Posted on

SaaStr Podcasts for the Week with Fmr. CEO of Host Analytics and CEO of Namely — Jun 14, 2019

This post is by Deborah Findling from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



       

Ep. 241: Dave Kellogg is a leading technology executive, independent board member, advisor and angel investor. In his most recent role, Dave was the CEO @ Host Analytics where he quintupled ARR, halved customer acquisition costs and increased net retention rates before selling the company to a private equity sponsor. Before that Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud @ Salesforce where he led the $500m line of business for customer service applications. Finally pre-Salesforce, Dave was CEO @ MarkLogic where he grew the team from 40 to 240 and revenues from $0 to an $80m revenue run rate. If that was not enough, Dave currently or has previously sat on the boards of Nuxeo, Alation, Aster Data and Granular.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
Posted on

SaaStr Podcasts for the Week With Rippling and Salesforce — May 31, 2019

This post is by Deborah Findling from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



       

Ep. 237: Parker Conrad is the Founder & CEO @ Rippling, the startup that gives you back your time from payroll to employee computers, Rippling makes it unbelievably easy to manage your company’s HR and IT – in one system. To date Parker has raised over $59m in funding from some of the best in the business including Mamoon @ Kleiner Perkins, Garry Tan @ Initialized, Justin Kan, SV Angel and Y Combinator, just to name a few. As for Parker, prior to founding Rippling, he was the Founder & CEO @ Zenefits, the startup he built from $0 to $60m in ARR in just 3 years. Before that he co-founded Sigfig where he grew assets on the platform to over $35Bn across 500k users.

In This Episode We Discuss:
Posted on

Are You Interviewing 50+ Years Young SaaS Veterans? You Should Be.

This post is by Jason Lemkin from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



SaaS as we know it probably started in 1999.  Salesforce was founded then, NetSuite just before that.  SurveyMonkey was founded in 1999, one of the few SMB survivors of that era.  There were apps before that (e.g., WebEx was founded in 1995), but Salesforce kicked off the current era, and is the biggest player in SaaS. That means, especially if you are HQ’d in the Bay Area or have or are opening an office there … the market is flooded with folks with up to 20 years of SaaS experience now.   That’s a lot of experience, especially if you are a first-time founder.
SaaS: Maybe Plan for 30+ Years as a Founder
Certainly, the playbook has evolved in the last 20 years.  The software sure looks a lot different: But not that much in terms of overall approaches to scaling has really changed,
Continue reading "Are You Interviewing 50+ Years Young SaaS Veterans? You Should Be."
Posted on

SaaStr Podcasts for the Week: May 24, 2019

This post is by Deborah Findling from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



       

Ep. 235: Andrew Filev is the Founder & CEO @ Wrike, the cloud based collaboration and project management software that scales across teams in any business. In Dec 2008, Vista Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Wrike for a deal reportedly valuing the company at $800m. Before this transaction, Andrew had raised over $45m in funding from the likes of Rory @ Scale and Bain Capital Ventures just to name a few. As for Andrew, he started his first software development company at the age of 18 and has been running Wrike for the last 13 years alongside advisory roles with both Ditto and Appulate.

In This Episode We Discuss:
Posted on

Before You Start as a VP — Please, Please, Please. Do a 60-Day Plan. And Make Sure the CEO Agrees With It.

This post is by Jason Lemkin from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



I’ve now worked with or invested in ~25 successful start-ups beyond my own companies and I’ve watched a lot of VP hire train wrecks. Probably the most common is “the wrong VP of Sales”.  We’ve talked about that for 6+ years on SaaStr, and we’ll keep talking about it.  Hiring someone for the wrong stage, wrong ACV/deal size, or a VP of Sales that is a a stretch too far.
The 48 Types of VP Sales. Make Deadly Sure You Hire the Right One.
But the #2 mistake with VP hiring, and maybe the #1 reason VPs lose their job, is priority dis-alignment.  Most especially for VPs of Marketing, although also for all other roles.  Marketing just tends to have the most heterogeneous responsibilities (demand gen, field, corporate, content, product marketing) so the gaps between CEO expectations and VP expectations are often the widest here. The
Continue reading "Before You Start as a VP — Please, Please, Please. Do a 60-Day Plan. And Make Sure the CEO Agrees With It."
Posted on

Lessons From a Second-Time Founder: How Brex Went From 0 – $1B in Under 2 Years (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Faith Storey from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



Brex Co-Founder and CEO Henrique Dubugras will talk about what he’s learned building the fastest-growing B2B company. Henrique started his first company at 16 and has now built two successful companies from nothing. Learn what he did differently the second time around and the specific decisions he made to drive growth among B2B companies with Brex. And yes, he explains the reason behind all the billboards in SF in this session. ? Want to see more content like this session? Join us for SaaStr Annual 2020. Also, Brex is a Super Platinum sponsor for Annual 2020. Interested in sponsoring? Let us know. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Henrique Dubugras – CEO & Co-Founder @ Brex Anu Hariharan – Partner @ YC Continuity Opening video: Hey, all these startups, they have a lot of trouble getting corporate credit cards. They’re like, “Okay, let’s investigate that.” And then figured out that one, we
Continue reading "Lessons From a Second-Time Founder: How Brex Went From 0 – $1B in Under 2 Years (Video + Transcript)"
Posted on

“The “Dos & Don’ts” of Building Winning SaaS Companies with G2 Crowd (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Faith Storey from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



Join G2 Crowd CEO Godard Abel for a session on the secrets to the top-rated vendors on G2Crowd, AppExchange, and other platforms. He also discusses all the trials, errors and successes he had throughout all of his previous startups. Want to see more content like this session? Join us for SaaStr Annual 2020. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Godard Abel – CEO @ G2 Crowd Great to be here with you. And I’ve been building SaaS Companies now for 20 years, so that’s a long time. And I also met my wife 20 years ago and what I’m looking forward to doing with you is sharing some of what we’ve learned about what to do and what not to do. And it says do’s and don’ts but for me it was more I first learned the don’ts and then I learned to do’s. And I was born in Germany 1971. My father
Continue reading "“The “Dos & Don’ts” of Building Winning SaaS Companies with G2 Crowd (Video + Transcript)"
Posted on

10 Tough Lessons We Learned Building a Prenicorn Outside of Silicon Valley from Pendo.io (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Faith Storey from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



Building a hyper-growth company is hard anywhere, but building one outside the Bay Area comes with its own unique challenges. Learn how Pendo built a product, team, and culture in its Raleigh hometown that could scale coast-to-coast and continent-to-continent. Want to see more content like this session? Join us for SaaStr Annual 2020. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Todd Olson – CEO @ Pendo.io Good afternoon. Welcome. It’s great to be here with all of you. Pendo, my company is headquartered Raleigh, North Carolina. Thank you. Thank you. Can I see a show of hands for those of you that have headquarters outside of the Bay Area, a secondary market? Okay, not surprised. A lot of you. Look, starting companies is really, really hard. Starting companies outside the Bay area is even harder. One, I love the fact that everyone’s trying. That’s really, really positive, but access to capital, access to
Continue reading "10 Tough Lessons We Learned Building a Prenicorn Outside of Silicon Valley from Pendo.io (Video + Transcript)"
Posted on

From Freemium to Explosive Growth in a Crowded Market – 8 Years of Learnings with Zoom (Video + Transcript)

This post is by Faith Storey from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



Join Zoom Founder and CEO Eric Yuan and SaaStr COO Mallun Yen as they delve into the secrets of Zoom’s success. Eric talks about the early days of Zoom – how he secured his first investors, employees, and major customers – as well as how Zoom maintains a happiness-oriented culture while achieving skyrocketing growth. Zoom has filed to go public and plans to list on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol $ZM. Quick recap:
  • Keep your pricing simple
  • Have your user conference around $10M ARR or earlier
  • Take advantage of your VCs connections
  • Being an engineer can give you the upper hand as a CEO because you understand the product
Want to see more content like this session? Join us for SaaStr Annual 2020. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Eric Yuan – CEO & Founder @ Zoom Mallun Yen – COO @ SaaStr Eric Yuan: Overall, we want to be very open. Flexible
Continue reading "From Freemium to Explosive Growth in a Crowded Market – 8 Years of Learnings with Zoom (Video + Transcript)"
Posted on

SaaStr Podcast #223: Intercom COO Karen Peacock on Scaling from $1MM to $500MM ARR: 5 Strategies to Drive Your Next Wave of Growth with Intercom

This post is by Deborah Findling from SaaStr


Click here to view on the original site: Original Post



Karen Peacock is COO of Intercom, one of the fastest growing SaaS businesses of all time. She has led businesses of all sizes through massive growth.  Listen to her top 5 lessons learned building and scaling SaaS businesses from $1M to $500M in ARR including expanding to serve upmarket customers, moving from product to platform, and hiring to drive breakthrough customer experiences and business growth.  This is SaaStr’s Founder’s Favorites Series. Every Thursday we share one of SaaStr Annual’s best of the best sessions that you might have missed. After all, you should be able to be where the cloud meets from wherever you may be listening. Stay tuned for our next Founder’s Favorites episode: April 11. This podcast is an excerpt of Karen’s session at SaaStr Annual 2019. Missed the session? Here’s what Karen talks about: