The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that's build to offload operational complexities of a SaaS business, so they can focus on growth. My guest is Christian Owens, Founder and CEO of Paddle. Leave a comment or a question for Christian or Ton Christian Owens is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. He learned to build websites when he was 12 years old. He dropped out of school when I was 16 and started his first software company. That grew to be a £3-4m business in 18 months. It was through running that business that I encountered the problem that we try and solve at Paddle. In 2012, Christian founded Paddle with his co-founder Harrison. Its mission: To help SaaS companies navigate the revenue journey at every stage.  Paddle offers SaaS companies a completely different approach to their payment infrastructure. Instead of assembling and maintaining a complex stack of payments-related apps and services, Paddle acts as a merchant of record for its customers, taking away 100% of the pain of payment fragmentation. It’s faster, safer, simpler, and above all, way better. This is the short story of a company that grew its valuation to $1.4B in just ten years. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Christian to my podcast. We explore the journey Christian went through to claim Unicorn status. Christian elaborates on the holistic mission principles that underpin his business and how that has helped to build defensible differentiation and the foundation to scale from the start. Lastly, he talks about what it takes to get customers happily pay a premium for products that are not exactly sexy. Here's one of his quotes: If the whole crux of like why your product is valuable, or your business is valuable, is dependent on a single feature, that's really dangerous. However, if it's dependent on a fundamentally different way of thinking about doing your thing. That's great. That gives you a clear, strong differentiation between those folks to be able to go and compete. But there is a difference between competing on that feature function kind of "oh, we have the magic bullet", which is a complete myth and never exists. Versus we're trying to take the same problem and almost just flip it on its head and think about it from a different direction. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to avoid your Marketing team writing checks that the product can't cash  Why you should avoid making the unsexy sexy if your product is not the coolest thing in the world Why you should not focus on trying to create the one magic bullet of a feature - and what to do instead How guarantees, where you promise to pay for damage, creates a mindset internally that can become your competitive advantage For more information about the guest from this week: Christian Owens Website Paddle Leave a comment or a question for Christian or Ton Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that gives B2C brands around the world the power to maximize eCommerce revenue the lean way. My guest is Greg Blazewicz, CEO of SALESmanago. Leave a comment or a question for Greg or Ton. Greg has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing. He holds two MA degrees: one in British Literature and Linguistics second in Business Management. His career started in marketing agencies in New York and London. For 6 years, held the position of Marketing Director at Comarch – one of the largest European IT solutions providers. In 2006, he was nominated as CEO of Interia, one of the largest horizontal internet portals in Europe listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, employing over 250 people. Greg is the author of the widely popular book “Marketing Automation Revolution”. He is also a lecturer at Universities, helping other technology startups. In 2008, he started as an entrepreneur creating software for marketing teams which led to founding SALESmanago Marketing Automation in 2011. Their mission: To enable every eCommerce team to be lean yet pragmatic and powerful and become the CEO's trusted revenue partner. This inspired me, and hence I invited Greg to my podcast. We explore how Greg took his business to €22 million ARR in a completely bootstrapped way. He shares his big lessons learned to build a business with staying power, how to find your own way of doing it, and why you shouldn't blindly follow the advice and rules of people outside your company.  Here's a quote from him: The early kind of growth was really about having complete freedom to experiment. And I think a team that is actually really open for change for experimentation for failures is not an obvious thing. People that were committing their lives. When you see a startup, you would have two, three, or at max five founders who work like crazy. I'd say, today we are almost 400 people in the business, and 30% of them work like founders. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why the essence of your SaaS product is not its features but the transformation it lets your users make How going into countries no one considers can build you an interesting competitive position How to create an organization where +30% of your employees showcase the determination of a founder How to arrive at a position where you can start funding from a position of strength (not desperation) For more information about the guest from this week: Greg Blazewicz Website SALESmanago Leave a comment or a question for Greg or Ton. Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on what it takes to create a business that not only survives a crisis but actually grows stronger from it. My guest is Devin Bramhall, Ex-CEO of Animalz. Devin is the former CEO of Animalz, a leading content marketing agency for B2B Saas companies.  Leave a comment or a question for Devin or Ton Storytelling is at the root of Devin's passion for marketing. She founded The Master Slam, a poetry slam-style debate about startups and tech. She is also a TEDx organizer and speaker trainer and has competed in several storytelling competitions.  In September 2022, she posted a vulnerable Linkedin post about stepping down as the CEO, thereby sharing her lessons learned not only to survive the company but actually growing it stronger during the pandemic and recent crisis. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Devin to my podcast. We explore the big lessons she learned taking over the CEO role at Animalz - and what it took to grow the business by 200% in two years of pandemic and economic crisis. She shares what appeared to be really important to keep and what not to keep - thereby reflecting on her misjudgments and traps she fell into without even realizing it. Here's one of her quotes I learned this: it was more about consistency and reminding people of what the goal is that we're trying to accomplish, and therefore establishing that focus that keeps people relaxed. During this interview, you will learn five things: What's your number one job as a CEO in a period of crisis  The importance of setting first principles and sticking to them How to avoid making fear-based decisions or becoming overconfident How to keep everyone focused and committed when times are tough What to do/avoid doing in marketing to make an impact For more information about the guest from this week: Devin Bramhall Website: Animalz Leave a comment or a question for Devin or Ton Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that connects nonprofits, businesses, and individual givers with an opportunity to support important causes in the world. My guest is Matt Ostanik, CEO of Grateful. Leave a comment or a question for Matt or Ton. Matt is an architect, creator, builder, and tech entrepreneur on a mission. He has founded four companies. First, in 2003, Submittal Exchange - a construction technology platform. He sold this company to Textura in 2011. He continued to grow the Submittal Exchange business unit by an average of 50% per year and served on the Textura executive team as the company completed a successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2013. In 2014 he founded CVG, a consulting company, and FunnelWise, a marketing and sales technology startup. Matt knows the ins and outs of building successful and mission-driven businesses. He believes businesses can use social good to connect with their customers and employees on a deeper and stronger level. Today he's the founder and CEO of Grateful, a platform that helps socially good businesses participate in “Grateful Giving” by donating to their customers’ and employees’ favorite nonprofits.  Its mission is to transform charitable giving for nonprofits, businesses, and individual givers. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore what's missing in the way we build SaaS businesses. Matt shares his vision of how creating social and business impact amplifies each other when done well. He shares his lessons learned in creating successful SaaS businesses that leverage the power of the network effect. Last but not least, he provides his views on raising the bar for impact in SaaS companies.  Here's a quote from him I can tell you there are about 160 million people in the US that donate to charities every year. Those are people that care. When you ask them, 91% say they're more likely to do business with companies willing to support security that they personally care about. So there's a marketing and customer attraction value proposition with this. But we've seen with some of the companies we're working with already for the customers that participate in this type of customer giving program those customers spend 17% more with those businesses. So, it literally pays for itself. During this interview, you will learn four things: What value we can create for our customers if we'd understand what their customers desire from them  You'll understand what to look for in customers to accelerate traction How to engineer your solution, so it automatically brings you valuable leads How to go about building a business that creates a remarkable network effect  For more information about the guest from this week: Matt Ostanik Website: Grateful  Leave a comment or a question for Matt or Ton. Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to talk more and sell more. My guest is Alex Levin, Co-Founder and CEO of Regal. Leave a comment or a question for Alex or Ton. Alex is a Tech Entrepreneur on a mission. He was a product manager at Personal and Thomson Reuters and then joined Handy (later acquired by ANGI) to lead growth and marketing. Alex grew up in New York and received his BA from Harvard. While at Angi, he successfully drove top-of-funnel growth. But even after rolling out website optimization and email/SMS remarketing, only ~4 of 100 customers would convert. Surprisingly, he found that if they'd called the 96% “abandoned” customers and got them on the phone, they loved the attention and converted at double the rate. In search of technology to scale this, he found only solutions around a basic, one-size-fits-all “call more” or “call faster” strategy, resulting in declining answer rates and a terrible customer experience. Solving this problem sparked the idea to co-found Regal in October 2020 with Rebecca Green (CTO). They believe in the power of a personal touch in an increasingly digital world. In the meantime, they've built an outbound phone and SMS sales solution that helps many fast-growing B2C brands achieve their growth goals way faster.  Their mission: We believe in the power of a personal touch in an increasingly digital world. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Alex to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way we sell online to B2C customers. Alex explains how there is a new playbook that requires a B2C sales team and how Regal.io helps B2C sales teams 3.5x their answer rate and drive more revenue than their website does. He shares some big lessons learned on how they grew rapidly to a double-digit million ARR in 2 years and had no sales or marketing team for the first year. Last but not least, he talks about why we should prioritize creating wealth for everyone in your company rather than glorifying fundraising. Here's one of his quotes: At bigger companies, you're taught the wrong thing. You're taught that the more people work for you, the more important you are. I think that results in bad outcomes for companies. We try to teach people that the most valuable people in the company are those that can make themselves completely redundant. During this interview, you will learn four things: What you should be looking for in conversations about new products with customers That you don't have to have a huge engineering team to build products that drive revenue from the start How to successfully grow your SaaS business faster with fewer people How to create a SaaS business that becomes critical infrastructure for your customers For more information about the guest from this week: Alex Levin Website Regal Leave a comment or a question for Alex or Ton. Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to manage events without stress. My guest is Jonathan Kazarian, CEO of Accelevents. Leave a comment or a question for Jonathan or Ton. Johnathan is a true tech-entrepreneur‍ on a mission. His journey started in 2014 when his cousin, at the age of 17, got diagnosed with cancer, and he wanted to do something for her. Then, in preparation for an 850-person charity event with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, he recognized the many limitations of existing event technology and fundraising platforms. And this sparked the idea to create a solution so fundraisers would never have to go through that experience again.  As such, he founded Accelevents in early 2015 and has been on a journey since to build a virtual & hybrid events platform. Its mission: help event organizers get some sleep the night before their event. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jonathan to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the world of event automation and what can be if it's fixed. Jonathan shares what his business went through as their revenue 10Xed during the pandemic. He elaborates why he'd bootstrap his business again if he had to start again - and why he believes he should have taken bigger risks upfront on both product and positioning. Lastly, we talk about the critical choices he made during the Pandemic - and why without it, we wouldn't have had this conversation. Here's a quote from him:  I built it nights and weekends for five years before actually going full-time with it. And as 2020 approached, we were much more focused on b2b events and for-profit events, starting to get into the world of conferences and starting to realize that technology was going to play a bigger role going forward. So we were starting to build toward this hybrid future. But it wasn't until March of 2020, when events evaporated overnight, that we knew we had to go all in on virtual. And we took our revenue from 375k in 2019 to over 3.4 million in 2020. During this interview, you will learn four things: How you can create meaningful differentiation by deeply understanding the critical moments in your customers' business Why your customers often aren't buying the right features but the right feeling What traction can you spark if you figure out how to leverage the customers of your customers  Why he decided to stick to his core principles even though that meant growing at a slower rate For more information about the guest from this week: Jonathan Kazarian Website Accelevents Leave a comment or a question for Jonathan or Ton. Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to redefine how we experience work. My guest is Sarah Hawley, CEO of Growmotely. Leave a comment or a question for Sarah or Ton. Sarah Hawley is a serial entrepreneur and investor in startups, having founded eight companies since 2009. She's personally fueled by a passion for challenging the status quo of how we work, conscious culture and leadership, community, diversity, and equality, and living life on one's own terms.  She's recognized as the IFA Thought Leader of the Year. Sarah was also named as one of Melbourne’s Top 100 most influential, inspiring, and creative citizens by The Age and listed in the Top 50 Female Entrepreneurs under 40 by Shoestring. She has completed the Entrepreneurial Master Program at MIT and holds a Bachelor of Business and several diplomas. In August 2020, in the middle of the Pandemic, she founded Growmotely, an All-in-one platform for growing your remote-first company. Its mission: Redefining how we experience work by bringing culture-first companies and professionals together across the world to do great things.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Sarah to my podcast. We explore what's broken in getting remote work to work. Sarah share's her vision about what it's really like to create a remote-first business - and what needs to happen for it to come to fruition. She elaborates on the product strategy lessons she learned and what it took to bring her solution to the market in order to gain traction and start a movement. Last but not least, she explains why she dropped the idea of being venture-backed. Here's one quote from her I see it all the time people reach out to me. I see it on LinkedIn, where there's just a high level of frustration because companies are advertising remote jobs, and people are applying for them only to find out that it's remote, but you have to live in this country or this city. And so it's actually excluding most of the world from applying for that job. And people are frustrated because those of us who really are for remote work and really understand it in the context that I am talking about here today is: It's anywhere work. And it's equal opportunity for anyone in the world to access employment opportunities. And that's the world that I want to create. During this interview, you will learn four things: What's needed beyond a strong vision to start a movement?  Why she opted to focus on organic growth through word of mouth instead of outbound sales? What she did differently to achieve a 48% referral rate (and growing) Why she pulled her business back to the mission and away from too much focus on growth numbers For more information about the guest from this week: Sarah Hawley Website Growmotely Leave a comment or a question for Sarah or Ton. Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to all of us to drive meaningful results with learning communities. My guest is Shaunak Roy, Founder of Yellowdig. Shaunak is a true tech entrepreneur on a mission. The first decade of his career he spent advising global companies on technology, strategy, and growth. Leave a comment or a question for Shaunak or Ton. In 2014 he knew he wanted to start a company that mattered. As he looked back on his own academic days as an undergrad at IIT Bombay, and postgrad at MIT, he realized that he learned as much from his peers as he did from his brilliant professors. Some of the bonds he created with his peers lasted well beyond those formative years, and morphed into lifelong friendships. As Facebook and other social media technologies took over the social connectivity scene, he saw an opportunity to leverage this idea of social sharing through technology, but specifically in the area of sharing academic ideas and knowledge.  That became the big idea behind Yellowdig. The platform was built on three main pedagogical principles: Agency, Mastery, and Connectedness.  Its mission: To make classroom learning more joyful, active, and engaging And this inspired me, and hence I invited Shaunak to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way we deliver education. Shaunuk shares his vision about how education can be more fun and impactful. He elaborates on the big lessons learned from making his idea a reality and gaining predictable traction in a tough market. He shares his secrets on how to avoid failure and create a solution that users not only like, but love. Here's one of his quotes When we sit in a classroom and try to learn, it's not just the lecture from the professor, but it's also the interaction that we're having. That's where the real learning happens. And even if I listen to the best professor in the world doesn't mean I'm going to be smart, like him or her. It's only when I try to apply that knowledge by discussing with people like me or going back to work and trying to connect with something I learned before and those connectivities where learning truly happens. And I think that's where technology has a huge role to play. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to create predictable traction by leveraging existing technology investments and amplifying their value The framework Shaunak is using to grow fast but mitigate the critical risks  What he learned from having to rebuild his entire stack - and how it helped them to build a viable company What sales and pricing strategies work best if you aim to create momentum in traditionally conservative industries. For more information about the guest from this week: Shaunak Roy Website Yellowdig Leave a comment or a question for Shaunak or Ton. Subscribe to the Daily Value Inspiration Get my free, 2 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leave a comment or a question for Tina or Ton. This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help manufacturing and cybersecurity businesses to attract and grow a sustainable workforce pipeline. My guest is Tina Zwolinski, CEO of Skillsgapp. Tina is a true tech entrepreneur on a mission. Her work as CEO and founder of ZWO, a national branding firm, provided her with decades of experience providing strategic counsel, marketing direction, and brand development to organizations that aspired to grow their businesses, reach emerging markets, and launch innovative projects and initiatives.  Her passion: developing the youth for middle-skills and STEM jobs, helping states meet their industry recruitment and economic development workforce needs, and helping manufacturers and other industries fill their talent gaps with skilled recruits.  She's focused her volunteer service efforts on young people -- helping them get the best start in life and grow into mature, valued young adults. And this work sparked the big idea behind Skillsgapp. Skillsgapp is on a mission to connect youth to life-changing careers through game-changing play. The platform is designed to attract and grow a sustainable workforce pipeline with the geo-specificity to meet a region’s and industry’s specific needs while providing the next workforce generation access to meaningful careers and pathways – even in underserved areas.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Tina to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way we fill our workforce pipeline. Tina shares how, through technology, we can solve this problem at a global scale - in a way that's fun and ultra-precise. She shares her big lessons learned in creating a flywheel for growth by removing industry barriers. And last but not least, she shares her advice on creating a software business that people keep talking about.  Here's a quote from her: In cyber, currently, there are 700,000 unfilled jobs. And in manufacturing, by 2025, there will be 3.4 million manufacturing jobs worldwide, and 2 million of those are going unfilled. But in Gen Z, there are 2 billion globally. So if you start to run the numbers, it's not a people problem. There is an awareness and access problem. Last but not least. she shares her advice on creating a software business that people keep talking about. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to find transformative innovation opportunities by zooming out to the global picture How to create a flywheel for growth when there's no real owner of the problem.  How you can solve a global challenge by approaching it locally. The power that unlocks when purpose and technology blend. For more information about the guest from this week: Tina Zwolinski  Website Skillsgapp Leave a comment or a question for Tina or Ton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leave a comment or a question for Patrick or Ton This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that enables B2B SaaS businesses to deliver a stellar member experience, quantify business impact, and become community-driven. My guest is Patrick Woods, Co-founder and CEO of Orbit. Patrick Woods is a tech entrepreneur on a Mission. He has more than 10 years of marketing and customer success experience. He’s the co-creator of the Orbit Model, host of the Developer Love podcast, and is the author of the Brand Strategy Canvas.  He co-founded Orbit in September 2019 on the strong belief that software is no longer sold - but adopted and that value creation beats value capture.  The sales funnel is about extracting value, but that only works short-term. For sustainable growth, community can drive long-term adoption through value creation. And that's exactly the mission behind Orbit And this inspired me, and hence I invited Patrick to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way we think about community. Patrick shares his vision around the opportunity the SaaS industry has by becoming community-driven. He shares his big lessons learned to create bottom-up traction in an extremely fragmented market and how growth accelerated during Covid purely fueled by their big idea, the Orbit Framework. Last but not least, he explains how having a compelling mission has helped them to attract the right talent. Here's one of his quotes: Late 2019, we raised our first capital because our theory was that we need to reimagine the go-to-market tech stack based on these new ideas, these new data models, and these new mental models. Nobody's done this, and somebody's going to figure out what CRM will look like in the context of community. If community-driven growth of product-led growth is real, how can we retool the tech stack to make that real? There's gonna be retooling, but it needs to be reimagined from first principles. And the Orbit model is the thing that we're going to try to build this on. During this interview, you will learn four things: How a healthy and growing community de-risks and accelerates every part of your business   How to create a self-sustaining flywheel for growth around your SaaS business purely driven by content - instead of big campaigns or outbound sales. How to maximize your growth opportunity by balancing value capturing with value creation activities That starting a successful community is not about the platform you choose but about articulating why anyone would care to join your community. For more information about the guest from this week: Patrick Woods Website Orbit Leave a comment or a question for Patrick or Ton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices