The Official SaaStr Podcast is the latest and greatest from the world of SaaStr, interviewing the most prominent operators and investors to discover their tips, tactics and strategies to attain success in the fiercely competitive world of SaaS. On the side of the operators, we center around getting from $0 to $100m ARR faster, what it takes to scale successfully and what are the core elements of hiring. As for the investors, we learn what metrics they hone in on when examining SaaS business, what type of metrics excites them and what they look for in SaaS founders.
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SaaStr 277: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Shopify Plus GM Loren Padleford on Revenue, Ecosystems and The Right Time to Go Upmarket
When is the right time to go upmarket and how do you serve small, medium and large customers in the same company. SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Shopify Plus GM Loren Padelford to discuss. Read the transcript on our blog. Remote and hybrid teams aren't the future of work-- they're the present. Owl Labs is embracing this revolution, and is here to provide remote workers with a virtual seat at the table with the Meeting Owl. Their 360° smart video conferencing camera can recognize and highlight any speaker at the table using an array of 8 microphones. Check it out for yourself at owllabs.com!
SaaStr 276: Airtable's VP of Customer Engagement Liat Bycel on Why "Hands Off Leadership" Does Not Work, How To Align The Ambitions Of An Individual With The Objectives of The Company & Unpacking The Dilemma of Whether To Go Horizontal Or Vertical When It
Liat Bycel is VP of Customer Engagement @ Airtable, the startup that works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power to organise anything. To date, Airtable has raised over $170m in funding from some of the best in the business including Thrive, Coatue, Founder Collective, CRV and individuals like Patrick Collison, Ashton Kutcher and Raymond Tonsing to name a few. As for Liat, prior to Airtable, she was the Chief Revenue Officer @ Assist. Before Assist, Liat spent 6 years at Twitter where she first hand saw their hyper-growth, managing a team of 40 across New York and SF and also Liat achieved 102% to quota on average every year. Finally before Twitter, Liat was VP of Sales @ Revolution Prep where she led and managed 7 offices. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Liat made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be VP of Customer Engagement at one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups in Airtable? What were Liat’s biggest lessons from Twitter on how to hire successfully? What were some of the key takeaways from that experience on how, why and when to fire? Is there ever a right way to do it? How does Liat think about aligning both the personal ambitions of the person with the wider objectives of the company? Why does Liat reject the notion of “hands off leadership?” Companies often worry about whether to go horizontal or vertical, how does Liat personally think about this choice? What does she advise founders as a result? What are the core questions they should ask to determine their strategy? What are the biggest challenges of having such a vertical product? How does it impact messaging and brand? Product roadmap? Pricing? How does Liat think about challenging the traditional sales model? How does that challenge the structure of the conventional AE and SDR structure? How does Liat think Airtable is pushing up against the traditional customer success model? How has having children impacted how Liat thinks about operating today? What changes with children? Liat’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Liat know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning of her time with Airtable? What are Liat’s biggest strengths and weaknesses? What are the challenges of prioritization? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Liat Bycel
SaaStr 275: SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta on Founder Struggles from Imposter Syndrome to Vulnerabilites
SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta to discuss what it means to be a SaaS leader. What are the day-to-day struggles? The fears and the worries and what it means to be "crushing it" today. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Nick Mehta This episode is sponsored by Owl Labs.
SaaStr 274: Messagebird CEO Robert Vis on Scaling To A $60M Series A, Why You Should Not Try To "Scale" & Why You Need To Build Your Business Like A House
Robert Vis is the Founder & CEO @ MessageBird, the company that allows you to talk to your customers via Voice, SMS and Whatsapp. The company raised a monster $60M Series A from Accel and Atomico with only one prior investor being Y Combinator. As for Robert, prior to MessageBird, he was co-founder and CEO of Zaypay.com which focused on driving mobile payments into 50+ countries, enabling 1.5bln users to pay for virtual goods through their phones (sold to Mobile Interactive Group (MIG). In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Robert made his way into the world of startups and SaaS and came to found Messagebird? What was the a-ha moment for him? Why does Robert believe the most important element of being a founder is “thinking big”? How as a founder do you balance between thinking big with investors and then the day to day in the weeds with the team? How does Robert as Europe’s mentality of thinking big today? Have our ambitions exceeded what they have been before? How does being in Benelux change how Robert thinks about global ambitions and growth ambitions? What does Robert mean when he tells founders, “don’t try to scale”? How does Robert think about knowing when a business is ready to scale? Where do many founders go wrong in the preparation for scale phase? What does one need to get in place before scaling? Why did Robert wait 6 years before raising any VC money? Why did he decide then was the right time? Once the raise was in, did he feel the pressure of suddenly having a lot of VC funding? How did his mindset to capital allocation change post-raise? How did he see his decision-making process change post raise? How did raising from the US differ from raising in the UK? Robert’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Robert know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time with Messagebird? What keeps Robert up at night? What are Robert’s strengths and weaknesses? What advice in SaaS does Robert most often hear that he disagrees with? Read the transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Robert Vis
SaaStr 273: Atlanta Tech Village Founder David Cummings on 7 Lessons Helping Start Pardot, SalesLoft, and Calendly
David Cummings is the co-founder of the Atlanta Tech Village, Pardot which sold to ExactTarget/Salesforce.com, Hannon Hill, Rigor, SalesLoft (raised over $75M in capital), Terminus (raised over $25M in capital), and several more. Hear his lessons learned over the years from Pardot to Calendly. Missed the session? Here’s what David talks about: How large a role does funding play? Matching pricing to value How to continuously level up talent Find the video and full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Remote and hybrid teams aren't the future of work-- they're the present. Owl Labs is embracing this revolution, and is here to provide remote workers with a virtual seat at the table with the Meeting Owl. Their 360° smart video conferencing camera can recognize and highlight any speaker at the table using an array of 8 microphones. Check it out for yourself at owllabs.com!
SaaStr 272: Asana's Head of Marketing Dave King on How We Are Entering The Third Wave of SaaS Marketing, What That Means For SaaS Marketers and Companies Today & What B2B Marketing Can Learn From B2C
Dave King is the Head of Marketing at Asana, the work management platform that teams use to stay focused on the goals that grow their business. To date, Asana has raised over $210m from some of the biggest names in tech including Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen, Ben Horowitz, Sean Parker, Ron Conway, Benchmark, Founders Fund and more incredible names. As for Dave, prior to joining Asana, he led the marketing teams at Percolate, Highfive, and Salesforce Community Cloud. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How did Dave make his way into the world of SaaS and startups? When did he realise his love of marketing SaaS companies? What does Dave mean when he says, “we are entering the 3rd wave of marketing”? What were the 1st and 2nd chapters? What does the “3rd wave” of marketing mean for marketers today? How does it change what marketing should be focusing on? How does it change how marketing works with sales and customer success? What does Dave mean when he says, “offsites serve as a crutch for 2 core elements of the marketer's role”? How does Dave advise marketers on crafting their playbook? What are the core questions to ask? Where does Dave see many going wrong here? How does one turn a playbook into a repeatable, measurable process? With channel volatility being so high, is it possible to have a repeatable and predictable process? What are Dave’s biggest observations on what B2B marketers can learn from B2C? How does that change how Dave thinks about new campaigns and community building with Asana today? Who does Dave think has done this particularly well in the world of enterprise? Are there any challenges to trying to carry over B2C into the world of B2B? Dave’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Dave know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his career in marketing? Biggest breakdown in the working of an efficient funnel? A moment in Dave’s life that has served as an inflection point and changed the way he thinks? Read the transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Dave King
SaaStr 271: Talkdesk SVP of Client Services Gillian Heltai on How to Build a CSM Team that Generates 130% Net Retention
Talkdesk SVP of Client Services Gillian Heltai oversees Talkdesk's Customer Success and Technical Support teams, partnering closely with customers to achieve their CX vision. In this session, Gillian will walk you through how to build a high performing CSM Team. Missed the session? Here’s what Gillian talks about: How to build a CSM team Avoiding the mistake of over defining the candidate profile How to divide responsibilities across roles Find the video and full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Remote and hybrid teams aren't the future of work-- they're the present. Owl Labs is embracing this revolution, and is here to provide remote workers with a virtual seat at the table with the Meeting Owl. Their 360° smart video conferencing camera can recognize and highlight any speaker at the table using an array of 8 microphones. Check it out for yourself at owllabs.com!
SaaStr 270: How To Scale Leader While Retaining Humanity and Personality, Why Starting At SMB Actually Makes Culture Easier & How To Make A Part-Remote Team Your New Superpower
Jeppe Rindom is the Founder & CEO @ Pleo, the simple spending solution for your company automating expense reports and simplifying company expenses. To date, Jeppe has raised over $78m in funding for Pleo from some European favourites of mine in the form of Creandum and Vaestfonden and then also their most recent round led by Stripes Group in NYC. As for Jeppe, prior to founding Pleo he was the CEO @ Nodes, a design and development house that worked with brands including Loreal, BMW and Lego. Before that, Jeppe was the CFO @ Tradeshift where he first hand saw their scaling to 190 countries with offices in 6 different locations. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How did Jeppe make his way into the world of startups and SaaS with his becoming CFO @ Tradeshift? What were his biggest learnings from Tradeshift and how did that impact his operating mentality? What was that a-ha moment for him with Pleo? Why did Jeppe decide to focus on SMBs from Day 1? How does the product build in the early days differ when building for SMB vs enterprise? Why does Jeppe believe that building for SMB makes it easier to build a great culture internally? How does Jeppe think about when is the right time to move into enterprise? What changes? How does Jeppe respond to 3 common concerns VCs have with SMBs: The price points are so low that it takes huge volume to scale to meaningful revenue? The mortality rate of SMBs is so high that you are going to always have high churn due to the customer segment? Serving SMBs in the way that Pleo does is an intensely competitive space, is this a winner-take-all market? How does Jeppe think about competition? How does Jeppe think about NPS today? How does Jeppe approach the problem of agency when the buyer is not the user? How does Jeppe think about being customer informed but not customer-driven? Pleo has a part-remote work structure, why does Jeppe advocate for this structure in the face of many saying it either has to be remote or not? What has Pleo done to make it work? What tool stack do they have to ensure seamless communication between remote and non-remote? Where are the challenges? What must one always do? How does leadership change for Jesse in the face of scale? How does Jesse think about scaling humanity and the personal touch with the scaling of his leadership? What are the challenges? When do they start to arise? How has raising in the US compared to raising in Europe? What are the core differences? Jeppe’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Jeppe know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? How did raising from the US differ from raising with European investors? What would Jeppe most like to change about the world of SaaS today? Read the transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Jeppe Rindom
SaaStr 269: Gorgias CEO Romain Lapeyre on How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Gorgias helps brands automatically respond to basic questions, and track the impact of customer service on sales so support becomes a profit center. Join CEO Romain Lapeyre as he walks you through how to close your first 1000 customers based solely on data. Missed the session? Here’s what Romain talks about: How to build a growth machine How you can tailor onboarding to customers Using data to your advantage You can find the full video and transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Traditional customer beta testing can't keep up with the speed of Agile or the demands of continuous delivery. Centercode's approach to real-world Delta Testing fuels product and engineering teams with actionable quality and UX insights before every new release. Visit Centercode.com to learn more.
SaaStr 268: G2 CMO, Ryan Bonnici on Lessons Learned From Scaling Marketing Team From 5 to 70, The Most Important Role of The CMO Today and How To Create Alignment Between CRO and CMO
Ryan Bonnici is the CMO @ G2, the company that allows you to get the right software and services for your business with over 897,000 user reviews to help you make smarter buying decisions. As for Ryan, prior to G2 he was Senior Director of Global Marketing at Hubspot where among many other achievements, he scaled HubSpot's marketing-generated sales revenue by 330% year-over-year. Before Hubspot, Ryan was Head of Marketing @ Salesforce (APAC) where he led his team to achieve 227% YoY net-new sales sourced through marketing. Due to his success, Ryan has been named to Forbes’ List of World’s Most Influential CMOs. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Ryan made his way into the world of SaaS from Sydney, Australia and came to be one of the world’s leading CMOs with G2 today? What were Ryan’s biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce? How did it change his mindset? What are the core differences when comparing marketing functions at the likes of Salesforce to smaller companies like G2? What can they learn from each other? Where does Ryan sit on whether marketing is an art or a science today? How did Ryan turn a $6,000 initiative at Hubspot into a product that generated $64m net revs? What have been Ryan’s biggest lessons in what it takes to acquire the best talent? How does Ryan build candidate pipe? What works most effectively? How does Ryan structure and run the process? What core questions does Ryan ask and find most revealing of the individual’s character? What does Ryan love to see in a candidate? Does Ryan agree that marketing teams should always be held directly accountable to a number tied to revenue? What type of CMO would Ryan bucket himself as; demand gen or brand? How does Ryan think about the relationship between the two? Ryan’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his career in marketing? What is the biggest BS that Ryan often hears in the world of marketing? Which marketing leader does Ryan most respect and admire and why? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Ryan Bonnici
SaaStr 267: Menlo Ventures Partner Naomi Ionita on 3 Lessons in Monetization - Matching Price to Value
SaaS is about creating long-term value for your customer, and being compensated appropriately for that value as a business. Learn actionable monetization tips from a Product/Growth operator turned VC, Menlo Ventures Partner Naomi Ionita. Missed the session? Here’s what Naomi talks about: How to avoid underpricing your product Fitting your businesses’ product to the market This podcast is an excerpt of Naomi’s session at SaaStr Annual 2019. You can watch the full video on our website. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Naomi Ionita Today's sponsor: Traditional customer beta testing can't keep up with the speed of Agile or the demands of continuous delivery. Centercode's approach to real-world Delta Testing fuels product and engineering teams with actionable quality and UX insights before every new release. Visit Centercode.com to learn more.
SaaStr 266: Zoom CMO Janine Pelosi on Why MQLs and SQLs Are Not Helpful As Labels, How To Create Alignment Between Sales and Marketing & How The Role of CMO Has Changed So Dramatically Over The Years
Janine Pelosi is the CMO @ Zoom, the next-generation enterprise phone system. Prior to their very successful IPO, Zoom raised funding from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, Emergence Capital, Horizons Ventures and 2 of my favourites in the form of Matt Ocko @ Data Collective and Dan Scheinman. As for Janine before joining Zoom, she spent 11 years at Cisco where among many incredible achievements she led worldwide demand gen for WebEx and led their worldwide digital marketing team with a $25M annual budget. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Janine made her way into the world of SaaS and came to be one of the leading CMOs today with Zoom? How has the role of the CMO changed over the last 5 years? Would Janine agree with Jason Lemkin that “the role of the CMO is to execute the vision of the CEO”? What makes Janine and Eric’s relationship so successful? What makes Eric the special leader that he is? How does the changing power of the CMO affect their relationship with the CEO? When is the right time for startups to hire their first CMO? What should they look for in that ideal candidate? What should they have in place in terms of infrastructure, prior to hiring the candidate? What does the right onboarding process look like for a CMO? Where does Janine see many going wrong when hiring their first CMO? How does Janine look to create alignment between sales and marketing? Why does Janine not believe in having the labels of “MQLs and SQLs”? How does Janine look to reduce the friction when handing off between marketing and sales? What are the common causes? How are we seeing marketing also blend with customer success? Janine’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Janine know now that she wishes she had known at the start of her time at Zoom? Who does Janine most respect in the world of marketing today? Why? What would Janine most like to change about the world of SaaS today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Janine Pelosi
SaaStr 265: WP Engine SVP of Global Sales Matt Schatz on Building a $100M ARR Sales Team - The Second Time Around
Matt Schatz is SVP of Sales at WPEngine, responsible for defining and executing the global sales strategy. Matt has nearly two decades of senior leadership experience in sales and customer growth, specifically for technology companies with customers around the world including Bazaarvoice, CityVoice and Rackspace. Missed the session? Here’s what Matt talks about: Getting your “first story” What is a lucky lead and how does that turn into predictable growth Building trust across time zones This podcast is an excerpt of Matt’s session at SaaStr Annual 2019. You can watch the full session on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr WP Engine Today's sponsor: Traditional customer beta testing can't keep up with the speed of Agile or the demands of continuous delivery. Centercode's approach to real-world Delta Testing fuels product and engineering teams with actionable quality and UX insights before every new release. Visit Centercode.com to learn more.
SaaStr 264: Gainsight COO Allison Pickens on Why Customer Success and Product Management Are The New Sales and Marketing, How To Approach Building and Scaling "Services" As A Revenue Line & How To Build A CS Team On A Tight Budget
Allison Pickens is the COO @ Gainsight, the company that provides everything you need to turn your customers into your biggest growth engine. To date Gainsight have raised over $184m from some of the world’s best VCs in the form of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and Salesforce Ventures just to name a few. As for Allison, in her 5 years at Gainsight her list of achievements in endless from running all functions that drive value for Gainsight customers, now a 150 person team, to building out the corporate development function to being the right hand to the CEO. Allison is also an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Bessemer Venture Partners and sits on the board of RainforestQA. Before Gainsight, Allison started her career in NYC with stints at Bain and The Boston Consulting Group. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Allison made her way into the world of SaaS with Gainsight from her start in finance at Bain in New York? What does a strategic plan really mean to Allison? What is included in it? How should it be structured? In terms of ambition, how does one set ambitious enough plans to be a stretch but not a stretch too far? How does one tie their strategic plan to their financial plan? What is the right way to communicate this throughout the organisation? Why does Allison believe product marketing and customer success are the new sales and marketing? What have been Allison’s biggest lessons on how to effectively measure adoption? Who is accountable to this number? CS or product management? Does Allison believe that marketing needs to be held accountable to a number directly tied to revenue? How does Allsion respond to the common negative of “services revenue”? What is an acceptable ratio of services to software revenue? How can one approach setting up a services team for scale? Why is having such a great CS team actually bad for product development in the long run? How can one mitigate this? Allison’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Allison know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning of her time with Gainsight? How often should CS check in with their customers? What does that look like? If on a tight budget, how should one staff a CS team? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Allison Picken
SaaStr 263: Eventbrite SVP of Platform Pat Poels on Engineering Your Own Luck - The 3 Key Rules of Building Globally Distributed Teams
Building a company made up of distributed teams presents a plethora of complex challenges that can derail productivity and impact employee retention. But with it comes immense benefits and competitive advantages such as the diversification of ideas, speedier product development, and representation in important regions and time zones. Come and hear about the typical pitfalls (and how to avoid them) from Eventbrite SVP of Platform Pat Poels, an executive with over seven years under his belt leading Eventbrite’s now 300+ strong engineering team that sits across North America, South America, and Europe. Missed the session? Here’s what Pat talks about: Engineering your own luck How to build an engineering team If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr
SaaStr 262: Box's Jon Herstein on How Customer Success Teams Should Structure, Schedule and Execute on Customer Check Ins, Why Delight is Important But Insufficient & Why Customer Success Is Not Responsible For Upsell
Jon Herstein is the Chief Customer Officer at Box, the company that provides one platform for secure content management, workflow and collaboration. Prior to their IPO, Box had raised funding from some of the best in the business including Andreesen Horowitz, Bessemer, DST, Emergence and Meritech, just to name a few. As for Jon, prior to being Chief Customer Officer at Box, he was Senior VP of Customer Success, responsible for all post-sales services Box provides from implementation to user adoption and more. Before Box, Jon spent 4 years as VP of Professional Services at NetSuite and prior to that, close to 8 years as Senior Director of professional services at Informatica. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How did Jon make his way into the world of SaaS and come to be one of the leading figures in the rising tide of the customer success movement? What does Jon mean when he says, “you have to constantly bring your customers to the forefront of your employees minds”? For non-customer facing roles, what can one do to give them that perspective? Does it work to ensure every function spends time in customer support? What is challenging about that? What can be done in the onboarding phase to ensure the individual has the most empathy for the customer, regardless of function? For those in CS, what is the right communication cadence to check in with their accounts? What should the agenda look like? What outcomes should they drive towards? Should they be involved in the upsell process? How does Jon think about post-mortems on churned clients? How do they structure them? What lost client stands out to Jon and what would he have done differently to retain them? From Jon’s experience seeing Box in hyperscaling, at what stages do SaaS orgs start to break down? Why does Jon think that is? What can be done to proactively try and mitigate this? How does Jon think about the structuring of roles and responsibilities with scale? What does this done well look like? Where do many people go wrong here? Jon’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Jon know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time with Box? What motto or quote does Jon frequently revert back to? What is the most challenging element of Jon’s role with Box today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Jon Herstein
SaaStr 261: Workday EVP of the Planning Business Unit Tom Bogan on The Top Lessons Learned in Getting to $100M ARR
Tom Bogan, CEO of Adaptive Insights, a Workday company, will review the key principles to building a successful SaaS company. From team to vision to metrics to funding and more, these principles provide the framework for high-growth, high performing SaaS companies. How can you develop a winning culture? How can you set aggressive but realistic goals? What’s needed to build the right team in SaaS today? Missed the session? Here’s what Tom talks about: The important maxims about team building Insights on fundraising and why you might not want to always raise at the highest valuation Personal stories from his time building Adaptive Insights If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr
SaaStr 260: HelloSign COO, Whitney Bouck on How Startups Can Attract The Most Seasoned Execs In SaaS, How To Determine Whether A Seasoned Exec Has True Startup Fabric & What Separates Good From Great When It Comes To COOs
Whitney Bouck is the COO @ HelloSign (now a part of Dropbox). For those that do not know, HelloSign is the company reimagining how you approach your most important business agreements with their award-winning e-Sign solution. As for Whitney, she directly leads the organization's go-to-market efforts, including sales, marketing, business development and customer operations. Whitney is also an advisor to companies funded by the YC Continuity Fund, focusing on enterprise strategy, go-to-market strategy, leadership and execution. If that was not enough, Whitney is also on the board of Ekata, building the global standard in identity verification. Finally, prior to HelloSign Whitney spent close to 5 years at Box where as SVP Global Marketing & GM Enterprise she took on all of marketing globally for Box and was responsible for reshaping the company brand from SMB to enterprise. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Whitney made her way into the world of SaaS originally with Box and how that led to her coming one of today’s leading COOs with HelloSign? What were Whitney’s biggest takeaways from seeing the hypergrowth of Box? How did that change her operating mentality? What does truly successful exec leadership look like in Whitney’s mind? When is the right time for founders to think about building out their first exec team? What common mistakes do they make in the process? What can founders do to attract seasoned SaaS execs to their early-stage company? What are the questions that suggest an individual has a startup culture to them? What are the indications that they are a “big company” person? What does Whitney believe is the new role of the CIO? What has changed about their tole and what has driven this change? With their coming front and centre in the org, how does that change both the reporting and operating structure of the business? What are the nuances and intricacies of this role that many do not often consider? COO is thrown around as a term today, what does it really mean to Whitney? What does Whitney believe separates good from great when it comes to COOs? When is the right time for founders to start looking for their first COO? What should they look for in their first COO? What is the optimal onboarding process for any new COO? Whitney’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Whitney know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? What makes for the optimal relationship between COO and CEO? What is the most challenging element of Whitney’s role with HelloSign today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Whitney Bouck Ever feel like you can’t really connect with prospects or have an organized workflow to get deals closed? Outreach.io, the leading Sales Engagement platform, supports sales reps and their managers by making it simple to humanize and personalize communication at scale; automating the soul-sucking manual work; and dramatically increasing the productivity and efficiency of all revenue-generating teams. You can check them out at outreach.io/saastr to chat with them and receive a free copy of their new book -- Sales Engagement: How The World's Fastest-Growing Companies are Modernizing Sales Through Humanization at Scale.
SaaStr 259: Pipedrive SVP of Global Sales Tara Bryant on Addressing the Ugly Side of Growth
Our guest today is Pipedrive SVP of Global Sales Tara Bryant. Globalization opens up a world of opportunities for sales growth. We often focus on the positive sides of growth—but what about taking a look at the ugly sides? Even what we could consider “good problems” need preparation, and it starts by understanding your team and your goals, including knowing when and how to recruit members of your team, and building in a way that compliments your growth. Do you need more man-power on the customer facing side, or do you need to bring in new management to keep everything in line? Growth isn’t always linear, and the steps to success aren’t always one after the other. How do you prioritize and organize to bring the best possible results? This side of success can be scary, but knowing how to prepare can set you up to reach your companies long term growth goals. Missed the session? Here’s what Tara talks about: What does the ideal candidate look like? How to hire your core staff really well Enabling salespeople to share learnings If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr
SaaStr 258: Plaid CEO and Co-Founder Zach Perret on How to Build a Platform that Fuels an Ecosystem
Companies that have access to more accurate financial data have the ability to develop seamless exchanges of information, providing consumers with improved ways to manage their finances. But how do companies gain secure access to that data in the first place? Enter the platform company. Hear from Plaid co-founder and CEO, Zach Perret and CNBC's Ari Levy as he walks through his lessons learned building Plaid and how it found itself at the center of the fintech ecosystem. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Zach Perret
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これがオカンの日常
近藤淳也のアンノウンラジオ
株式会社はてな創業者であり現在もITの第一線で働く近藤淳也が、京都の宿UNKNOWN KYOTOにやって来る「好きなことを仕事にしている人」を深堀りすることで、世の中の多様な仕事やキャリア、生き方・働き方を「リアルな実例」として紐解いていきます。 . 【ホスト：近藤淳也】 株式会社OND代表取締役社長、株式会社はてな取締役、UNKNOWN KYOTO支配人、NPO法人滋賀一周トレイル代表理事、トレイルランナー。 2001年に「はてなブログ」「はてなブックマーク」などを運営する株式会社はてなを創業、2011年にマザーズにて上場。その後2017年に株式会社ONDを設立し、現在もITの第一線で働く。 株式会社OND: https://ond-inc.com/ . 【UNKNOWN KYOTO】 築100年を超える元遊郭建築を改装し、仕事もできて暮らせる宿に。コワーキングやオフィスを併設することで、宿泊として来られる方と京都を拠点に働く方が交わる場所になっています。 1泊の観光目的の利用だけではなく、中長期滞在される方にも好評いただいています。 web: https://unknown.kyoto/ . こちらから本文を読んだりコメントが書けます！ https://listen.style/p/unknownradio