The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Scott Friend is a Managing Director @ Bain Capital Ventures where he has made investments in the likes of Jet and Rent The Runway. Scott joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2006 after selling the company he co-founded, ProfitLogic, to Oracle. At ProfitLogic, Scott saw the immense scaling of the company from its initial three founders to a 300 person global software and solutions business serving the retail industry. As a result, in 2005, Scott was named a winner of the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year Award". Following the acquisition, Scott was Chairman of the Executive Advisory Board and VP of Marketing and Science for Oracle Retail.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Scott make the transition from building a 300 man SaaS startup, ProfitLogic to being a VC with Bain Capital Ventures?
• What are the 3 fundamental ways SaaS has changed over the last decade? What does this mean for SaaS founders and investors today?
• What is the single most important metric for Scott when evaluating a SaaS investment opportunity? Why is this and how has that thought process changed?
• How can startups optimise for sales efficiency? Where does Scott see most startups make mistakes in this field?
• When is the right time to hire your first customer success rep? Does it have to be embedded within the founding team? How can startups look to scale this and analyse risk over time?

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

Scott Friend

Scott Friend is a Managing Director @ Bain Capital Ventures where he has made investments in the likes of Jet and Rent The Runway. Scott joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2006 after selling the company he co-founded, ProfitLogic, to Oracle. At ProfitLogic, Scott saw the immense scaling of the company from its initial three founders to a 300 person global software and solutions business serving the retail industry. As a result, in 2005, Scott was named a winner of the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year Award”.  Following the acquisition, Scott was Chairman of the Executive Advisory Board and VP of Marketing and Science for Oracle Retail.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Scott make the transition from building a 300 man SaaS startup, ProfitLogic to being a VC with Bain Capital Ventures?
• What are the 3 fundamental ways SaaS has changed over the last decade? What does this mean for SaaS founders and investors today?
• What is the single most important metric for Scott when evaluating a SaaS investment opportunity? Why is this and how has that thought process changed?
• How can startups optimise for sales efficiency? Where does Scott see most startups make mistakes in this field?
• When is the right time to hire your first customer success rep? Does it have to be embedded within the founding team? How can startups look to scale this and analyse risk over time?

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

Scott Friend

Mat Ellis is the Founder & CEO @ Cloudability, the startup that provides cloud cost efficiency at scale and they have raised close to $40m in VC funding including from our good friends at Foundry Group and Data Collective. As for Mat, prior to Cloudability, Mat held executive positions with four startups, and key technology roles at Frito-Lay, Pepsi Cola and Goldman Sachs and he currently sits on the boards of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and the Technology Association of Oregon.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Mat make the move from the UK to SaaS startup founder in Portland, Oregon?
• How has Mat seen elements change within the business when moving through the stages of company growth? What were the challenges when going through these strategic inflection points?
• At present, many SaaS founders are looking to hire COOs, what does Mat believe about this hire? When is the right time to make the hire? What should one look for in their first COO?
• How does Mat assess the balance of sustainability and growth? How does Mat balance between this tough line? What are the inherent challenges?
• What are Mat's thought on culture maintenance when startup move into hypergrowth? What is core to retain this startup culture with the scaling through stages?

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

Mat Ellis

Mat Ellis is the Founder & CEO @ Cloudability, the startup that provides cloud cost efficiency at scale and they have raised close to $40m in VC funding including from our good friends at Foundry Group and Data Collective. As for Mat, prior to Cloudability, Mat held executive positions with four startups, and key technology roles at Frito-Lay, Pepsi Cola and Goldman Sachs and he currently sits on the boards of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and the Technology Association of Oregon.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Mat make the move from the UK to SaaS startup founder in Portland, Oregon?
• How has Mat seen elements change within the business when moving through the stages of company growth? What were the challenges when going through these strategic inflection points?
• At present, many SaaS founders are looking to hire COOs, what does Mat believe about this hire? When is the right time to make the hire? What should one look for in their first COO?
• How does Mat assess the balance of sustainability and growth? How does Mat balance between this tough line? What are the inherent challenges?
• What are Mat’s thought on culture maintenance when startup move into hypergrowth? What is core to retain this startup culture with the scaling through stages?

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

Mat Ellis

Peter Gassner is the Founder & CEO @ Veeva Systems, the industry cloud for life science systems. With just $4m in capital raised, Peter has taken Veeva to almost $500m in ARR and a prominent force in the rising tide of enterprise SaaS. As for Peter, prior to Veeva, Peter was a Senior Vice President of Technology at Salesforce where he experienced the successful IPO of the company and their rise into the most successful SaaS platform in the industry. Before Salesforce, Peter was with PeopleSoft for 9 years where he led a team of 450 professionals to support PeopleSoft's technology platform. I do also want to say a big thank you to Jason Lemkin for the intro to Peter today without which the episode would not have been possible.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Peter make the move from Salesforce to founding one of the leaders in SaaS, Veeva?
• Why did Peter not want to be CEO in the beginning? What was the catalyst for his changing mindset? How has view of CEOship evolved over the Veeva journey?
• How does Peter assess the attractiveness of a market? What are the 2 questions Peter asks before going into a market? Is it wrong to move into smaller adjacent markets?
• How does Peter assess the suitability of potential board members? What does he mean when he says all founders should use the 'grocery store rule'?
• What is required to close 7 figure enterprise deals? How can sales teams look to build this relationship with large co's in a natural and non-transactional way?

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

Peter Gassner is the Founder & CEO @ Veeva Systems, the industry cloud for life science systems. With just $4m in capital raised, Peter has taken Veeva to almost $500m in ARR and a prominent force in the rising tide of enterprise SaaS. As for Peter, prior to Veeva, Peter was a Senior Vice President of Technology at Salesforce where he experienced the successful IPO of the company and their rise into the most successful SaaS platform in the industry. Before Salesforce, Peter was with PeopleSoft for 9 years where he led a team of 450 professionals to support PeopleSoft’s technology platform. I do also want to say a big thank you to Jason Lemkin for the intro to Peter today without which the episode would not have been possible.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Peter make the move from Salesforce to founding one of the leaders in SaaS, Veeva?
• Why did Peter not want to be CEO in the beginning? What was the catalyst for his changing mindset? How has view of CEOship evolved over the Veeva journey?
• How does Peter assess the attractiveness of a market? What are the 2 questions Peter asks before going into a market? Is it wrong to move into smaller adjacent markets?
• How does Peter assess the suitability of potential board members? What does he mean when he says all founders should use the ‘grocery store rule’?  
• What is required to close 7 figure enterprise deals? How can sales teams look to build this relationship with large co’s in a natural and non-transactional way?

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

Daniel Ruch is the Founder and CEO @ Rocketrip, the startup that reduces travel spend by rewarding employees to save. They have backing from some incredible investors including the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and Y Combinator. Prior to Rocketrip, Dan was a VP in Europe for Tremor Video and before that he held several director and managerial level positions at TACODA until TACODA's sale to AOL.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Dan make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Rocketrip?
• How important is accountability for the founder and CEO? How do you convey this commitment and responsibility to the team? Are there any downsides?
• At what stage does Dan believe the generalist transitions to the specialist? How has Dan seen his team evolve from stage to stage? What have been the challenges within each stage?
• How does Dan approach hiring strategy? How does he look to determine people/company fit? Dan has said before that he 'would not hire without a track record', why is this?
• How does Dan view internal budgets? What are the fundamentals to cost saving within the business? How does Dan think one can cut cost without lowering morale?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What is Dan's fave SaaS reading material?
2. What does Dan know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
3. Carrot or stick, what does Dan prefer to implement?

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

Dan Ruch

Daniel Ruch is the Founder and CEO @ Rocketrip, the startup that reduces travel spend by rewarding employees to save. They have backing from some incredible investors including the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and Y Combinator. Prior to Rocketrip, Dan was a VP in Europe for Tremor Video and before that he held several director and managerial level positions at TACODA until TACODA’s sale to AOL.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Dan make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Rocketrip?
• How important is accountability for the founder and CEO? How do you convey this commitment and responsibility to the team? Are there any downsides?
• At what stage does Dan believe the generalist transitions to the specialist? How has Dan seen his team evolve from stage to stage? What have been the challenges within each stage?
• How does Dan approach hiring strategy? How does he look to determine people/company fit? Dan has said before that he ‘would not hire without a track record’, why is this?  
• How does Dan view internal budgets? What are the fundamentals to cost saving within the business? How does Dan think one can cut cost without lowering morale?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What is Dan’s fave SaaS reading material?
2. What does Dan know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
3. Carrot or stick, what does Dan prefer to implement?

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

Dan Ruch

Alex Rosen is a Managing Director with IDG Ventures where he focuses on investments in cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications, ad tech, and consumer marketplaces. Alex currently serves as board director at Chubbies, Krux, MindMeld, Minted, Smartling, Tempered Networks, and Uplift. He also led IDG Ventures' investments in multiple companies including Appboy, Datanyze, Indiegogo, Nuzzel, The League and many more incredible companies. Previously, he was a General Partner at Sprout Group, where he was head of the Internet and Software group. Huge thanks to the team @ Sapphire Ventures for the intro to Alex today.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Alex make his way into the world of SaaS investing and come to be Managing Director @ IDG?
• SaaS businesses can be massively affected by changes in a few very small data points. So what would you say is one of the single most important metric points?
• What is a booking? How should we break it down into the 3 different MRRs? What element of those metrics do you want to see growing?
• How important a role does unit economics play? What are the couple of forms: customer + sales person? How much ARR should a good sales rep add to in ARR in relation to comp?
• What is negative churn? How can you take a customer you have already sold and make more money from them? Upsell or cross-sell? What does this to the pricing axis? Why do you want more than 1 axis?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
2. What are the greenfield opportunities in SaaS for Alex?
3. What is Alex's fave SaaS reading material?

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

Alex Rosen

Alex Rosen is a Managing Director with IDG Ventures where he focuses on investments in cloud infrastructure, SaaS applications, ad tech, and consumer marketplaces. Alex currently serves as board director at Chubbies, Krux, MindMeld, Minted, Smartling, Tempered Networks, and Uplift. He also led IDG Ventures’ investments in multiple companies including Appboy, Datanyze, Indiegogo, Nuzzel, The League and many more incredible companies. Previously, he was a General Partner at Sprout Group, where he was head of the Internet and Software group. Huge thanks to the team @ Sapphire Ventures for the intro to Alex today.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Alex make his way into the world of SaaS investing and come to be Managing Director @ IDG?
• SaaS businesses can be massively affected by changes in a few very small data points. So what would you say is one of the single most important metric points?
• What is a booking?  How should we break it down into the 3 different MRRs? What element of those metrics do you want to see growing?
• How important a role does unit economics play? What are the couple of forms: customer + sales person? How much ARR should a good sales rep add to in ARR in relation to comp?
• What is negative churn? How can you take a customer you have already sold and make more money from them? Upsell or cross-sell? What does this to the pricing axis? Why do you want more than 1 axis?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
2. What are the greenfield opportunities in SaaS for Alex?
3. What is Alex’s fave SaaS reading material?

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

Alex Rosen