The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

I am so excited to welcome Johnny Chin, Founder & CEO @ Bannerman to The Official SaaStr Podcast today. Bannerman is the company that provides on demand security staff and bouncers to some of the world’s biggest companies including Spotify, Y Combinator, Weebly, Optimizely and many more incredible firms. Bannerman are also an alum of YC having been in their YC S14 Class.

In Today’s Episode You Will Discover:

• Why did Johnny decide to transition Bannerman from B2C to B2B? WHat metrics suggested to Johnny that product market fit had not been achieved with the B2C model?
• How did the transition affect the product? What does Johnny mean when he discusses ‘Wizard Of Oz’ moments?
• How did Johnny go about developing and establishing a sales process? What were the inherent challenges and how did JOhnny combat them?
• At what stage did Bannerman reach profitability and what does this allow Bannerman to now do and focus on? SHould it be a priority over growth for other SaaS businesses?
• How Johnny approaches brand building at Bannerman? Why brand is so important for B2B companies? What are the must do’s and the must not’s when it comes to B2B branding?

In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:

1. Most challenging element of the journey?
2. Fave SaaS resources and reading materials?
3. Competitive landscape for on demand security?

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
• Johnny Chin

To Commemorate the 3 month anniversary of the best conference ever, SaaStr Annual 2016. We thought we would take a trip back to the conference with one of our favourite discussions featuring Jason Lemkin, Founder @ SaaStr and John Somorjai, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development & Salesforce Ventures. Salesforce Ventures invests in the next generation of enterprise technology. The Salesforce Ventures portfolio includes companies such as Box, DocuSign, Dropbox, Evernote, GainSight, MongoDB, MuleSoft, Stripe, SurveyMonkey, Twilio, and Xactly. Salesforce.com has invested in more than 150 enterprise cloud startups in 11 countries since 2009.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

• What have been the fundamental determinants for the growth and acceleration of Salesforce in the last few years?
• What gave Salesforce the conviction to deploy $500m back into startup investing?
• With the success of Salesforce Ventures, how have John's investing goals changed since 2009?
• Why should founders raise with Salesforce, what is the value add?
• What is John attitude to the recent pessimism in the valley? How does John approach the dichotomy of growth and reducing burn?

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
• John Somorjai

To Commemorate the 3 month anniversary of the best conference ever, SaaStr Annual 2016. We thought we would take a trip back to the conference with one of our favourite discussions featuring Jason Lemkin, Founder @ SaaStr and John Somorjai, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development & Salesforce Ventures. Salesforce Ventures invests in the next generation of enterprise technology. The Salesforce Ventures portfolio includes companies such as Box, DocuSign, Dropbox, Evernote, GainSight, MongoDB, MuleSoft, Stripe, SurveyMonkey, Twilio, and Xactly. Salesforce.com has invested in more than 150 enterprise cloud startups in 11 countries since 2009.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• What have been the fundamental determinants for the growth and acceleration of Salesforce in the last few years?
• What gave Salesforce the conviction to deploy $500m back into startup investing?
• With the success of Salesforce Ventures, how have John’s investing goals changed since 2009?
• Why should founders raise with Salesforce, what is the value add?
• What is John attitude to the recent pessimism in the valley? How does John approach the dichotomy of growth and reducing burn?

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
• John Somorjai

Following our meeting at SaaStr Annual 2016, I am thrilled to welcome David Cancel. Now David really is a serial entrepreneur having founded 5 companies, with the last, Performable, being acquired by Hubspot, resulting in his taking up the position as Chief Product Officer at Hubspot. Now David is the CEO @ Drift. Drift allows you to talk to your website visitors and customers in real time. David is a master when it comes to hiring, company culture creation and maintenance and team building and we dig into all that in today's episode, as well as:

• Why David's golden rule to recruiting is hiring people not skills?
• Why is cultural fit so important for future employees? How can you test for it in an interview? Can you hire a team of all A team players without having insane competition and friction?
• What does David mean when he says it is important for candidates to be scrappy? What signals are there that the person is an insane hustler?
• What questions does David pose to get the candidate out of the standard interview style answering? How does david push them out of their comfort zone?
• Why does David believe it is crucial to never hire PMs who have done it before? What is the benefits of this?
• How does David view success? What commonalities does David se in thementiality fo those that have and have not been successful?

In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:

1. Must read books for startup CEOs?
2. What are the 3 biggest lessons you learnt the hard way?
3. What is David's approach to learning?

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
• David Cancel

Following our meeting at SaaStr Annual 2016, I am thrilled to welcome David Cancel. Now David really is a serial entrepreneur having founded 5 companies, with the last, Performable, being acquired by Hubspot, resulting in his taking up the position as Chief Product Officer at Hubspot. Now David is the CEO @ Drift. Drift allows you to talk to your website visitors and customers in real time. David is a master when it comes to hiring, company culture creation and maintenance and team building and we dig into all that in today’s episode, as well as:

• Why David’s golden rule to recruiting is hiring people not skills?
• Why is cultural fit so important for future employees? How can you test for it in an interview? Can you hire a team of all A team players without having insane competition and friction?
• What does David mean when he says it is important for candidates to be scrappy? What signals are there that the person is an insane hustler?  
• What questions does David pose to get the candidate out of the standard interview style answering? How does david push them out of their comfort zone?
• Why does David believe it is crucial to never hire PMs who have done it before? What is the benefits of this?
• How does David view success? What commonalities does David se in thementiality fo those that have and have not been successful?

In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:

1. Must read books for startup CEOs?
2. What are the 3 biggest lessons you learnt the hard way?
3. What is David’s approach to learning?

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
• David Cancel

Delighted to welcome Jon Miller to The Official SaastrPodcast today. John is the Founder & CEO @ Engagio, the all inone account based marketing platform that allows you to accelerateyour move to account based marketing, streamline account basedreporting and analytics and map salesforce leads to targetaccounts. Prior to Engagio, Jon was the Co-Founder and CMO atrocketship, Marketo.

Intoday's show with Jon we discuss:

• Whatreally is account based marketing and how does it differ to otherforms of marketing?
• Whatwere Jon's biggest takeaways from co-founding Marketo and watch itscale into hyper-growth mode?
• Howcan startups determine whether account based marketing is the rightmarketing solution for them? How can startups accelerate theprocess of moving to account based marketing?
• Howcan startups communicate with their ideal customers in a nongimmicky, personalised fashion? What can be done to show personaland effective touches?
• Towhat extent does account based market intersect with account basedsales development? How much of a role will this integration play inthe future?

In a round we call the60 Second Saastr,we also hear:

1. Themost effective ABM channels?
2. Thebiggest mistakes startups make in ABM?
3. Thehardest element of growing Engagio from scratch?

If you would like to find outmore about the show and the guests presented you can follow us onTwitter here:

• JasonLemkin
• Harry Stebbings
• Saastr
• Jon Miller

Delighted to welcome Jon Miller to The Official SaastrPodcast today. John is the Founder & CEO @ Engagio, the all inone account based marketing platform that allows you to accelerateyour move to account based marketing, streamline account basedreporting and analytics and map salesforce leads to targetaccounts. Prior to Engagio, Jon was the Co-Founder and CMO atrocketship, Marketo.

Intoday's show with Jon we discuss:

• Whatreally is account based marketing and how does it differ to otherforms of marketing?
• Whatwere Jon’s biggest takeaways from co-founding Marketo and watch itscale into hyper-growth mode?
• Howcan startups determine whether account based marketing is the rightmarketing solution for them? How can startups accelerate theprocess of moving to account based marketing?
• Howcan startups communicate with their ideal customers in a nongimmicky, personalised fashion? What can be done to show personaland effective touches?
• Towhat extent does account based market intersect with account basedsales development? How much of a role will this integration play inthe future?

In a round we call the60 Second Saastr,we also hear:

1. Themost effective ABM channels?
2. Thebiggest mistakes startups make in ABM?
3. Thehardest element of growing Engagio from scratch?

If you would like to find outmore about the show and the guests presented you can follow us onTwitter here:

• JasonLemkin
• Harry Stebbings
• Saastr
• Jon Miller

Joining us today on The Official Saastr Podcast is Laura Behrens Wu, Laura is the Founder & CEO @ Shippo, the API and dashboard for all your shipping needs. They have raised from the likes of SoftTech, 500Startups, SLow Ventures and many more incredible investors. In today's show with Laura we discuss:

• What are APIs and what do they allow us to do?
• With APIs developer adoption is crucial, what has worked for Laura in terms of finding developers, onboarding them and ensuring developer retention?
• How much of a role does content marketing and education play in a complex product and tech stack, like Shippo? What strategies have been the most successful in educating potential clients?
• Why does Laura believe transparent pricing is so fundamental? How does Laura harness the freemium model while attempting to onboard large corporate clients
• What do the next 20 years hold for Shippo? What will it take to reach the milestones?

In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:

1. Most challenging element of building Shippo?
2. Biggest advice to SMB's on shipping options?
3. The fundraising process: What was it like?

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
• Laura Behrens Wu

Joining us today on The Official Saastr Podcast is Laura

In a round we call the

If you would like to find out

Welcome to Episode 15 of The Official Saastr Podcast. Joining me today, I am delighted to welcome, Nicolas Dessaigne. Nicolas is the CEO and Co-Founder of Algolia, Algolia are a brilliant case study for the successful pivot, having started off life as an offline search engine for mobiles but really took off by helping companies deliver an intuitive search-as-you-type experience on their websites and mobile apps. They participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2014 batch and raised $18.3M in May 2015 from the likes of Accel Partners, Point Nine Capital, Storm Ventures and many more incredible investors. and in today's show with Nicolas we discuss:

• Why is company culture so important and was it fundamental for Nicolas and Julien to have this outlined from the beginning?
• How did Nicolas implement the vision for the company future when founding the Algolia?
• How does Nicolas look to balance the scaling of the business with maintenance of company culture?
• What were Nicolas' biggest takeaways from his time at YC?
• How can SaaS startups optimise the fundraising process to also be a source of business development?

In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:

1. Hiring Your First VP of Sales: When and What Questions To Ask?
2. Nicolas' favourite SaaS resource?
3. What would Nicolas do differently if he were to start the journey again?

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
• Nicolas Dessaigne