The SaaS Revolution Show

This week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show is a live recording from SaaStock 2019. In this episode Philipe Botteri, partner with Accel, interviews G2 cofounder and chairman, Godard Abel. It was a really interesting conversation that followed Godard’s entrepreneurial journey from his first startup BigMachines, to founding and scaling G2. As an experienced entrepreneur he offered lots of fascinating insights on everything from SaaS pricing, sales, and financing. This is a must-listen for early-stage SaaS founders, with tons of practical takeaways.       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward:  🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, Ireland Book tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/ 🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, Texas Book tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/ 🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/) 🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

This week's episode of the SaaS Revolution Show is a live recording from SaaStock 2019. We're talking to Eric Boduch, co-founder and chief evangelist at Pendo. It was a great conversation in the middle of the show floor, on the Podcast Stage, where we really talked about product-led growth, scaling a massive company like Pendo, and how Eric personally deals with that growth.       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward:  🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, Ireland Book tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/ 🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, Texas Book tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/ 🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/) 🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

Elias Torres is focused on building the best engineering organization based in Boston. His team at Drift is building software to help people live, work and create better together. Anywhere, anytime, on any device. He is obsessed with finding the best talent, while sculpting company culture, and getting things done. They discuss how drift are making b2b buying simple, frictionless and conversational and they also delve into people, hiring culture & the challenges of hypergrowth - including how to train managers and get the best from ambitious young talent. Enjoy     Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

Coming to you live from Dublin where we just wrapped the fourth SaaStock flagship conference, this week's episode is a live interview we recorded with Michael Litt, Co-founder and CEO of Vidyard. This interview was part of the  Podcast stage, where we hosted a plethora of podcasters who interviewed our speakers. Less than a month ago, Michael did something out of the ordinary. While many entrepreneurs start with a Free software offering, then scale into launching Pro and Enterprise solutions, he did the opposite. What happens when you flip the traditional freemium model on its head? What challenges did his company face in scaling this way? How did the team react? How did the market respond? Alex digs into all of these and more.When Michael is not bringing leading video-based technologies to market, he serves as a general partner of Garage Capital, a seed-stage fund focused on Super-Cluster companies looking to expand their networks into Silicon Valley. Hope you enjoy this live show with him. We have three more live episodes coming in the next few weeks.    Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

Remember Enron? A company that went to the highest highs only to have a dizzying fall in 2007. One of the values that Enron had put on the wall was Integrity. In hindsight no one would associate Enron with anything remotely close to integrity. As you heard in the intro, how you reach your objective matters, the end doesn’t justify the means and you have to be intentional about doing it the right way when it comes to people. As it turns out, putting values on the wall means nothing.This week on the SaaS Revolution Show we bring you a session from our recent SaaStock West Coast conference where a stellar panel discusses how to nail Company Culture & Mission and How to Build an Environment Fit for Scale. What this means is creating a sustainable company with healthy culture, good demeanor and authentic behaviours exuded by everyone. Moderated by Solu Nwanze, Director, Business Operations, Zendesk it features Sonja Gittens Ottley, Head, Diversity & Inclusion, Asana, Emma Eschweiler, VP, Silicon Valley bank, Steven Shapiro, VP Marketing (Americas), Clevertap and BJ Lackland, CEO, Lighter Capital.   They talk in detail how to prepare for a more dynamic workplace and build a more productive and engaged workforce and touch on important topics such as hiring, culture add, rather than culture fit, how to run a company and why you should act as a parent to your team. As we are just days away from our flagship conference in Dublin, we want to make sure you think about these softer topics as much as you do about product market fit, go to market and outbound sales strategy. Culture, inclusivity and equality matter far more than you think and if you don’t spend time on them you could find yourself in Enron’s shoes, with empty words hanging off your walls. If you still haven’t, grab a last minute ticket for SaaStock19 where 230 speakers will bring useful and thought provoking content across seven stages.    Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we host Steli Efti, CEO and Co-Founder of Close about his new book on early stage selling techniques for startups.If you have been in the SaaS space for a few years you have surely come across Steli at a conference somewhere. His signature talks - loud, filled with equal measure cursing and valuable lessons for anyone who does selling, are always unmissable. Steli moved to the US 14 years ago with a one way ticket and a dream to change the world. He didn’t quite achieve that with the first company he started in Palo Alto but he certainly is making waves with his second, Close. Started back in January 2013 to make salespeople more productive, it only recently got the keys for its comfortable .com home; that itself a fascinating story of grit and hustle on Steli’s part, which he shares on his second appearance on the SaaS Revolution Show.Listen on to learn:Why books have become such a pivotal part of Close’s success A fundamental thing about early stage sellingWhat is the right model of selling that startups should adoptSteli will once again grace the stage at SaaStock19, more than once in fact. He will be part of the sales bootcamp, which we will run on Monday the 14th. He will then give one of the opening keynotes on Tuesday, the 15th about the seven deadly lies founders tell themselves, which prevents them from succeeding and how to stop doing that. He is doing a workshop that same day as well as dropping by the Podcast stage, recording a live episode for Growth Everywhere, hosted by Eric Sui. Steli is one of many speakers who will delve into successful sales practices at the conference so if you want to improve your sales strategies, grab your tickets now while we still have them.     Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we host Rod Ardant, CEO and Co-Founder of Spendesk, about how to build a global company.An engineer by education, Rod always enjoyed building stuff and co-founded his first company, Wozaik, pretty much straight after college. In 2013 it was acquired and Rod started plotting his next venture. He increasingly saw the discrepancy between how people could pay for things in their personal life and professional. Spending time manually uploading receipts or always needing to borrow a credit card from a manager was outdated he believed. Spendesk was born in September 2015 to improve this. By the following June when the product launched, Rod and company had made a bold statement to the media - they would be operating in multiple markets from the start. To make that happen and scale it, Spendesk has had to be global from day one, doing massive amounts of customer research to understand the local mindset and hiring with inclusivity in mind. Listen on to learn:How Spendesk decided which markets to approach One simple thing that has allowed him to build a great foundation for an international teamHow he has created a feeling of belonging among all his employeesGoing global from the early days and building teams that are not simply diverse but also inclusive are topics that speakers from around the world will be covering at length at SaaStock19 on October 14-16th. Have a look at the full agenda and grab a ticket now.    Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we talk with one of the SaaStock19 Keynote speakers, Leela Srinivasan, CMO at SurveyMonkey about how B2B companies can survive and thrive in the feedback economy.Originally from Scotland, Leela has spent her entire professional life in the US, passing through exciting companies such as Lever, OpenTable, Linkedin amongst others. Leela had been a long time SurveyMonkey user before she joined the company as their CMO about a year and a half ago. And she did so for many reasons, one of which being the proper attention the company gives to Diversity and Inclusion. Both the senior executive team as well as the board at SurveyMonkey are gender balanced and diverse.As SurveyMonkey has moved more and more into the B2B realm, they have been confronted with the fact that we live in the era of the feedback economy. In that sense Leela and her team have had to eat more and more in their own restaurant, meaning using SurveyMonkey to gather feedback in a variety of ways and acting on it.Listen on to hear:How did we get to the era of the feedback economyHow SurveyMonkey gathers and acts on feedbackAn example how gathering feedback helped SurveyMonkey land a branding campaignLeela is one of many excellent speakers we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October alongside other fantastic CMOs and VPs of Marketing such as Sydney Sloan CMO at SalesLoft, Alison Murdock CMO at SocialChorus, Kieran Flanagan VP Marketing at HubSpot and others. Grab a ticket now at the best possible price.    Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we speak with Jason VandeBoom, Founder and CEO of ActiveCampaign about all the unusual things he has done to reach $70M in ARR and counting.A builder and maker of things from an early age, young Jason thought that the best way to cater for that was to attend Fine Arts school. That pursuit brought him to Chicago. However, to pay for Arts school he started doing consulting on the side. He ended up packaging it into an on-premise solution, which he sold for the good part of the following decade, abandoning the pursuit of the fine arts and establishing himself as a tech entrepreneur. In 2013 he began a transition into building a cloud based customer experience automation platform. By 2016, Jason was employing around 20 people and started growing the company.Three years later the numbers speak for themselves - headcount is nearing 550, the company has 80,000 customers and is on a healthy growth trajectory, currently earning 70M in ARR. What is not so obvious is how Jason got there. Breaking a lot of hard SaaS rules and doing things that on paper made little sense in scaling but in fact have contributed massively to the success of the company, has been the heart of it.Listen on to hear:An example of an unscalable tactic, many would consider toxic to the bottom lineActive campaign’s unusual way of doing customer researchHow they break the rules of user conferencesJason VandeBoom is one of many excellent speakers we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October that will be sharing unusual and not often talked about ways to grow. We have over 160 speakers that will be split between 5 stages, including a Podcast stage where your favorite podcasts such as The Top, The Growth Marketing Podcast, Inside Intercom, The SaaS Revolution Show and others will be recording live episodes that you can listen in on. That is just one small part of what you get with your SaaStock ticket so go ahead and grab one now at the best possible price.    Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)

On this week’s episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we host Dan Adika, CEO and Co-Founder of WalkMe about how he has raised the whopping $217 million in the past 7 years. Dan follows a somewhat familiar path that has bread many excellent Israeli entrepreneurs. He spent 6 years working for tech unit of the Israeli Defence Forces. He then had a year in HP, before realizing that to truly follow his passion for making things, improving them, all the while solving some thorny problems, he had to build his own company. In 2011 Dan did just that. Together with his co-founders Eyal Cohen and Rephael Sweary they started WalkMe. In February 2012, the three raised their first round of funding that wasn’t coming from friends and family. There were no customers at the time but there was a dream, a bold one - allow people to “walk” the digital world, the way they did the physical one. That bold dream would not always be enough to convince funders but for those times, Dan and his co-founders learned the art of metrics, benchmarks and the data that matters, and have gone through six funding rounds, which have all been very different. How have they done it each time? That’s the topic of our conversation today. Listen on to hear: What are the key things to understand as a founder if you want to go on the funding path? How they managed to raise their most pivotal Series round C when everyone was saying no to them? The art of showing the right data to investors? Dan Adika will be joining us at SaaStock West Coast on September 11th, where he will be sharing how he has grown WalkMe to 800 employees and $100m+ ARR and the mistakes he has made when it comes to hiring and culture. He will be joined by a roster of spectacular speakers such as Dan Martel, Nathan Latka, Leela Srinivasan, Sarika Garg that will be providing actionable lessons for growth stage saas companies on how to scale. Check out the full list of speakers and what you can expect to learn from them on our blog. We have very few tickets remaining for SaaStock West Coast so be sure to grab yours now.    Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe | Dublin, IrelandBook tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/🇺🇸 SaaStock USA | Austin, TexasBook tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)