrepreneur in Nayan to go full-time on this and leave his high-paying job. Their vision is to create a world that's enabled by better-controlled operations that can deliver products with commitment and guarantee. Their mission: To transform the last-mile delivery experience of the end consumers.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Nayan to my podcast. We explore how Nayan has been able to build a successful logistics tech business without any logistical experience. He shares how he's been able to scale his business from 20 to 100 FTE in under 2.5 years and what first principle thinking enabled them to spark growth while the world got into lockdown. Last but not least, he shares advice on what mentality to develop to stay resilient and build a business that has staying power without desperately chasing funding. Here's one of his quotes COVID was unfortunate for many, but it was fortunate for us. We got a blessing in disguise. During that period. Initially, when India went into lockdown, everybody was curious about what is happening, what needs to be done, what did not need to be done, and all the chaos around the regulations and everything was happening.  So we took time for two or three months to evolve our system, evolve our technology, and evolve our process. That helped us in scaling up the business because when the machinery is running, you never got time to think about it. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to go about approaching the problem you solve in a way that creates defensible differentiation How to prepare yourself to succeed in expanding your business internationally Why being a novice in a particular domain can be a big advantage to creating a successful business What human skills are required to build predictable traction  For more information about the guest from this week: Nayan Ratandhayara Website Shipyaari Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to launch your next product, without the chaos. My guest is Derek Osgood, Founder and CEO of Ignition. Derek Osgood is a former marketing exec turned founder. Prior to founding Ignition, he was an early hire at Rippling where he stood up the Product Marketing function and helped scale the company to $20M in ARR. As a Product Marketing leader everywhere from startups to major brands like PlayStation, Derek has launched over 100 products and his products have generated over $1B in revenue.  In February 2021 he decided it was time to build the platform he wished he had along the way - and founded Ignition. Its mission: To launch every product to otherworldly success, through world-class strategic marketing…. And to boldly go where no marketer has gone before. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Derek to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the Product Launch process and how this is hurting businesses. Derek takes us on a journey of how he's built the company and shares the critical lessons he learned. He explains what difference positioning has made and how important it's been to nail the essential details in messaging and product to grow momentum. Here's one of his quotes Inherently the key thing that people are in their head assuming is the primary thing they're going to drive is efficiency and time savings. However, once they have implemented all that stuff, the value that they really start seeing is now suddenly we have more effective launches. Now we're like breaking through the noise more, And they're basically just seeing, you know, higher revenue performance from the launches that they're creating. During this interview, you will learn four things: What to do differently to increase the success of your product launches  Why classic Silicon Valley thinking sometimes works counterintuitive to break through How to avoid getting sucked down into a rabbit hole of undifferentiated stuff Why our messaging is often 180 different from what it needs to be and how to avoid that.  For more information about the guest from this week: Derek Osgood Website: Ignition  Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices