SaaStr 094: The $100m Question All SaaS Founders Must Ask, Learnings From Working with Marc Benioff at Salesforce & Scaling Zuora To A $Bn Valuation with Tien Tzuo, Founder & CEO @ Zuora

Tien Tzuo is the Founder and CEO @ Zuora, one of the fastest growing SaaS companies that has been at the forefront of the rise of subscription business models. They have funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Benchmark, Sequoia, Redpoint and Marc Benioff, just to name a few. As for Tien, before Zuora, Tzuo was one of the 'original forces' at salesforce.com, joining as employee number 11. In his 9 years at salesforce.com, served in numerous different roles including as Chief Marketing Officer for two years, and most recently as Chief Strategy Officer.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Tien make his way from being an early employee at Salesforce to founding Zuora?
• What were the big takeaways for Tien from seeing the meteoric rise of Salesforce? How has that experience moulded his running and strategy with Zuora today?
• What does Tien see as the fundamental benefits of a subscription model? What products and services does it work best for? What are the keys to assembling this model successfully?
• Tien has previously referred to scaling as ‘the climb’. How does he approach this analogy What was the most challenging element of scaling for Tien? How did he overcome it?
• Tien has previously said that market strategy is the $100m question all founders must ask. So how does Tien approach go to market? What are the fundamentals to think when considering different go to market options?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Biggest mentor and how the relationship came about?
2. What does Tien know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
3. Highlight of the Zuora journey so far?

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Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Tien Tzuo