The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Tamar Yehoshua is the Chief Product Officer @ Slack, the company providing a place where people get work done, together. Prior to their direct listing in June 2019, Slack raised over $1.3Bn from the likes of Accel, Thrive, Softbank, Kleiner, IVP, T Rowe, GV, and a16z to name a few. As for Tamar, previously, Tamar was a Vice President at Google, holding product and engineering leadership roles on Google's most important products, including Search, Identity, and Privacy. Prior to that, she was the Vice President of Advertising Technologies at Amazon's A9. If that was not enough Tamar is also on the board of 2 public companies in the form of Yext and ServiceNow.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

• How Tamar made her way from Google and Amazon into the world of bottoms up SaaS with one of the leading companies of our generation, Slack?
• What were Tamar's biggest takeaways from her time with Amazon and Google? How did Jeff Bezos' approach to "the customer" impact Tamar's operating mindset? How does Tamar analyse customer responses to product changes? How important a role does the press play in customer's responses?
• How does Tamar think about effective product design today? How does Tamar structure the customer development process? What questions does she ask? What is she looking for? Where do many people go wrong with customer discovery? What channels can teams put in place to have this real-time dialogue with their customers?
• How would Tamar describe her management philosophy today? What have been some of Tamar's biggest lessons on giving effective feedback? How should it be structured? When should it be given? To what extent does Tamar agree with "radical candour"? Where do many go wrong in giving their feedback?

Tamar's 60 Second SaaStr:

1. The most challenging element of Tamar's role with Slack?
2. What would Tamar most like to change about the SaaS industry?
3. What moment in Tamar's life has served as an inflection point and changed the way she thinks?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-411-with-slack-chief-product-officer-tamar-yehoshua/

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

In today's SaaStr insider episode SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin catches up with Todd McKinnon, CEO and co-founder of Okta. Together they discuss what it takes to build, maintain and grow a high-performance organization.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/10-learnings-from-talking-with-todd-mckinnon-ceo-of-okta/

As one of the early champions of "low-code", Howie Liu shares the lessons he's learned building and scaling a company in an entirely new category. He'll discuss how Airtable focuses on solving customers' increasingly complex needs, all with products that are easily adoptable.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/lessons-in-scaling-a-low-code-platform-with-airtable/

SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin catches up with Therese Tucker, Founder, and CEO at BlackLine about her SaaS journey, going long and surviving black swan events.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/going-long-the-20-year-journey-of-being-a-ceo-founder-with-blackline/

Trends are fleeting and hard to pin down. Or are they? Learn how you can leverage the science of trends and better understand market behavior.

This episode is an excerpt of Allen's session at SaaStr @ Home 2020. You can view the full video here: https://youtu.be/v1c08Ztdrss

Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-407-with-the-creative-curve-author-allen-gannett-the-secrets-of-market-timing-and-how-to-develop-the-right-idea-at-the-right-time/

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Kate Taylor is Head of Customer Experience at Notion, one of the fastest-growing startups of the last 5 years with over $68M in funding from some of the best in the business including Index, Daniel Gross, Elad Gil, Lachy Groom, Josh Kopelman and Aydin Senkut to name a few. As for Kate, prior to making the move to Notion just last month, she spent an incredible 8 years at Dropbox including holding roles such as Head of Sales Development, North America and Director of Global SMB Revenue and Operations. Before Notion, Kate spent 2 years at Salesforce in the corporate sales and enterprise business units.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

• How Kate made her way into the world of SaaS with Salesforce, how that led to her 8 year tenure at Dropbox before joining the breakout, Notion?
• Why does Kate not believe that in startups you can "do it all"? How to discover the problems people care about? How to think through prioritisation of problems at the early stage? Where do many people make mistakes here?
• How does Kate approach delegation at scale? When is the right time to start? How can founders let go and entrust others to do the role they have been doing? How can leaders build trust with the people they work with? How can leaders empower employees with act with conviction and invest in them?
• What is the role of sales in a product-led growth organisation? How can sales and product work effectively well together? Where do many mistakes happen in sales and product? How can product and marketing also collaborate productively? What can one do to shorten the feedback cycles as much as possible?

Kate's 60 Second SaaStr:

1. Most challenging element of Kate's role with Notion?
2. What would Kate like to change about the world of SaaS?
3. What does Kate know now that she wishes she had known from the beginning?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-406-with-notion-head-of-customer-experience-kate-taylor/

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

In today's SaaStr insider episode SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin catches up with Bernadette Nixon CEO at Algolia and together they share 6 learnings on scaling to $100M ARR and what it really takes selling to customers small, medium and large.

Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/6-learnings-from-algolia-on-the-way-to-100000000-arr/

The benefits of managing upwards and downwards are frequent management topics. However, managing sideways and inward are also important skills for a successful leader. Learn new ways to build strong teams by managing in all directions from Arquay Harris at Slack.

This episode is an excerpt of Arquay's session at SaaStr @ Home 2020. You can view the full video here: https://youtu.be/q40RWMgZgIo

Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-404-with-slack-sr-director-engineering-arquay-harris-the-secrets-to-managing-in-all-directions/

Visit dell.com/saastr for exclusive savings on Dell products and more information about the Dell for Entrepreneurs program. Everything from Dell financial services to Dell rewards, Dell for Entrepreneurs wants to help your business run smarter through technology.

Bandwidth makes it easy to add enterprise-grade voice calling, text messaging and emergency calling to your platform, all backed by the power of a fully owned and operated Tier 1 carrier network that gives you direct-to-carrier pricing with better quality, control, and insights that other API providers can't. See why the biggest brands in the world rely on Bandwidth and sign up for a free trial at bandwidth.com/saastr.

Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. To date, they have raised over $73M from some of the best in the business including Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst and Point Nine to name a few. As for Sam, prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce following their acquisition of Quip, a startup Salesforce acquired for $750M where Sam was also the 1st sales leader. Before Quip, Sam spent an incredible 3 years at Dropbox where he was the first enterprise sales rep in the entire company.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

• How Sam made his way into the world of SaaS with Dropbox and how that led to his leading the sales and success team today @ Loom?
• What was Sam's biggest lesson from scaling the sales team at Dropbox? How did his 4 years at Salesforce change his operating mentality? Thinking of Dropbox, how does Sam justify the role of sales in a world of product-led growth? How do product and sales work together most efficiently? What can one do to structure that relationship?
• Does Sam agree that the founder is the one who has to create the sales playbook? When is the right time to hire the first sales rep? Should you hire 2 at a time? What does one look for in their first sales hire? What measurements should be used to determine their success? How does this change when selling to SMBs vs enterprise?
• How does Sam think about the relationship between sales and marketing? Are marketing becoming the new sales team with their content being used more and more in the sales funnel? How should the success of marketing be measured? Does it have to be tied to a number related to revenue?

Sam's 60 Second SaaStr:

1. Biggest challenge of Sam's role with Loom today?
2. What would Sam most like to change in the world of SaaS?
3. What is Sam's biggest weakness as a sales leader?

Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-403-with-loom-vp-of-sales-sam-taylor/

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

Marten Mickos, CEO of HackerOne, explains their innovative approach of packaging customer value derived from a variety of activities into an annually recurring subscription offering that delivers outstanding value to customers while simplifying the buying process and the customer journey.

This episode is an excerpt of Mårten's session at SaaStr @ Home 2020. You can view the full video here: https://youtu.be/GAw4vKbMevk

Full transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-402-with-hackerone-ceo-marten-mickos-customers-want-value-simplicity-the-must-haves-to-deliver/

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