OV | BUILD
84 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 74 ratingsBuilding your startup is hard. OpenView is here to help. Each week join us as we talk to founders and operators from the
cutthroat world of SaaS. Our guests have been where you are and know what it takes to make it big. You’ll get advice on
everything from who to hire to how to price your product. BUILD is powered by OpenView, the expansion stage venture
capital firm. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter that is sent to over 100k SaaS operators at https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter.
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Episodes
PLG 123 | SaaS Solutions During a Crisis
April 09, 2020 13:18 - 4 minutes - 6.39 MBWhile we ramp up the next season of BUILD, over the next few weeks you can enjoy two new podcast mini series. This first series is the PLG 123. Each week OpenView partner Blake Bartlett dives into 3 browser tabs of the latest news and updates in the world of product led growth and asks what's next for the world of SaaS. Find the links mentioned in each episode in the description below, and follow Blake Bartlett on LinkedIn to get the PLG 123 in video format as soon as it's live. ...
Season 8 Recap *Bonus Episode*
March 25, 2020 12:32 - 15 minutes - 21.4 MBLet’s take a run back through some of our favorite clips...
Marketing in a PLG Company: Insights from Plaid’s former Head of Marketing
December 18, 2019 06:00 - 26 minutes - 24 MBWhile Season 7 has come to a close, we’re back with a special bonus episode! When businesses are building out their product-led strategy, when and how does marketing come into play? OV Partner, Devon McDonald, sat down with Helen Min, former Head of Marketing at Plaid, live at INBOUND to discuss this question and the importance of investing in marketing (particularly product marketing) early on in a business’ journey. Helen also touches upon marketing to developers (hint: invest in your comm...
How Calendly Serves 5,000,000 People on a Monthly Basis
December 11, 2019 06:00 - 22 minutes - 20.4 MBThe final episode of Season 7 features Tope Awotona, Founder & CEO of Calendly. He shares how they balance feedback with such an expansive user base, why he felt like he had an unfair advantage in the scheduling space and why they provide support even for free users.
Webflow’s Mission to Empower as Many People as Possible
December 04, 2019 06:00 - 39 minutes - 36.6 MBThis episode features Vlad Magdalin, Co-founder & CEO of Webflow, a business that took four tries to get off the ground. Find out how they think about creating a product that's applicable to as many people as possible and why adding incremental value is more important than shipping a perfect product.
The Road to 7,000,000+ Users with Postman
November 27, 2019 06:00 - 28 minutes - 64.3 MBAbhinav Asthana is the Co-founder & CEO of Postman, a collaborative environment for API development that has scaled to more than 7 million users. Abhinav shares how they balance empathy and data, and how a product led growth approach leads to fundamentally better products.
How Airtable Navigates Hypergrowth with the Customer First
November 20, 2019 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBLiat Bycel is the VP of Customer Engagement at Airtable. She shares how they made the decision to bring all customer-facing teams under one roof and how that decision has furthered their growth and made the customer experience more cohesive.
Systems Engineering for Platforms & Organizations
November 06, 2019 06:00 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBThis episode of BUILD features Alex Marinos, Founder & CEO of one of the newest members of the OV portfolio, balena. Find out how they pivoted to a product led growth strategy and the solution they built to minimize pain for employees as a distributed team.
Pendo’s Culture and The Power of the Product Experience
October 30, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 65.8 MBPendo was founded on three main principles: delivering an incredible product, putting customers first and creating a culture that attracts the best people possible. Todd Olson, Founder & CEO, shares exactly how they've executed on each principle and how the product empowers customers to deliver amazing experiences to their users.
Pendo’s Culture & The Power of The Product Experience
October 30, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 65.8 MBPendo was founded on three main principles: delivering an incredible product, putting customers first and creating a culture that attracts the best people possible. Todd Olson, Founder & CEO, shares exactly how they've executed on each principle and how the product empowers customers to deliver amazing experiences to their users.
How Auth0 Scales with Simplicity
October 23, 2019 05:00 - 40 minutes - 37 MBEugenio Pace is the Co-founder & CEO of Auth0. Fundamentally, their product answers two questions: Are you who you say you are, and what can you do? Find out how they've managed to answer these questions in a way that gives users the flexibility to tailor the solution to their specific needs with the simplicity to scale.
Inside GitLab's Values: Results, Iteration & Transparency
October 16, 2019 05:00 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBOn this episode, Sid Sijbrandij, Co-founder & CEO of GitLab, shares their top three values and how they came to be. Find out why they're so public about how the company operates and Sid's perspective on why values shouldn't be universally positive. You'll also get a sense of what they do to ship more features every month than some competitors do in a full year.
Deputy's Journey to Serving 160,000+ Businesses
October 09, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBThis episode features Ashik Ahmed, CEO, CTO and Co-founder of OV portfolio company, Deputy. Find out how product led growth fueled their expansion into more than 100 countries and how flying inspired him to believe in this model. You'll also find out how their growth team operates and the best business advice he's ever received.
The 6 Principles of Clearbit
October 02, 2019 05:00 - 33 minutes - 30.4 MBAlex MacCaw is the Co-founder, CEO and office DJ for Clearbit. Find out how he learned to love management, the most difficult period he went through as a CEO and their biggest competitive advantage as a company (spoiler: it has to do with their people).
JumpCloud’s Core Values with Rajat Bhargava
September 25, 2019 05:00 - 32 minutes - 30 MBJumpCloud is an OpenView portfolio company that's focused on building the next generation of directory services. Rajat Bhargava, Co-founder and CEO, shares what they value most as a company and the two things he looks for when building a new business.
OpenView's 2019 Expansion SaaS Benchmarks
September 18, 2019 05:00 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBOur 2019 Expansion SaaS Benchmarks are live! This year we surveyed over 500 companies, ranging from pre-revenue to $150M+ ARR with nearly half of respondents coming from outside the U.S. On this episode, OV’s Kyle Poyar and Sean Fanning along with NetSuite’s Tom Kelly, share the findings and some advice for founders. Follow along at www.saasbenchmarks.com.
BUILDing Zapier with Wade Foster
September 11, 2019 05:00 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBSeason 7 of BUILD focuses on the design principles and practices behind market leading product led growth companies. We're kicking it off with the CEO and Co-Founder of Zapier, Wade Foster. Find out why Wade puts such a strong emphasis on the customer and how Zapier has managed to scale quickly with capital efficiency.
Demystifying Pricing with Simon-Kucher's Josh Bloom
July 24, 2019 05:00 - 26 minutes - 24.3 MBFor the final episode of Season 6, Kyle caught up with Simon-Kucher Partner, Josh Bloom. He explains the inspiration behind the firm's book, 'Monetizing Innovation,' the concept of developing a product around the price and the most important question founders should be asking customers. He also breaks down the trends he expects to see in the next year.
Pricing Insights from a VC Perspective
July 17, 2019 05:00 - 34 minutes - 31.2 MBWe're bringing OV Partner Liz Cain back to the podcast for the third time. On this episode, she and Kyle dive into their experiences with pricing and product led growth. Learn about some of the most common pricing mistakes they see and why they were both hesitant about PLG initially, but came around in a big way.
Behind the Scenes of Pluralsight's Pricing Rebuild
July 10, 2019 05:00 - 27 minutes - 25 MBLindsay Bayuk (VP of Product Marketing) and Porntepp Ungvichian (VP, Head of Strategy & Business Operations) are the B2B SaaS leaders behind Pluralsight's pricing overhaul. They went public last year, serve 70% of Fortune 500 companies and have customers in over 150 countries. Get ready for some serious note-taking on how they built a process around pricing changes and the importance of having the right infrastructure to make it all happen.
Hired’s Switch to Subscription
June 26, 2019 05:00 - 18 minutes - 16.5 MBJohn Kelly is the Head of Global Revenue at Hired and has been in the enterprise software space for over 25 years. On this episode, John gets into how and why Hired changed their pricing model from pay as you go to subscription. Learn how they knew the switch would work, the trickiest customers to convince and how the change impacted their growth.
SurveyMonkey's Pricing Change 10 Years in the Making
June 19, 2019 05:00 - 34 minutes - 32 MBAfter a decade, it was finally time to make a change to SurveyMonkey’s pricing. In this episode, learn from Pri Carr (SVP, Strategic Development) and Jordan Nolff (Senior Manager, Business Strategy & Monetization) about how they were able to pull off a massive revamp of the pricing and packaging of a beloved PLG brand without seeing a meaningful impact on acquisition or churn.
Hypergrowth Pricing Strategies From The Trenches
June 12, 2019 09:00 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MBMike is currently the Head of Marketing at Reflektive, but was at Lever and Glassdoor during periods of hypergrowth, where the name of the game was to double in size every year. Mike explains why you should lean on your sales reps throughout a pricing change, how to think about pricing as a competitive advantage and how his background in product marketing has benefited his role in pricing projects.
Making Better Business Decisions Faster at Atlassian
June 05, 2019 05:00 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MBThis episode features BUILD superfan, Abde Tambawala, Head of Business Strategy, Operations and Monetization at Atlassian. His team focuses on making better business decisions, faster. He breaks down why even successful companies can benefit from a pricing change, how to create a framework to make data-driven pricing decisions and how their product led growth approach affects their overall strategy. You'll also hear his perspective on when you should embrace change in the pricing landscape (...
Life as a Pricing Pro at SendGrid & InVision
May 29, 2019 05:00 - 36 minutes - 33.3 MBThis episode features two pricing professionals from PLG companies for double the insider secrets! Madeline Stein is the Principal Pricing Manager at SendGrid and Ismail Madni is Director, Product Pricing Strategy at InVision. They discussed the ideal time to build a pricing team, the cross-functionality of their roles and where pricing should sit within the org. You'll also get their takes on which KPIs matter most for determining when it might be time to make a pricing change.
Customer-Driven Pricing with Logikcull's CEO
May 22, 2019 05:00 - 21 minutes - 19.6 MBAndy Wilson is the Founder & CEO of Logikcull, a legal tech startup that’s revolutionizing how lawyers handle document discovery. In this episode, Andy explains why they pivoted from an annual subscription model to pay as you go and the implications this had on the business as a whole (spoiler: it changed everything). He also dives into how their mission drives decision-making and what they've done to help their customers have an amazing experience.
Pricing at a PLG Company with Figma’s CCO
May 15, 2019 05:00 - 26 minutes - 24.7 MBAmanda Kleha has been involved with pricing at PLG companies like Zendesk and Figma. On this episode, she explains when freemium makes sense in SaaS, the right time to add sales or customer success to a self-service business and the implications of PLG on culture. You'll also learn why she thinks you should know your leaders, fillers and killers.
Lola’s Mike Volpe on Pricing to Win in Competitive Markets
May 08, 2019 05:00 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MBMike Volpe is no stranger to competitive markets. He was part of HubSpot's founding team, then moved into the world of cybersecurity with Cybereason and is now CEO of Lola.com, a travel management tool. In this episode, he explains the relationship between pricing and brand, his perception of freemium and the importance of looking closely at your happiest customers for growth opportunities.
Have Your Cake & Eat It Too
May 01, 2019 05:00 - 22 minutes - 20.4 MBWe're kicking off Season 6 by bringing OV Partner, Blake Bartlett, back to discuss the magic of product led growth. Blake breaks down the placement of the paywall, when a freemium model makes sense and the importance of getting specific about your target customer. Find out why PLG means you can have your cake and eat it too.
Building & Growing Free SaaS Products People Love with Serial Entrepreneur, Hiten Shah
April 24, 2019 05:00 - 39 minutes - 36 MBHiten Shah is the mastermind behind Crazy Egg, Product Habits & FYI. He and his team pioneered heat maps and the left to right funnel, but what actually got him obsessed with product and product led growth? On this episode, Hiten dives into freemium, his love for solving problems in unique ways and why founders should get involved with sales. He also describes how to get the entire team to think about growth and the role of sales and marketing in PLG businesses. You'll hear how he got to #1 ...
Shopify's CMO on the Science of Data-Driven Marketing
April 17, 2019 09:00 - 34 minutes - 31.3 MBJeff Weiser hasn't exactly followed a traditional path to get to CMO, but his background in strategy and analytics has made him incredibly successful. In this episode, Jeff explains his perspective on the power of analytics (while also laying out the limitations they present). Learn about the role product led growth has played in the evolution of Shopify's target customer, advice about amplifying the power of word-of-mouth and the role of marketing in a product-led world. At the end of the d...
Kelly Watkins on Slack & The State of Marketing in a PLG Company
April 10, 2019 05:00 - 36 minutes - 33 MBKelly Watkins has consistently been at the heart of marketing within PLG companies - first at GitHub as the Director of Product & Brand Marketing and most recently as the VP of Global Marketing at Slack. She's seen first-hand the role marketing plays in growth and knows the ins and outs of each type of marketing. In this episode, Kelly sheds light how young companies should think about product marketing and when to make their first hire, how impactful brand was for her team and the role cont...
Appcues' Jonathan Kim on the Art of Onboarding
April 03, 2019 05:00 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBThis may sound strange, but more often than not, Appcues' biggest competition is actually nothing. Most companies don't have an intentional onboarding experience; users are just dropped into a dashboard full of zeros. Their Co-founder & CEO, Jonathan Kim, explains how to master the art of a meaningful onboarding experience through personalization and humanization. Listen to learn about their definition of product led growth, where they've seen sales add the most value and what he sees for th...
How Dropbox Scaled with Customer Success as Their Secret Weapon
March 27, 2019 05:00 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBCustomer success has come to mean a lot more than just churn prevention. As Head of CS at Dropbox, Lisa Ashcraft is constantly thinking about continuous improvement and what success looks like for her team. Learn about the importance of pattern matching to remove friction, the metric that matters most for her team and some of her proudest moments. At the end of the day, it's all about becoming a trusted advisor to users and educating them on using the product in new ways to get the most out ...
The People Side of PLG with Expensify's Jason Mills
March 20, 2019 05:00 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBExpensify kicked off 2019 with a Super Bowl-sized bang, but it's a well-known fact that for most of their history, they haven't engaged in outbound marketing or advertising. Oh yeah, and they don't have a sales team. So what's the secret to their success? PLG. Jason Mills, the Director of Product and Customers, describes how they focus on their customers and the product to have maximum impact. He also describes how they are proactive about virality, their motivation to remove confusion from ...
Wistia’s CEO on the Role of Sales in a PLG Company
March 13, 2019 05:00 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MBPLG companies don't necessarily rely on a large sales and marketing team to grow. Wistia’s Co-founder & CEO, Chris Savage, explains their decision to create a self-service funnel and when their sales team gets involved in the buying process. Chris also explains how the sales team came to be and how they adopted Wistia’s values during the customer’s buying process. Also make sure you check out their One, Ten, One Hundred video series by going to wi.st/series.
Malwarebytes’ Elena Verna on Growth Hacking in the PLG Era
March 06, 2019 06:00 - 31 minutes - 73.1 MBYou've seen the growing trend of Growth teams and Growth leaders, but what does that actually mean? Elena Verna, the SVP of Product & Growth at Malwarebytes and formerly the SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey, wrote the book on growth. This episode is all about the importance of a solid analytics platform, the metrics freemium businesses should focus on, how to make your customers drive acquisition and how the Growth team fits in with the rest of the business. Learn from her biggest wins.
How SendGrid Prioritizes Core Product Improvements
February 27, 2019 06:00 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBScott Williamson, VP of Product at SendGrid (recently acquired by Twilio), is no stranger to utilizing a product to drive growth. He explains the nature of product led growth at SendGrid and how it calls for ruthless prioritization in the core product and a focus around making changes that positively impact the most people. He also discusses the importance of listening to your customers, prioritization of your roadmap, launching a new product within an existing company and much more.
Insights from Trello: How to Keep Your Product Simple While Driving Value
February 20, 2019 06:00 - 26 minutes - 59.9 MBJustin Gallagher, Head of Product Management at Trello, is no stranger to building a simple, yet extremely valuable, product for users. On this episode of BUILD, he explains how Trello came to be, the importance of demonstrating value in your product from the very beginning to drive virality, the concepts that are most important to get right in a self-serve model and much more.
How Calendly Built Virality Into Their Product to Achieve Rapid Growth
February 13, 2019 06:00 - 29 minutes - 27.1 MBWelcome to Season 5 of the BUILD podcast! Today's episode is all about virality. In this episode, we'll hear from Oji Udezue, VP of Product & Design at Calendly. Oji previously worked at Atlassian where he was the product owner for Atlassian's communication products like HipChat. Oji discusses the story behind Calendly and how they built virality, network effects, and viral loops into their product. He also explains how to add virality to a product that isn't inherently viral, how to prio...
Lessonly's CEO on Doing Better Work
February 06, 2019 06:00 - 19 minutes - 18.3 MBWe're taking a break in between seasons to chat with Lessonly's CEO, Max Yoder. Max discusses the background behind his new book, Do Better Work, and how the principles laid out in the book are integrated throughout the Lessonly organization. Learn more and preorder your copy by going to www.dobetter.work.
Jim Baum (OpenView): Advice from Both Sides of the Board Table
January 30, 2019 06:00 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBJim Baum is currently a Venture Partner at OpenView and serves on multiple boards including Logz.io, Applitools, project44 and DataStax. Jim previously served as President and CEO of Netezza where he drove the nearly $2B acquisition of Netezza by IBM in 2010. Jim also led Endeca’s early rise from tiny startup to the leading provider of innovative information access and delivery software solutions. Prior to Endeca and Netezza, he served at PTC as an Executive Vice President and General Manage...
LogMeIn's CEO on The Importance of Creating a Board with Diverse Experiences
January 23, 2019 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MBBill Wagner started his tenure at LogMeIn in 2013 as their first-ever Chief Operating Officer. In 2015 he was promoted to President & CEO and joined the board shortly after where he's played a key role in their rapid growth. Prior to LogMeIn, he was COO at Vocus, a cloud-marketing software company, and held multiple executive and operator roles prior to that. Bill discusses the largest drivers of growth when he joined LogMeIn, the philosophy behind their freemium model and his role on the b...
John True: How to Make The Biggest Impact as a Board Member
January 16, 2019 06:00 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBJohn True has had an impressive professional run, both as an operator and as a board member. He is currently a GP at Cultivation Capital and has previously held executive roles at Guidewire Software, Fortify Software and EqualLogic. John takes us through his remarkable career, including his experience joining his first board and what he's learned from his (currently) 7 board seats. He also discusses the importance of devoting time to building relationships so you're top of mind when opportun...
Bill Welch (Logikcull): The Importance of Finding Great Board Mentors
January 09, 2019 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.6 MBBill Welch was most recently the President & COO of Duo Security, guiding them through a successful sales to Cisco. He's also held key leadership roles at Zscaler (which went public in early 2018), Hewlett-Packard and Symantec and most recently took an independent board seat at Logikcull. Bill explains the importance of hiring the right individuals for your company and making sure everyone has a role in the journey (employees, customers, partners, etc.). He also explains how he explored boar...
Marty Reaume (Twilio): The Importance of Investing in HR Leadership at an Early Stage Startup
January 02, 2019 06:00 - 22 minutes - 20.4 MBA Chief People Officer may not be the first choice to add to a board, but it is a choice that all early stage startups should make from the very beginning. Marty Reaume, Chief People Officer at Twilio, has held multiple HR and People positions at companies like NetSuite and Fitbit. She also holds board positions at Ambra Health and SPS Commerce. Marty explains the importance of hiring HR and People talent early on in a business and key initiatives that are currently top of mind as the CPO at...
Elisa Steele (Splunk): How To Effectively Use Your Board as a Resource
December 19, 2018 06:00 - 27 minutes - 25 MBElisa Steele is currently the CEO of Namely and holds board positions at Cornerstone OnDemand (Chair) and Splunk as well as advisor roles at People.ai and Tile. Her past CMO experiences at Yahoo, Skype and Microsoft naturally led her to explore board seats where she could add her expertise and perspective. Learn how leadership teams can and should use their board as a resource, how roles differ on a board, the importance of using your network to explore opportunities and how to establish you...
Caroline Tsay (Coca-Cola): How a Board Seat Can Make You a Stronger Operator
December 12, 2018 06:00 - 28 minutes - 25.6 MBCaroline Tsay wanted to be a neurosurgeon when she grew up. Plans changed! Caroline has held leadership positions at Yahoo and HPE and is currently the CEO of Compute Software. She also sits on the board of Coca-Cola, Rosetta Stone and Morningstar. So how did this all come to be? In 2013, her boss introduced her to an executive coach that pushed her to build her own brand and explore board opportunities. In this episode, Caroline gives key insights on leveraging your network to find board se...
Anita Sands (ServiceNow): You Got on Your First Board. Now What?
December 05, 2018 06:00 - 33 minutes - 30.2 MBAnita Sands has spent much of her career in the financial services industry including leadership roles at UBS, Citigroup and RBC. She currently resides on the boards of Symantec, ServiceNow and Pure Storage as well as advisory positions at Accompany, Thrive Global and DocuSign. Anita has helped many businesses reach new levels with her strategic insight. Learn how to not only get on your first board, but navigate the position as a new board member. Also listen as Anita explains the importanc...
Steve Collins & Bill Conroy (INST): Finding the Stage of Growth You Are Best Suited for as a Board Member
November 28, 2018 06:00 - 26 minutes - 24.1 MBSteve Collins and Bill Conroy both sit on Instructure's (NYSE: INST) board among many others including Shopify, MuleSoft, etc. Steve has had a successful career as CFO (ExactTarget) and Bill with a focus in sales earlier on and CEO (Initiate Systems, acquired by IBM) later in his operator career. With distinctive skill sets, they naturally had different paths to the board room, but their messages around finding the stage of growth that is best suited for you are quite similar. Listen as they...