The SaaS Revolution Show

One of the last sessions at SaaStock18 was a bonus chat that brought a double dose of Canadian accents - April Dunford, the world’s foremost expert on positioning sat for a conversation with Mark Organ, CEO and founder of Influitive. Even though they spoke at 4;20 on the day weed was legalised in Toronto, the topic they covered on the day was slightly different - category creation. On this week’s episode we are bringing you their entire chat. Category creation had been coming up again and again during the two days of the conference. It’s something that Mark, who has started 7 companies in his career, two of which category creators, is all too familiar with. His first one was Eloqua, which he founded 20 years ago and the second is his current company, Influitive, which he started 8 years ago. In their conversation, April and Mark talk about the origin story of each, to what extend Mark realized he was creating categories at the time, how he sold the idea to funders and customers, and many other. Both agree just how difficult category creation is and why you need to be built for the ordeal it would take. Mark and April also touch on the subject of the future of marketing and where the industry as a whole is going. Both Mark and April will be returning to Dublin, for SaaStock19. There, they will be joined by SaaS thought leaders such as Claire Hughes Johnson, COO, Stripe, Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Kathryn Petralia, COO, Kabbage, and Girish Mathrubootham, CEO, Freshworks. 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 the latest episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, we speak with Alison Murdock, CMO of SocialChorus, a platform for planning, creating, publishing, and measuring employee communications. Alison has spent the last 25 years in Silicon Valley working in a variety of media and SaaS companies. She started her career wanting to be a writer and her very first job was writing for a magazine in Paris. As she transitioned more into marketing, writing remained a fundamental skill for her and to this day, Alison believes that what companies choose to write or speak about matters most. Everywhere she has worked, she has always aimed to find the crux of the issue that companies are trying to nail with content and the story they are trying to tell. When it comes to Social Chorus that is a particularly important thing to focus on as they sell to a plethora of companies, that are often undergoing digital transformation. In this interview Alison shares many nuggets from her experience including: How to stand out in the sea of content How content marketing works in the context of selling to enterprises An example of great use of content marketing that Alison admires Alison Murdock is one of many excellent marketing executives that we will host at SaaStock19 in Dublin this October including Leela Srinivasan, CMO, Survey Monkey, Sydney Sloan, CMO, Salesloft, Dave Gerhardt VP Marketing Drift and Kieran Flanagan, VP Marketing HubSpot. Grab a ticket to see them and many other fabulous marketers who will be in Dublin.    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 month’s episode of the Struggle, Alex Theuma speaks with Liam Boogar-Azoulay, Head of Marketing at MadKudu, a predictive lead scoring solution for SaaS companies. Liam has had somewhat of an unusual path professionally and personally. When everyone was moving to Silicon Valley, he moved away from it, landing in Paris. While most people would hone their skills in a particular area first and then dare to start their own company, Liam’s first job was starting Rude Baguette, a blog devoted to startups.   He had started it almost as soon as he moved to Paris. Rude Baguette would end up being one of the biggest startup publications in France, which employed 10 people. That is until Liam brought it to bankruptcy, a slow one as you will hear him describe in this interview, but a bankruptcy nevertheless. In retrospect, he knows exactly what went wrong but at the time some of his flaws were hidden. One thing he realized from the experience is that he had enjoyed building the brand far more than being a CEO. With that in mind, he joined Algolia as their first ever Brand Director, 11 weeks after he had filed for bankruptcy. They caused mistakes, which he would repeat at Algolia, a company he joined 11 weeks after filing for bankruptcy. He would spend a total of a year and a half at Algolia, leaving it in almost as dramatic a fashion as folding Rude Baguette. His time there was marked by some incredible feats like a full rebrand but also some pretty big mistakes, deriving from often not knowing what to do but never admitting to it or asking for help, his innate need to always portray he knew the answer getting in the way. By the time he started with Madkudu, Liam knew there were major gaps he needed help with or he would fail again. Admitting to his vulnerabilities openly Liam asked for an executive coach. MadKudu’s founders said yes. As with all the other guests on The Struggle, we have the utmost respect for Liam for his openness, honesty, and willingness to learn from his shortcomings so others can learn from them too. As you will hear in the interview, Liam met Madkudu’s founder Frances at SaaStock. In fact, for a long time, Liam used to think SaaStock was called SaaStalk because of all of the invaluable conversations that take place during our conference for founders, executives and investors. If you want to partake in the networking, the life-changing conversations and lasting relationships, join us in Dublin this October for SaaStock19.    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 SaaStock East Coast speaker Eran Ben Shushan. He is Co-Founder and CEO of Bizzabo, a holistic event management platform, and shares how to make better hiring decisions​ as a company grows. Originally from Tel Aviv, Israel, Eran moved to New York, three and a half years ago, as soon as the company found product-market fit. A former air force officer and a system’s engineer, Eran had his first experience with the magic and challenge of events over 12 years ago. His fascination with events was so intense that he decided to dip his toe in building a platform for them. He started Bizzabo with two other co-founders 7 years ago. Initially it was improving networking at events and aiming to engineer serendipity for attendees. However, early on, Eran and his two co-founders saw a far bigger opportunity. Nowadays Bizzabo boast two offices, an employee count of 120 and has to date raised $57 million in VC funding. The growth has been tremendous but what Eran has made sure all along is that hiring the right people to support that growth has never been compromised. Listen on to hear: The fundamentals of hiring well One foundational rule about recruitment Eran learned the hard way Should a CEO speed up the hiring process if they feel they may lose a great candidate Eran Ben Shushan is part of an absolutely stellar lineup SaaStock East Coast in New York next week on June 4-5, which includes Ragy Thomas, CEO of Sprinklr, Patrick Campbell CEO of ProfitWell, Meghan Keany Anderson, VP marketing Hubspot, David Thompson, CMO of Freshworks. If you are interested in learning about implementing Product led strategies & Product led growth, scaling your sales team, moving your SaaS upmarket, convert users better and many other topics, join us there. Grab a 50% discounted ticket.    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 Diane Adams, Chief Culture and Talent Officer at Sprinklr and author of the book It Takes More than Casual Fridays and Free Coffee. Diane has devoted her career to building and studying the role of culture in a company’s success. As the Chief Culture and Talent Officer at Sprinklr, Diane and her team are charting the course for building a high-performing and inclusive culture. No wonder then that the word her colleagues would use to describe her is obsessive in relation to figuring the puzzle that is company culture. When asked what company culture is, Diane says it’s the consistent set of behaviours displayed inside an organization, rather than the words, the culture decks or the free coffees. Actual culture starts by understanding what people truly care about. When she first joined Sprinklr over a year ago, she found a situation often observed in high-growth companies. The company culture had been great until it wasn’t anymore. Diane rolled her sleeves and began fixing that. One of the first things that was born out of that was the Employee delight Assurance Program After they implemented that seemingly simple program, the results were incredible both in terms of engagement and attrition. Diane attributes that to the feedback mechanisms that showcases clearly what works and what doesn’t. As a result the company is showing a great deal of self-awareness. Diane will sit down for a panel with Ragy Thomas to talk about how to empower leaders to motivate their teams to ensure they are disciplined in executing their strategy at SaaStock East Coast on June 4 and 5 in New York. The two are part of an absolute stellar line up that includes Nathan Latka, Aaron Krall, Patrick Campbell, Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP Marketing HubSpot, David Thompson, CMO of Freshworks. The list goes on and on. If you are curious you can read all about them and how they will help you scale your company. The important point is that we love our SaaS Revolution Show listeners so much that we want to give you a special 50% discount off tickets. Just use code REVOLUTION50 or just click here    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 month’s episode of The Struggle, we speak with Janna Bastow, Co-Founder and CEO of ProdPad, a SaaS platform for product management that helps product managers develop product strategy. It took Janna about a week on the job as a product manager to realize that she didn’t have the tools necessary to do her job. Creating roadmaps, managing a backlog of features and writing specs was all done in Powerpoint and Excel, tools never created for such purposes. Yet for two years that is exactly what Janna used. Until one day she decided she had had enough of waiting for better tools and together with what would become her co-founder, Simon Cast, began building the tool she never had. Initially, Janna and Simon used it just for themselves but it didn’t take long until they realized that many other product managers just like them would find it useful. In 2012 they quit their jobs and in February 2013 ProdPad was officially launched. They signed their first customer within the month, a customer that is still with them to this day. However, it hasn’t been all breezy for ProdPad. On the contrary. In the six years since launching, Prodpad has been through the Plateau of Doom and has entertained the idea of VC funding back and forth, ultimately deciding to bootstrap and accepting the challenges that path comes with. The experience comes with many lessons, some regrets, and some mistakes. One thing that has been there from the beginning is the fundamental agreement between Janna and Simon that they were building a business, not a startup. Every decision has stemmed from that. Like all the other guests on The Struggle, we have the utmost respect for Janna and the fact she never gave in to the struggle but instead always remained aware of why she was doing all this. You can see Janna and many other incredible founders like her at SaaStock19 in October or if you cannot wait until then, at SaaStock East Coast this June 4-5. They too will share the struggles and the lessons they have picked up from the experience of growing and scaling their SaaS companies. Some of the speakers at SaaStock East Coast include Ragy Thomas, CEO and Co-Founder of Sprinklr, Jonathan Cherki, CEO and Co-Founder, ContentSquare and Julie Weill Persofsky, Partner at Winning By Design. As listeners to the show, you can avail of our 2-for-1 ticket deal. Grab yours now. Listen to our previous episode with Janna.    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 are bringing you the Growth Stage fireside chat Nathan latka had with Adrien Menard, CEO and Co-Founder of Botify. Adrien unravels a host of interesting data behind Botify’s growth - when they became profitable, what is their ACV and net churn, how their sales and customer success organizations look like and many other.  Botify is a search engine optimization platform designed to optimize websites for Googlebot. Started in 2012 in Paris, the company currently has 450 customers and is spread between three offices. Adrien established the New York HQ. He moved there in 2016. We spoke with him about the experience of moving there and establishing US operations about a year ago on the podcast. Have a listen. Nathan Latka has an unmatched ability to extract data and information from SaaS founders and has over 3000 podcast episodes under his belt, making him incredibly knowledgeable on the subject of what it takes to be a successful SaaS company. It’s why we are bringing him to every SaaStock conference this year, starting with SaaStock Asia on May 14 and 15 and SaaStock East Coast on June 4 and 5. There, he will be giving us insights from 10,000 SaaS data points, as well as sitting down for more fireside chats with founders. Even though Nathan comes across as a hard interviewer, he is actually a super lovely guy, happy to chat to anyone so this is a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with him. At SaaStock East Coast, taking place at the Altman Building in Manhattan, he will be joined by Ragy Thomas, CEO of Sprinklr, Dan Adika, CEO and co-founder Walkme, Alison Elworthy, SVP customer success HubSpot and many others. We are bringing the East Coast SaaS community together for CEO, Sales leadership and Growth marketing bootcamps, as well as 15 talks on how to grow and scale your SaaS business. You will have many opportunities for meetings with peers and investors. We are throwing in some cool dinners and parties for networking into the night. Listeners of the show can avail of our 2-for-1 ticket deal. Grab yours now Watch Nathan Latka's presentation on the State of SaaS    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)

To mark the launch of our fourth flagship conference, SaaStock19, we are bringing a special radio hour episode collating the wisdom from 5 speakers we hosted at SaaStock18, who will be joining us again at SaaStock19. We have gathered tactical advice from Patrick Campbell, CEO and founder of ProfitWell, April Dunford, Founder of Ambient Strategy, Bridget Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of youcanbook.me, Eris Siu, CEO of Single Grain, and Steli Efti, CEO and Founder of Close.io who in different ways and for different reasons would agree on the essential importance of speaking to customers. As you are listening it may seem like they are talking about something completely separate, yet they always get to the same conclusion: whatever the challenge, part or the resolution is directly connected with talking to your customers. That is as valid for building better products and improving them, as it is to positioning your product better, getting more traffic to your website and improving your sales emails. Super early bird tickets are now on sale, so grab yours now. You can watch Eric Siu's entire presentation here    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, fresh off the SaaStock LatAm stage, we bring you one of the favourite panels of the day - best practices in hiring for culture creation. Maira Gracini, LatAm Marketing Director at Zendesk moderates the panel, which hosts Valeria Porto, HR Director at PayPal, Gabriela Viana, LatAm Marketing Director for Adobe and Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho. They share how their respective organizations are rethinking their recruitment process: opening up candidate pools to cater to diverse groups, from ethnicity through gender, and all the way to ability and neurodiversity. What they share, clearly proves how hiring with diversity in mind, shortens recruitment cycles and creates tangible benefits to both company culture and the bottom line. Among other powerful nuggets, you will learn how and why Zoho abandoned the requirement for college degrees, why referral programs are the best way to recruit according to PayPal, why Adobe was the first company in Silicon Valley to reject bell curves assessment and many more After a highly successful and sold out SaaStock in LatAm our journey across the world continues. Next up on our itinerary we have SaaStock Asia on May 14-15 in Hong Kong and SaaStock East Coast on June 4-5 in New York, where we are bringing equally useful, practical and provocative ideas for SaaS founders, executives and investors.    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, we host with Hande Cilingir, Co-founder and CEO of Insider, a Growth Management category creator, hailing all the way from Singapore.Originally Turkish, Hande divides her time between Turkey, Singapore and 17 other Insider offices, in order to manage what has become a 400-people company. Started by Hande and five co-founders six years ago, it has been global since day 1. While the US would have been a tempting location to expand to, Insider is only now beginning to consider it. At the beginning it was all about Europe and APAC, regions typically seen as more difficult, not as primed for adoption of SaaS. Yet, the lack of competition made them far more exciting regions, especially Asia. Tapping into it, Insider has become a trailblazer in the region, seeing 3x growth since last year alone.What has made Insider successful in markets like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and beyond has been laser focused local approach to each of them. If you are in any way thinking of expanding into Asia, this episode is filled with nuggets such as:How Insider views venturing into different Asian marketsWhat the expansion plan wasWhat has been the secret sauce in making this expansion successfulHande will be joining us at SaaStock Asia in Hong Kong, May 14 and 15th to talk more about how Insider won Asia and became a category creator. There she will be joined by a stellar line up of speakers, including Vinod Chandramouli, Global Head, Pre Sales, Freshworks, Anna Gong, CEO & Founder, Perx Technologies, Jeffrey Paine, Managing Partner, Golden Gate Ventures and over 20 other speakers. Grab a ticket for SaaStock Asia while you still can.    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)