Tales from the SaaS Graveyard: Recent Episodes
SaaS Graveyard
Welcome to Tales from the SaaS graveyard. We talk to employees at tech companies that are in the middle of the bell curve. Not going out of a business, but definitely not hitting the big time.
Todd talks about his move into management at RibbitRebate. We’ll learn if he can make an easy transition to management or if it will cost him his humanity.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Paul talks about his move from a large accounting firm to a crypto startup. We’ll learn if his gamble pays off or if father knows best.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Welcome to Tales from the SaaS graveyard. We talk to employees at tech companies that are in the middle of the bell curve. Not going out of a business, but definitely not hitting the big time.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Mr. G talks to us about being a Business Development Representative (BDR) at YrDoc which creates software for law firms. If there is one thing we learned from this episode is that sales is hard.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Al talks to us about being an infrastructure engineer at GTSI. He walks us through the highs of working on the roof to the lows of his final days.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
David talks about going from a Fortune 500 company to a Boston-based startup. We discuss the challenges of being the most junior person on the team, management's expectations for "passion" projects, and the joys of ping pong.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Chris talks about his transition from working at Microsoft to being the first employee at RecruitForce. We discuss Chris’s journey that year and how your expectations for a role can be drastically different than reality.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Priya talks about switching jobs while on maternity leave. She shares stories about joining a unicorn, inheriting a team and a welcome lunch that took an unexpected turn.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Carl talks about a growing engineering department, corporate doublespeak and the optimal amount of free boba tea for employees.
Episode Correction: In the episode you will hear a reference to a rumor that Salesforce employees were having sex in the stairwell of an office building. This is incorrect. The rumor was not about Salesforce employees, it was about Zenefits employees. You can learn more about this scandalous rumor in this Business Insider article: Zenefits had to tell staffers to stop having sex at work.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Nate talks about exploring different roles at "Goose.io", a people search company. Could "Goose.io" buck the industry’s worst practices or did they get cooked?
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Joe talks about his transition from being an engineer to a data scientist. We'll discuss the challenges of a career change, the tradeoffs of being a team player & the ethics of data collection.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Lauren talks about her first professional role at a technology company catering to restaurants. In this episode she educates us on bowling party etiquette, when to bluff and when to walk away.
Helpful links for being an ally to women in the workplace:
- How to (Effectively) Be a Feminist in the Workplace by Jennifer Dziura
- Being a male feminist—like being a white ally—isn’t about making yourself feel better by Leah Fessler
- So, You Want To Be A Male Ally For Gender Equality? (And You Should): Results from a National Survey, and a Few Things You Should Know by Promudo
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Jim talks about his success as the supply growth manager at WonderGarden (Airbnb for luxury properties) for the San Francisco Bay Area. He was great at his job but will his efforts lead to a positive outcome for WonderGarden's investors?
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Chris talks about his short tenure as a marketer at a social media company. This episode is filled with stories about what public relations is, how having millions of users means nothing, and how to handle being laid off.
Credits: Hosts: Jake & Stephen Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Mike talks about getting his first job as a software engineer at a company that sells software to local governments. This episode is filled with stories about "not" hot sauce hazing, psychopathic CEOs, and a troublesome wall.
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Articles Referenced:
The Psychopathic CEO by Jack McCullough
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Shane talks about his rapid rise in the sales department of an event space tech company. Everything was great until one day it wasn't.
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Colin discusses his transition from being a freelance designer to working at a video game start up in 2008. We discuss how the iPhone changed the direction of the company, the change in leadership, and why he no longer works there.
Kickstarter Link
Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Jess discusses her transition from academia to Product Management, what it was like to be the second female at her company, and why the CEO wasn’t around that first month.
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Credits:
Hosts: Jake & Stephen
Intro Music: Blue Dot Sessions