Jason M. Lemkin 🦄

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Business EN ↓ 476 episodes

The Official SaaStr AI Podcast. How to scale with the best in AI + B2B. cloud.substack.com

Author

Jason M. Lemkin 🦄

Category

Business

Podcast website

cloud.substack.com

Latest episode

Jul 10, 2026

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Episodes

SaaStr 103: Why You Must Sell Your Product Before It's Done Being Built, Why Product-Organisation Fit Is Key & Why The Best Sales Process Is The Customer Success Process with Matin Movassate, Founder & CEO @ Heap 10.03.2017

Matin Movasatte is the Founder and CEO @ Heap . the startup that provides analytics infrastructure to automate away the annoying parts of user analytics. They have raised funding from some of the best in the business including our friends and former guests of The Twenty Minute VC including Pejman Nozad, Alexis and Garry @ Initialized, Josh Reeves at Gusto, Redpoint and more incredible investors. A...

SaaStr 102: Why You Should Not Pay Your Sales Team Commission, Why There Is Such Little Innovation In Go-To-Market Strategy & Why Adaptability Is Key Not Efficiency with Didier Elzinga, Founder & CEO @ Culture Amp 06.03.2017

Didier Elzinga is the Founder & CEO @ CultureAmp , the world’s most powerful employee feedback and analytics platform. They have raised funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Index Ventures, our friends at Felicis Ventures and Blackbird Ventures. As for Didier, he previously co-founded technical academy award winning Rising Sun Research and is non-executive director a...

SaaStr 101: How To Scale From Early Adopter To Mass Market, Why Organisations Are Not A Good Way To Get Work Done & How To Perfect Upsell Mechanics with Fayez Mohamood, Founder & CEO @ Bluecore 03.03.2017

Fayez Mohamood is the Founder and CEO @ Bluecore , the company that is transforming the way eCommerce marketers use data and automation to communicate with customers. They have raised nearly $30m in funding from some of the best in the business and past guests of the show including the teams from FirstMark Capital and Felicis Ventures just to name a few. As a result they have enjoyed some rapid sc...

SaaStr 100: Box's Aaron Levie on The 3 Stages of Company Scaling, Why Most Enterprise Software Is 'Dumb' & The Future For Enterprise Software with Artificial Intelligence 27.02.2017

Aaron Levie co-founded Box with three high school friends in 2005 when they discovered there wasn’t a modern solution for sharing and collaborating on work. They created Box to provide businesses with an easy way to share, access and manage information with enterprise-grade security, compliance and governance. Eleven years later, Box has been adopted by nearly 65% of the Fortune 500 and has nearly...

SaaStr 099: How To Hire & Assess The Best Demand Gen Candidates & Where To Put Focus In The Demand Gen Process with Luke Retterath, Head of Demand Generation @ Duo Security 24.02.2017

Luke Retterath is the Director of Demand Generation @ Duo Security , the most loved company in security. They have the backing of some of the best investors in the business including Benchmark, Redpoint, Google Ventures and True Venture just to name a few. As for Luke, his role is to d evelop, execute, and manage demand generation programs assessing the effectiveness of all marketing programs as w...

SaaStr 097: Zendesk's Douglas Hanna on How To Build A Platform? How To Scale A Platform? How To Measure The Success Of A Platform? 17.02.2017

Douglas Hanna is the GM of the Developer Platform @ Zendesk, one of the world’s fastest growing SaaS startups. Before joining Zendesk, Douglas was the Founder & CEO @ Help.com where he grew the business from 1 to 16. Prior to Help, Douglas was the CEO of A Small Orange, the web hosting firm that was acquired by Endurance International Group where Douglas was on the Executive team when they went pu...

SaaStr 096: How To Sell SaaS To Fortune 500s, What Drives Decision-Making In Large Corporates & Why Enterprise Is Middle Up Not Top Down with Jonathan Lehr, Co-Founder @ WorkBench 14.02.2017

Jonathan Lehr is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Work-Bench, where he focuses on early stage enterprise technology investments in areas including big data analytics, machine learning, data-defined security and more. Prior to Work-Bench, Jon founded the NY Enterprise Technology Meetup in January 2012 and organizes monthly meetups of the 5,000+ person group as a way to promote collaboration...

SaaStr 095: Trello's JD Peterson on Why Now Is The Best But Hardest Time To Be A Marketer, How To Unify The Sales & Marketing Team & How The Role Of Data Effects Marketers Today 03.02.2017

JD Peterson  is CMO of Trello where he heads the company's marketing and customer service teams. A true child of Silicon Valley, J.D. has been helping startups for nearly 20 years.  Before Trello, he held positions as the CRO and interim CEO at Scripted, the VP of Marketing at Zendesk, and the VP of Products at Marketo. JD takes pride in building world-class teams, helping companies accelerate gro...

SaaStr 094: The $100m Question All SaaS Founders Must Ask, Learnings From Working with Marc Benioff at Salesforce & Scaling Zuora To A $Bn Valuation with Tien Tzuo, Founder & CEO @ Zuora 30.01.2017

Tien Tzuo is the Founder and CEO @ Zuora, one of the fastest growing SaaS companies that has been at the forefront of the rise of subscription business models. They have funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Benchmark, Sequoia, Redpoint and Marc Benioff, just to name a few. As for Tien, before Zuora, Tzuo was one of the 'original forces' at salesforce.com , joining a...

SaaStr 093: Why You Cannot Be Excellent For Anyone If You Are Not Willing To Be Ok For Someone & How To Manage NPS Effectively With Scaling with Lexi Reese, Chief Customer Experience Officer @ Gusto 27.01.2017

Lexi Reese is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at unicorn startup, Gusto and is one of the top female executives in Silicon Valley. Lexi’s passion for serving customers was sparked by her early career in microfinance as a public policy advocate with ACCION International—giving loans to people living in poverty to start their own ventures. She later worked at Google for eight years, most recen...

SaaStr 092: Raising $100m From Sequoia & Why Sustainable Growth Is Fundamental with Zoom's Eric Yuan 23.01.2017

Eric Yuan is the Founder & CEO @ Zoom, the video and web conferencing service that just last week raised $100m in venture funding from Sequoia Capital. Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco's collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and Vice President of Engineering at WebEx, Eric was the he...

SaaStr 091: Jason Lemkin on Why Hire Fast Fire Fast is BS, Why He Never Invests In Quarterly MRR & Why The Key Is Successful Reinvention 20.01.2017

Jason Lemkin is the Founder and VC @ SaaStr, or more accurately put Jason is a 2x founder, 1x VC, and constant SaaS enthusiast. He led or sourced the first VC investments in many leading enterprise/SaaS start-ups, Greenhouse.io , Pipedrive , Algolia , Talkdesk , RainforestQA , Automile , and more. He is also an advisor or smaller investor in Showpad, FrontApp, Influitive, BetterWorks, and other Sa...

SaaStr 090: SaaStr's Own Jason Lemkin on The Specific Characteristics Jason Looks For In Founders? What Levels Of ACV Suggest The Potential For A Unicorn? Why Founders Always Undersell & How You Should Hire Your First Sales Reps? 16.01.2017

Jason Lemkin is the Founder and VC @ SaaStr, or more accurately put Jason is a 2x founder, 1x VC, and constant SaaS enthusiast. He led or sourced the first VC investments in many leading enterprise/SaaS start-ups, Greenhouse.io , Pipedrive , Algolia , Talkdesk , RainforestQA , Automile , and more. He is also an advisor or smaller investor in Showpad, FrontApp, Influitive, BetterWorks, and other Sa...

SaaStr 089: Buffer's Leo Widrich on The Top 10 Learnings in Growing to 10m ARR. 13.01.2017

Leo Widrich is the Founder & COO @ Buffer, the Simple and powerful social media scheduling, publishing & analytics. They have raised funding from some of the best including Scott and Cyan Banister, Hubspot’s Dharmesh Shah, Hiten Shah and Eric Ries just to name a few. Now in today’s talk with Leo he breaks down his and the Buffer teams Top 10 Learnings in Growing to 10m ARR. In Today’s Episode You...

SaaStr 088: How To React When A Lead Goes Dark? How Sales Reps Can Be Polite Not Rude? Why Summary Emails Are Fundamental After All Client Interactions with John Barrows, Godfather of Sales 09.01.2017

John Barrows is essentially the Godfather of Sales. We often have VPs of Sales from tech titans on the show but who trains those VPs and sales reps to be the best in the world at sales? That is where John Barrows comes in, with clients including Dropbox, Box, Marketo, Twilio and many more, John has amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience allowing him to provide the most proactive sales tips a...

SaaStr 087: Successful SaaS Startups Do 1 Of Two Things & Why Specialisation Is Key To Success In SaaS with Michael Driscoll, Founder @ CEO @ Metamarkets 06.01.2017

Michael Driscoll is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Metamarkets , the startup that provide interactive analytics for programmatic marketing. They have raised over $38m in VC funding from our good friends at Data Collective, Founder Collective, IA Ventures and more incredible investors. As for Michael, prior to Metamarkets, he started two other companies: Dataspora, a life science analytics company (acqui...

SaaStr 086: Why You Have To Focus On A Tiny Market & How to Sell That Market To VCs with Auren Hoffman, Founder @ Safegraph & LiveRamp 02.01.2017

Auren Hoffman is best known for being the former CEO and Founder @ LiveRamp, the leading data onboarder that was acquired by Acxiom for $310m. Today’s talk focuses on the 5 core lessons Auren took from that incredible journey with LiveRamp. Auren was also an angel investor and board member at BrightRoll, prior to it’s $610m acquisition by Yahoo. Today, he is the CEO at SafeGraph , the startup that...

SaaStr 085: How SaaS Founders Should View Competition, Why You Should Raise Every Round As If It Is Your Last & How To Create An Environment of Growth & Fulfilment with David Hassell, Founder & CEO @ 15Five 23.12.2016

David Hassell is the founder and CEO of 15Five , the leading web-based employee feedback and alignment solution that is transforming the way employees and managers communicate. They have backing from the likes of Matrix Partners, Point Nine Capital and many more leading investors. As for David, he was named "The Most Connected Man You Don't Know in Silicon Valley" by Forbes Magazine, David has als...

SaaStr 084: Why Personalisation Is The Future Of Sales, The Benefits Of An Engineering Led Sales Team & Why Customers Pay A Premium For Predictability with Alex MacCaw, Founder & CEO @ Clearbit 19.12.2016

Alex MacCaw is the Founder & CEO @ Clearbit , the startup that is building a suite of business intelligence APIs to help companies find more information on their customers in order to increase sales and reduce fraud. They have backing from some of the best early stage investors including the likes of First Round Capital, SV Angel, Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe, Hubspot’s Dharmesh Shah and many more inc...

SaaStr 083: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Bootstrapping To A $Bn Valuation, Why Radical Transparency Is Fundamental & What Makes The Truly Great CEOs 16.12.2016

Ryan Smith is the Founder & CEO @ Qualtrics, an online survey company with 1,200 employees and a valuation of more than $1bn. They have backing from some of the world’s best investors including the likes of Sequoia, Accel and Insight Venture Partners having raised a $150m Series B in 2014. As for Ryan, there are many awesome things, first, he has built Qualtrics from Utah allowing him to gain pers...

SaaStr 082: What Really Is SaaS Marketing? What Are The Big Factors Startup Founders Should Consider Before Spending Big On Marketing @ What Are The 'Must Have' Marketing Channels Today in SaaS with David Rodnitzky, Founder & CEO @ 3Q Digital 12.12.2016

David Rodnitzky is founder and CEO of 3Q Digital , a leading digital agency that was acquired by Harte Hanks in 2015. Prior to 3Q Digital, he held senior marketing roles at several Internet companies, including Rentals.com (2000-2001), FindLaw (2001-2004), Adteractive (2004-2006), and Mercantila (2007-2008). David currently serves on advisory boards for several companies, including Marin Software,...

SaaStr 081: Why It Is Wrong To Have A Sales Led Culture, Why There Should Be Tension Between Your Sales and Finance Orgs & Why Everyone Needs An Executive Coach with Steve Garrity, Co-Founder @ HearSay 09.12.2016

Steve Garrity is COO and founder of Hearsay Systems the leading advisor-client engagement solution for the financial services industry. Hearsay have backing from the likes of Sequoia, NEA, Kleiner Perkins Partner, Mike Abbott and Path Founder, Dave Morin. Before founding Hearsay, Steve worked as an engineer at Microsoft Corporation in Seattle is a graduate of Stanford University with a BS and MS i...

SaaStr 080: Segment's Peter Reinhardt on Why The Reality Distortion Field Is Damaging When It Comes To Product Market Fit, How Founders Should Approach Pricing Negotiations with Large Corporates & How Founders Can Truly Determine Product Market Fit? 05.12.2016

Peter Reinhardt is the Founder and CEO @ Segment , the startup that allows you to collect all of your customer data and send it anywhere and they count some of the biggest and best companies in the world as customers including the likes of Reuters, HotelTonight, New Relic and Atlassian. They do not only have some of the world’s leading customers but some of the world’s best investors with the like...

SaaStr 079: Where To Start With A B2B SaaS Content Plan, How To Encourage The Non-Marketing Team To Create Content & Why NPS Should Be Central To Everything with Seth Besmertnik, Founder & CEO @ Conductor 02.12.2016

Seth Besmertnik is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Conductor , the company that boasts the biggest customer list in their category including more than 500 Fortune and Internet Retailer 500 brands like Under Armour, Citi and FedEx with their web presence management and SEO. With this incredible success, the company has been ranked 13th fastest growing software company in the US and the 3rd Best Place To Wor...

SaaStr 078: To Get Early Customers You Have To Make People Uncomfortable & Why Customer Success Should be Actively Involved In The Upsell Process with Kathryn Minshew, Founder & CEO @ The Muse 28.11.2016

Kathryn Minshew is the Founder & CEO @ The Muse , named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Media and Inc.’s 15 Women to Watch in Tech. Before founding The Muse, Kathryn worked on vaccines in Rwanda and Malawi with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and was previously at McKinsey. Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard, appeared on The TODAY Show and CNN, and contributes on career and entrepreneurship to t...

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