Jason M. Lemkin 🦄
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
The Official SaaStr AI Podcast. How to scale with the best in AI + B2B. cloud.substack.com
Author
Jason M. Lemkin 🦄
Category
Podcast website
Latest episode
Jul 10, 2026
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Episodes
SaaStr 153: How To Build and Scale Sales Teams As A Technical Founder, How To Scale The Sales Learning Curve & Why No One Actually Cares About Your Product with Spenser Skates, Founder & CEO @ Amplitude 27.11.2017 27:45
Spenser Skates is the Founder & CEO @ Amplitude, the only analytics solution built for modern product teams that helps you understand user behaviour and ship the right solutions fast. They have raised over 55m in VC funding from many friends of SaaStr and 20VC including Eric Vishria @ Benchmark, Neeraj Agrawal @ Battery Ventures, the teams at IVP, Data Collective, Box Group and SV angel, just to n...
SaaStr 152: Cloudera's Lars Nilsson on Why SDRs Are The Most Important Role In The Sales Function, How To Build An SDR Team From Nothing & How To Construct A Compensation Plan That Drives A Behaviour You Want Other Than Just Revenue 20.11.2017 30:51
Lars Nilsson is the VP of Global Inside Sales for Cloudera and with over twenty-five years of sales and operations experience, Lars Nilsson is a global leader in enterprise software and selling solutions. One of Lars many incredible achievements was he and his team at Cloudera built the sales methodology Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD), which has transformed how businesses approach high-val...
SaaStr 151: AppDynamics Founder, Jyoti Bansal on The Requirements To Proceed Through The Scaling Stages in SaaS To Build One Of The Fastest Growing Enterprise Companies And Achieve a $3.7Bn Exit 13.11.2017 23:01
Jyoti Bansal is the former Founder & CEO @ AppDynamics , backed by the likes of Lightspeed, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins just to name a few before it’s ultimate acquisition by Cisco for $3.7Bn. Today, Jyoti is the Founder and CEO @ BIG Labs essentially a laboratory for creating, developing and launching innovative ideas. The first of these ideas being turned into companies being, Harness.io the in...
SaaStr 150: Why New Qualified Leads Divided By Win Rate Is The Metric in SaaS, Why It Is Harder To Go Enterprise Down Than SMB Up & How To Create Engines of Growth Within Your Organisation with Paul Albright, Former CRO @ Marketo 06.11.2017 29:38
Paul Albright is one of the valley’s most experienced SaaS execs with extensive operational and capital management experience, including 3 IPOs. Most recently Paul was the Founder & CEO @ Captora , the marketing acceleration software solution that raised over $25m in VC funding from the likes of NEA and Bain Capital Ventures. Prior to Captora, Paul was Chief Revenue Officer at Marketo where he dro...
SaaStr 149: 2 Fundamental Challenges To Rapid Scaling in SaaS, The Importance of Short Qualification Periods & Why Departments Must Also Have North Stars with Jack Altman, Founder & CEO @ Lattice 30.10.2017 27:54
Jack Altman is the Founder & CEO of Lattice , t he #1 performance management solution for growing companies. They have raised close to $10m in funding from some of our favourites in industry including the likes of Miles Grimshaw @ Thrive, Khosla Ventures, Elad Gil, Alexis Ohanian and YC’s Daniel Gross. Prior to founding Lattice, Jack was the Head of Business Development @ Teespring where he saw th...
SaaStr 148: Why Startups Die of Indigestion Not Starvation, Why Early Product Market Fit Can Be Misleading & Why Gross Margin Is So Crucial For SaaS Businesses From Day 1 with Rajeev Batra, Partner @ Mayfield 23.10.2017 27:37
Rajeev Batra is a Partner at Mayfield , a firm that has championed bold entrepreneurs since 1969. Rajeev’s investments at Mayfield include the likes of Crunchbase, SmartRecruiters, Marketo (IPO then taken private by Vista Equity), ServiceMax (acquired by GE Digital) and more incredible companies. Prior to Mayfield, Rajeev was at Mobius (Softbank) Venture Capital and Austin Ventures. Before making...
SaaStr 147: Why Payback Period Is The Critical Metric, Why There Is No "No Man's Land In SaaS Pricing" & When Is A Stretch VP, A Stretch Too Far with Shan Sinha, Founder & CEO @ Highfive 16.10.2017 29:13
Shan Sinha is the Founder & CEO @ Highfive , the startup that quite simply makes insanely simple video conferencing. They have raised over $45m in funding from some of the best in the business including a16z, Lightspeed General Catalyst and Founder Collective and then individuals including Aaron Levie, Drew Houston and Marc Benioff. Prior to Highfive, Shan was the Group Product Manager for Google...
SaaStr 146: Why Management Upgrade Is The Most Important Thing A CEO Can Do, Why You Must Hire More Generalists with Scale & How To Hire People with 3-4 Years Runway with Chris Caren, CEO @ Turnitin 09.10.2017 21:17
Chris Caren is the CEO @ Turnitin , the company revolutionising the experience of writing to learn with backing from the likes of IVP, Norwest Venture Partners and GIC. Chris has scaled the company to serve over 25m students and 2m teachers across 15,000 institutions. Prior to joining Turnitin in 2009, Chris spent 4 years with Microsoft as a General Manager and before that 3 years at Business Obje...
SaaStr 145: Mulesoft CEO, Greg Schott on The Challenges & Lessons of Scaling from 20 to 1,000 People & Where Most Companies Go Wrong In The Hiring Process 02.10.2017 27:45
Greg Schott is the Chairman and CEO @ Mulesoft , provider of the leading platform for building application networks. They have raised over $250m in funding from some of the best investors in the world including NEA and Lightspeed and then some of the largest companies of the day in Cisco, Salesforce and SAP. Greg joined Mulesoft in 2009 when the company only had 20 employees, over the last 8 years...
SaaStr 144: 7 Steps To Land $100K+ "Whale" Clients with Sequoia Backed, Andy Byrne, Founder & CEO @ Clari 25.09.2017 25:36
Andy Byrne is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Clari , the startup that helps sales teams drive more revenue and increase forecast accuracy through improved deal execution and predictive analysis. They have raised over $30m in venture funding from some of the best in the business including Sequoia and Bain Capital Ventures. Prior to Clari, Andy was part of the founding executive team at Clearwell Systems—Ga...
SaaStr 143: DigitalOcean CEO, Ben Uretsky on Scaling To 1m Customers with No Sales Team, Key Learnings From Raising $123m & Why It Is Not Just About Culture Fit 18.09.2017 29:30
Ben Uretsky is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Digital Ocean . Under Ben’s leadership, DigitalOcean has risen from a cloud startup for developers to the second largest and fastest growing cloud computing platform. To date, more than 1m developers have deployed more than 50 million cloud servers, and the company has expanded its worldwide infrastructure footprint with multiple datacenter locations around th...
SaaStr 142: Why CAC/LTV Is The Most Important Metric In SaaS, How To Analyse Churn Correctly & Why Bookings Are Inaccurate and Easy To Manipulate with Dave Kellogg, CEO @ Host Analytics 11.09.2017 31:31
Dave Kellogg is the CEO @ Host Analytics, the leader in cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM). Previously, Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CEO at unstructured big data provider MarkLogic. Before that, Dave was CMO at Business Objects for nearly a decade as the company grew from $30M to over $1B. Dave has also worked in various capacities with the likes of Breeze, G...
SaaStr 141: How To Scale & Segment Your Sales Team Efficiently, How To Move Upmarket With Speed & How To Raise Over $50m in an "Unsexy" Industry with Classy Founder, Scot Chisholm 05.09.2017 28:38
Scot Chisholm is the Founder & CEO @ Classy , the world's leading fundraising platform for nonprofit organizations As a result they have raised close to $50m in VC funding from the likes of Salesforce Ventures, our friends at BullPen Capital, Mithril Capital and many more great investors. With support and funding like this, since 2011, Classy has helped more than 3,000 nonprofits and social enter...
SaaStr 140: Key Requirement To A Cash Flow Positive SaaS Business, How To Land Your First "Whale" & How To Incentivise Your Sales Team Aligned To The Company Mission with Mark Organ, Founder & CEO @ Influitive 28.08.2017 28:19
Mark Organ , Founder & CEO at Influitive . Influitive helps B2B companies mobilize their army of advocates for more rapid and profitable revenue growth. They have raised close to $50m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Lightspeed, First Round Capital, prior guest Cindy Padnos @ Illuminate and Nick Mehta @ Gainsight, just to name a few. Prior to Influitive, M...
SaaStr 139: Why Hiring Sales People Is Like Being Thirsty, Why You Have to Separate Between Customers and Money & Why Time Kills More Companies Than Dollars with Mike Dauber, General Partner @ Amplify Partners 21.08.2017 26:23
Mike Dauber is a General Partner @ Amplify Partners , the fund that backs technical founders, building technical products for technical buyers. Their portfolio consists of the likes of DataDog, Fastly, Engagio and many more incredible companies. As for Mike, p rior to joining Amplify he spent more than six years at Battery Ventures, where he lead early-stage enterprise investments on the West Coas...
SaaStr 138: The Rule of 40% For A Healthy SaaS Company, Why It Is Not All About Top Line Growth In Enterprise & Why Land & Expand Is Wrong with Vineet Jain, Founder & CEO @ Egnyte 14.08.2017 26:04
Vineet Jain is the Founder & CEO @ Egnyte , the startup that delivers smart content collaboration in the cloud or on-premises. They have raised over $60m in VC funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures and one of our favourites here, Mike Maples @ Floodgate. Prior to Egnyte, Vineet founded and successfully built Valdero, a supply chain software solution provider, funded by KPCB, M...
SaaStr 137: How To Scale A Sales Org The Right Way, What Makes A Truly Effective SaaS Board & Why SaaS Leaders Need To Be Vulnerable with Max Yoder, Founder & CEO @ Lessonly 07.08.2017 25:00
Max Yoder is the Founder & CEO @ Lessonly , the modern learning software used by teams to translate important work knowledge into Lessons that accelerate productivity. They have raised funding from the likes of former ExactTarget CMO Tim Kopp, OpenView Ventures and New York Times Bestseller Jay Baer just to name a few of the impressive figures involved. Fun tact; they are based in Indianapolis and...
SaaStr 136: What Role Should The CEO Play With The Marketing Strategy, What Do CEOs Most Often Get Wrong About CMOs & What Makes The Optimal CEO-CMO Relationship with Stacey Epstein, CEO @ Zinc 31.07.2017 24:51
Stacey Epstein is the CEO @ Zinc, the secure communications platform for workers in front of customers, not computers. They have backing from some of the best in SaaS investing including the likes of Jason Green @ Emergence, CRV with George Zachary and GE Ventures. Prior to Zinc, Stacey was CMO at Banjo. Before Banjo, Stacey was CMO at ServiceMax where she helped fuel 5 consecutive years of triple...
SaaStr 135: Auren Hoffman on Why Raising Prices Is Not A Good Idea, How Fewer Employees Can Mean Fast Growth & Why The CEO Must Never Delegate HR 24.07.2017 25:01
Auren Hoffman is the Founder & CEO @ Safegraph , the startup that is unlocking the world’s most powerful data so that machines and humans can answer society's toughest questions. They have backing from likes of Naval Ravikant and prior guests of the show including SignalFire, IDG Ventures and David Rodnitzky just to name a few. Prior to Safegraph, Auren has an astonishing 5 successful exits under...
SaaStr 134: The Crucial Difference Between Mentorship & Advocacy, Why You Have To Practice Upward Empathy & How To Make The Successful Transition from Services Based Business to SaaS Based Business with TapInfluence CEO, Promise Phelon 17.07.2017 30:11
Promise Phelon is the CEO @ TapInfluence , bringing the first ever influencer marketing platform to the Fortune 1000. Under Promise’s leadership the company has enjoyed a 300% increase in revenue in 2015 alone, they made the successful transition from a services to a SaaS model and were successful in raising a fantastic $14m Series B. Prior to TapInfluence, Promise was the Founder and CEO at 2 sta...
SaaStr 133: 3 Fundamentals SaaS Founders Have To Nail To Get To $30m+ ARR & What First Time SaaS Founders Can Do To Increase Their Chances of Product Market Fit 10.07.2017 24:36
Ashu Garg is a General Partner @ Foundation Capital whose portfolio includes the likes of Uber, Lending Club, Adroll and Netflix, just to name a few. As for Ashu, at Foundation he has led investments and naming just a few of them here, in the likes of Conviva, Localytics and TubeMogul, later going public in 2014. Prior to Foundation, Ashu was the General Manager for Microsoft’s online advertising...
SaaStr 132: Why The 1 Metric You Have To Know Is "Magic Number", Why Measuring The "Time To Money Is Crucial" & Why You Must Switch From Metrics to KPIs with Kurt Bilafer, CRO @ WePay 03.07.2017 28:49
Kurt Bilafer is the CRO @ WePay , the most complete payments solution for platforms. To date, they have raised close to $75m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Max Levchin and August Capital just to name a few. As for Kurt himself, prior to WePay he has had experience both in startups and large corporations with his founding of Pilot Software, sold to SAP in 2007, where...
SaaStr 131: The Secret To Selling To SMBs & Creating A Sales Model That Scales with Jens Nylander, Founder & CEO @ Automile 26.06.2017 22:22
Jens Nylander is the Founder and CEO @ Automile , the startup that makes fleet and asset management much much easier. They have backing from some of the best in the business including Godfather of SaaS himself Jason Lemkin, the wonderful team at Point Nine, Justin Kan and Dawn Capital in London. As for Jens, he really is a serial entrepreneur with past endeavours including creating Sweden’s larges...
SaaStr 130: Accel's Steve Loughlin on Founding RelateIQ & Lessons From Working with Marc Benioff, How Founders Can Determine Which Is The Right Market For Them & Evolutions in The Enterprise AI/ML Landscape 19.06.2017 27:39
Steve Loughlin is a Partner @ Accel in San Francisco, one of the leading funds with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Dropbox, Atlassian, Slack and many more incredible companies. Prior to Accel, Steve was the CEO and co-founder of RelateIQ, later named SalesforceIQ following the acquisition of the company by Salesforce in 2014 for $390 million. Steve was also president and CEO of Affini...
SaaStr 129: How To Quadruple MRR Growth With SDR Training, The Right Way To Scale Prospect Search & Why Startups Can Immediately Be In The Enterprise Market with May Habib, Founder & CEO @ Qordoba 16.06.2017 27:44
May Habib is the Founder & CEO @ Qordoba , the best platform for building truly localized products across apps, websites and marketing content. It is the fastest, most scalable way to grow from one market to many. We do also want to say a big congratulations to May for recently raising a fantastic Series with the likes of Upfront Ventures and Rincon Partners leading the round. Prior to founding Qo...
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