SaaShimi: Recent Episodes
Aznaur Midov
Chris discusses account-based marketing and shares stories about building Supplybase, Demandbase, and Channel99.
BIO
Christopher Golec is a seasoned entrepreneur with a record of fostering innovation and leading successful start-ups. Golec’s journey spans from his early days as a chemical engineer to becoming a key figure in the world of MarTech, with his co-founding of Demandbase, a pioneering B2B marketing platform, serving as a remarkable testament to his visionary leadership. His current venture, Channel99, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like GTMfund, Norwest Venture Partners, Jackson Square Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta.
TIMESTAMPS
01:10 Account-based marketing
03:10 Path to Software
04:25 Supplybase
06:30 Demandbase
12:20 Demandbase’s GTM
17:30 Channel99 at work
24:00 First Hires
27:20 Lessons from building companies
30:10 Company culture
32:25 Favorite stage in a company’s lifecycle
34:15 The future of Channel99
34545 Tech Stack
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Gary shares his experience turning around distressed software companies.
BIO
Gary has over thirty years of technology experience and has served in various senior executive capacities across the industry. He was most recently the CEO of Sectigo where he helped to turn the company around. Over his career, Gary had run six companies and served no more than 20 boards.
TIMESTAMPS
01:10 Gary
01:50 Main causes for distress in Software companies
05:10 Why can’t CEOs apply the simple strategy
06:35 Selecting turnaround targets
09:00 Step-by-Step turnaround
13:10 Picking right people
16:15 Dealing with a cash burn
20:45 KPIs Gary tracks
24:00 Selling software of a struggling company
27:55 Changing cultures
29:30 Case study
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Andrew discusses all things Marketing.
BIO
Andrew Davies is the CMO of Paddle, a payments infrastructure platform for high-growth SaaS companies serving over 3000 customers. He has more than 20 years of experience in start-ups ranging from leading global demand, advisory and consultancy.
TIMESTAMPS
01:55 The role of CMO
03:30 What’s Paddle?
08:05 Paddle’s GTM
11:05 Structure of the Marketing Team
13:40 Marketing’s Contribution to Pipeline
16:10 Budgeting process for volume-based pricing
19:20 Marketing over the past several years
23:00 KPI of the Marketing Team
24:25 Building a Marketing team for startups
30:30 Learning from Companies he advises to
32:00 Accidental Marketer
33:55 Andrew's Tech stack
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Nick discusses early days of Gainsight and how they were able to build a new product category - Customer Success - that since has become inseparable from SaaS.
BIO
Nick Mehta has been Chief Executive Officer of Gainsight, a leading customer success SaaS platform provider since February 2013. Prior to Gainsight, he served as Chief Executive Officer of LiveOffice, which was acquired by Symantec in January 2012. Before joining LiveOffice, Mr. Mehta served in several product management and engineering leadership roles at Symantec.
TIMESTAMPS
01:10 The Song
01:45 Jbarra
04:00 The Rise of Customer Success
08:20 CSM Role: Then and Now
11:00 The Book as Marketing
13:50 The 10 Laws of Customer Success
15:25 Gainsight’s Customer Success Structure
20:00 How has Reduction in Force affected CS
21:00 Expansion of CS beyond Software
24:20 AI vs CSM jobs
26:35 Hiring your First CS Person
30:55 Types of Software that Doesn’t Need Customer Success
33:30 Future of Customer Success
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Nick discusses early days of Gainsight and how they were able to build a new product category - Customer Success - that since has become inseparable from SaaS.
BIO
Nick Mehta has been Chief Executive Officer of Gainsight, a leading customer success SaaS platform provider since February 2013. Prior to Gainsight, he served as Chief Executive Officer of LiveOffice, which was acquired by Symantec in January 2012. Before joining LiveOffice, Mr. Mehta served in several product management and engineering leadership roles at Symantec.
TIMESTAMPS
01:10 The Song
01:45 Jbarra
04:00 The Rise of Customer Success
08:20 CSM Role: Then and Now
11:00 The Book as Marketing
13:50 The 10 Laws of Customer Success
15:25 Gainsight’s Customer Success Structure
20:00 How has Reduction in Force affected CS
21:00 Expansion of CS beyond Software
24:20 AI vs CSM jobs
26:35 Hiring your First CS Person
30:55 Types of Software that Doesn’t Need Customer Success
33:30 Future of Customer Success
Rob discusses the benefits and typical terms of Venture debt.
BIO
Rob is the managing director SaaS Capital, a financial institute that offers debt-based growth financing as alternative, non-dilutive capital for SaaS companies.
Prior to SaaS Capital Rob held senior executive roles at Lighter Capital, an alternative lender to small technology companies.
TIMESTAMPS
01:00 Rob and SaaS Capital
05:30 Recurring Revenue Lending Model
13:55 Retention as part of covenants
16:20 Borrowers’ Diligence items
22:30 Benefits of the Venture Debt
26:55 Venture Debt market over time
29:55 Challenges to grow SaaS companies
32:35 SaaS Capital’s GTM
Tracy discusses changes in marketing over the past several years and the first things she did after joining OpenSesame as CMO.
BIO
Tracy Eiler has driven marketing strategy for companies with a variety of revenue models including freemium, high velocity/small business, mid-market, enterprise, and OEM. She has start-up, public company, and M&A experience, and has marketed to line-of-business executives, end users, IT, and C-suite.
Over her career, Tracy also held CMO positions at Alation, InsideView, MarkLogic, and senior marketing roles at Ingres (now Actian), Postini (acq. by Google), and Business Objects (SAP company).
TIMESTAMPS
01:15 Making changes after joining a new company as a CMO
04:35 Evaluating Marketing strategies from the outside
09:35 Measuring contents’ ROI
12:15 What is OpenSesame?
19:35 Go-to-Market Strategy, and Role of Partnerships
24:25 Building a Pipeline
29:25 KPIs to measure Product Marketing
38:50 Changes in SaaS marketing over the years
42:40 ChatGPT and AI in Marketing
Pablo discusses the role of operating partners, sales orgs, and his book What a Unicorn Knows.
BIO
Pablo Dominguez focuses on partnering with Insight’ Partners' portfolio companies to build and scale effective commercial teams through the application of proven and repeatable go-to-market and operational best practices. He brings over 20 years of experience working on Salesforce effectiveness engagements across startups and various global 2000 companies.
Prior to joining Insight, Pablo was the Vice President of Global Business Operations and Customer Experience at NYC-based startup AppNexus. AppNexus is a leading independent ad tech company which was acquired by Xandr (division of AT&T) in 2018 for approximately $2B. Pablo joined AppNexus in 2014 and was responsible for building a Business Operations organization which provided support for Sales, Services, Marketing, and Product Line teams as well as driving annual strategic planning and key initiatives across AppNexus.
TIMESTAMPS
01:15 Intro
06:05 Main issues Pablo sees post-acquisition
07:55 Dynamics between Operating Partners and Management
09:45 Go-to-Market Fit
12:15 KPIs based on the company stage
13:15 Coming up with a quota
18:35 Failures: Leadership or Talent fault?
22:55 Industry Changes over the past 5 years
25:15 Sales Teams Going Through Layoffs
28:00 Product disruption
29:15 What a Unicorn Knows
31:15 Strategic Speed
33:55 Pablo’s tech stack
Craig discusses the stages SaaS companies go through on their way to $150M in revenue.
BIO
Craig Powell serves as the CEO of Autura, the leading SaaS solution focused on vehicle management, traffic flow, and law enforcement productivity. He is the former CEO of Motus, a PE-backed SaaS company focused on mobile workforce solutions. At Motus, Craig drove revenue from $7 million to $150 million and executed several acquisitions, including the nine-month integration of $62 million of revenue into the Motus platform.
Additionally, Craig was the Founder and CEO of ConnectEDU, market leader in providing technology solutions for students seeking educational and career-oriented opportunities.
TIMESTAMPS
01:20 Craig Powell
03:30 Growing Motus from $7M to $150M
06:30 Why do founders get stuck?
10:00 Founders thinking
16:40 Phases of Growth: 10-25MM Revenue
21:40 $25MM+ 20:50 Selling software is not a mystery
27:30 Autura
31:40 Metrics
34:20 Team structure
37:20 KPIs
38:10 Joining as CEO
Matt discusses M&A the environment, SaaS valuation and its drivers, and what buyers and sellers of software companies need to know.
BIO
Matt Lynch is a Managing Director of District Capital Partners and Sundance Partners. Prior to founding DCP, Matt led Corporate Development at Blackboard, where he managed the successful completion and integration of 9 acquisitions, as well as Blackboard's sale process and $1.7 billion take-private transaction in 2011.
Matt began his career at Salomon Smith Barney (now Citi), advising on M&A transactions in the technology sector, with a specific focus on software. Over the course of his 11 years at Citi, Matt advised on over $300 billion of M&A transactions.
TIMESTAMPS
01:30 Matt Lynch
05:50 Market Environment
08:20 Valuations in 2021
11:40 Main Drivers of Valuation
14:10 Rule Of X
16:50 Customer Success and Gross Margin
20:20 Shift to Platforms
22:20 Consolidating verticals
26:20 Preferred verticals
29:35 Working with Sellers
31:20 Size of Companies that hire Investment banks
34:510Most common issues with Bootstrapped companies
36:00 Strategic vs Sponsor
Dave discusses Squire’s product, the history of the company, how Squire successfully navigated through the early days of COVID, and the role institutional and celebrity angel investors play in the Company.
BIO
Dave Salvant is a Co-Founder and President of Squire Technologies, a provider of an all-in-one barbershop management platform. Prior to Suire, Dave was a sales associate at AXA and private banking at JP Morgan. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University at Albany (SUNY) and MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
TIMESTAMPS
00:50 Dave and Squire
03:40 Go-To-Market
07:32 Marketing in Squire
08:16 Company size / Global Remote-first company
08:57 Quick product release help barbers navigate COVID (incredible response to COVID)
11:00 Creating new products
12:15 First Investors
14:45 Celebrity Investors
16:11 Involvement of investors
16:44 Vision for Squire Technologies
Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Dave discusses Squire’s product, the history of the company, how Squire successfully navigated through the early days of COVID, and the role institutional and celebrity angel investors play in the Company.
BIO
Dave Salvant is a Co-Founder and President of Squire Technologies, a provider of an all-in-one barbershop management platform. Prior to Suire, Dave was a sales associate at AXA and private banking at JP Morgan. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University at Albany (SUNY) and MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
TIMESTAMPS
00:50 Dave and Squire
03:40 Go-To-Market
07:32 Marketing in Squire
08:16 Company size / Global Remote-first company
08:57 Quick product release help barbers navigate COVID (incredible response to COVID)
11:00 Creating new products
12:15 First Investors
14:45 Celebrity Investors
16:11 Involvement of investors
16:44 Vision for Squire Technologies
Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Barb discussed Sapia’s unique product, the role of artificial intelligence in unbiased hiring, the Sapia data set based on a billion words and 2 million candidate profiles, the initial dataset that Sapia utilized, its first client, go-to-market strategy, and many other things.
BIO
Barb Hyman is the Founder and CEO of Australia-based Sapia. Prior to Sapia, Barb was a Head of HR and Marketing at Boston Consulting Group. She received her Bachelor's degree from Monash University and MBA from Melbourne Business School.
TIMESTAMPS
01:00 Barb and Sapia
04:20 Five questions to select a candidate
07:50 Artificial Intelligence vs. Machine Learning
10:25 Getting the initial data set
13:25 When your first client is Enterprise…
17:30 Pricing model
24:00 Sapia’s Go-To-Market strategy
29:30 Hiring on values
33:30 KPIs
35:00 Raising capital
37:50 On biases
Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Sean discussed the financial diligence process of SaaS companies, common mistakes in ARR, Gross Profit, and EBITDA calculations, the effects capitalized software and capitalized commissions have on cash EBITDA, and many other things.
BIO
Sean St. Germain is a Managing Director at Alvarez & Marsal. He focuses on transactions in the software and technology industry. He has advised clients on domestic and cross-border transactions, including traditional buy-side transactions, portfolio company add-on transactions, public-to-private acquisitions, asset purchases, and sell-side divestiture processes, including carve-outs. Sean is an expert in software revenue recognition, including the new revenue recognition standard (ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers).
TIMESTAMPS
01:00 Sean and Alvarez & Marsal
05:30 Unique aspects of SaaS businesses
09:00 Recurring vs Re-occurring revenue streams
12:20 Mistakes companies make in ARR calculation
15:35 Cost of Sales
17:35 EBITDA Adjustments
22:00 Confirmation of synergies
23:15 Capitalized commissions
25:30 Capitalized software
29:05 What is Cash EBITDA?
33:30 Preparing your company for financial diligence
37:00 Findings that can derail transactions
Season B is Sponsored byCELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Francois shared his experience of bringing the Norway-based Cognite to the US market, discussed the most significant challenges he has faced along the way, and compared corporate cultures in the US and Europe.
BIO
Dr. Francois Laborie is the President of Cognite North America, overseeing Cognite’s expansion and operations in the US, Canada, and Latin America. He has had an extensive career in the technology industry, serving in both research and executive roles. Francois has been at the heart of the transformation of the media industry through technology. He spent 11 years as COO and CCO of Vizrt, where he focused on disrupting journalism by empowering media content creators with visual storytelling tools. Before that, Francois managed research projects on collective decision-making and human-computer interfaces at the Airbus Group Corporate Research Center.
TIMESTAMPS
01:00 Francois and Cognite
06:15 Competition with internally built systems
08:40 Go-To-Market Strategy
11:40 Reception of Cognite by US and EU clients
15:35 Selecting sales personnel
19:30 Comparing corporate cultures in the US and Europe
20:20 Involvements of investors
23:30 Long-term vision for Cognite
Season B is Sponsored byCELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Diamond discussed SaaS valuation and how multiples have changed over the past several years, the main drivers of multiples, and M&A market trends.
BIO
Diamond Innabi is a Vice President at Software Equity Group, a boutique investment bank focused on B2B software companies. Over her nearly a decade career at SEG, she was instrumental in numerous M&A transactions involving public and private companies as well as private equity funds.
TIMESTAMPS
1:45 Why are SaaS companies valued at a multiple of revenue or ARR?
4:00 Drivers of SaaS Valuation and how they have changed in the current environment
6:30 Mission-critical software
7:50 Multiples over 5 years
9:05 SaaS valuation during COVID
10:00 Comps contribution to assigning multiples
11:25 On-prem vs cloud valuation
14:20 Buyers and Sellers
16:20 Most durable SaaS categories
17:15 Recommendation to sellers
19:30 Calculation of Gross Margins
Click the following links to "double-click" on Diamond's comments about M&A Update, The Rule of 40, Gross Margin impact, and COGS
Season B is Sponsored byCELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Marion shared her experience of being a serial entrepreneur, the challenges of raising funds, as well as founding and growing Govenda. We discussed the company’s product, customer base, go-to-market strategy, and everything in between.
BIO
Marion Lewis is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Govenda, a board management platform that enables effective corporate governance. Prior to Govenda, she was a co-founder and CEO of Tachyon Solutions, a custom application development and interactive marketing firm.
TIMESTAMPS
01:05 Marion – serial entrepreneur
04:00 Govenda and its target markets
11:10 Locking in the first client
12:55 Raising capital
16:25 Govenda during and after COVID
17:45 Go-To-Market strategy
19:40 Org structure and hiring first employees
21:50 Role of investors
Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Miguel discusses the story of Capchase, typical profile of SaaS clients, terms of financing they provide, and how investors and lenders view such financing.
BIO
Miguel Fernandez is a Co-Founder & CEO of Capchase, an alternative finance provider that enables SaaS companies to access their future contract payments upfront. Prior to launching Capchase, Miguel worked in management consulting and then moved into SaaS. He headed sales and customer success at Geoblink, a Location Intelligence SaaS and scaled it from 0 to $2m in ARR.
TIMESTAMPS
01:10 Mguel and the story of Capchase
04:35 Use cases for Capchase
07:05 Comparing Venture Capital, Venture Debt, and Alternative financing
09:35 Who can use Alternative finance
11:30 Terms of financing - price, covenants, etc.
14:25 Revenue-based financing players
17:15 VCs' and lenders' take on Alternative financing
20:15 Vision for Capchase
Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Scott discusses the rise of Customer Success, Gainsight Essentials, its GTM strategy, and the most common mistakes by SMBs when it comes to CS.
BIO
Scott Salkin is SVP & GM, Gainsight Essentials at Gainsight. He is a seasoned entrepreneur, CEO, and senior B2B sales and marketing executive. Prior to joining Gainsight, Scott was the founder and CEO of Allbound, a B2B SaaS platform dedicated to helping businesses accelerate revenue through channel partners and ecosystems.
TIMESTAMPS
01:20 Scott's path to Gainsight
04:15 Rise of Customer Success
06:50 Changes in Customer Success
09:00 Gainsight Essentials
12:45 Essentials' GTM strategy vs the Gainsight's GTM
14:40 Customer Success KPIs for SMBs
17:10 Most common mistakes by SMBs
18:20 Vision for Gainsight Essentials
Season B is Sponsored byCELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Mark discusses Alpine Investors and Alpine Software Group, a unique holding company they have built by acquiring SaaS companies within several verticals. He also shared Alpine's take on talent, the profile of companies the firm invests in, and SaaS 2.0.
BIO
Mark Strauch is a founding partner at Alpine Investors and Chairman of Alpine SG, the firm's vertical SaaS aggregation platform. Prior to Alpine, Mark served as CEO of EDC, a financial technology company that was acquired in 2011. Previously, he served as CEO of Business Engine, a venture-backed software company that was acquired in 2007.
TIMESTAMPS
00:35 Intro
03:15 Alpine and CEO-in-Training program
05:35 The reason why Alpine is the most sought-after firm for top MBA programs
06:50 Investing in SaaS and building Alpine SG
13:20 Valuations of private SaaS companies
15:40 Competing for the deals with other PE funds
21:20 Acquisition process and deal structuring
26:25 Investor vs Operator mindsets
28:30 Areas of improvements in bootstrapped companies
32:40 A vision for Alpine SG
Season B is Sponsored byCELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Geoffrey Moore, the author of numerous marketing books (including the all-time classic – Crossing the Chasm), discusses how COVID affected the Chasm and how SaaS companies should apply the blueprint to SMB and Enterprise target markets. He also speaks about Geoffrey’s newest book, Zone to Win, written for later-stage technology companies.
BIO
Geoffery Moore is a best-selling author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Wildcat Venture Partners portfolios and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Autodesk, Gainsight, Google, and Splunk.
TIMESTAMPS
03:08 Crossing the Chasm in a few words
08:10 COVID’s effect on Chasm
11:02 Chasm’s blueprint for SaaS companies
13:55 SMB vs Enterprise approach to Chasm
15:27 Case Study
19:58 Geoffrey’s most important books
Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
Bruno discusses the evolution of the Data Analytics space, its current trends, and shares his view on what lies ahead.
BIO
Bruno Aziza is a recognized authority on Business Intelligence and Information Management. He is a Data & Analytics industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in leading technology companies of various sizes - from startups (Alpine Data) to behemoths (Oracle, Microsoft, and now Google).
If you are in the Data & Analytics space be sure to check out:
Bruno's book: Drive Business Performance: Enabling a Culture of Intelligent Execution
Bruno's educational series: Data Journeys
TIMESTAMPS
00:35 Bruno's background
02:25 What is Data Analytics
05:40 Evolution of the Data Analytics space
07:50 Data Lakes and Data Warehouses
10:10 Crowded Data Analytics space explained
12:45 Tailwinds for Data Analytics
14:40 Data Analytics tools in a modern organization
16:15 Bruno’s Tech Stack
17:35 How mature is the Data Analytics space
19:15 Parting thoughts
This is the Final Episode of Season A. Make sure to subscribe to be alerted about Season B.
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Jan shares the story of Celigo, discusses iPaaS, speaks on the Company’s Org structure and functions, and how he manages the fast-growing company with an exceptional retention profile.
BIO
Jan is a veteran of the software industry with more than 25 years of experience in sales, marketing, product development, and customer success. He founded Celigo with the goal of simplifying how companies integrate business applications together for a connected enterprise. Prior to Celigo, he worked at NetSuite and Cambridge Technology Partners.
TIMESTAMPS
00:40 Jan and Celigo
06:00 Target Customers (Market)
07:25 Basis for Pricing
09:25 Competition in iPaaS
16:55 Retention
18:20 Go-to-Market
20:00 Rebuilding the platform from scratch
21:00 Size and Growth
23:55 Team and Structure
30:30 Relationship with investors
31:30 Long Term Vision
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Vlad discusses lower-middle market SaaS space, competition in the field, Nexa's deal sourcing, due diligence process, deal structures, and exit strategies. He shares a case study about Nexa's acquisition of AutoReturn, whose software connects law enforcement and towing companies.
BIO
Vlad Besprozvany is a Founder and Managing Partner of Nexa Equity, a private equity firm that invests in lower-middle market software and fintech companies. Prior to founding Nexa, Vlad was a Managing Director at Greater Sum Ventures, where he focused on investments in software companies. Previously, he was a software and fintech investor at Insight Partners and Thoma Bravo.
TIMESTAMPS
00:40 Vlad and Nexa
05:45 Competition in Lower-Middle Market
07:35 Nexa's Investment Criteria / Valuations in the space
13:50 Sourcing deals
19:38 Winning competitive deals
21:30 Typical deal structures
29:20 Case Study: Investing in AutoReturn
35:30 Exit Strategies
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Erinn Tarpey is a CMO at Visual Lease, a software provider that helps companies stay compliant with lease accounting standards. In this episode, Erinn discussed her role as a marketer, the structure of her team, how she measures the effectiveness of different marketing functions, her take on NPS, and many other things. She also shared a case study – Visual Lease’s call-to-action with a 65% conversion rate.
BIO
Erinn has expertise scaling up organizations in SaaS companies during periods of high growth and has driven marketing efforts around proprietary research development, mergers and acquisitions, and channel sales.
Before joining Visual Lease, Erinn served as a member of the senior leadership team at iCIMS. Prior to joining iCIMS, Erinn directed marketing efforts at Aquiire and PurchasingNet, Inc., both of which provide SaaS solutions designed to streamline procure-to-pay processes at global Fortune 1000 organizations.
TIMESTAMPS
00:35 Erinn and Visual Lease
03:50 Clients
05:20 Pricing
06:05 Solving the lease problem
09:20 Tailwinds from the regulatory environment
12:10 Top objectives of Marketer
14:35 Marketing team structure
16:05 Measuring effectiveness of Marketing functions
22:25 Internal use of NPS
26:45 Tech Stack
29:25 Case study
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Shelley Perry is an investor, board director, and advisor that specializes in the uniqueness of the SaaS ScaleUp Stage. In this interview we discussed ScaleUps, compared the mindset of investors and operators, and touched on the European SaaS space.
BIO
Shelley Perry is a Managing Director at Scalelogix Ventures. Over her career in SaaS she was an Operating Partner at Insight Partners, CEO of Bynder, Chief Product Officer at NTT, CTO Industry Solutions at Hewlett-Packard, among other things. Shelly sits on boards of Chargebee, Bynder, Foresite MSP, Airbrake.io, and Trove.
TIME STAMPS
01:30 ScaleUp stage
07:30 Quantifying Low, Mid, and Late ScaleUp stage
11:10 What goes wrong on ScaleUp stage?
14:35 What do operators learn when they start investing?
16:45 Role of an Operating Partner at an investment firm
19:20 Due Diligence for different stages of ScaleUp companies
22:35 Do investors and operators look at the same SaaS metrics?
26:00 European SaaS space
28:50 US investors in European SaaS
31:40 SaaS companies that are worth imitating
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Michael Lyon, is a Founder and Managing Director of Vista Point Advisors, an investment bank exclusively focused on Software and internet. In this episode, he discussed main drivers of SaaS valuation and how revenue models may influence it, Private Equity funds that are active in the space, what founders need to fix prior to selling SaaS companies, how they should handle inbound calls from potential investors, and many other things.
Bio
Michael Lyon is the Founder and Managing Director of Vista Point Advisors. Michael has spent 24 years as a technology investment banker and chemical engineer. Prior to founding Vista Point Advisors, Michael worked at Citigroup where he was a senior member of the technology M&A team. Prior to Citigroup Michael was an engineer for ExxonMobil and BP where he managed chemical plant operations.
Time Stamps
01:00 Vista Point Advisors and Mike's background
02:00 Vista Points deal sourcing
03:05 SaaS market activity
05:00 Main drivers of SaaS valuation
12:50 Revenue models and how they influence valuations
16:00 Selling On-Premise software companies
18:35 Earn-outs or not Earn-outs
19:55 Bringing house in order before selling the business
23:00 Choosing a buyer and length of the sales process
27:15 Private Equity funds active in the SaaS space
28:45 Handling inbound calls from Private Equity funds
29:45 When to call an Investment Banker
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Faisal Masud, is a CEO of Fabric, a cloud-native e-commerce platform for middle market and enterprise clients. Faisal discusses the history of Fabric, what’s behind the company's incredible growth, and what they plan to do with $150M capital they raised in less than a year. You would also be interested to hear his take on ebay, Amazon, UPS, and today’s Silicon Valley.
Faisal's Bio
Faisal Masud is a CEO of Fabric, which he joined in 2020. Prior to Fabric, Faisal was COO at Wing (Alphabet), advisor to Google [X], and CTO at Staple. He also held roles at Groupon, eBay, and Amazon, and sits on several boards.
Time Stamps
01:00 What’s Fabric
05:50 Customer profile, Pricing, and Shopify discussion
09:00 Go-to-Market Strategy
12:45 Fabric’s size and growth drivers
16:30 Company's Org. Structure
22:00 KPI for Marketing and Customer Success
22:40 Client focus - Balancing interests of customers and investors
25:00 Ebay and Amazon NPS
26:30 Survey Data vs Real Data. Silicon Valley is Wrong
27:55 Spending $100M in a frugal way
29:10 Investors involvement
31:40 Building a $100 Billion company
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/saashimi/donations
Patrick Campbell, Founder and CEO of ProfitWell, discussed pricing strategies for SaaS companies. We covered wide variety of topics, from selecting a right price for your software to breaking news to your clients about increasing their price 2x.
Patrick's Bio
Patrick is a Founder & CEO of ProfitWell, the software for helping subscription companies with their monetization and retention strategies, as well as providing free turnkey subscription financial metrics for over 20,000 companies. Prior to ProfitWell Patrick led Strategic Initiatives for Boston-based Gemvara and was an Economist at Google and the US Intelligence community.
Time Stamps
01:15 Patrick and ProfitWell
03:50 Setting up right pricing
11:10 A/B testing or no?
14:50 Transitioning existing clients to new prices
19:50 On-Prem transitioning to Cloud
22:00 Example of companies that nailed their pricing strategy
25:00 Pricing pages
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Tom Meister, Co-Founder, COO, and General Counsel at NepFin, discusses Revenue-Based Financing for SaaS (and eCommerce companies), typical terms of such financing, profiles of the companies that should consider it as an option, and many other things.
Tom Meister's Bio
As COO and General Counsel, Tom manages NepFin's legal affairs and oversees its business operations. Prior to co-founding NepFin, Tom served as Senior Counsel, Capital Markets & Finance at Funding Circle, where he was responsible for the structuring, execution and distribution of Funding Circle's offerings to institutional and accredited investors. Earlier in his career, Tom practiced law as a debt finance attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC and Goodwin Procter LLP.
Time Stamps
01:15 Tom and NepFin
03:10 Revenue-based financing and its growth
13:15 Profile of companies that can take revenue-based loan
15:20 Terms of RBF loans
23:00 Pricing
27:30 Lender’s security interest, personal guaranty, and covenants
32:00 Is RBF good for equity raise?
35:00 Main RBF players
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Mark Znutas, Vice President of Go-to-Market Strategy and Operations at HubSpot, discusses HubSpot’s RevOps and how it aligns Sales, Marketing and Customer Success. We also covered HubSpot’s go-to-Market strategy, which has changed drastically over the years.
Mark Znutas' Bio
Mark is a VP of GTM Strategy and Operationsl at HubSpot, where he leads Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy across Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success. Mark has held several key roles in RevOps at HubSpot, when the company started expanding beyond its core Marketing software. Prior to HubSpot, Mark was a Manager of Global Field Solutions at Affinnova (acquired by Nielsen).
Time Stamps
00:20 HubSpot and Mark’s background
01:20 Revenue Operations and how it works at HubSpot
07:50 Go-to-Market strategy
08:40 HubSpot’s unconventional move to Product Led Growth
10:35 Three components of a growth strategy
17:40 HubSpot’s expansion from Marketing Software to CRM
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Scott Beechuk, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners discusses his experience as a startup founder and his move to VC, the latest market trends, Scott’s investment process, as well as qualitative and quantitative characteristics of companies he likes to invest in.
Scott Beechuk's Bio
Scott brings more than 20 years of product, engineering, and SaaS expertise to his role as a partner on Norwest’s enterprise team. He focuses on early- to late-stage investment opportunities in enterprise SaaS with a focus on companies building business applications taking advantage of human-assisted AI, advanced behavioral analytics, client-agnostic platforms and industry-specific solutions. He currently serves on the boards of Bluecore, Leanplum, MindTickle, Qualified, Singular, and Socrates AI.
Scott most recently served as Senior Vice President of Product Management for Salesforce Service Cloud, the industry’s #1 enterprise customer service platform. While at Salesforce, he also served as Head of Engineering, Product, UX, and Documentation for Desk.com.
Before joining Salesforce, Scott cut his entrepreneurial teeth building multiple consumer and enterprise software companies including a multi-brand e-commerce service with an integrated multi-channel customer service platform, an enterprise privacy middleware platform and consumer metasearch engine.
Time Stamps
00:10 Scott’s background and why he joined Norwest Venture Partners
05:18 COVID’s effect on startup creation
09:50 Post COVID SaaS valuations
11:10 Investment Process – from sourcing to investing
18:30 Qualitative and quantitative characteristics Scott is looking for in startups
26:57 Common mistakes startups make
32:35 Fundraising advice to founders
34:32 Bonus Question
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Anadelia Fadeev, Director of Demand Generation and Growth at Teleport, discusses lead gen and brand awareness, how she measures effectiveness of campaigns, and "must have" online tools.
Anadelia Fadeev's Bio
Anadelia is a Director of Demand Generation and Growth at Teleport, a Kleiner Perkins-backed software company that allows engineers and security professionals to unify access to Servers, web applications, and databases.
Prior to Teleport, Anadelia was Demand generation at several tech startups, including LightStep, InfluxData, ToutApp (acq. by Marketo), and Inkling. She started her career at Visage Mobile where she oversaw all aspects of marketing.
Time Stamps
00:10 Anadelia and Teleport
3:13 Brand Awareness
6:50 Lead Generation
8:00 Measuring effectiveness of campaigns
10:02 Anadelia’s Tech Stack
11:20 Case Study
14:00 Bowtie Funnel
16:00 Looking for leads
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Sam Richard, Senior Director of Growth at Openview Partners, discusses Product Led Growth, types of companies that can leverage the strategy, and how traditional SaaS metrics can be misleading when applied to PLG.
Sam Richard's Bio
Sam Richard is Senior Director of Growth at OpenView, helping its portfolio accelerate top-line growth through establishing best practices and processes to support product led growth. At OpenView, Sam works closely with portfolio leadership teams to discover and implement the most impactful strategies for growth, including onboarding and retention optimization, expansion strategy, funnel optimization and channel/partner strategy.
Prior to joining OpenView in 2019, Sam worked as Director of Growth and Engagement at Dispatch, where she was on the founding team. She spent four years leading growth strategy and customer success teams with a focus on small to medium-sized businesses. During her tenure, Dispatch was acquired by Vista Equity Partners. She also previously worked at Catalant and Abt Associates.
Time Stamps
00:10 Intro
03:42 Three Eras of Software purchase
06:20 Characteristics of Product Led Growth companies
10:50 Retention at PLG
12:45 Traditional Metrics are misleading / Natural Rate of Growth
15:30 Who can leverage PLG
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Andy Bane, CEO of Element Analytics talks about the company's unique founding story and an important mission of changing how industrial firms unify OT and IT data.
Andy Bane's Bio
Andy oversees the vision, strategy, and growth of Element Analytics, and is a veteran of the Industrial sector. He’s held executive roles at leading enterprise software companies, including EVP & Chief Strategy Officer for ABB Enterprise Software, EVP of Product Management. and CMO at Ventyx, a Vista Equity Partners company, acquired by ABB for over $1 billion and SVP of Product Mgmt. and Mktg. at P2 Energy Solutions.
Time Stamps
00:10 Intro
02:00 Element Analytics value proposition
06:45 Element’s pricing
08:10 Net Retention
10:30 How Series B funds is being spent
12:10 Joining Element
15:00 Pricing and first client
18:32 First Sales person
20:00 First Marketing hire
21:23 First Customer Success hire
25:00 PE vs VC backed companies
26:15 Long term vision for Element
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Alok Ajmera, CEO of Prophix takes us to journey of converting the company's software offering from on-prem to a cloud. The transition is particularly impressive because Prophix completed it while being bootstrapped, and only after the conversion did they take outside investments from HG Capital (leading European PE firm).
Alok Ajmera's Bio
Alok joined Prophix in 2004 as a consultant, and after wearing nearly every hat in the company was first promoted to President and COO, and most recently to CEO.
Time Stamps
01:00 Alok and Prophix
04:50 Pricing model
05:45 Moving from on-prem to a cloud
12:00 Incentivizing clients to move to a cloud
16:00 Change in a compensation model
18:00 Customer Success and cross-sell
20:00 NPS and customers' satisfaction
23:50 Choosing investors
31:00 Advice to companies that plan to convert their software from on-prem to a cloud
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Deb Muller, Founder and CEO of HR Acuity, takes us back to the company's early days when it was primarily her providing independent advice to large companies regarding workplace investigations. Despite not having a tech background, she decided to build a software solution for her clients to use internally on a day-to-day basis. Deb walks us through the challenges she experienced with a bootstrapped business, the growth of the firm, today's profile of HR Acuity (size, retention, org. structure), tailwinds of the industry, and COVID's impact. Lastly, she walks us through the decision of taking on investments (which she didn't think she needed) and her criteria of choosing investors.
Deb Muller’s Bio
Deb is a Founder and CEO of HR Acuity, a Software company that provides solutions for employee relations and investigation services.
After serving in executive HR roles at numerous Fortune 500 companies like Honeywell, Citibank, and Marsh & McLennan, Deb launched HR Acuity to create technology with built-in expertise and equip organizations to manage employee relations more strategically.
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Special thanks to Jesse Barovick for his help on sound!
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Steve Wolfe of Growth Street Partners shares the firm's approach to investing in SaaS companies. He talks about criteria they look for, the importance of a founder's experience in the industry, general view on valuations, and other subjects.
Steve Wolfe's Bio
Steve is a Co-founder of Growth Street Partners, a San Francisco based growth equity fund. He currently sits on the boards of ChildCareCRM, Visual Lease, Suralink, HR Acuity, Hotel Effectiveness, and BoardBookit.
Prior to Growth Street, Steve was a Partner at Mainsal Partners, and was a board member at PayLease, Netchemia, 3PL Central, Ncontracts, and nCourt.
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Dave Kellogg returns to SaaShimi to share his experience working with Venture Capital and Private Equity firms. He compares VC's and PE's investment approaches, due diligence processes, and roles in a boardroom among other things.
Dave Kellogg's Bio
Dave Kellogg is a technology executive, investor, advisor, and blogger (if you don't read www.kellblog.com, you should start after you are done with SaaShimi!).
Previously, he held CEO positions at Hostanalytics and MarkLogic, and prior to that SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CMO at Business Objects.
Dave has worked in varied capacities with companies including Breeze, GainSight, MongoDB, and Tableau. He currently sit on the boards of Alation, Nuxeo, and Profisee. Dave previously sat on the boards of agtech leader Granular and big data leader Aster Data (both got acquired).
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For more than two decades, Phil Wainewright has chronicled the rise of cloud computing and its impact on business. In 1998, he launched ASPnews.com, the SaaS industry's first dedicated news website, and later became ZDNet's lead blogger on SaaS. In 2013, he co-founded the tech media website Diginomica to provide in-depth coverage of how enterprise applications are evolving and changing the way business operates in the digital era.
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Dave Kellogg is a technology executive, investor, advisor, and blogger (if you don't read www.kellblog.com, you should start after you are done with SaaShimi!).
Previously, he held CEO positions at Hostanalytics and MarkLogic, and prior to that SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CMO at Business Objects.
Dave has worked in varied capacities with companies including Breeze, GainSight, MongoDB, and Tableau. He currently sit on the boards of Alation, Nuxeo, and Profisee. Dave previously sat on the boards of agtech leader Granular and big data leader Aster Data (both got acquired).
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Jacco is the founder of Winning By Design and author of Blueprints of a Sales SaaS Organization and seven other books. He is a Sales Mentor across several VC firms such as Notion Capital, Reach Capital, Astella and Storm Ventures, where he helps accelerate the development of sales teams across their portfolios. Prior to founding Winning By Design, Jacco held roles of VP of Worldwide Sales and VP Strategy at Qumu (acquired by Rimage), Kontiki, and Technicolor. He is proud to have helped marquee customers over the years, including Amazon, AT&T, Dish, and Disney.
Jacco holds a BScEE in Electrical Engineering and an Executive MBA from the University of Leicester. Jacco’s insights have been featured in Harvard Business Review, and he is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences around the world including Dreamforce, SaaStock (Dublin), SaaS Growth (London) SalesHacker (virtual), and RD Summit (Brazil).
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Tracy Eiler is a revenue-driving CMO with “core DNA” in demand generation and awareness. She is the CMO at InsideView and has more than 25 years of experience with enterprise and SaaS software companies. She co-authored the best-selling Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales & Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth. Tracy was recently recognized as one of the 15 Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing.
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Ed Daly is a Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Growth at Okta. Ed previously led Cisco's Global Customer Success team designed to accelerate software and cloud revenue.
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Bruce Cleveland is a Partner at Wildcat where he focuses on early stage software startups that enable digital transformation across business, government, and education markets. Bruce enjoys working with companies that use technology and data to increase revenue and decrease costs.
Bruce held senior executive roles in engineering, product management and product marketing with companies, such as Apple, AT&T, Oracle and Siebel Systems. Bruce’s last operational role was as a member of the founding executive team of Siebel Systems, where he served as senior vice president and general manager of Marketing and Products. In this role, Forbes and IDC credited him with creating the most effective B2B alliance program in the software industry. Bruce began his venture capital career at InterWest Partners, where he was the first investor and a former board member of Marketo, which held an IPO in 2013 and was acquired by Adobe in 2018 for $4.75 billion.
Bruce is also the author of the best seller, Traversing the Traction Gap and lectures on the Traction Gap Framework at various universities and industry events.
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