For the past three years and 99 episodes, we have talked to the founders, operators and investors leading the SaaS Revolution around the world. In that time, we have seen it get stronger and more impressive in an incredible fashion.
The SaaS Revolution Show has aimed to showcase their achievements and unravel the story behind the growing momentum of SaaS with vital lessons and tactics attached.
For this 100th episode, we are taking you back to some of our pivotal episodes and the practical advice bursting from them. After careful selection, we chose seven of them, picked the critical pieces of information from them, and montaged them together to create what is the ultimate audio guide on How to grow your SaaS. We feature Mark Roberge, Pieterjan Bouten, April Dunford, Nadim Hossain, Neeraj Agrawal, Eric Santos, and Laura Roeder.
The show starts off with Mark Roberge, who is currently a Senior Lecturer at Harvard University and is involved with Hubspot, Drift and InsightSquared, amongst others. At the time of the interview he was CRO at Hubspot and talked about his sales acceleration formula, carefully explaining:
- how to build sales organisations
- how to hire and nurture the best sales talent
- what are the essential qualities of the best SVP
Lessons in Marketing for SaaS Startups
Even though Mark Roberge believes that there will always be room for the human touch in sales, Nadim Hossain argues marketing is eating sales. Superior products no longer need a lengthy sales process with many decision makers on the way but instead one fan that spreads adoption. To get that fan, Nadim tells us:
- how to set up the marketing team in the first place
- how to do demand generation right
- why having a clear point of view may be one of the most important things to do.
Stop confusing customers and start positioning your SaaS right
That point of view that Nadim is talking about is in the centre of proper positioning, something April Dunford speaks at length about. From how wrong she has gotten it and how she has had to reposition every company she ever worked for, to how startups and big companies fail too. April rights that wrong on the episode by explaining:
- where to begin to fix your positioning
- why it could be one of the most lucrative decisions you make
- what are some successful examples out there
Lessons in Scaling a Fast Growth SaaS Co: With Pieterjan Bouten
What is heard between the lines if you listen is that none of this is possible without an adoption from everyone in the company and a structure that supports it? The good thing about putting the time and thought into the organisation is that it will manifest in many other positive ways. It certainly has for Belgian Pieterjan Bouten, whose company Showpad has recently reached €30 million in ARR. What has been vital in the success is:
- how PJ and his co-founder established their working relationship and were co-CEOs
- how to give the right guidance to the whole team
- how to deal with bad decisions, something inevitable in a fast-moving company.
How to convince an entire market it needs your product
What if you work in an environment where you are not simply a category creator but a concept propagator. That was the experience Eric Santosunderwent with Resultados Digitais. When the Brazilian Entrepreneur decided to build a marketing automation tool, he first had to teach executives and companies in Brazil about digital marketing. At the time, in 2011, no one believed in it. Fast forward 7 years and he has over 10,000 customers and a channel program with over 1500 agencies. How did he do it? You will hear:
- what steps to take to educate a market
- how to run excellent events
- how to build a great channel partner program
How we got 7k+ customers using Direct Response Marketing
Small is what it may appear on the tin that Laura Roeder has done to grow bootstrapped MeetEdgar, using what she calls direct response marketing. In fact, she believes that gating everything and asking for an email is a perfect fit for B2B where no one is just going to buy a product. Asking for an email and then nurturing it with the right information at the right time is like embedding sales into marketing. In the conversation she covers:
- how she has done it
- what she ends up not having to do because direct response marketing works so well
- how she stays true to herself
A Mantra for SaaS Success
The possible paths to success are many. As Neeraj Agrawal, General Partner at Battery Ventures explains, many founders have a distinct idea about progress and a very murky idea how to get there. To negate that he came up with the mantra for success T3D2. In its essence, it’s the journey to getting to $100 M in ARR, the universal desire of SaaS founders from all parts of the world. In the interview he explains:
- the thinking behind the steps in growing your revenue
- which are the most important ones that require founders to become organisational doers
- where going international fits into all that
Let us know how you liked this episode as we plan to have more SaaS Revolution and SaaStock Radio Hours like it. Leave a rating and review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast.
Next week’s episode will be a special live recording with Drift’s David Cancel, coming live from the SaaStock on Tour New York stage. There is still time and a few tickets left to join us there. Use code nycrevolution100 for a $100 discount.
Thank you for all your support over the last three years. Here is to the next 100 episodes and the growth of the SaaS revolution!