The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Didier Elzinga is the Founder & CEO @ CultureAmp, the world’s most powerful employee feedback and analytics platform. They have raised funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Index Ventures, our friends at Felicis Ventures and Blackbird Ventures. As for Didier, he previously co-founded technical academy award winning Rising Sun Research and is non-executive director at Tourism Australia, the Atlassian Foundation and Slingsby Theatre. I also have to say a huge thank you to Ilya @ Index and Niki @ Blackbird for the intro, without which the show would not have been possible.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Didier make his way into the world of SaaS? What was the a-ha moment for him with CultureAmp?
• What were Didier’s biggest takeaways from watching Scott and Mike build Atlassian? How did that affect and alter how he structured CultureAmp?
• How does Didier evaluate product market fit? What are the signs? What metrics determine whether you have it or you do not? Why did Didier decide to bootstrap until $1m ARR?
• Why does Didier believe there is so little innovation in the go to market strategies of today? What would he like to see change and where does he see opportunity?
• Why does Didier not believe in paying sales teams commission? How does this affect his ability to hire? How does this affect the internal compensation structure of the firm?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Didier’s Fave SaaS resource?
2. What does Didier know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
3. What has been the most challenging element of the CultureAmp journey?

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

Didier Elzinga

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Fayez Mohamood is the Founder and CEO @ Bluecore, the company that is transforming the way eCommerce marketers use data and automation to communicate with customers. They have raised nearly $30m in funding from some of the best in the business and past guests of the show including the teams from FirstMark Capital and Felicis Ventures just to name a few. As a result they have enjoyed some rapid scaling having seen the team grow from 50 to over 100 in just 10 months. As for Fayez, prior to Bluecore he was Head of Product at BigDoor and before that he founded, Gameday Tycoon, a fantasy sports game that runs on Facebook.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Fayez make his way from fantasy sports game to successful SaaS founder with Bluecore?
• To what extent does Fayez consider B2B marketing an art or a science with the rise of data? How can SaaS startups use data to drive conversion and upsell? What metrics does Fayez hone in on?
• What 2 methods does Fayez use to harmonise the sales and marketing team? How can these teams be structured to ensure for a clear communication channel and culture of transparency?
• With the team growing from 30 to over 100, what does the hiring process look like for Fayez? How has this altered and developed over time? What have been the big lessons in the rapid scaling of the team?
• How does Fayez view efficiency within organisational structures? What must founders watch out for in the scaling process of their companies?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Advantages and disadvantages of being a SaaS firm in the US?
2. Fayez’s fave SaaS reading material?
3. What does Fayez know now that he wishes he had known when he started?

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

Fayez Mohamood

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Aaron Levie co-founded Box with three high school friends in 2005 when they discovered there wasn’t a modern solution for sharing and collaborating on work.They created Box to provide businesses with an easy way to share, access and manage information with enterprise-grade security, compliance and governance.Eleven years later, Box has been adopted by nearly 65% of the Fortune 500 and has nearly 70,000 paying business customers. The company went public in January 2015, and remains one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Aaron with 3 friends from high school come to found one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in Box?
• How does Aaron view the convergence of enterprise and consumer products in the coming years? How does this convergence effect IT providers?
• How does Aaron view transparency within organisations? How does this affect information flow? What must CEO’s consider when contemplating transparency within their organisation?
• How does Aaron evaluate the inflection points in the growth of Box? What were the challenges in overcoming these hurdles? How did he have to change as a CEO to combat these changes?
• What does the rise of AI mean for businesses and enterprise? What does the rise of VR allow the enterprise that was not previously possible? How do these emerging technologies affect the product and strategic roadmap at Box?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Aaron’s favourite SaaS reading material?
2. What will it take for Box to be 10x from here?
3. What does Aaron know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
4. What does Aaron spend most his time on that he would like to change?

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

Aaron Levie

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Luke Retterath is the Director of Demand Generation @ Duo Security, the most loved company in security. They have the backing of some of the best investors in the business including Benchmark, Redpoint, Google Ventures and True Venture just to name a few. As for Luke, his role is to develop, execute, and manage demand generation programs assessing the effectiveness of all marketing programs as well as defining goals, metrics and ROI’s for the differing programs.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Luke make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found unicorn startup, Namely?
• What are the 3 practical tests Luke uses to assess demand gen candidates in the hiring process? What are the right questions to ask? Is it right to look for badges on the CV?
• Once the demand gen team is in place, how do we get the team jump started? Where should the focus be placed?
• What are the 5 things that have helped drive growth at Duo? How can founders implement these into their demand gen strategy to 3x revenue for 3 years?
• How should one plan and forecast when it comes to demand gen? How does Luke approach the topic of MQLs? How does this change for the inside sales 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

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Douglas Hanna is the GM of the Developer Platform @ Zendesk, one of the world’s fastest growing SaaS startups. Before joining Zendesk, Douglas was the Founder & CEO @ Help.com where he grew the business from 1 to 16. Prior to Help, Douglas was the CEO of A Small Orange, the web hosting firm that was acquired by Endurance International Group where Douglas was on the Executive team when they went public on the NASDAQ.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Douglas make his entry into the world of SaaS and Zendesk?
• What were the big adjustments that Douglas had to make from founding and working in smaller companies to working at Zendesk? What is the core to making the successful move?
• How can companies go about building a platform? What are the fundamentals to consider once you have decided on the platform approach? What are the challenges?
• How can a startup measure the success of their platform? What are the benchmarks and metrics that must be observed? How does testing and iteration play a role in platform success?
• How does Douglas approach the go to market element with regards to platforms? How has the world of platform go to market changed in the world of omni-channel?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Biggest mistake companies make with their platform approach?
2. Fave SaaS reading material?
3. What does Douglas know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

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

Douglas Hanna

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Jonathan Lehr is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Work-Bench, where he focuses on early stage enterprise technology investments in areas including big data analytics, machine learning, data-defined security and more. Prior to Work-Bench, Jon founded the NY Enterprise Technology Meetup in January 2012 and organizes monthly meetups of the 5,000+ person group as a way to promote collaboration for the enterprise tech ecosystem in New York. Jon has also worked at Morgan Stanley on the Office of the CIO team in IT. In that capacity, he partnered with internal technology clients to facilitate the selection and on-boarding of emerging technology vendors. He has also written about enterprise technology trends for publications such as The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal and TechCrunch.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Jonathan make his way into the world of enterprise investing with WorkBench?
• Jon has previously said that enterprise tech is like chess, so what are the rules to play by? What can startups do to increase their chance of winning the game?
• How can startups build scalable and natural relationships with decision makers in large enterprise clients? What are the fundamentals to doing this successfully? What does this conversation look like?
• What does the buying decision making process look like in large corporates? How does that differ from space to space? How does that affect the sales cycle?
• Why is NYC the best place in the world to start an enterprise tech company? What are the pros and cons of being in NYC?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Greenfield opportunities in enterprise technology?
2. What does Jonathan know now that he wishes he had known at the start?
3. Jonathan’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

Jonathan Lehr

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

JD Peterson is CMO of Trello where he heads the company's marketing and customer service teams. A true child of Silicon Valley, J.D. has been helping startups for nearly 20 years.  Before Trello, he held positions as the CRO and interim CEO at Scripted, the VP of Marketing at Zendesk, and the VP of Products at Marketo. JD takes pride in building world-class teams, helping companies accelerate growth, and ensuring the customer remains at the center of every strategic effort.  

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did JD make his slightly unconventional entrance into the world of SaaS?
• Having picked Marketo and Zendesk, what does JD assess when picking companies? Once picked, how does JD evaluate culture? How does JD measure this?
• How does JD approach lead qualification? How does JD measure the effectiveness of lead generation, revenue or amount of leads? How does JD unify the sales and marketing team?
• JD has previously said that now is ‘the best but hardest time to be a marketer’. Why is this and what is behind this thesis? What are the pros and cons of the data driven marketing world? What are the commonalities among the best marketeers?
• JD has seen many companies scale into hyper-growth, when does JD believe is the right time to hire and expand aggressively? What roles should be filled first? What does JD optimize for in the hiring process? When is the transition point needed to have a VP?

60 Second SaaStr

1. Is SaaS marketing B2B or B2C?
2. What does JD know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?
3. Biggest mistake companies are enacting with their current marketing plans?

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

JD Peterson

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

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?

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

Tien Tzuo

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Lexi Reese is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at unicorn startup, Gusto and is one of the top female executives in Silicon Valley. Lexi’s passion for serving customers was sparked by her early career in microfinance as a public policy advocate with ACCION International—giving loans to people living in poverty to start their own ventures. She later worked at Google for eight years, most recently serving as Vice President of Programmatic Sales and Strategy globally. Lexi also started the Cambridge AdWords team for Google's small business organization. Now at Gusto, Lexi ensures that Gusto is continuously going above and beyond to serve all customers.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Lexi make her way from the world of Google and Facebook to SaaS with Gusto?
• What were the biggest takeaways from spending 8 years at Google and seeing the immense hyper-growth there? How has Lexi applied those learnings to Gusto today?
• How does Lexi look to put the ‘customer first’ thesis into practice? What does this look like in reality and from day 1?
• How can one maintain such high levels of customer service with an ever increasing customer base? How can one insert elements of repeatability to make this easier?
• Question from Hunter Walk: How do you fundamentally measure customer satisfaction? What benchmarks do you calibrate against to consider success?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What does Lexi know now that she wishes she had known in the beginning?
2. Most challenging aspect of Lexi’s role?
3. Question from Tien @ Zuora: How do you look to avoid the hype culture that pervades the valley?

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

 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com

Eric Yuan is the Founder & CEO @ Zoom, the video and web conferencing service that just last week raised $100m in venture funding from Sequoia Capital. Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco's collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and Vice President of Engineering at WebEx, Eric was the heart and soul of the WebEx product from 1997 to 2011. Eric proudly grew the WebEx team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide, and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real time collaboration.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

• How did Eric make his way into the world of SaaS? What was a-ha moment and founding story of WebEx?
• How does Eric think about building products, customer first? What does that mindset and approach look like What are the main questions to ask? What are the challenges in doing so?
• How should one approach growth with startups? Is growth ever in need of control? If so, what can be done to control growth? How can this be done without angering investors?
• Eric has said before that founders must ‘spend more and burn less’. What does he mean by this? What does that look like in reality? What should be the main focus?
• Does Eric agree with the notion that founders always undersell? How does Eric approach the situation of leaving money on the table? What are the challenges of doing so?

60 Second SaaStr

1. What does Eric know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
2. Eric’s Fave SaaS Reading Material?
3. Biggest advice to SaaS founders?

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

Eric Yuan

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com