The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help ambitious people become more focused and productive. My guest is Jonas Vossler, Founder, and CEO of Flow Lab. Jonas is fascinated by everything that happens at the intersection of new technologies, business, and society. He's convinced that in today’s world, innovation is the primary driver for economic growth and for change in our society. It is due to the progress induced by a variety of innovations and inventions, especially in health and technology, that the population of Western industrialized countries enjoys a high standard of living.  Still, we all experience a variety of mental distractions and emotional distress in our workdays that prevent us from finding the motivation, focus, and energy to perform at our best and use our time productively. And that's exactly the problem Jonas wants to solve - and hence he founded Flow Lab, a company that's on a mission to help people find more flow in their lives.  And that inspired me - and hence I invited Jonas to my podcast. We explore why with all the technology around it's still so hard to be productive and deliver peak performance in our work. We also discuss the journey Jonas has been on to solve this massive problem. He shares examples about the strategic decisions he had to take, the challenges he's faced in gaining traction in the market, funding his business, and what was required to be ready for that in the first place. Lastly, we discuss his big lessons learned to create a software business that's resilient and what it takes to build something that people just keep talking about. Here are some of his quotes: The tools we provide they're going to help people be their own mental coach, so to speak, to develop self-leadership capabilities that take me through the day in a way that I feel for myself as positive and productive. And what that can mean is: the ability to focus when I need to ability not to focus when I don't want to. The ability to recover. The ability to be emotionally balanced. The ability to motivate myself. There are so many micro-decisions that can be decisive throughout a given day, for me to make this a productive day. During this interview, you will learn four things: What being crystal clear about segmentation actually means and why focusing just on demographics is not enough Why having a compelling vision and realistic optimism are key ingredients to build resilience in your SaaS business That, in order to become a remarkable software business you have to invest in soft skills in communication - especially when emotion get involved. That the pressure to get the funding is nothing compared to the pressure that's is building once you get the funding For more information about the guest from this week: Jonas Vossler Website  Flow Lab Subscribe to Value Inspiration on Friday’s A weekly musing on how to shape the B2B SaaS business your customers just keep talking about. Learn from the most inspiring ideas I've encountered or explored this week that could help you find new ways to stand out, eliminate the need to compete on price, and make tangible progress in creating a SaaS business your customers would miss if it were gone.   Subscribe here See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to episode 200 of the Tech-entrepreneur on a mission podcast.  Because this is a big milestone on the journey I didn't want to devote this podcast to one guest - instead I got 22.  A big element of every single episode of the podcast is the advice from tech-entrepreneurs to other tech-entrepreneurs about the most valuable lessons learned in building a remarkable SaaS business. So I've made a hand-picked selection of quotes from the 200 episodes that have featured between the 1st of January 2018 and today. And in doing so I've uncovered 7 different themes.  Just Start & Think big Declaring war to the problem Challenge the status quo and create change The right mindset - because there are no shortcuts The power of creating leverage Clarity about value Removing ego - act as a team Subscribe to Value Inspiration on Friday’s A weekly musing on how to shape the B2B SaaS business your customers just keep talking about. Learn from the most inspiring ideas I've encountered or explored this week that could help you find new ways to stand out, eliminate the need to compete on price, and make tangible progress in creating a SaaS business your customers would miss if it were gone.   Subscribe here See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview shares the big lessons learned from the failed attempts and required pivots running a startup that was on a mission to take down Facebook. My guest is Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm, author of "How Hard Can It Be" Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm is a consultant, lecturer, and head of sales and business development at GLOBHE. He is also the founder of multiple startups, including internalDesk, a SaaS platform for enterprise collaboration, where he served as COO.  He's passionate about entrepreneurship, neuroscience, resilience and making the world a better place. He works on projects he believes in and with people who 'go for it'; He finishes everything he starts; He trains like if there was no tomorrow; He enjoys the 'now' and looks forward to the journey.  He goes by the mantra of "Get comfortable being uncomfortable." And that's no understatement. In his book 'How hard can it be' he explains his personal journey in building a startup that got founded around the big idea to 'take down Facebook'. The book is a jet-setting parable of the European startup scene that takes on the most elusive business topic of them all: failure.  And that inspired me, and hence I invited Arnaud to my podcast. We explore the journey Arnaud and his team went through with their startup, the pivots that were required, and the commercial, financial and emotional challenges this brought along. We pinpoint the critical ingredients to getting right from a solution perspective to create virality - stickiness - and growth that's sustainable. Last but not least he addresses what to be prepared for as a founder and how (and why) to embrace failure as a hidden gem. Here are some of his quotes: People have a lot of ideas, constantly, I guess that's what we do as humans, we have plenty of ideas, but ideas are cheap. What matters is his execution. And unless you execute, and how long can you execute once you've decided that you are someone who indeed executes? You know, how long can you go? How far can you go?People start companies, but they all drop along the way. People drop, people drop, people drop, and they stand on that shelf as a souvenir of startups that tried anything and did not go all the way through? During this interview, you will learn four things: That having a product that's functionally rich and technically scalable is only half the battle. Business model scalability is the other one. That the best thing you can do for your company is to demonstrate persistence in sticking to the one thing you're after. Don't pivot too early That a ground principle of creating something remarkable is to focus on doing something utterly different (not better) Why you need to be persistent in finding problems that are mission-critical, not just nice to have For more information about the guest from this week: Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm Website "How Hard Can It Be" Subscribe to Value Inspiration on Friday’s A weekly musing on how to shape the B2B SaaS business your customers just keep talking about. Learn from the most inspiring ideas I've encountered or explored this week that could help you find new ways to stand out, eliminate the need to compete on price, and make tangible progress in creating a SaaS business your customers would miss if it were gone.   Subscribe here See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to make change to the effectiveness and fairness of our justice system. My guest is Jacqueline Schafer, Founder, and CEO of ClearBrief. Jacqueline began her career as a litigation associate at the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison, and spent the majority of her career as an Assistant Attorney General in the Washington and Alaska Attorney General’s Offices, where she specialized in appellate practice and complex litigation.  Before joining the startup world, Jacqueline also served as in-house counsel for the national nonprofit Casey Family Programs, where she negotiated agreements with state courts across the country and managed impact litigation. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and cum laude from Boston University School of Law.  Today she's the Founder and CEO of Clearbrief, a legal tech startup that's on a mission to transform the legal writing process and create a fairer justice system. And that inspired me - and hence I invited Jacqueline to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the legal tech market. That the focus is too much on the process, and not on the outcome - a more just legal system. Jacqueline shares her vision for the Justice system and how she's carefully architecting a product that's both sticky for its users, has strong network effects, and an ability to create a fairer justice system for all of us. She talks about the biggest hurdles she had to overcome - and what's been critical in her eyes to create a remarkable software business that has staying power.  Here are some of her quotes: "I was doing a pro bono asylum case, representing a woman and her toddler, and in those cases, it really comes down to a final hearing, and it's life or death for these individuals. And so, there was a moment at that hearing where I saw the judge was not inclined to find in favor of my clients. But I pointed him to a sentence in my brief, which was a 50-page intense legal document.  That was what convinced the judge. He looked at the evidence, he looked at that report, in the context of my argument, and we won the case."  During this interview, you will learn four things: Why you should develop a strong evidence skill and avoid taking shortcuts in finding product-market-fit.  How to build a product that has staying power with its core users and put a smile on their face - every single day. Why it's key to connect the dots to the larger impacts we're aspiring to understand the true problem we're solving. How to introduce meaningful change to an industry that's not changed in decades. For more information about the guest from this week: Jacqueline Schafer Website Clearbrief Subscribe to Value Inspiration on Friday’s A weekly musing on how to shape the B2B SaaS business your customers just keep talking about. Learn from the most inspiring ideas I've encountered or explored this week that could help you find new ways to stand out, eliminate the need to compete on price, and make tangible progress in creating a SaaS business your customers would miss if it were gone. Subscribe here See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to build the best content, connect people across the world and create happy customers. My guest is Volker Smid, CEO of Acrolinx  Volker has more than 25 years of management experience in the software, internet, technology, and media industry around the globe. Throughout his career, he served as CEO of Searchmetrics and EVP Digital & Technologies at the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. He was CEO of Hewlett-Packard Germany, Vice Chairman of BITKOM, President EMEA and Asia/PAC at Novell Inc., SVP Sales Midmarket at Parametric Technology Boston, and SVP at POET Inc. in San Mateo, California.  Today he's the CEO of Acrolinx, a company that's built around the vision to create a world connected by amazing content. Its mission is to supercharge the billions of enterprise content touchpoints that power the global customer experience. And that inspired me, and hence I invited Volker to my podcast. We explore what's broken when it comes to managing content in the enterprise world. We drill into the negative effects and the cost of content that frustrates people, and this multiplies as the scale, consumption, and complexity grow. Volker then talks about how he's steering his organization to be a fully aligned organization - and how having a strong and clear vision and mission that are focused on transformational change are critical to achieving this. Last but not least he shares his lessons learned in leading his company through the crisis, and what was required to become a stronger company altogether.   Here are some of his quotes: My first statement, when I came to realize that this world was being turned upside down, was: This is a global crisis. And there will be winners and losers in the global crisis. And I believe we have a fair chance to come out of this crisis being a stronger company - without knowing what that meansBut the first address for the organization was the reminder of. It is a crisis. Every crisis is a mix between challenges and opportunities. Let's be very, very cautious and careful about the challenges. But let's focus on the opportunity.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How to embrace uncertainty and fear when adversity hits - and the power of trust in each other to overcome the biggest challenges. Why every company should educate and develop every employee to be able to tell a 30-second story about the company  Why capturing the transformational stories from customers are critical to creating an aligned and proud organization Why leaders should encourage every employee to go out of their comfort zone and do things they have never done before For more information about the guest from this week: Volker Smid Website Acrolinx See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to bridge the best of both worlds to create remarkable results in an increasingly remote workplace. My guest is Matt Compton, Co-founder, and CEO of Filo. Matt is a two-time founder and former IBM, ExactTarget, and Salesforce. He spent his entire career solving complex problems within product development, sales, marketing, and business strategy. Through a unique skill set combining engineering and business, he specializes in building and leading cross-functional teams to solve organizations' largest problems. Today he's the CEO of Filo, a company that's on a mission to build a future where online meeting fatigue is replaced with meaningful engagement and increased productivity. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore how his company emerged from an attempt to prevent a hackathon event from being canceled. It's a story about what's humanly possible to achieve in a matter of weeks when the problem is highly valuable to solve and timing is critical. Matt shares the challenges he had to overcome in finding a repeatable business model and making the business sustainable. Last but not least he shares his experiences on what it takes to shape a remarkable software business.  Here are some of his quotes: We're helping people come together in order to get real work done, but without having to be in the same place to do it.While it's always great to be in person, and I'm excited to get back in person when we can start doing more of that. Having to do it isn't good for anybody. It's not good for us as people, it's not good for our families. It's not good for the environment. It is not good for business, because it just slows everything down. It's incredibly expensive. We like to move fast. So this is a problem we have been talking about for many years. And we had an opportunity at the beginning of the pandemic in order to put our money where our mouth was. And going back to curiosity, being ambitious, and working with great people - It was an opportunity. We had four weeks and we said "hey, what if?" During this interview, you will learn four things: The importance of laser-sharp segmentation - in particular, understanding who you're not for How to continue momentum when the virality effect of 'the start' fades out How to tune messaging when you're bringing something to market and people are not in the mindset and may not even think there's a solution out there they need What to change to be able to better deal with failure - and become stronger from it.  For more information about the guest from this week: Matt Compton Website Filo See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the art of product innovation - and how people, not technology, often play a fundamental role in creating success. My guest is Derek Mendonça, Co-Founder Singular Aircraft Derek is a highly accomplished business leader with a passion for people & results; specifically, for empowering people to get the best results, aligned around an ambitious vision.  He believes people perform at their best when they are challenged. When they are allowed to explore, encouraged to push their boundaries, and inspired to compete against their own prior achievements.  Derek excels at creating the engagement, excitement, and professional challenge that leads to positive organizational change and encourages innovation. And exactly this skill caused him to co-found Singular Aircraft. It's a company that produces the largest and most versatile unmanned civilian aircraft. The company is on a mission to solve some meaningful and growing problems such as fighting the massive wildfires around the globe, poaching, and delivering goods to operations in dangerous or remote areas. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Derek to my podcast. We explore how making big progress is so often not about introducing new technology, but changing the mindset of people. Derek shares many anecdotes about his fascinating journey (and opportunity) with Singular Aircraft. How small thinking literally stopped countries that need it most to make a big impact. He talks about the big lessons learned to overcome seemingly impossible hurdles - and what helped him to stay sane in that process. Here are some of his quotes: We wanted to make something different. We wanted to make something that everyone could afford. Most planes, as you know, are very expensive.We wanted to make something affordable, at a price point that nobody could compete with us. So our competitor is a 4x4 Land Rover. In terms of cost, not a plane, any 4x4 is my competitor. Because that's the real cost of operations. Obviously, we can take much carry much more and travel further, than where a 4x4 can go. But that is my competitor. So we made it at a price point. And it was a huge risk because we thought at the time: Time will tell whether we're genius, or crazy. During this interview, you will learn four things: It's easy to think about the downsides. It's hard to be positive - choosing not to spend time or energy on what can go wrong, but what can go right Why we need to start with the end in mind - and envision how your product can make the biggest possible difference The power to catalytic invention - create something that excels at the three A's: Applicability, Accessibility, and affordability How to create something that drives word of mouth from the start For more information about the guest from this week: Derek Mendonça Website Singular Aircraft See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help us maximize the impact behind all our creative decisions, and my guest is Anastasia Leng, Founder, and CEO of CreativeX. Early in her career, Anastasia gained experience in brand strategy at Interbrand, spent 5+ years at Google, where she worked on every ad tech and analytics product, led entrepreneurship efforts in EMEA, and was responsible for early-stage partnerships for Google Voice, Chrome, and Wallet. In 2012 she co-founded Hatch, one of Time Magazine’s Top 10 Startups to Watch in New York and one of four most innovative retail companies. Today, she’s the Founder & CEO of CreativeX, an automated creative excellence platform used by the world’s most loved brands. The company is on a mission to advance creative expression through the clarity of data.  And that inspired me, and hence I invited Anastasia to my podcast. We explore what’s holding companies back in their growth because they’re guessing what works/what doesn’t work in relation to their creative efforts. Anastasia shares how she solved this problem internally first, and how investors then made them aware of the size of this problem globally. She explains how this triggered a major pivot and the effort and determination it took to get to Product-Market-Fit. Finally, she shares some of the secrets she learned in turning her company into a remarkable growth story. Here are some of her quotes: We make a lot of promises and have a lot of efforts to try and do things like be responsible citizens as brands to promote different people of all different colors and orientations. And yet, when we look at the content we put out, we don’t always tell that story. And I think part of it is because it has become very, very difficult to analyze content at that scale and in an objective way. We can help o even get an initial pulse check as to how you’re doing on things that don’t even relate to marketing performance. What is the message you’re really sending, I think is the broader question. And how do we help you figure out whether or not the messages that you are really sending actually are in line with the brand values and the things that you would like to be sending? During this interview, you will learn four things: Why having an honest perspective about how your company is really running is key. Staying in that bubble and thinking you’ve got everything together will just make the mess bigger.  Why we’re often the biggest obstacles in our own way  Make the big bets. Think ‘what’s the worst that can happen and push forward.’ Your reflection will tell you ‘why didn’t I do this sooner’ Why success often starts by cutting things down to the core For more information about the guest from this week: Anastasia Leng Website CreativeX See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to enable people on the manufacturing floor to boost continuous improvements and focus on that matters. My guest is Martin Cloake, CEO of Raven AI Martin is an experienced executive and award-winning technology entrepreneur with a background in Manufacturing, Data Science, IP, and Operations Management. He holds multiple patents and is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He's a problem-solver, relentless resourceful, and always assumes something can be done. When he saw the massive investments in Industry 4.0 increase, but most companies failing to get the benefits they'd aspired for he decided to found Raven AI. Raven is on a mission to help manufacturers accelerate Continuous Improvement, improve the service to their customers and increase profits. How? By spotting opportunities and providing real-time guidance that empowers and engages manufacturing teams. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Martin to my podcast. We explore why many manufacturers have a false sense of what they think has happened, vs what actually happened. The result of this: they can't solve their most pressing problems because they can't pinpoint with accuracy what these actually are. Martin shares how he's solving this problem and what choices he's made on his journey to do so in a remarkable way.   Here are some of his quotes: The gold standard that I always thought of for technology was GPS for your car. So one of the things that GPS does is that it doesn't drive your car, it doesn't dominate your attention. Every once in a while, it gives you a little insight. And then based on that insight, you're way more effective. So there's this idea where as humans, we are awesome at solving problems, we're awesome at collaborating with one another. Where technology and data can help is to sift through data to make sure that if we're standing in front of a problem, we're standing in front of the right problem and the most important problem.So I always saw that there's this opportunity to combine what we are best at with what technology is best at. During this interview, you will learn four things: That to succeed in creating momentum and successful adoption we have to go at the speed of humans What it takes to sell your SaaS solution to people on the shopfloor (vs the boardroom) How creating remarkable software starts with people that care about what they are building - and people that are empowered to make decisions That people often think going small and incremental is easier than doing things that are big. Fact is - Doing something big is far easier to get people on board and excited about the journey.  For more information about the guest from this week: Martin Cloake Website Raven AI See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to let us all create a bigger impact, by spending less time in meetings. My guest is Alessandra Knight, Co-Founder, and CEO of Katch. Alessandra studied anthropology and has always had a passion for learning about different people and cultures. She values people-first thinking. And this landed her at Dots - a mobile game studio, where she quickly moved up to an operations-lead-slash-strategic-advisor role for the executive team. Her role was geared towards optimizing time for herself and her colleagues. Soon she started seeing how hard true, uninterrupted focus time was to come by.  This sparked a project within Dots to search for a way to give the team more time to do work and less time in meetings.  And this became the big idea behind Katch. Katch is on a mission to create a world where people make the time to connect with who they want, on topics that matter at times that work best for them. It's giving all of us the ability to live our lives versus being controlled by our calendars.  And that inspired me, and hence I invited Alessandra to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way we manage our time or have our time managed for us - and how that erodes the impact we can make. The traditional ways to manage calendars is flawed - since it doesn't take our mindset, energy levels, and priorities into account. Alessandra shares the big idea behind her company and how she'll use technology to give us back uninterrupted focus. She also shares some of her big lessons learned building her SaaS business and what is important to succeed beyond having a remarkable solution. Here are some of her quotes: Our life is a spontaneous train of events We never know how the next hour and whatnot will be scheduled. We're creating a product to work hand in hand with spontaneity and believe that being able to have these conversations ad-hoc, when you're in that right headspace to connect with someone, is important.Being able to focus on what's most important in the moment, being more productive, and still having time to do what matters most. During this interview, you will learn three things: That it's very possible to disrupt a market that's been around for decades and is dominated by extremely large tech-giants Why passion for the product is not enough,w the passion needs to be about how the product help impact the lives of others That we always try and move forward in our paths - but sometimes we have to move laterally to get where we need going - and that's OK Why openness, passion, and diversity are key ingredients to create a SaaS business that's able to create remarkable momentum. For more information about the guest from this week: Alessandra Knight Website Katch See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices