SaaShimi

Season C - Ep. 9: Chris Golec, Co-Founder of Demandbase & Channel99, on Account-Based Marketing and Building Businesses

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 03:30:00 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 8: Gary Greenfield, Serial CEO, on Turning Around Software Companies

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 05:30:48 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 7: Andrew Davies, CMO of Paddle, on Marketing, PLG, Payments, and other

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:38:00 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 6: Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, on Creating a New Product Category + Past, Present, and Future of Customer Success

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 06:12:28 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 5: Rob Belcher, Managing Director at SaaS Capital, on Non-dilutive Debt for SaaS Companies

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 02:34:41 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 4: Tracy Eiler, CMO at OpenSesame, on Changes in SaaS Marketing

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 05:28:24 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 3: Pablo Dominguez, Operating Partner at Insight Partners, on What a Unicorn Knows

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 05:35:21 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 2: Craig Powell, CEO of Autura, on Growing a Company from $7M to $150M in Revenue

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 07:15:00 +0000

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

Season C - Ep. 1: Matt Lynch, Founder and Managing Director of DCP and Sundance Partners, on SaaS M&A

Thu, 23 May 2024 06:27:11 +0000

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

34:50 Most common issues with Bootstrapped companies

36:00 Strategic vs Sponsor

Season B - Ep. 10: Dave Salvant, Co-Founder and President of Squire Technologies, on taking advantage of challenging times

Sat, 22 Oct 2022 03:37:20 +0000

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.

Season B - Ep. 9: Barb Hyman, Founder and CEO of Sapia, on Hiring using AI

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:37:07 +0000

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.

Season B - Ep. 8: Sean St. Germain, Managing Director at Alvarez & Marsal, on financial diligence of SaaS companies

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 06:58:50 +0000

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 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.

Season B - Ep. 7: Francois Laborie, President at Cognite North America, on bringing a European SaaS to the US market

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 06:02:20 +0000

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 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.

Season B - Ep. 6: Diamond Innabi, Vice President at Software Equity Group, on SaaS Valuation and M&A

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 14:43:02 +0000

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 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.

Season B - Ep. 5: Marion Lewis, Co-Founder & CEO of Govenda, on serial entrepreneurship, and building a SaaS company

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 03:11:36 +0000

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.

Season B - Ep. 4: Miguel Fernandez, Co-Founder & CEO at Capchase, on alternative financing for SaaS companies

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 03:48:42 +0000

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.

Season B - Ep. 3: Scott Salkin, SVP & GM at Gainsight Essentials, on Customer Success in SMBs

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 02:48:29 +0000

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 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.

Season B - Ep. 2: Mark Strauch, Founding Partner at Alpine Investors, on building a SaaS holding company

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 05:39:02 +0000

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 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.

Season B - Ep. 1: Geoffrey Moore, Author and Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, on Crossing the Chasm – 30 Years Later

Tue, 31 May 2022 02:34:57 +0000

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.

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 18: Bruno Aziza, Head of Data & Analytics at Google Cloud on the past, present, and future of Data Analytics

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 15:38:30 +0000

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 17: Jan Arendtsz, Founder & CEO of Celigo on Integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS)

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 02:23:35 +0000

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 16: Vlad Besprozvany, Founder of Nexa Equity on Investing in Lower-Middle Market SaaS

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 14:00:39 +0000

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 15: Erinn Tarpey, CMO at Visual Lease on SaaS Marketing

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 15:17:10 +0000

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 14: Shelley Perry, Managing Director at Scalelogix Ventures on Investor vs Operator mindset

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 14:22:59 +0000

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 13: Michael Lyon, Founder & MD at Vista Point Advisors on Selling your SaaS company

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:08:25 +0000

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 12: Faisal Masud, CEO at Fabric on Rebuilding E-Commerce

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 03:21:04 +0000

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.

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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.

Season A - Ep. 11: Patrick Campbell, Founder & CEO at ProfitWell on Pricing Strategies for SaaS

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 04:36:36 +0000

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.

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 10: Tom Meister, Co-Founder at NepFin on Revenue-Based Financing

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 04:48:21 +0000

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.

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 9: Mark Znutas, VP of GTM Strategy and Operations at HubSpot on RevOps

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 07:51:30 +0000

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.

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).

TIMESTAMPS

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

SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Season A - Ep. 8: Scott Beechuk, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners on SaaS Startups

Sun, 20 Jun 2021 21:09:49 +0000

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.

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 a consumer metasearch engine.

TIMESTAMPS

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

Season A - Ep. 7: Anadelia Fadeev, Director of Demand Generation and Growth at Teleport on Lead Gen and Brand Awareness

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 01:29:42 +0000

Anadelia Fadeev, Director of Demand Generation and Growth at Teleport, discusses lead gen and brand awareness, how she measures the effectiveness of campaigns, and "must-have" online tools.

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

Season A - Ep. 6: Sam Richard, Senior Director of Growth at Openview Partners on Product Led Growth

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 04:59:03 +0000

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.

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

Season A - Ep. 5: Andy Bane, CEO of Element Analytics on unifying OT and IT data

Sat, 15 May 2021 09:25:07 +0000

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.

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

Season A - Ep. 4: Alok Ajmera, CEO of Prophix on converting software from on-prem to a cloud

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 02:03:42 +0000

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).

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.

TIMESTAMPS

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

Season A - Ep. 3: Deb Muller, Founder & CEO of HR Acuity on bootstrapping & choosing investors

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 17:21:04 +0000

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.

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.

Special thanks to Jesse Barovick for his help on sound!

Season A - Ep. 2: Steve Wolfe, Co-Founder of Growth Street Partners on Growth Investments in SaaS companies

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 08:47:37 +0000

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.

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.

Season A - Ep. 1: Dave Kellogg on VC and PE investments in SaaS companies

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 08:18:08 +0000

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.

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).

I. A Brief History of SaaS - Phil Wainewright

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 23:37:59 +0000

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.

II. Key SaaS Metrics - Dave Kellogg

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 23:21:45 +0000

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.

III. Building a Sales Org - Jacco van der Kooij

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 23:02:18 +0000

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).

IV. Building a Marketing Org - Tracy Eiler

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 22:14:06 +0000

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.

V. Building a Customer Success Org - Ed Daly

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 21:49:07 +0000

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.

VI. Raising Capital - Bruce Cleveland

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 20:15:17 +0000

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.