What The SaaS?!: Recent Episodes
FiveRings Marketing Inc.
Stay on top of current ground-breaking innovations in the tech and SaaS industry with regular shows interviewing founders with new products in the marketplace. Shaheem Alam, host of “What The SaaS?!” and co-founder of FiveRings Marketing brings in tech founders as guests on each show, discussing how they started their company, all about their product and their story.
This show is brought to you by FiveRings Marketing.
Key Takeaways:
- The importance of timing the market even when you are innovating
- Why content creation is important nowadays
- How openBOM helps organize data in every step of the manufacturing process
Matt Strauss, CEO of RiseKit, left the venture capital world to pursue his passion for solving social problems. Matt discovered this passion from volunteering when he was asked to mentor a handful of young people. While trying to connect his mentees to jobs and resources, Matt ultimately met with over 1,000 public and private sector leaders across his favorite city, Chicago. He hit a moment of volunteer and activism fatigue when he realized he couldn't mentor more Chicagoans. That's when he went on to create RiseKit.
RiseKit’s platform connects overlooked job seekers with the community support, training programs, and employers they need to rise to better employment opportunities.
Podcast Summary:
In this episode, Matt Strauss shares his journey on how RiseKit provides solutions to employers, nonprofits and community-based organizations to connect overlooked jobseekers to individualized job training, employment opportunities, and resources.
Key Takeaways in this Episode:
- Challenges faced in the government and non-profit sector
- How to sell to non-profit organizations and identifying their pain points
- Why passion for social changes is necessary in the funding part
Discovering His True Passion
Working as a venture capitalist 5 years ago was when Matt had the opportunity to mentor job seekers and entrepreneurs in Chicago. This constant interaction not only allowed him to understand their needs as challenges, but also discovered his true passion, which was helping people by combining VC and technology.
How RiseKit Provides an Even Ground for Job Seekers
Matt found out that under-resourced job seekers rely a lot on non-profit organizations. Oftentimes, staff members of these organizations use outdated technology to equip their job seekers. Employers, on the other hand, need to integrate a tracking system to automate the feedback loop of what happens in the application. Those steps take the employer front line recruiter 2-4 hours per non-profit partner to report that back. Having all that in one place as well as having access to real time data allows recruiters to simplify the process.
How to Sell to Non-profit Organizations
Matt admits it is a tough market. However, there is a high level of loyalty once an organization becomes your customer. What worked for Matt was to create a free-to-pay model where they can have the first tier for free, an upgraded version, and the highest tier that is a version where they can customize everything based on their daily needs. This selling format has been way more effective than trying to sell to every single non-profit organization.
Challenges in Government and Non-Profit Organizations
Governments have legacy systems in place and therefore, there is a lot of education and mindset perspective shifting. For non-profit organizations, the CEOs tend to lose perspective of what happens in the front line: Trying to find more employer partners, trying to track job applications, and communicating with job seekers. Most of the time they become customers if a solution is provided for the first two pain points but still requires a particular approach.
Passion and Relationships
Because of the type of solution RiseKit offers, any venture capitalist included in the first raise must have the same level of passion and desire to make this social impact. Matt admits that networking and relations were the main difference makers for the first funding obtained. If you are going to target this market, making a change in society must go first before profit-making.
Connect with Matt:
Matt Strauss on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Dan O'Day is the CEO and Co-Founder of ECFX, an automated electronic court filing notice management system for law firms and corporate legal departments. Dan has years of experience in driving strategic vision in legal technology, previously as VP of Sales and Service at American LegalNet and multiple operations and product development roles at Elite and Thomson Reuters. Dan received his JD from Pepperdine and practiced complex civil litigation.
ECFX was founded by attorneys and legal technology experts with a single goal: to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry. They are committed to filling in the gaps in legal workflows with intelligently automated solutions, enabling firms to save time, gain control, mitigate risks, and improve visibility.
In this episode, Dan O’Day will provide us with insights on how automation is being recently introduced in the legal industry. Dan will share how this industry has been very resistant to changes in technology and how they are gradually helping the whole legal infrastructure to be a place that is more open to technological tools.
Key Takeaways in This Episode:
- The challenge of dealing with an industry resistant to technological changes
- Why networking and relationships are crucial during the early stage
- How Covid was a game changer to introduce technology in the legal industry
- No need to speak negatively about the competition in order to compete
Programming and Law
Working in the legal world since he was 16 years old, Dan was able to see that it was a very adversarial environment. And although he really connected with the intellectual side of it, he did not like the argumentative part, which made him move to tech, more specifically to programming. Dan took all this knowledge and applied it to the legal environment where he found out there was a lot of work to be done.
An Environment Resistant to Technological Changes
Dan explains that when you practice law, you are taught the concept of "precedent". There was a decision made by the court, and that became the law, and the law must be followed so we all can have rules. That same mindset of "this has always worked in the past and it should work for us again" makes one naturally resistant to adopt new technology tools.
Covid as a Point of Inflection
A lot of that mindset changed with the pandemic. Lawyers were forced to embrace tools such as zoom to hold everyday interactions, which made them realize that this tech was actually beneficial for the entire field, especially when this is an industry with a lot of inefficiencies. This showed that time (one of the most valued resources in court) could be optimized in a better way by applying a lot of digital tools.
The Importance of Network
One difference maker for ECFX’s success was the ability to use Dan's connections and relations during Covid. The technology was accepted and well taken since there was already a strong background in the legal environment and his presence and reputation was already known. Dan said, “When you engage with people, understand that whatever you do in this transaction will pay off in a future transaction.”
The Corporate Side
Other entities that ECFX assists are insurance companies and large companies. Oftentimes, corporations outsource litigation to law firms. Some corporations do some of the litigation in house and these are the ones that have the same problem law firms have: Court notices put on the system, automating files and pulling old files. ECFX is so efficient at this that they actually have a ROI calculator that they can show to the prospect how much they can save.
Legal Advice to SaaS Founders
If you are looking to be a venture funding company and ultimately looking for a clean exit, keep it simple. Start out either as a Delaware C. Corp or California C Corp and get good counsel, and although it costs money, it is totally worth it. Keeping this legal aspect in mind from the very beginning will help you in the future, even if this does not look like a priority during the early stage.
The Future of Legal Tech
Although lawyers are irreplaceable, the field offers a lot of opportunities for automation in other areas such as adding the ability to deal with new files as well as pulling old files. Automating other workflows like medical records and ITC notices is something that is definitely in the landscape.
Connect with Dan:
Dan O'Day on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Steve Benson is the CEO and founder of Badger Maps, the #1 app in the app store for outside and field salespeople. Steve is also CEO of Badger Sales University. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve joined Google, where he became Google Enterprise's Top Sales Executive globally in 2009.
In 2012, Steve founded Badger Maps for outside and field salespeople to upgrade existing CRMs with mapping, routing and scheduling. He also hosts Outside Sales Talk - a podcast specifically for outside salespeople, and he is the President of the Sales Hall of Fame.
Badger Maps is the best route planner for field sales teams. With features for territory management and route optimization, Badger Maps is an all-in-one sales tool that allows you to drive 20% less and sell 22% more. Badger allows you to get a custom view of your territory, log meeting notes on the go, automatically update your CRM, and find new leads around you - all right from the field.
Key Takeaways In This Episode
- Differences in selling vertically vs. horizontally
- What to expect when transitioning from a 9-5 job to being an entrepreneur
- Challenges faced during the first years as an entrepreneur
- Why to lead sales during the early stage of your company
How Badger Maps Was Born
Completely familiarized with the challenges in sales and with an extensive background in Google Maps, Steve noticed that there was not a sales tool that was able to get data from CRMs then combine it with a calendar and a route traced by a map for salespeople. This gap in determining which was the best territory optimization led him to create Badger Maps.
How To Go To Market
It is important to determine if you are selling your product either vertically (just one niche or one type of company) or if you are selling horizontally (several types of customers). One common mistake when selling horizontally is trying to adapt your messaging and make it as broad as possible, as opposed to focusing on describing the type of problem that you solve. A common mistake that is done when selling vertically is believing that you are a market fit just because you have sold to a couple of companies.
From 9-5 to Entrepreneur
Transitioning from one field to another is not easy, especially when you have experienced a lot of wins on the corporate ladder. Most of the time, this lack of failure creates a conflict when the person goes through trial and error while building a startup, giving the impression that he/she is failing all the time. Having an understanding that there will be more failures than wins is something that must be clear before becoming an entrepreneur. In Steve's words: “It's easy to fly a plane, really hard to be the Wright Brothers.”
Long-Term Perspective
Steve can't stress enough about being patient during the first years of a startup, since you have to find your place in the market. You are always resource-constrained, and most importantly, it is not about solving a problem, it is also about creating the infrastructure to make that happen. During the first years you will have to play different roles, including the ones you are not a subject matter expert in.
Advice To Early-Stage Founders
Talk to a lot of people (including and mainly your customers) to get feedback and feel free to lead sales, even as a founder. Interacting with your customers as well as potential clients will allow you not only to understand their needs, but also to provide you with important information that will help you to either modify your product or your sales strategy.
In this episode you will hear Aleks Gollu’s take on how the video calling landscape is changing rapidly for a better customer experience. For an increasing sector, the forms and calendars to reach a company are a deal breaker. Potential buyers are getting more educated about the products before buying and need an easy channel where they can interact with the provider and finalize the transaction. 11Sight brings a solution to this time gap where all the customer engagement life cycle is covered with video calling as a first point of contact.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- The current video calling tools provide an excellent solution to daily interactions but not for a shopping experience.
- Potential clients need shortcuts where they can access in one click, the real source, and interact directly with the provider. With so many online resources out there, this is hard to accomplish.
- Technology allows you to connect with the world, but you also need to be as available and accessible as possible to them.
- Interacting through video calls indicates a stronger buying intention and it tends to close more deals as a first interaction than chatbox and phone calls.
A totally new sales approach.
It was very clear for Aleks that video was going to be a good means to conduct business. And although Zoom, Skype and Whatsapp were already in the market with certain video features, there was not an efficient way for companies to interact with their customers immediately. For specific segments, the traditional approach of filling out a form then getting back to the customer to schedule a meeting and talk to them within the next 5-10 days is a deal breaker. Especially in those high velocity sales where the customer is already educated about the product and willing to buy but still has some questions that must be answered and needs to contact the provider/vendor. After reviewing the statistics, it was found that 30% of the scheduled meetings are no-shows and the other 70% buys from the first vendor they talk to. This context allowed 11Sight to come into the surface and provide a whole new sales approach.
Removing the noise and obstacles.
The strategy is simple but powerful: By removing obstacles such as downloads, landing pages, social media accounts or calendars, or any other platform restrictions and directing the customer to interact to the vendor with just one click, 11Sights provides the potential customer with the ability to go directly to the source and address the customer’s needs in real time through video calling.
Your backyard is around the globe:
After several decades doing business, Aleks has been able to witness the big change technology provides to connect transactions. Even though the standard business one-on-one elements are always there (such as validating your product in the market, being customer-centric, etc.), what has changed enormously is the reach of the company. The very fact that you can have a business meeting in the morning with someone in Canada and another sales meeting in the afternoon with someone in Austria leaves it very clear that the world is accessible to everyone and there should be no restrictions whatsoever to close deals. But it is crucial to understand that in the same way there is a world accessible to you, you also have the obligation to be as accessible as possible to them.
How the video calling world is evolving.
Aleks envisions that video will become more mature in the sales and marketing space since it is not moving vertically. The type of video interaction 11Sight provides is one where the SDR can have a call card on the side, a script, the client’s information or data coming from the CRM while he or she is having the video interaction with the potential customer. The feedback customers are sharing is that a video call as an initial contact is three times more likely to result in a sale than any other internet tool. It has also been shown that a potential customer holding a video interaction is more serious about his purchase than one interacting with a chatbox. This opens a big window of opportunities to improve the video calling experience.
Girish Redekar, co-founder and CEO of Sprinto.com is a programmer who loves building products. Before Sprinto, he co-founded, bootstrapped and successfully exited a 2500 customer SaaS company, Recruiterbox. Across the two startups, he has delved hands-on into most aspects of running a SaaS company, whether it's writing code, running product, or doing sales and marketing.
Sprinto is a software platform that helps SaaS companies obtain security & privacy compliances, and clear security reviews and close enterprise deals faster. These compliances are necessary to close high-ticket deals. Conventionally, obtaining these compliances takes months of laborious and painstaking effort. Sprinto automates the manual work, and gets you there 10x faster.
In this episode you will hear Girish Redekar’s take on how the SaaS landscape is rapidly moving to a field full of regulations, compliance and security reviews for a better customer and business experience. You will learn how Sprinto is providing a solution to a problem that takes a lot of time, energy and money to companies that have to embrace these regulations in order to have a significant expansion.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- Spend more time focusing on the problem instead of the solution so you can understand your customers better and how to frame your ideas.
- Compliance and security reviews will become more applicable to every SaaS company. It is necessary to have an affordable and automated solution to manage this.
- Critical thinking and asking realistic questions during customer discovery is the only way to remove any bias we might have towards our product.
The early days
While running his previous start up (another B2B SaaS), Girish got to a point where he had to face a big variety of questions related to security compliance that had to be answered in order to take his company to another level. Realizing that each SaaS company had to go through this situation in order to close larger deals, Girish founded Sprinto, a company that will provide compliance solutions to these problems in a very easy and affordable manner.
Lessons learned along the way:
Due to his programer personality, it was very usual for Girish to have a first impulse to bring an idea to life without spending a correct portion of time to determine if he was actually targeting a real or a large enough problem. Learning to spend more time in the problem space allowed him not only to fully understand the customer’s needs but also be able to suggest solutions that would click with the main pain points.
Framework used for customer discovery
One important aspect in order to be effective in providing solutions is to get rid of any unconscious bias present during the process of interviewing clients. As a founder, there is always a part of you that wants your idea to work and this might affect the objectivity of how you view the market or the problem itself. It is very usual to be involved in asking questions in a leaning manner where you are trying to reinforce the idea that your solution is the one needed. Detaching from that and asking questions such as “If you were to build this tomorrow, would people actually buy it?” or “Is this something that people really see as useful?” is a more useful approach during the stage of customer discovery.
Current context for SaaS context
There are 2 things happening in the SaaS universe right now:
- There is a massive explosion of SaaS companies. 10 years ago, there were 300 listed companies and today, there are around 8,000 companies.
- The fraction of these SaaS that are going to need compliance and security reviews is also increasing. In the past it was only required for companies that sold products to Fortune 500 companies, but that is changing very rapidly as technology is more accessible to everyone..
Sprinto as a trust currency
Since all these regulations are becoming more and more applicable to all the SaaS companies in every single field and with no exception, Sprinto provides an affordable and automated option for all those companies that might not have the time, money or space to go through this process. So whether you are a bootstrapped or early stage company, Sprinto makes sure you have a leveled field so the features of your product can compete with billion dollar SaaS companies.
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Shayak:
Girish Redekar on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Shayak Mazumder is the CEO and Co-Founder of Eunimart, a SaaS platform that helps brands unleash the full potential of global commerce by providing a one-stop solution to grow globally and accelerate profitability. Eunimart makes it extremely easy to sell on multiple sales channels around the world through a unified SaaS platform, enabling logistics & supply chain networks, and providing a growth-oriented marketing automation platform. Eunimart helps brands increase revenue up to 2x and reduce costs by approximately 35%.
A bit about Shayak’s background: Formerly the global Managing Director for the Rocket Internet group, and heading cross-border e-commerce vertical across 21 countries (LATAM, Africa, South Asia and China). He is an Ex-Indian Navy (Nuclear Biological and Chemical Warfare specialist, among the youngest officers in the history of the Navy to reach staff rank) and INSEAD MBA.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- The early years.
In spite of his prestigious military career and without his father’s approval, Shayak decided to take a different road by starting a business managing beach-facing properties in Goa, India. This was a new experience for him since he was the first in his family to become a business person.
It only took him a few months to build a reputation of a family place allowing him to quadruple his profits in the first year and create strong networks with the local businesses. After 2 years in this business, Shayak arrived to the conclusion that instead of creating wealth, he was more interested in doing something more meaningful and with a greater impact. It was this decision alone that brought him to work with startups.
After one year of working with these companies, Shayak was able to create business plans effective enough to be implemented in 21 different countries across Latam, Africa, South Asia and China. This was the one experience that made him understand that he could do this by himself.
- Inconsistencies on the Internet.
Although the Internet was supposed to democratize commerce and create an even ground for everybody, there is a massive conglomerate that controls 80%-90% of it. As a small business, you have to pay these big companies (Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc) for scalability and for a place in the market. And even if you pay these companies, the success rate is significantly low. This inequality of opportunities made Shayak go once more to unknown territory to try to find a solution to this problem.
- What Eunimart proposes as a solution.
Although the solution is still a work in progress, Eunimart is confident that once finished, its approach will create a huge impact. Eunimart has actually managed to aggregate most of the e-commerce channels, create a layer on top, so any brand can come on board and be able to build all the online components (your account, listing, catalog, prices, inventory, orders, payments, shipping, distribution, supply chain, marketing, etc) all in one place.
- Artificial intelligence as a main tool.
Automating this process is not enough since most of the brands would still not be able to determine how to price a product in a new country or how to go live in a new demographic. The only way to make this possible is through artificial intelligence that is able to look at the item, then create a price, description, shipping options, inventory information and the rest of the necessary data to launch the product successfully. If this can be accomplished, Shayak envisions online businesses being able to go live and launch products in more than a hundred countries.
- PPM - People, Process & Money.
As an entrepreneur, Shayak believes the success of a business depends on how well these three parts of the business cycle are managed. With money, it is possible to bring high-quality people to your business who will create high-quality processes and strategies. These processes will bring or increase your revenue (money) and the cycle starts again. Shayak admits this sequence is very hard to understand by founders in the early stage.
- How to keep going when everything is going wrong.
Shayak suggests to always remember these 3 things:
- Why are you doing it? It is critical to always remember your vision and the cause that made you start the journey.
- Who is with you? Surround yourself with positive people who will help you go through the difficult times and get rid of people who can potentially bring negativity (especially in the early stage).
- What are you going to do about it? Break down the problem, look at what you can do with the resources at hand and prioritize accordingly.
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Shayak:
Shayak Mazumder on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Prateek Joshi is the founder and CEO of Plutoshift, a data platform for industrial sustainability. They help companies achieve their sustainability goals by reducing the carbon footprint of their operations.
Prateek has authored 13 books on Machine Learning and his blog has readership in 200+ countries. He has been featured on Forbes, CNBC, TechCrunch, and Bloomberg. You can visit prateekj.com to learn more about him.
Key takeaways in this episode:
Plutoshift was created with a combination of 2 components:
- Prateek’s knowledge as a Machine Learning Engineer, observing that Machine learning mechanisms are not so present in physical infrastructures as they are in digital environments.
- A desire to contribute in solving issues related to climate change, focusing on water usage as well as electricity and chemicals.
Growing up in a small town in Southern India, Prateek went through the necessity of storing water due to the scarcity of it. Realizing this was the reality of many towns in India, Prateek developed a social and moral duty to help provide such vital resource once he found out the correlation between lack of water and climate change.
It was all about customer discovery in the early days.
One of the first big questions to be answered was: Who would be interested enough in solving this problem and how well they are doing it today?. A big portion of the early days was also dedicated to understanding more how water facilities were managed in America to then provide a solution where machine learning could play an important role.
During this period of research, Prateek and his team discovered something very insightful: For compliance purposes, these water infrastructures had to collect very specific data such as Temperature, Pressure and fluid rates. It turned out that this information was perfect to create a solution from a machine learning standpoint.
Outbound as a main approach to take the product to the market in the early days.
Prateek kept it very simple at the beginning: An excel sheet filled with potential clients, a phone ready to dial and an email. These 3 tools along with persistence and a hard working mentality were enough to make him understand that people are willing to talk to you if you are willing to share a solution to their problems. With no previous experience in outbound sales, Prateek admits that once this skill is developed, it can be very useful for other aspects of business like fundraising.
How Plutoshift evolved over the years.
One of the keys to Plutoshift’s success was to continuously work on developing a reliable software that could be easily integrated to existing infrastructures with a high level of quality to reduce the carbon footprint in the operations. This allowed them to have now Fortune 500 customers and multi-years contracts. Any solution provided to this matter is extremely noticeable since 83% of the companies publicly declare their sustainability goals and only 2% end up meeting them. A gap that Plutoshift is committed to reduce.
Challenges faced:
It is challenging for companies to meet their sustainability goals and make financial sense at the same time. Tracking ROI is notoriously difficult since it is hard to determine how much is returned for every dollar spent in sustainability. And even if the companies are willing to calculate this number, it is hard to come to a consensus when there are so many departments involved and each of them with a different perspective about it.
Advice to founders who want to sell to 500 Fortune Companies:
Start the outreach with the means you have at hand. Fortune 500 companies always have a division or department in charge of innovation. Generally they identify new products by giving 2-3 companies a chance every year. If the product turns out to be useful then a yearly or multiyear contract is signed. Your product cannot be considered if you don’t have any type of outbound outreach in place. Start with what you have and as you grow your channels will also be enhanced over time.
Prateek’s long term vision:
From the SaaS perspective, Prateek is very bullish on the entire market in spite of the downturn we are currently going through. Machine learning, AI and the cloud are now being infused into SaaS products and SaaS products are being infused into physical infrastructure. This rapid growth in applications promises a big boom in the entire technology landscape.
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Prateek:
Prateek Joshi on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Abhishek Kaushik comes from a computer science background and is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of WeCP (We Create Problems). He bootstrapped his SaaS company to $1.5 million ARR in 20 months and is now on the way to $5 million ARR by March 2025.
WeCP is a technical recruiting platform that gives recruiters a place to test technical skills and cut down hiring times significantly.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- Abhishek’s PPP formula - perspective management, panic management, people management
- How WeCP enables technical recruiting without technical recruiters
- Why positioning and branding is important as a company looking to hire technical staff
- Perspectives on the key differences between USA and India markets
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Abhishek:
Abhishek Kaushik on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Niranjan Maka heads SmartHub.ai, a bay area, California based IoT / Edge company that was spun out from VMware. He held world-wide leadership positions at companies like VMware, RSA Security and other enterprise technology companies. He is passionate about “all things at the edge” – from management to securing the data and devices.
SmartHub.ai is focused on bringing deep AI/ML powered management and monitoring to IoT / Edge devices with primary focus on modern “Smart Spaces” which include offices, retail spaces, factory spaces, hospitality spaces or say, airports.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- “D.A.N.C.E-ing” at the Edge where the physical world meets the digital world
- How SmartHub provides visibility into ALL of an enterprise’s IoT devices from a simple interface
- How to take the “design partner” approach to get your first few customers
- Detach from your comfort zone and position and use data to guide your decisions
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Niranjan:
Niranjan Maka on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Jason Yaeger is the co-founder & CEO of Tenacity Cloud, an early stage company focused on solving the most persistent and costly problems in managing information technology. Tenacity delivers compliance, security, governance, and visibility into large scale public cloud environments with zero application changes required. With real time monitoring, Tenacity provides immediate guidance and remediation of changes and events that would otherwise expose organizations to security incidents, compliance audit findings, or unchecked financial waste.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- The challenges of going to market today - remote work, cutting through the noise with your message, hiring good people.
- The importance of focusing on just a couple focused ICPs and “measure, pivot, measure, pivot”.
- Say no to most things as a founder to maintain your focus.
- Why the cloud security industry needs to start consolidating.
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Jason:
Jason Yaeger on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Mahesh Vinayagam is the CEO and Founder of qBotica. Mr. Vinayagam has extensive global experience starting with his early career in Chennai, India, then moving to Brighton, UK managing large global technology teams for one of the largest financial service companies, and currently residing in Phoenix, AZ with his family.
qBotica is an Intelligent Automation as a Service firm specializing in providing Intelligent back office Automation and Intelligent Document Processing products and solutions for mid-market and Fortune 500 companies.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- Be ready to sacrifice your normal pleasures when you decide to start a company
- How to persevere and pivot to stay alive as a start up
- The impact robotic automation has on giving people’s lives
- “Go for the vision, the money will follow”
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Mahesh:
Mahesh Vinayagam on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Jeff Zigman has been a tech entrepreneur for 10 years, having led and built 25+ software projects from idea to market, including multi-million-dollar enterprise software, with an engineering background, 10 years as a Business Analyst, and 8 years as a Chief Technology Officer.
He’s married with 2 little kids and during COVID, he created a software platform that incorporates the learning principles gained from 20 years of martial arts into a remote learning system that numerous people have said is like months or years of learning condensed into hours. For any process-oriented skill, the absorption and retention is immediate and delivers measurable results overnight. Although applicable to any business process that is performed routinely by many employees, he has found a big niche when it comes to sales training because when you can increase the monthly sales of every low and medium performer overnight, a company can see a very quick return on investment.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How Jeff applies martial arts training principal to teach people how to learn
- How technical founders can automate several processes to save a ton of time
- The future of learning and upskilling
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Jeff:
Jeff Zigman on LinkedIn
skillbuilder.academy
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
On today’s show, we welcome two-time startup founder and three-time dad: AJ Bruno. This pilot of companies — and planes — led the successful exit of his previous company Trendkite and looks next to take QuotaPath, an end-to-end sales compensation platform, to new heights. Quotapath is the only sales compensation and commission tracking tool that motivates teams and drives revenue.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- Sales driven vs. PLG driven go to market strategies
- Customer success metrics to measure stickiness and product market fit
- What investors look for at different stages of a company
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with AJ:
AJ Bruno on LinkedIn
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
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Nate is a 3x sales leader and 2x founder currently building Fluint.io. Fluint helps B2B sales teams stop losing deals when they're not in the room by creating and selling with champions. Nate loves his wife, dark chocolate, and the Rocky Mountains.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How to better enable buyers to sell internally to other decision makers
- Get early adoption of your product to a point where it’s painful to live without it
- Finding “language market fit”
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Nate:
Nate Nasralla on LinkedIn
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Reza Khadjavi is the CEO of Motion, a creative analytics platform that helps growth teams learn what paid social content is performing best and why. Reza previously co-founded Shoelace, a marketing agency that helps e-commerce brands scale.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How to do customer discovery in the early stages and when you need to pivot
- The ups and downs that eventually led to Reza to develop Motion App
- The importance of listening to your team to avoid being the bottleneck as a founder
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Reza:
Reza Khadjavi on LinkedIn
Reza Khadjavi on Twitter
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
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Evan Sohn is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Recruiter.com, an on-demand recruiting platform that combines AI and video job-matching technology with the world's largest network of small and independent recruiters.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How a media company turned into a successful talent acquisition SaaS platform
- How recessions permanently change the recruiting landscape and to adapt, founders must outsource more functions
- Differentiating between distractions vs. real opportunities to achieve measurable progress
- Why your goal should be to become your client’s first phone call when there's a problem they’re facing related to your industry
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Evan:
Evan Sohn on LinkedIn
evan@recruiter.com
Recruiter.com on LinkedIn
Twitter.com/RecruiterDotCom
Recruiter.com
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Tim Boyle, co-founder of Whip Around always had an interest in leveraging technology to solve problems for business. Focusing that on the transport sector has opened up a huge can of worms in a massive industry, splitting his time between New Zealand and Charlotte, NC and anywhere in between.
Whip Around is a leading fleet maintenance software, enabling owners and operators of vehicle and equipment fleets to connect around important issues and maintenance to stay safe, in compliance and keep their fleet moving.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- The importance of educating customers when selling into industries that are slow to adopt technologies
- How to partner with your largest competitors to win business and avoid competing in a red ocean
- Why your customers are really your best mentors
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Tim:
WhipAround on LinkedIn
WhipAround.com
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Looking for the answers to scaling your SaaS sales? Look no further.
In today's episode of What The SaaS?!, Shaheem welcomes Gautam Rishi, CEO and co-founder of OneShot. OneShot is an AI messaging solution that helps sales reps unleash one-to-one hyper personalized prospecting across LinkedIn, email sequences and cold calling. Before founding OneShot, Gautam built and managed some of the fastest growing sales teams in the world, scaling teams from $1 million to $5 million in revenue, working in both startups and enterprise environments.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How to prepare to leave your corporate job to start a company
- Breaking through the noise using AI based personalized messaging
- Advice on scaling sales from a highly experienced VP of Sales: hiring good salespeople, focusing on where you win, bring brutal in managing your opportunities, and champion selling
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Gautam:
Gautam Rishi on LinkedIn
OneShot.ai
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Pedro Góes is the CEO of InEvent, a Y Combinator venture-backed company providing an event, marketing, and sales platform for Forbes 2000 Global companies.
InEvent is an all-in-one event management platform based in Atlanta, USA which provides scalable video-based solutions for a multitude of events. Its end-to-end premium solutions simplify training, event, travel, and community management, powered by web, mobile, and APIs that connect stakeholders in a secure, automated, and personalized platform.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How to break into the US market as a South American SaaS company
- The importance of figuring out your business model before anything else
- The future of virtual and hybrid events
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Resources recommended by Pedro:
- https://www.thescienceofrevenue.com/gtm-model#templates
- https://www.stormventures.com/author/tae/
- https://survivaltothrival.com/
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Pedro:
Pedro Góes on LinkedIn
InEvent.com
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
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In the 6th episode of 'What The SaaS?!', host Shaheem Alam welcomes Michael Driedger, CEO of Airsset.
Michael is an unintentional serial entrepreneur who co-founded Edge Consultants, Operto, and Airsset; all companies that are focused on making buildings greener, healthier and more efficient.
Airsset is an indoor air quality platform that allows facilities managers, and building professionals to gain insights into the performance of buildings. The platform saves time, helps to reduce complaints, and allows for healthier, more energy efficient buildings.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How to go to market with green technology
- Building a company in an industry that lacks VC funding
- How office air quality affects productivity and performance at work
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Michael:
Michael Driedger on LinkedIn
Airsset.com
Shawn Finder is an entrepreneur at heart. At age 24, Shawn entered the entrepreneurial world by importing packaging from Asia and selling to top cosmetic retailers in North America. By the age of 28, he already sold his first business. In 2013, Shawn launched his first SaaS project called ExchangeLeads which helps companies build quality B2B lead lists for sales outreach.
Today he is the founder of Autoklose, a sales automation platform that is used by thousands of sales professionals around the world. Autoklose & ExchangeLeads were both acquired in 2020 by VanillaSoft.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- Step-by-step of how Shawn got his first 100 customers before he even launched.
- Lessons learned from his first successful exit and acquisition.
- Why bootstrapping might be better for your lifestyle and sanity.
- How to succeed in a competitive market like sales automation and databases.
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Shawn:
Shawn Finder on LinkedIn
Autoklose.com
shawn@autoklose.com
Apply to be our next guest speaker here:
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How Merav Yuravlivker, an educator for most of her life, learned data science, and started a successful data science training company with her co-founders Dmitri Adler and John Nader.
Data Society specializes in providing industry-tailored data science training and AI/ML products and solutions that enable Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to educate, equip and empower their workforce. Data Society was recognized as an Inc. 5000 2021 fastest-growing company and named a top EdTech company to watch by Forbes.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How to mitigate risk of starting a business as an entrepreneur.
- How upskilling existing employees provides a greater ROI than hiring.
- How to take advantage of data to improve your business, no matter how big or small.
- The past, present and future state of data, the data skills gap and data science training.
Listen until the very end to gain all the value from this episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Merav & Dmitri:
Merav Yuravlivker on LinkedIn
@Merav_Yurav on Twitter
Dmitri Adler on LinkedIn
hello@datasociety.com
Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp
Clark Van Oyen, Co-Founder and CEO of Cortico joins Shaheem Alam, host of “What The SaaS?!” in this episode for an insightful discussion around the need for better software in the healthcare industry, customer discovery, searching for investors, customer interviews and much more.
Cortico is a software built for clinics to automate patient management, saving time and money in overhead costs for clinics, and providing patients with a better experience.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- Finding the first customer
- Customer discovery and validation.
- From bootstrapped to raising funds.
- Searching for an investor and why it’s important to be more selective.
- Clark’s top advice for early-stage SaaS startup founders.
Don’t forget to follow our podcast and share this with a friend or colleague who may find this beneficial!
Connect with Clark on LinkedIn or find him via email at Clark.van.oyen@cortico.health.
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A doctor and data scientist ‘swipe right’ on each other on a founder match-making website… What happens next? This is the start of a successful journey of two co-founders saving both lives and money through their medical AI platform, Healthpals.
In this week’s episode, Shaheem brings on two guest speakers, Sushant Shankar and Rajesh Dash, co-founders of Healthpals.
Sushant has an incredible technical background in the world of data, while Raj is a Stanford cardiologist.
Key takeaways in this episode:
- How and where Healthpals all started.
- How the founders conducted customer discovery to confirm a need in the market.
- Where these entrepreneurs found their first clients.
- Their BIGGEST pieces of advice and lessons learned for other business owners and those in health tech who are looking to start or grow their own company.
Stay to the very end to get the most out of this episode!
Find Rajesh and Sushant through the Healthpals website and/or their LinkedIn page.
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The first episode of “What The SaaS!?” is here!
Welcoming Thomas Kunjappu, CEO and founder of Cleary - an employee-experience platform for the hybrid workplace.
How was Cleary founded and how did they close their first big contract?
What did Thomas implement from his product management background, that he says is KEY to developing new products as an early stage founder?
What are some of the best practices for keeping employees engaged and connected in the remote/hybrid workplace?
Listen until the very end to gain all the valuable insights packed in this first episode!
Don’t forget to follow our podcast for more future episodes and leave a review if you find value in this series!
Connect with Thomas:
Thomas Kunjappu on LinkedIn
Thomas@gocleary.com
Apply to be our next guest speaker here: https://bit.ly/wtsguestspeakerapp