This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to turn a Defense Contractor product spin-off into a scalable SaaS business. My guest is Masha Petrova Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO of Nullspace After receiving her PhD in aerospace engineering, Dr. Petrova spent 15+ years in the engineering simulation and design software industry, including holding global marketing executive roles at Ansys, Altium LLC, and  IncMSC Software. She also worked at three simulation software start-ups, all of which were acquired by Ansys Inc. in the last 10 years. In January 2023 she co-founded Nullspace - a spin-off from a Defense contractor business. Their mission: To solve the fast-worsening shortage of electromagnetic engineers needed to meet today’s radiofrequency technology demands. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Masha to my podcast. We explore the lessons learned from spinning off a software product from a Defense Contractor business and to build a SaaS business. Masha emphasizes the importance of co-founder chemistry, and shares the unexpected lessons learned from her fund-raising process. She shares her insights on how to adapt sales and marketing strategies for the conservative engineering fields. Last but not least she elaborates why solving a highly valuable problem through product innovation alone is not enough to succeed.  Here's one of her quotes Sure we could have grown by sales only, or by raising angel funding. But what we really want is, because we know that our solution is viable and Product Market Fit has already been tested, we really want to push the button on sales and marketing.  And right now this space is very hot. There's been a whole bunch of unprecedented acquisitions and engineering software that happened recently. There is a company that just announced coming out of stealth with 115 million in VC funding. Not series A or Series B, out of stealth …. in this engineering software space that no one usually talks about unless you're an engineer. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to navigate Fundraising successfully by embracing some valuable lessons in communication and resilience. How to win over conservative, facts-oriented engineers when marketing your SaaS product and optimally enable your team. How to use pricing as a key element of differentiation for your SaaS offering. How to avoid having to pivot at the moment of launching your SaaS product because of missing some technical details. For more information about the guest from this week: Masha Petrova Ph.D. Website: Nullspace Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on do's & don'ts that matter if you want your Service business to become successful in SaaS. My guest is Slava Libman, CEO of FTD Solutions. Slava is a driven innovator with +25 years of international experience and thought leader in the space of environmental sustainability in industrial facilities. He has a PhD in Environmental Engineering, and has spent his entire career focused on water technology and its impact on the industry.  He leads teams in Ultra Pure Water, industrial water treatment, and facilities technology development, thereby challenging conventional thinking to drive progress. In May 2017 he founded FTD Solutions - a Digital Twin platform with embedded expertise to enable new standards of sustainability in industrial facilities Their mission: To redefine the way these industrial facilities approach solving problems and drive sustainability performance. And this triggered me, and hence I invited Slava to my podcast. We explore the seven-year journey of transitioning from a consulting firm to a pioneering B2B SaaS company. Slava shared his big lessons learned on the importance of aligning product development with market needs and the sequencing and focusing of his go-to-market strategy. He elaborates how traction changed when they shifted from a transaction-oriented approach to a value-/outcome based approach. Last but not least he shares how emphasizing mission, principles, and value helped with alignment and keeping the organization lean. Here's one of his quotes When we try to help companies minimize their expenses, they ask the question, 'Okay, so what does your enrollment mean from the expense point of view?'  So, our focus is on value creation. We believe that if we can create significant value for our customers, then the question of monetization and expenses will not be a roadblock. And in reality, that's the case. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why he decided to focus the business on the most complex type of customer segment first and how that paid off. Why it's so beneficial to search for unique dynamics at your customers when seeking ways to differentiate your SaaS product. What approach he's using so that everyone in the company lives the company values - every single day.  Why he does't deal with weaknesses in his business. For more information about the guest from this week: Slava Libman Website: FTD Solutions Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to solve the growing issue of knowledge worker unproductivity. My guest is Pete Christothoulou, CEO of Xembly. Pete Christothoulou is a serial entrepreneur. In 2003, he co-founded Marche, a publicly traded conversational analytics business.  In November 2020 he founded Xembly - The first automated chief of staff. Its mission: Ensure your company isn't left behind as we're entering a new era of productivity. This inspired me, so I invited Pete to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the world of increasing knowledge worker productivity. Pete shares his vision for reclaiming 44 billion hours annually in the US alone. He elaborates on how he accelerated his way to product-market fit and, from there, predictable traction. Last but not least, he shares what he'd do again if he ever started another Startup. Here's one of his quotes I agree with everyone that we have a transformative opportunity. So I think that's obvious. Where I don't agree is here: if we're not careful, AI will actually create more distraction for us and more pain as consumers, if we're not mindful. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to gather crucial feedback, even if your product isn't fully developed. Why he chose to focus on enterprise customers instead of a potentially much larger SMB market. What single metric he's staring at all day to see whether they make a difference What's the difference between a co-pilot and an auto-pilot, and why this distinction could also affect your SaaS business? For more information about the guest from this week: Pete Christothoulou Website: Xembly Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast outlines key strategies for SaaS CEOs to explore in 2024 to optimally prepare for 2025. My guest is Vinnie Mirchandani, Founder of Deal Architect.  Vinnie has become a regular guest on my podcast. This is the fourth time over the past 7 seasons. He’s the founder of Deal Architect – a Technology strategy and negotiation firm, a former Gartner analyst, and the author of Silicon Collar, SAP Nation, The New Polymath, and The New Technology Elite - which emphasize technology-enabled innovation using lots of case studies and use cases across industries and countries  He's also the prime interviewer/curator of thought leadership books for C-level executives at technology vendors SAP, Software AG, and IFS  In this podcast, we explore the evolving landscape of SaaS businesses together. We delve into the future of SaaS for 2024, discussing optimistic and rational viewpoints on market trends, highlighting the most important metrics to give extra focus, and discussing the shift towards customer-centric revenue models over traditional funding avenues.  We also address the untapped potential of generative AI and operational automation to enhance productivity and innovation in the B2B SaaS space. Furthermore, we explore what muscles to build to stay relevant in this rapidly changing and evolving market of Software as a Service.  Here's one of Vinnie's quotes Investors are sometimes fashion-driven. They follow what their colleagues tell them is predictable. So you don't often get the best advice by listening to investors. You have to go to the edge of the enterprise, to the remote parts of the world, sometimes to find opportunities. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why creating Funding freedom is essential for long-term SaaS success. Which metrics to embrace to keep your SaaS business healthy as customer expectations evolve. What routes to consider to access new technologies and markets with more speed. Where to focus to seize growth opportunities beyond traditional markets For more information about the guest from this week: Vinnie Mirchandani His blog: New Florence. New Renaissance Website: Deal Architect  Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the resilience lessons learned from running a successful business software company for +34 years. My guest is Dean Guida, CEO of Infragistics. Dean has over 34 years of experience as a CEO and founder of Infragistics, a user interface development tools platform, and an expert in User-Centered Design.  He scaled the business globally across 6 countries with a client roster that includes 100% of the S&P 500.  What is special is that he guided Infragistics to withstand a series of tumultuous moments in the Internet’s ongoing evolution (think: the dot-com tech bubble of the late 90s, the explosion of the Internet, and the 2008 recession).  Not that he got lucky– or happened to be in the right place at the right time, or worked harder than the next guy. He did it by crystallizing the insights at each key moment along the way–from common growing pains to completely unpredictable challenges–into a hard-won philosophy. All his lessons are now bundled in his new book, “When Grit is Not Enough.” And this inspired me, and hence I invited Dean to my podcast. We explore an inspiring journey of resilience of running a successful software business for +34 years. Dean talks about his near failures and shares the big lessons he learned to come out stronger, again and again. He digs into the fundamentals to build a resilient software business and how he's incorporating that into the day-to-day work, so it's lived to the fullest. Here's one of his quotes There's nothing like the fear of going out of business to sit in your brain, "how can you do this better next time?" And, what it comes down to is really early investment is making bets on the future where you think the future is, and spending your money there. Even though if you report to others who want to have better financial performance, you have to always keep investing in the future and refreshing your technology. And like there's this great analogy that software's like lettuce it, as soon as you have it, it's already wilting. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to achieve the Financial resilience to be able to don't fall behind. What to prioritize to ensure culture stays healthy and everyone stays on track with the direction? What two simple instruments Dean uses to navigate tough times. How to build trust in periods where you have to lay off people. For more information about the guest from this week: Dean Guida Website: Infragistics Deans' book: When Grit is Not Enough Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the journey to take a SaaS business to $1M+ . My guest is Justin Chen, Co-founder and CEO of PickFu. When Justin and his co-founder John Li were working on another business they disagreed and wanted a fast, informed way to break the tie.  Being software engineers, they built it - and that is what sparked the big idea behind PickFu. Although it stayed on the back burner for years, like all the best treasures on the internet, people discovered it. Customers used the polling platform and shared it with their friends. Then, in 2018 they started to see increased attention from e-commerce conferences and podcasts, which is where they realized they had built something truly useful. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Justin to my podcast. We explore what's broken in consumer research. Justin takes us through his journey to the moment they decided to go all in. He explains why he decided to niche down - and what criteria appeared to be really important to get traction. He elaborates on how they're creating defensible differentiation. Last but not least he explains how they're designing for stickiness across product, customer success, and marketing.  Here's one of his quotes The focus on industries is super important. Because it's really hard to market a general-purpose tool. But when you're able to speak directly to people about their problems, and their use cases, it resonates so much more quickly. So for E-commerce and gaming, doing the marketing and starting to tailor the product much more specifically to those industries has been really important to getting our traction During this interview, you will learn four things: How often the best solutions are not the ones that help you do the task correctly, but giving confidence to even consider doing the task at all.   That even if companies have sorted your problem higher in the organization, it doesn't mean everyone has access to that. How focusing on habit building helped to make the product mission critical for some verticals - and reduce churn. What adjustments he's making to make NRR calculation more reliable and relevant.  For more information about the guest from this week: Justin Chen Website: PickFu Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to become a trusted brand in a heavily competitive and unsexy market. My guest is Rory Codrington, Founder of Trust Keith.  Rory is a Serial entrepreneur. He cofounded Flixtremein in 2013. Founded Slyce Tech in 2015 and WeDelight in 2018.  In October 2019 he founded Trust Keith, a company that's dedicated to helping companies effortlessly manage their data protection and data compliance. Their mission: to change the "boring" and "unsexy" stereotypes of data compliance to make data protection simple, easy to understand, and an enabler for businesses. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Rory to my podcast. We explore what it takes to build a B2B SaaS business that stands the test of time. Rory elaborates on his big lessons from founding 3 other companies - and in particular what must be true. He shares the reasoning to shift focus from a product strategy perspective and how that strengthened their position. Last but not least he shares how to turn even the most boring domain into something you can stand out and proudly own. Here's one of his quotes By being high touch right now, we're just pulling so much better insights from our customers. I don't want to go and rush this, like 'Let's sprint to get arm's length away from our customers so that we can talk having a plg motion. We're not solving for investment. We're solving for customer retention, customer value, and revenue growth. During this interview, you will learn four things: What questions to ask to build a business that has the foundation to last. What product strategy battles you should have internally to become mission critical to the right segment of the market? How to optimize your company for benchmark gross margin - without cutting corners. How to align every aspect of your business to become 'the one' in your segment of the market. For more information about the guest from this week: Rory Codrington Website: Trust Keith Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to create a serious business by daring to focus on some fundamental flaws of one enterprise platform. My guest is Ron Gidron, Founder and CEO of Xtype. Ron's a tech entrepreneur on a mission. He's got close to 3 decades of experience in sales, product management, and marketing of highly technical software products. He's worked for Mercury Interactive, Symantec, and Automic Sofware (acquired by CA) The technical scaling challenges he experienced on his journey inspired him to start xtype in April 2021. Their mission: to help ServiceNow development teams to deliver at speed the business demands without compromising quality or compliance. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Ron to my podcast. We explore what's broken when it comes to scaling and building large enterprise systems. Ron explains why he decided to bet on ServiceNow (instead of staying platform agnostic). He elaborates on why he decided to target the largest organizations in the world first. He shares some big lessons on becoming a platform player that gets noticed and what he had to do differently to gain the traction he aspired to. Here's one of his quotes Coming from that space, you think, 'Hey, I can retrofit the toolchain and just build some integrations from Salesforce from ServiceNow. And I'll just run the tools that already exist. That is a huge mistake. Not because it doesn't work technically, technically you could probably do it, but because that overlooks the power of the ecosystem itself. There is a reason why Salesforce folks love Salesforce. There is a huge reason why ServiceNow folks love ServiceNow. During this interview, you will learn four things: What it takes to build traction momentum in a platform-centric eco-system. How to get attention from the largest companies in the world when you're building a new product. What to never do when you're building a product that's dedicated to one specific platform. Ron's first principles when it comes to funding or no funding. For more information about the guest from this week: Ron Gidron Website: Xtype Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to build a business that lasts and creates funding freedom. My guest is Jason Cohen, Founder of WPEngine. Jason built four technology startups, both bootstrapped and funded, both alone and with co-founders. He grew all of them to more than $1M in annual revenue and has sold two.  Beyond that, he's been an angel investor and a founding member of Capital Factory, an Austin-based incubator and co-working space since 2009. Since 2007 he's been documenting his experiences and thoughts about early-stage startups on his blog: A Smart Bear.  Based on his experiences and the challenges he faced as the blog grew, he founded WPEngine in 2010. It's a platform that provides brands with the solutions they need to create remarkable sites and apps on WordPress that drive their business forward faster.  Their mission: To help customers win online. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jason to my podcast. We explore his lessons in building successful companies. He elaborates on the importance of getting the problem definition right and understanding what moves potential customers to buy. He shares his views on how to select your market and betting a super-specific niche. He talks in detail about his rules for attracting funding (or not) - and what WPEngine did during COVID-19 to keep growing.  Here's one of his quotes The question is, what can you learn from customer interviews? I don't think you can use customer reviews to know, 'Can I build this? Would you buy this feature?'  But I do think you can use customer interviews for stuff like: What is their life like? What do they care about already, or not? What do they do? What are their workflows? Do they see this problem? Or don't they? Are these compelling?  These are things where if you build the product, you don't learn those things. Ask the customer, they actually can tell you because they're not solving the problem for you. They're not building the product for you. They're just telling you about themselves. That they can do. During this interview, you will learn four things: What questions to ask to start your business with a solid foundation for long-term success What makes hyper-specific SaaS companies grow faster His first principle for thinking about raising funds that helps you to stay in control. What he's looking for when making big bets when it comes to profitability. For more information about the guest from this week: Jason Cohen Website: WPEngine Blog: A Smart Bear Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to episode 300 of the Tech-entrepreneur on a mission podcast.  Because this is a big milestone on the journey I didn’t want to devote this podcast to one guest – instead, I got 23 B2B SaaS CEOs on the mic. A big element of every single episode of the podcast is my question at the end of each episode.  What would be a Do or a Don't that you'd like to share with other SaaS entrepreneurs? And so, I’ve made a hand-picked selection of these Do's & Don'ts from the last 100 podcast episodes Let's start with the Don'ts Neta Meidav, CEO Vault Platform: Don't take other entrepreneurs advice on face value. Melissa Kwan, CEO eWebinar: Don't start a business that you hate even if it has success. Emil Jimenez, CEO Mindbank AI: Don't think about the money Aleks Gollu, CEO 11Sight: Don't bother people will steal your idea Toni Hohlbein, CEO Growblocks: Don't forget where you are in the process Sunny Han, CEO Fulcrum: Don't allow comfort to take over Jon Ricketts, CEO Writerly: Don't limit yourself in your thinking Patrick Woods, CEO Orbit: Don't ignore yourself Charlotte Melkert, CEO Equalture: Don't think you need to in control of everything Antony Thomson, former CEO Loopin: Don't bring new people on unless you're 100% oversubscribed. Barrett King, Sr. Manager Global GTM Strategy, Partner Ecosystem Hubspot: Don't use the sentence: I'm gonna build a partner program Christian Owens, CEO Paddle: Don't malign yourself with having 2 different interpretations of what a good outcome looks like And now over to the Do's Melissa Kwan, CEO eWebinar: Do create your own definition of success Amir Konigsberg, CEO Pragma: Do something that can be genuinely valuable for someone else Lars van Wieren, CEO Starred: Do walk the walk and talk the talk Patrick Woods, CEO Orbit: Do aggressively comunicate - keep everyone on the same page Christine Tao, CEO Sounding Board: Do ask for what you need Ahmed Elsamadisi, CEO Narrator AI: Do bring your entire team for decision making James Malley, CEO Paccurate: Do learn to fight fair Mads Wedderkopp, CEO Dreaminfluence: Do write the rules before you start Neta Meidav, CEO Vault Platform: Be human - Be a mensch Josh Haynam, CEO Interact: Do highlight positives Guillaume Moubeche, CEO Lempire: Do document as early as possible Rami Darwish, CEO Arrow Labs: Do plant some small flags ahead of time Erdem Gelal, CEO Flowla: Do build a true fan base Ryan Falkenberg, CEO CLEVVA: Do own the outcome Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to deliver on the promise of offering the best cybersecurity service in the world. My guest is Matt Holland, CEO of Field Effect. Matt Holland is an authority in the cybersecurity industry. He started his career at the Communications Security Establishment in 1999 as a leading security researcher for top-secret projects in the Five Eyes community. In 2007, he co-founded Linchpin Labs because he saw the opportunity to provide better solutions to democratic governments and corporate clients globally. The company was sold to L3 in 2018. In January 2020, he co-founded Field Effect, which he leads as the CEO. Their mission: To turn the global cyber security landscape on its head by creating the technology and tradecraft to protect underserved small & medium-sized businesses from modern cyber security threats. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the cyber security industry, in particular for small and medium-sized businesses. Matt elaborates on the strategic choices he made early on to differentiate the business - being able to offer his solution at a fraction of the price of traditional players. He also shares his formula to build a sustainable business that can successfully compete with very large competitors.  Here's one of his quotes The mission of the company to protect small and medium businesses around the world is a really neat thing to see in action. We have stopped some incredibly challenging ransomware attacks. And when you think about it, if we weren't there, it would potentially be a business-ending event for the customer. It could potentially shut down a medical facility.  When it comes to job satisfaction, […] It's like a passion flywheel that feeds right back into it to make the entire product and service even better. During this interview, you will learn four things: How Matt found the underserved markets he could serve like no one else. How he's able to offer game-changing pricing in a very competitive market. What he's steering for to increase the effectiveness of product development What ingredients he's looking for to keep growing in challenging times. For more information about the guest from this week: Matt Holland Website Field Effect Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey and critical choices that were required to sustainably enable small businesses to compete with the big ones. My guest is Aditya Varanasi, CEO of Awarity. Aditya Varanasi is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. He started his career at Frito-Lay as an engineer but quickly grew into a brand manager. After 8 years, he then moved to PepsiCo, where he worked for 14 years pioneering new ways to amplify the power of digital media across brands including Cheetos, Cracker Jack, and Lays Stax. He never dreamed of being an entrepreneur until he was faced with a choice: take a risk or sink back into Corporate America.  This sparked the idea and the courage to found Awarity in 2016.  Their mission: World-class marketing should be affordable to everyone.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Aditya to my podcast. We explore the journey to realize the mission to help small businesses compete with the big brands when it comes to marketing. Aditya elaborates on the initial struggles he experienced to get traction, and what he did differently to fix that. He also shares a framework for making conscious product strategy decisions so that value, stickiness, and differentiation increase. And last but not least, he shares his principles for aligning everyone and growing in a responsible way.  Here's one of his quotes I spoke to the co-founder of a large electronic medical records company in the US. And he gave me some feedback. He said, hey, look, if you can price this at $299 a month and guarantee what they're going to get, I think you've got something.  So I took that feedback very seriously. By the second week of December, we updated the website with a new pricing and value proposition. By the middle of December, we had signed up our first two doctors; by the end of January, we had about 25 doctors signed up. I said, Okay, there may be something here. We still had the same idea. But it was productizing it to something that was a value proposition that was overwhelming. That ultimately helped us get some traction. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to gain traction in a market that wants what you offer badly but can't afford it? What principles Aditya uses to continue to bootstrap the business for as long as possible. The four attributes he is using to score everything on his product roadmap. The pragmatic approach he's using to keep everyone in the company aligned on the voice of the customer For more information about the guest from this week: Aditya Varanasi Website Awarity Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to make the biggest possible impact as a business in the most positive way. My guest is Jonny White, CEO of Ticket Tailor. Jonny White started his career as a software engineer, building websites for clients. On his journey, he spotted a gap in the market for ticketing systems. That became the founding idea behind Ticket Tailor, which he founded in 2011. It started a wild entrepreneurial ride. He achieved product market fit and decided to sell his company after about 2 years. This made him an employee for the first time ever - but only for a short time, since he bought his company back only a few years later.  The next period, he ran it as a lifetime business to then realize its unique growth potential. The rest is history. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jonny to my podcast. We explore the valuable insights Jonny learned from transitioning from a bespoke to a subscription model. He elaborates on the three things that make his company sustainable: the importance of simplicity, creating cycles of positivity, and tightly integrating social and business impact. Last but not least, he talks about how he remained resilient during the COVID turbulence and managed to come out as a stronger company. Here's one of his quotes: Keeping things simple is a very hard thing to do. But if you can do it, you can move mountains. Keeping things simple often gets confused with ignoring complexity. It's about unpacking that complexity and really understanding it as core. And then we're like, which is the one that's going to be simple, not in terms of this decision, but what's the one that makes it simple in terms of the long term for us, so that we're not compensating for that in the future? During this interview, you will learn four things: How to sell your SaaS business and then buy it back only a few years later, coming out stronger. The methodology he used to gain the confidence to make some fundamental decisions for his business How he doubled down on purpose helped double the business, grow NPS and eNPS scores to benchmark levels, stay very lean, and maintain a healthy profit. Why obsessing over revenue and financials is not the leading thing if you want to build a business with staying power.   For more information about the guest from this week: Jonny White Website: Ticket Tailor Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to turn a B2B SaaS company with negative growth into a sustainable growth machine in less than a year. My guest is Mads Wedderkopp, CEO of Dreaminfluence. Mads Wedderkopp has been running SaaS companies for nearly a decade now. Mads started his career early at the age of 17. By age 18 he was managing 120 sales reps. After his early success, he founded his own SaaS company, which he scaled from 0 to 70+ employees and 7M USD ARR.  In July 2022 he was appointed CEO of Dreaminfluence, owned by Blazar Capital, where he has turned around the business and grown it from 360k USD ARR to +1M USD ARR in less than a year. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Mads to my podcast. We explore what Mads changed to create a cohesive culture to succeed. He then elaborates on the counterintuitive actions he took to battle the too-high churn numbers. He shares his secrets to building a healthy inbound funnel of talent. Last but not least, he explains how he's been able to 5x pricing AND introduce contractual commitments from customers as a means to further expand the fanbase. Here's one of his quotes There is learning for everybody that sometimes you have to dare to invest in the right places, even though it doesn't necessarily yield an immediate return on investment. But that investment in product is what has helped us bring churn even further down. And enabled us to raise prices over and over again. During this interview, you will learn four things: What questions to ask to reduce churn in your company. Why you should prioritize cash over MRR in your early-stage SaaS journey. How to increase the quality of your customer base. Why customers should pay for onboarding - and how to get them to do so. For more information about the guest from this week: Mads Wedderkopp Website Dreaminfluence Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to help overcome performance challenges in SaaS revenue operations. My guest is Aaron McReynolds, Co-Founder and CEO of Alysio. Aaron is a tech entrepreneur on an ambitious mission. He's got over eight years of experience in sales and sales management. Working for companies like Qualtrics, Octa, and Lacework gave him a proven track record of leading and growing sales teams in various markets, such as enterprise, corporate, and international. The challenges he faced during that period inspired him and his co-founder to found Alisio in October 2022.  Their mission: to empower sales professionals with the tools and insights they need to achieve their goals and refine their Sales teams. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Aaron to my podcast. We explore why, instead of building a tool primarily for revenue operations, he decided to bet on the end-users (sales reps), thereby challenging the traditional approach of building tools for Sales backend operations. We discuss the toughest challenges he had to overcome early on his journey, thereby prioritizing the success of the business over personal considerations. He elaborates on his 'Minimalist Funding Approach' - acknowledging the necessity of funding, but still advocating for a lean approach. And last but not least, he explains why he and his team decided to take AI off their roadmap.  Here's one of his quotes: We see, in the future, essentially a three-legged stool. And to us, that three-legged stool is comprised of the three most important parts of any sales organization: customers, revenue, and people. And so you talk about customer data: Salesforce HubSpot. You talk about revenue data: Clari, Gong, Outreach. And then, when you talk about the people, 'How do you understand the people who are your most important asset and most valuable asset?', that's almost always where the crickets come up. During this interview, you will learn four things: How he identified a gap in sales tools despite using all the popular ones. How they are creating a market perception to be a much bigger company than they really are. Aaron's leadership style to use humility to make up for the things he doesn't know as a SaaS CEO. Why he's focused on understanding and rewarding individual sales performance, challenging the norm of board, organization-level metrics. For more information about the guest from this week: Aaron McReynolds Website Alysio Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to change the status quo of an industry that hasn't changed in 3 decades. My guest is Sharekh Shaikh, CEO of CleverX. Sharekh is a 2X founder in the human capital and the future of workspace. He has successfully created businesses that have generated $ multi-million in sales. Sharekh’s story is about an immigrant’s Silicon Valley dream. He has lived and worked in 4 different countries and traveled to over 35 countries. He spends most of his time understanding how people collaborate and share knowledge in different contexts of work. Before becoming a tech entrepreneur, Sharekh worked with Gartner. He helped them build programs so technology leaders across industries could collaborate with each other in a trusted space. The challenges he had to overcome in that period inspired him to found CleverX In January 2020. Their mission: To make human knowledge accessible to all and be your trusted place to build real relationships and get work done. This inspired me, and hence I invited Sharekh to my podcast. We explore the journey of building a solution for the broken B2B market in commercial research. Sharek digs into the critical choices he made early on and explains his first principles for creating a SaaS business that people find worth making a remark about. He shares his views on avoiding dependence on venture capital and getting pricing right from the start. Last but not least, he shares what it takes to navigate various company phases successfully. Here's one of his quotes Finding a specific set of customers is really really valuable rather than trying to go after five different people. Because your product can serve five people. It's not like won't. But where does it really solve a pain where people are excited and ready to give you the money right away? That is what you should be looking for. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why he doesn't believe in Minimum Viable Product and what he did instead to drive success early in the process. Why he'd explore more verticals at the same time - if he'd ever get the chance. How he's testing whether he's on the right track with his product fit and strategy. What he's doing differently to get feedback that translates directly into his development choices. For more information about the guest from this week: Sharekh Shaikh Website: CleverX Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to plug directly into the services of IT suppliers around the globe at the click of a button.. My guest is Juha Berghäll, Co-founder and CEO of ONEiO Juha Berghäll is a visionary leader and a serial entrepreneur with a wealth of experience in the IT domain. His background spans over 20 years in enterprise service management.  Throughout his career, Juha has held pivotal roles, from being the Chairman of the Board and a Founding Partner at Verco Oy to serving as the Director of Marketing & Partners at Efecte Corp.  Juha's passion lies in tackling the biggest bottleneck of enterprise digitalization - integrations. He understands the challenges faced by Large Enterprise IT service providers who strive to collaborate with teams, vendors, suppliers, partners, and subcontractors on different platforms. That's where Juha and ONEiO come in. He envisions an industrial revolution in the enterprise integration space, moving from a hand-made approach to an industrialized, automated, and cloud-based model. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Juha to my podcast. We explore the shift from one-stop shops to best-of-breed providers and what challenges that gives to managing IT supply chains in a changing business landscape. He shares how he made hard choices on his business model, thereby avoiding consultancy temptation. He then elaborates on the big lessons he learned from international expansion, the impact of VC funding, and his evolving go-to-market strategies. Here's one of his quotes We really changed the game. We wanted to move away from the traditional red ocean of projects, integration projects, and technologies and platforms and provide something that focuses on the end result. ​​This is a reall new approach and different approach for this industry. It required, of course, a quite drastic change in that we cannibalized our own business. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why he decided to cannibalize his business and what it meant to succeed i  doing so. Why he decided to bootstrap the company instead of immediately jumping into the venture capital train Why he'd opt to internationalize the business earlier if he'd do it again How niching down his target market helped to increase deal size by 5x. For more information about the guest from this week: Juha Berghäll Website: ONEiO Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this podcast interview we explore the journey of building a B2B SaaS business around the bold mission of making the world a little more curious. My guest is Guy Cohen, CEO of Wonder.  Guy is a tech entrepreneur on a big mission. He has worked for three companies in his career. From 2011 to 2013, they worked at Morgan Stanley in the RVR Group. From 2013 to 2015, they worked at Seeking Alpha as the Director of Business Development and Business Development.  During that period he faced a number of repeating problems and started to look for solutions. The result: He and his co-founder started Wonder in 2015.  Their mission: to make the world a little more curious. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Guy to my podcast. We explore the profound link between curiosity and business success. Guy shares the pitfalls of not asking the right questions and how that sparked the idea to founding Wonder. He shares why he chose the route of augmenting human potential and how the helped create defensible differentiation. He also elaborates on the challenges they faced getting traction and what he needed to change to accelerate momentum.   Here's one of his quotes Every LLM and every AI right now is trained in the way that schools train us, which is to lead to a solution to lead to an answer. We took a very different approach. We've been answering professional questions for the better part of eight years, what we've learned is that the initial question you pose is seven degrees removed from the actual things you need to know. And the only way to get to the right set of questions is to ask more clarifying questions. So we built a clarification engine called Claire, short for clarity. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why most failures and how are related to money are a consequence of not being curious enough. How blending technology with a human element has helped them to deliver value no other company can.  Why, if he could rewind the clock and do something differently, he'd choose to narrow the aperture of who they are serving and why. How fear inhibits the asking of essential questions and hindering progress - and how to overcome that. For more information about the guest from this week: Guy Cohen Website: Wonder Free Trail: Try Wonder for free. Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to prepare for tomorrow while successfully managing the present. My guest is Graham Hogg, CEO of See6. Graham is an authority on Sales AI, the author of "Seeing Around Corners", andan industry tech leader with more than 10 years of commercial experience.  He started his career as a UK Commando Forces Officer. During this career, he realized the power of simulations and how this was a very good way to help teams respond positively to transformation.  This sparked the idea to found see6 in 2014 - which he leads as the CEO. Their mission: help organizations, teams and individuals prepare for tomorrow. Their promise: Help sales teams go 6X faster. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Graham to my podcast. We explore how sales is evolving as a skill - and what's required to succeed. Graham shares his vision to enable this in CPG. He also explains why he decided to niche down (and say no to very big markets) and how that's made a meaningful difference in the traction they're creating. He also shares his framework for making the best product strategy decisions. Last but not least he shares how he avoids his teams to become too internally focused - and how that helped them to become a Remarkable SaaS business. Here's one of his quotes Relationship-based selling isn't really relevant in this new environment. The real skill for sales teams to turn it going forward, is actually a writing skill. Their ability to construct compelling sales narratives.  This whole relationship based, 'Hey, buddy, how are you doing and taking you out?' that's not what buyers want anymore. They want much more. They want insight. They want that consumer category lens so that they can see around the corner and what's coming next for their shoppers. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why a very important decision was to not work with marketing, but sales instead. Why he discarded Pharma as a market as 'way too big' - and how that made everything easier. How he tested for Problem Market Fit - and how that accelerated Product Market Fit. How See6 is leveraging first mover advantage in the Generative AI world. For more information about the guest from this week: Graham Hogg Website: See6 Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to buy and sell SaaS businesses in less than 30 days. My guest is Joe Lewin, CEO Foundy.  Joe Lewin is a two-time SaaS founder who successfully sold his first business in 2022. Since selling his company, his vocation has been to modernize the antiquated M&A process for other tech founders.  The demand for a modernized exit process has been accelerated by the turbulence in the tech sector and the broader economy, especially now that it's become harder to raise funding. However, founders face a bottleneck issue because most investment banks and advisory firms primarily focus on serving the most prominent companies (i.e. £15m + in revenue). Foundry is focusing on the bottom 90% of companies. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Joe to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the SaaS M&A market. Joe shares his vision and the change he's committed to creating. He talks about the fundamental decisions he made and the mindset he follows to create a business that lasts. He elaborates on his learnings on how they created early momentum - and how that's now accelerated through word of mouth. Last but not least he shares what he learned from the mistakes he made in hiring Here's one of his quotes I've met hundreds and hundreds of founders now, even those that may raise double-digit VC funding, and a lot of them really do not have the knowledge or insight on how to maximize their valuation upon an exit. And they haven't laid the foundations to build that deep-rooted value During this interview, you will learn four things: Why community-led growth is underrated - especially as a way to get people committed and create viral benefits. The viability of your SaaS business isn't what you say yes to, but who you say no to. The sticky part of your SaaS business doesn't necessarily have to be the product you create. The value your customers love you for isn't often coming from the software but from the life-changing moments. For more information about the guest from this week: Joe Lewin Website: Foundy Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices