The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Scott Belsky, CSO, and EVP at Adobe, does a deep dive on the profound transformations taking place in the creative world. As technology continues to reshape the landscape, Cloud and SaaS Founders, VCs, and Executives must adapt and evolve to stay ahead. Discover the playbook to thrive in this dynamic environment and unlock unprecedented opportunities. Belsky will share his deep insights into the r...

In this episode, Nick Mehta will share ten significant mistakes he made during his career, and how these failures shaped his journey as CEO of Gainsight. Mehta will impart valuable lessons on resilience and growth, offering attendees actionable takeaways for their own entrepreneurial ventures. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to learn from real-life experiences and turn failures into oppor...

In this new episode of CRO Confidential, we take a look at the proven customer acquisition strategies behind Toast's explosive growth to over $1.1B ARR. Hosted by Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond, this episode features the CRO of Toast Jonathan Vassil, who walks us through Toast's go-to-market and customer acquisition strategies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------...

Welcome to Part Two of SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin's Ask Me Anything session at this year's SaaStr Annual. Jason re-takes the stage in Part 2 of the series to answer questions about the right time is to invest in a new product line, building vertical vs. horizontal, multiples in 2024, and much more.  Building and scaling a startup isn't for the faint of heart and often comes with many ups...

Each year, tens of thousands of SaaS fans attend SaaStr Annual. And every year, Jason Lemkin, the founder of SaaStr, takes the stage to answer the audience's most pressing questions. For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, when to use AI at early-stage companies, and when the right time is to invest in a new produc...

As industry leaders, understanding the transformative power of AI and how it can be harnessed to drive innovation and growth is essential for staying ahead in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. In this episode, Aliisa Rosenthal, Head of Sales at OpenAI, will delve into the ways in which AI is reshaping the way we work. With her extensive experience and deep knowledge of AI technologies,...

As SaaS companies slash campaign budgets, marketing leaders need to find other ways to augment customer wins from their remaining campaigns. Increasing down-funnel conversions by having marketing enable sellers to "all-star" levels along the funnel can help make up the difference. In this episode, Datadog's CMO Alex Rosemblat will explore the tactics, personas, best practices, and tracking metrics...

In the dynamic landscape of SaaS startups, pursuing rapid customer growth while achieving and maintaining profitability is an art that requires flexible strategies and, more importantly, employees that are eager for the challenge. In this episode, Expensify COO Anu Muralidharan will share how Expensify became profitable on its way to securing millions of users in less than 15 years. You'll hear re...

Monday has gone from $7m in 2017 to over $700m in revenue today, showcasing the sheer power of compounding revenue. Did Monday's founders feel like they'd be 100x bigger in just six years since that first SaaStr conference they attended? Eran Zimman, Monday's co-founder and co-CEO, shares his secrets to scaling and growth in an unpredictable market. Monday hasn't missed a bit, but before we dive i...

Discover the best ways for a seed-stage startup to pitch to investors and successfully fundraise from Y Combinator's Michael Seibel. Any founder you talk to likely remembers every investor who said no to them. Those founders hold a special kind of "not hatred," says Michael Seibel, Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator, but a special kind of something for those investors and a desire...

SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin deep dives into the current state of SaaS and the Cloud and what to expect over the next year.

One of the open secrets behind a lot of great companies is going multi-product. Jack Altman, CEO and co-founder of Lattice, firmly believes that many more companies should be multi-product, and many should go multi-product earlier than they think. Lattice has launched four product suites in the last eight years, and the ideas that drove their growth apply to most companies today.

Given the massive downturn that started 18 months ago, many SaaS founders are nervous about what it takes to raise capital in SaaS in 2023. Christoph Janz, General Partner of Point Nine Capital, shares some answers about what it takes to raise capital in SaaS, overall investment activity in 2023, and how to develop a convincing AI strategy.

Discover Bessemer Venture Partners's annual State of the Cloud report, going through trends, benchmarks, and metrics that underpin the Cloud economy.  Presented by: Mary D'Onofrio, Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners Janelle Teng, VP @ Bessemer Venture Partners Caty Rea, VP @ Bessemer Venture Partners The past twelve months have been relatively turbulent for Cloud founders. SVB collapsed, market m...

Freshworks is a successful public SaaS company that has a humble beginning in the small town of Chennai, India. Founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham shares five big bets that paid off as he scaled this multi-product company.  Listen to discover Mathrubootham's key decisions in launching and scaling a company, which include: *Betting on inbound while going global *Hiring talent when talent is hard...

Are you curious to learn what the future of SaaS will look like in 2024? Well, look no further. In this informative interview, two of the biggest pioneers of SaaS, David Sacks, Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures and Jason Lemkin, SaaStr Founder and CEO, team up to discuss the potential landscape for AI-focused SaaS over the next five years. From understanding what it takes to raise a Se...

SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin and Partner at QED Investors Amias Gerety chat on the Fintech Beat podstream about all things SaaS, money, and what makes a great founder.  Some topics covered include:  What makes SaaS so great How SaaS is fairing in the "macro" economy Perspectives on fintech and SaaS and how they overlap How an investor chooses what to invest in and when it's time to walk awa...

G2 is a unicorn startup that's stayed in the game for over a decade. G2 CEO Godard Abel deep dives into his original vision for G2, going multi-product, selling with multiple sales teams, demand gen spend, and why AI is the most important thing right now. 

Discover how three breakout SaaS companies scaled from an idea to hundreds of employees and $1B+ valuations, all while living their values along the way.  Notion COO Akshay Kothari, Motive CEO and Founder Shoaib Makani, and CEO and Co-Founder of Incredible Health Iman Abuzeid share the secrets of ensuring their company-centered values and purpose remained an anchor amidst hypergrowth.  Moderated b...

10 Terrible Pieces Of SaaS Advice To Avoid If You Want To Succeed with SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin   Bad advice is everywhere these days. Hundreds of thousands of experts are telling you how to succeed in SaaS. Many of those voices are incredible, yet terrible bits of advice pops up again and again.   On top of that, founders are full of excuses preventing them from scaling.    SaaStr Founder and...

Whether you're going from nothing to something or already scaling and thriving beyond $10-100M, healthy, sustainable growth in SaaS is on every founder's mind.  Cockroach Labs' CEO Spencer Kimball shares hard-won lessons from scaling from $0 to $5B and his time as an angel investor for more than 80 different startups.  He'll walk you through the three stages of growth:  0-$1M — From nothing to som...

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday, and the founder of SaaStr. The godfather of SaaS and founder of the world's largest community for business software sits down with one of the most metric-oriented companies today to discuss the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023. Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr,...

Are you trying to unlock sustainable low customer acquisition costs (CAC) growth for your SaaS company? Then you need to hear what Guillaume Cabane, Co-Founder and President of HyperGrowth Partners, has to say on the subject. In this podcast, Guillaume shares the formula he used at Ramp, Gorgias, and Drift to reach explosive saas growth - showing you the secrets of smart scaling.  Don't miss out -...

Founders of 2023 ask themselves, "What does it take to raise money right now in this uncertain market environment?" Peter Specht, Partner at Creandum, shares a data-driven perspective and real-time insights into the market of very recent rounds and current VC expectations.  Unfortunately, raising money isn't the same as raising in 2021. Specht walks you through what has happened in the last 12 mon...

Some SaaS and Cloud leaders have seen big impacts from the post-Covid hangover, but others keep accelerating. MongoDB is one of those that has never stopped.    Instead of looking at those who are struggling, let's take a look at the epic growth story of MongoDB, a company crushing it in 2023.    MongoDB is at a stunning $1.5B in ARR, 29% overall growth, and is worth $29B. That's about as good as...