SaaS Backwards - Reverse Engineering SaaS Success
130 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWe interview CEOs and CMOs of fast-growing SaaS firms to reveal what they are doing that's working, and lessons learned from things that didn't work as planned. These deep conversations focus on the pragmatic as well as strategic, providing a well-rounded diet for those running SaaS firms today.Moderated by Ken Lempit, Austin Lawrence Group's president and chief business builder. Ken has more than 30 years of experience helping software companies to grow and their founders to achieve their visions.
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Episodes
Ep. 119 – Why CROs are struggling and what they can do about it – with Guy Mounier, Co-Founder and CEO of Aptivio
April 19, 2024 16:00 - 30 minutes - 21.2 MBWith a startling low average tenure of 18 months, today’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is struggling. The pressure primarily stems from the need to drive growth in a capital-efficient manner. This includes rapidly accelerating revenue growth while managing and optimizing the cost of sales and marketing operations, often within a constrained budget or shifting economic conditions. It's this intense focus on both top-line growth and cost efficiency that’s contributing to the high turnover a...
Ep. 118 - What if creating a video was as easy as writing an email? With Jeremy Toeman, Founder of Aug X Labs
April 12, 2024 15:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBWe all know video is important to grow exposure, but creating enough is still challenging. The tools are complex, production is expensive, and it can be overwhelming just to come up with ideas. In this episode, Aug X Labs founder Jeremy Toeman talks about his personal frustration with the complex tools just to make basic videos that can be used on websites and in social media posts that led to the creation of the company. And their goal is to make video creation as simple as writing an ema...
Ep. 117 - How to convert 30% more web traffic in 90 days - with Sahil Patel, CEO of Spiralyze
April 05, 2024 15:00 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBIf you went to the doctor for a sore throat and she said, “Last time I had one, this is what helped me get better” versus “I looked at the clinical trial evidence for 5000 people with your symptoms in your age range, geographics, and background,” which of those solutions is more viable? That’s how Sahil Patel, CEO of Spiralyze views the world of A/B testing. Spiralyze crawls and scrapes 34,000 websites that A/B test to find the repeat winners, analyze why they won, and run those same test...
Ep. 116 - The Role of Feedback in Product Management Success - with Satya Ganni, CEO of Beamer & Userflow
March 29, 2024 15:00 - 30 minutes - 20.7 MBFeedback is not just a tool for improving products, but a strategic asset that can drive growth, innovation, and competitive advantage. In this episode, Satya Ganni, CEO of Beamer and Userflow, explains the importance of feedback in reducing churn in product-led SaaS companies. Feedback provides valuable insights into customer needs, preferences, and pain points, which makes it a critical component of product management success. By listening to customer feedback, Beamer is able to ident...
Ep. 115 - Data, Churn, and Increasing Productivity - with Jason Radisson, CEO & founder of Movo
March 22, 2024 15:00 - 36 minutes - 25 MBIn this episode, we delved into the transformative power of algorithms in business with Jason Radisson, CEO & founder of Movo, a platform that provides real-time scheduling flexibility and improved workforce management for large companies with frontline workers. Jason recounted his time at Harrah's Entertainment, where they used data to optimize customer interactions and significantly increase profitability over others on the strip. He explains how his background in algorithmic management ...
Ep. 114 - Beyond “Drift but Cheaper”: Inside Alan Zhao’s Strategic Pivot to Category Creation for Warmly
March 15, 2024 14:00 - 38 minutes - 26.5 MBAs a startup with shaky product market fit, prospective customers often want to associate you with a mature category so they can determine where it might fit in their tech stack—or not. But for Warmly, the existing categories represented only a small subset of their capabilities—albeit cheaper than the mature tools. And they couldn’t just settle for being known as "Drift but cheaper.” In this episode, Alan Zhao details his transition from CTO to marketing chief, a move that was pivotal in...
Ep. 113 – The Art of Enterprise Sales – with Brian Burns, host of the Brutal Truth about Sales Podcast
March 08, 2024 16:00 - 29 minutes - 20.5 MBAs a seasoned sales expert and popular sales podcaster, Brian Burns has more than a few opinions about how companies are selling to the enterprise today. Most notably, because reps haven’t been taught the difference, they try to make up for the lack of pipeline by increasing outreach activity. That may have worked in 2011 when the Predictable Revenue Model gained prominence (and our inboxes weren’t flooded with sales pitches). But today, the compartmentalization of prospecting and closin...
Ep. 112 - Stumbling onto product market fit by accident – with Morten Poulsen, CEO of Plytix
March 01, 2024 15:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MBOriginally, the founders of Plytix set out to create an analytics platform for e-commerce that measured the performance of a product (instead of a website) so brands could see how end users interact with them, even when sold on a third-party website. But even after positive early traction and investment, they were stalled—many of the brands didn’t have their product information at the ready. So, they built a simple source of truth—a Product Information Management (PIM) so they could get a...
Ep. 111 - How cultivating connections in a hybrid world positively affects collaboration and retention - with Jonathan Fields, CEO & Co-founder of Assembly
February 23, 2024 18:00 - 33 minutes - 23.3 MBHaving moved from a miserable culture in investment banking to an incredibly positive one at tech startup ZipRecruiter, Jonathan Fields learned early in his career the profound impact culture has on an organization. So inspired, in fact, that he and his co-founders worked nights and weekends to create a platform that could make those elements scalable and easy for companies to adopt. The result is Assembly, a platform that focuses on creating opportunities for coworkers to connect beyond w...
Ep. 110 – The Dangerous 8 mistakes SaaS companies make in their messaging
February 02, 2024 17:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBAre you making one or more of these mistakes in your messaging? Given the number of websites that we review regularly, chances are that you are—and that means leaving revenue on the table. In this episode, Ken and Jason from Austin Lawrence Group discuss the eight common mistakes that SaaS companies make with real life examples. So if you’re revisiting messaging and content strategy this year, or you’re frustrated with the quality of leads coming through your website, this episode is for...
Ep. 109 – Should you outsource the SDR function? With Gabriel Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop
January 26, 2024 16:00 - 32 minutes - 22.2 MBBusiness development poses big challenges for today’s SaaS. It becomes twice as ineffective every year as people learn how to ignore you. And it’s such a grind that it’s hard to find good people who want to stick with the sales development rep (SDR) position over the long term. To get engagement on the phone today takes the right experience, technology, and triggers. That’s why we sat down with Gabriel Lullo, CEO of Alleyoop, an outsourced SDR service that specializes in lead generation ...
Ep. 108 - Can better relationships save publishers? With Dan Rua, CEO of Admiral
January 19, 2024 17:00 - 33 minutes - 23.3 MBWe’ve all been frustrated by those pesky ads that pop up when trying to read an article. We understand that publishers are trying to capture more of that lost ad revenue, but the solution is not to create such a poor experience that it drives consumers away. And the rise of ad blockers is not the only problem for publishers. The decline of traditional tracking methods due to privacy regulations and browser changes, such as the death of the cookie, threatens the business model even more....
Ep. 107 - SaaS Marketing Predictions for 2024
January 12, 2024 15:00 - 27 minutes - 19.2 MBIn this episode, SaaS Backwards host Ken Lempit switches places to the guest seat to discuss upcoming trends in SaaS marketing for the new year and what companies will have to do to be successful. Ken is the Chief Strategist of the Austin Lawrence Group, a growth marketing agency specializing in B2B SaaS, and has a 30-year track record in software marketing. The key areas discussed include: As outbound prospecting gets harder, how will companies be successful? How will sales and marketin...
Ep. 106 - Pricing as a lever for growth - with Patrick Meegan, Senior Partner at Maple Street Advisors
January 05, 2024 15:00 - 34 minutes - 23.4 MBPricing is often the most overlooked “P” in the SaaS marketing mix. We see it in our marketing practice often. Companies may be averse to raising prices for fear of losing customers, focusing on other priorities like product development, or simply don’t understand the impact on the business. In this episode, we caught up with Pat Meegan, Senior Partner at Maple Street Advisors, who talks about assessing the opportunity for pricing growth regularly by looking at four key indicators: Leade...
Ep. 105 - Finding product-market fit with Anvil Co-Founder Mang-Git Ng.
December 29, 2023 18:00 - 27 minutes - 19.2 MBWhen going through a repetitive and time-consuming mortgage application process in 2017, Mang-Git Ng was surprised that the process wasn’t automated. He realized that there were many industries that still operated in the internet dark ages and that moving all these PDFs and paper documents to online forms could solve a major problem. But after he and his co-founder had built their initial product, they struggled to gain traction, especially with limited sales and marketing experience. Th...
Ep. 104 - Strategies for Maximizing Value in SaaS Exits– with Marty Magida, Managing Director of Berkery, Noyes & Co.
December 22, 2023 16:00 - 31 minutes - 21.4 MBBecause of the challenges in the current financing environment and the cautious approach of strategic buyers and private equity firms for SaaS companies, we invited Marty Magida on to discuss practical strategies to enhance company value and navigate the complexities of the M&A market. Magida is the managing director of Berkery, Noyes & Co an independent investment bank providing mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory to middle-market leaders in the global information, software, services, ...
Ep. 103 – First getting agreement on a problem worth solving – with Chuck Fuerst, CMO of ReverseLogix
December 15, 2023 18:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBYou’ve probably never thought about what goes on behind the scenes when you return a product, but there’s a lot to it. In this episode of the SaaS Backwards podcast, Chuck Fuerst, CMO at ReverseLogix, gives a look behind the scenes at some of the challenges and opportunities in the returns management system category. And because it’s so complicated, their go-to-market strategy requires problem agreement to be considered. And because companies enter different stages of problem awareness, t...
Ep. 101 - A dedicated finance team in your pocket for a flat monthly fee - with Swapnil Shinde, CEO of Zeni
December 08, 2023 14:00 - 16 minutes - 11.7 MBAs a CEO, you probably don’t care much about how your accounting and bookkeeping is done. But you do want insights you can drive once your month is closed out. Burn rate and cash flow comes to mind. At the Ascent conference in New York, we caught up with Swapnil Shinde, CEO of Zeni, a SaaS that claims to have the world’s first finance operations platform for startups that includes intelligent bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services. Key Takeaways: When it comes to defining ICP, the sha...
Ep. 102 - How to use win/loss data to close deals faster – with Spencer Dent, founder of Clozd
December 08, 2023 14:00 - 13 minutes - 9.17 MBYou may have noticed that deals today take longer to close and scrutinized heavily. So, what do SaaS companies need to do? Spencer Dent, Founder of Clozd says to make sure you understand the how the decision-making process, people involved, and priorities have changed. And since the CFO plays a bigger role, it’s less about ease of integration and more about the bottom line—and you’d better be ready to prove it. Key takeaways: Are ROI calculators worth it anymore? With people caring mo...
Ep. 100 – Where thought leadership is falling short with today’s customer and how to fix it - with Brent Adamson, co-author of the Challenger Sale and Challenger Customer.
December 01, 2023 17:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBFor our 100th episode, we’re excited to interview Brent Adamson, the global head of research with Ecosystems, a SaaS platform for collaborative customer value management that helps its users quantify and align with customers based on the value being delivered. Adamson is most known as the co-author of the books The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer. And as marketers, both books have been instrumental in shaping our view of content development as an agency and the role it plays in ...
Ep. 99 – The data-driven, revenue-focused marketing leader – with Brandee Sanders, CMO of Revenue.io
November 29, 2023 15:00 - 19 minutes - 13.6 MBComing from sales positions where she’s carried quotas, Brandee Sanders knows what having skin in the game for marketers looks like. And it’s not tracking MQLs or developing a strong tech stack. It does look like examining the data to find repeatable opportunities for sales pipeline. In other words, do we truly know how and why closed/won opportunities entered our orbit and what motivated them to take action to purchase? According to Sanders, the disconnect is that “Most mar...
Ep. 98 - How to operationalize strategic initiatives digitally - with Ulf Arnetz, CEO of Howwe
November 22, 2023 15:00 - 33 minutes - 22.8 MBStrategic initiatives often get de-railed when CEOs delegate them instead of taking ownership. This lack of clarity can lead to confusion and lack of focus throughout the organization. That’s the problem Ulf Arnetz is solving through his Swedish-based company Howwe, a SaaS enterprise platform for CEOs to orchestrate and operationalize strategy implementation at every level of their organization. The platform allows CEOs to prioritize goals, track progress and align teams towards achieving ...
Ep. 97 - To ensure enterprise sales success today, you’d better sell the CFO – With Chris Orlob, Co-founder of pclub.io
November 17, 2023 14:00 - 19 minutes - 13.2 MBProbably best known for helping Gong grow from $200K to $200M in five years, Chris Orlob talks about following his passion for helping people learn valuable sales skills through his new company pclub.io. (That’s short for President’s Club for non-salesy folks). But sales training wasn’t the original focus. Originally, they started out to build a company called QuotaSignal that sold a hiring value proposition, but since hiring took a nosedive in the current economic climate, had been develo...
Ep. 96 - Can the attribution challenge be solved with today’s tech? With Steffen Hedebrant, Co-founder and CMO of DreamData.io
November 15, 2023 19:00 - 17 minutes - 12 MBThe attribution problem has long been a challenge for marketers—probably first articulated by John Wannamaker when he said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” It seemed like marketing tech had solved it (for a minute)—until buyers went and changed their behavior. So how do we map the customer journey today? That’s where today’s guest Steffen Hedebrandt, Co-Founder and CMO of DreamData.io comes in. DreamData is a B2B revenue attribu...
Ep 95 - How to find where your audience hangs out today – with Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro
November 09, 2023 23:00 - 21 minutes - 15.2 MBSeemingly not too long ago, searches for new products and services overwhelmingly started at Google. And it made sense to optimize for keywords, so you’d appear organically on page one. But things have changed—just a bit. And no one is more qualified to talk about those changes than our guest Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro and formerly the founder of Moz. As Fishkin notes, today if you ask Google a question, over half the time they’re going to give you a snippet with an answer. And as soo...
Ep. 94 - Solving the Attribution Challenge - Christopher P. Willis shares his Global Active Awareness Scoring Methodology.
November 03, 2023 20:00 - 40 minutes - 27.8 MBSales and marketing alignment was never a problem for Acrolinx, as evidenced by Christopher P. Willis’ title: Chief Marketing & Pipeline Officer. Acrolinx is an AI-powered content marketing engine that integrates with content tools to provide real-time advice on brand, tone, clarity, compliance, and consistency. In this episode, Chris talks about the value of tracking engagement data and its usefulness for sales and introduces his Global Active Awareness Score (GAAS), a comprehensive meth...
Ep. 93 - Can you find gold in the data you're already collecting? - with Dan Miles, COO of TVEyes
October 26, 2023 20:00 - 36 minutes - 25 MBEven in a very healthy business, you must keep looking for innovation. That’s the gist of this episode’s message with Dan Miles, Chief Operating Officer of TVEyes. TVEyes is a search engine for impactful video and audio measured by audience and level of information and newsworthiness. Historically, that was primarily broadcast TV and radio, but over the last few years as audiences migrated to online platforms like podcasts and streaming video, TVEyes has innovated its software platform to ...
Ep. 92 - Personalization at scale—can we finally get rid of the templates? With David Howard, VP Marketing at Buzzboard
October 19, 2023 19:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBWe all know that personalization, context, and relevance are necessary to get a cold email opened. But that takes a lot of time and energy to customize each communication, and when only 3% of your target audience is in-market at any given time. And that’s where Buzzboard comes in. The company has developed a platform that utilizes AI and proprietary data to create personalized content and conversation starters for sales organizations. This platform leverages a data set of 30 million busin...
Ep. 91 - The Value of in-person Events for SaaS Leaders Post Covid – with Fred Rockwell, Founder of the Ascent Conference.
October 13, 2023 21:00 - 27 minutes - 19.3 MBIn this episode, we talked to Fred Rockwell, owner of the upcoming Ascent Conference in New York (Oct 30) about the advantages of attending events in-person, how they’ve changed in a post-covid world, and why he structures his events to create more bottom of the funnel opportunities through private invites. The SaaS Backwards Podcast is also excited to be the official podcast sponsor of the Ascent Conference and will be recording episodes at the show. Key takeaways from this episode: Th...
Ep. 90 – Why most SaaS companies get positioning wrong – with Anthony Pierri
October 05, 2023 20:00 - 37 minutes - 25.8 MBEffective messaging is paramount for SaaS companies to attract and convert the right types of customers. And according to this week’s guest Anthony Pierri, Partner with Fletch PMM, most are getting it wrong. They try to speak to too many audiences at once. They use vague and broad statements that don’t resonate with anyone. They use wishy washy language. Today’s marketers have been influenced by big companies that prioritize branding and awareness, which won’t be an effective strategy ...
Ep. 89 - Why cybersecurity is a behavioral problem – With Dr. James Norrie, CyberconIQ
September 29, 2023 15:00 - 38 minutes - 26.3 MBCriminals have developed efficient business models that make it cost-effective to attack even small enterprises. No company is too small, and the need for awareness and understanding of the evolving threat landscape, particularly with generative AI is at an all-time high. But simply training staff not to click on this or not to write down their password on post-its isn’t going to be enough. Our guest, Dr. James Norrie, CEO of CyberconIQ, realized that the key to changing behavior is throu...
Ep. 88 - The Journey from Chiropractor to SaaS owner – with Brian Capra, Owner of Genesis Chiropractic Software
September 22, 2023 17:00 - 35 minutes - 24.7 MBAs a Chiropractor, Brian Capra never intended to become a software developer—but it seems like something bigger was a play. Because the healthcare system, particularly insurance companies, have historically been biased against chiropractic care, chiropractors must be more entrepreneurial. They must understand marketing, building relationships, sales, and managing a business to succeed. And they often don’t understand the game that big insurance plays when it comes to delaying or denying p...
Ep. 87 - What B2B sales leaders need from marketing—with Benjamin Page-Fort
September 15, 2023 17:00 - 36 minutes - 25.3 MBThe B2B world is different today, and (unfortunately) there’s no one formula that works across the board. It’s not outbound versus inbound. It’s not advertising versus content. Every organization has a unique formula that will consistently drive meaningful conversations with targeted prospects. Therefore, you'll never see a productive organization where there's a lot of animosity between marketing and sales leadership. In this episode, Ben Page-Fort, who works with early and growth stage ...
Ep. 86 – What’s wrong with SaaS marketing and how to fix it – with ALG’s Ken Lempit
September 08, 2023 16:00 - 26 minutes - 18.1 MBThere’s nothing like an economic slow-down to thin the herd. Companies take longer to buy, consolidate resources, and rethink their go-to-market strategy. So why are companies doubling down on yesterday’s strategies? Normally the host of SaaS Backwards, Ken Lempit, President of Austin Lawrence, sits in the guest seat this week to answer questions about how SaaS leaders need to approach marketing to engage today’s buyer. Key Takeaways from this episode: Demand generation involves both d...
Ep. 85 – When you should specialize – with Corey Quinn, fractional CMO and GTM Strategist
September 01, 2023 16:00 - 30 minutes - 20.7 MBWhen a company starts out, verticalization may not be the best thing. In fact, today’s guest Corey Quinn, fractional CMO and GTM strategist prefers to work with companies who went broad first, since there’s value in exploring different verticals and learning the nuances in the different markets. But at a certain point, verticalization becomes necessary to scale. It reduces complexity, improves marketing, and helps to differentiate from the competition. In this episode, host Ken Lempit and ...
Ep. 84 - The decline of inbound and the rise of owned media – with Anthony Kennada, founder of Audience Plus
August 25, 2023 13:00 - 33 minutes - 23.1 MBIt’s never been harder for marketers generate an audience where you can have impact than it is today. The media landscape has exploded and the number of choices we have as marketers has never been more varied. In many ways, we’re now paying for the sins automating a process of building trust and relationships. In this episode, Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder and CEO of Audience Plus talks with Ken about how the marketing pendulum is swinging back from marketing automation, inbound, and maximi...
Ep. 83 – Content is still King, but you gotta be efficient-- with Steven MacDonald, CEO at SocialCloser
August 18, 2023 14:00 - 37 minutes - 26 MBAs martech SaaS founder, Steve McDonald acknowledges the tendency to believe that their product is so exceptional that customers will naturally flock to it. But then reality sets in and you realize that maybe Shoeless Joe Jackson wasn’t whispering in your ear after all. There’s a lot of risk for customers to invest in something new, and content marketing is the obvious way to build trust. But with the volume of noise out there today, your development process must be strategic, methodical, ...
Ep. 82 – Repositioning to differentiate - with Shannon Curran, VP Marketing at MadKudu
August 11, 2023 15:00 - 34 minutes - 23.5 MBWhen joining MadKudu as a Marketing VP, Shannon Curran knew they were so much more than a predictive lead scoring platform. She wanted to shift the conversation from product-led growth (PLG) to a focus on hybrid funnels and revenue generation. And because it would be a huge challenge to cut through the noise in the MarTech/RevTech space, they engaged an external consultant to conduct research and help with the positioning process. They explored the competitive landscape, market trends, and...
Ep. 81 - Building Pipeline Efficiency with SalesIntel CEO Manoj Ramnani
August 04, 2023 15:00 - 26 minutes - 18.5 MBOutbound selling is here to stay—but to make it work, efficiency is key. Of course, the task at hand isn’t lost on Salesintel.io CEO Manoj Ramnani, who’s tools are designed to do just that. Salesintel.io is a go-to-market intelligence platform that helps marketing, sales, and revenue operations teams research prospective accounts and find contact information. Ramnani is most excited about “Predictive AI” where it has the potential to predict future intent based on historical data so that s...
Ep. 80 – 82i’s CEO Jason Shapiro talks about being a “Cofounder for Hire”
July 28, 2023 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBA good co-founder is hard to find. But what if you could hire one on an hourly basis? That’s what Jason Shapiro, CEO and founder of 82i talks about in this episode. 82i is a strategic growth services firm that serves as “a co-founder for hire” to help with growth functions such as raising capital and hiring so founders can keep their eye on what truly matters--revenue. Key takeaways: The dynamic nature of investability and the importance of building on a solid business foundation while r...
Ep. 79 - Driving Success with an Educational Content Strategy – with Alex George, Head of Marketing with Hint Health
July 21, 2023 16:00 - 25 minutes - 17.7 MBIn this episode, guest host Jason Myers interviews Alex George, the head of marketing at Hint Health--a platform that is redefining healthcare by providing back-end software for the direct primary care market. Alex shares insights into Hint Health's go-to-market strategy and how they enable the growth of the direct pay model in the healthcare industry. The company adopted a HubSpot-like model for educating its client practices resulting in 90 percent of client acquisition being inbound. Ke...
Ep. 78 - Today’s SaaS must “prove it or lose it” – with TrustRadius’ VP of Marketing Allyson Havener
July 14, 2023 13:00 - 31 minutes - 21.6 MBIn this episode, Allyson Havener, VP of Marketing from TrustRadius is back to talk about their yearly report on the B2B buyer-seller disconnect with some serious updates. Last year, the report focused on the self-serve economy—they want product information readily available without talking to sales and then they would validate customer proof points. All of that still holds, and the good news for vendors is that companies are still spending on technology. The bad news is that with the ch...
Ep. 77 - What VCs are looking for today—with Sanjit Singh Dang, U First Capital
July 07, 2023 15:00 - 18 minutes - 13 MBWhy are some SaaS companies raising significant funds while others struggle to find their first customers or determine what to build? We caught up with Sanjit Singh Dang, the Chairman and Co-founder of U First Capital, at the Ascent conference and he shares his insights as a VC evaluating startups—most notably how VCs now require more proof points on the customer side and ask the crucial question of "why now?" to evaluate product market fit with startup opportunities. He also discusses eff...
Ep. 76 - Education in their marketing DNA – with Olga Noha CMO of SplitMetrics
July 07, 2023 15:00 - 17 minutes - 12.3 MBWe talk a lot with our customers about the 97%. The people who have problems you solve, but don’t know there’s a solution and certainly don’t know about you. That’s what we talked about with Olgo Noha, CMO of SplitMetrics at the recent Ascent Conference in San Francisco. Split Metrics is in a relatively new market with little competition—but there is little solution-awareness. Therefore, their strategy has focused on education. And when you have a complex product that requires education—c...
Ep. 75 - Preparing for the war of founding a SaaS with Guy Benjamin, CEO and co-founder of Healthee
June 30, 2023 16:00 - 21 minutes - 14.5 MBDoes anyone really understand their health benefits? Most of us have experienced going to HR with a benefits question, only to be redirected to a call center just to sit on hold and maybe get answers. Guy Benjamin, CEO and co-founder of Healthee, developed a way to simplify this age-old problem with a platform that lets employees easily navigate their health and wellness benefits, and even helps choose the best plan for them. In just two years, Healthee has managed to raise $26 million d...
Ep. 74 - Inside the PLG motion and out, with Freshworks CMO Stacey Epstein
June 30, 2023 15:00 - 22 minutes - 15.7 MBWhen Stacey Epstein became the CMO of Freshworks a few years ago, their PLG motion was doing okay. But approaching marketing from her success with other enterprise SaaS startups, Epstein expanded the marketing and sales motion to include more traditional demand gen tactics—direct sales, events, Account-Based Marketing. Now they can fully meet the buyer where they’re at—calling it Buyer Led Growth. In this episode recorded live at the Ascent Conference in San Francisco, Epstein shares her...
Ep. 73 - Nailing product-market fit, adaptability, and brand building, with Aviso CMO Amit Pande
June 23, 2023 13:00 - 19 minutes - 13.5 MBWhat are you trying to do in your forecasting process that you're not getting from your CRM? That’s the question Aviso set out to answer for its clients by leveraging advanced analytics. Their software helps sales teams optimize their strategies, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to improve their sales outcomes. At the recent Ascent Conference in San Francisco, we sat down to talk with their chief marketing officer Amit Pande who shared how they found their product-market fit...
Ep. 72 - Developing a scrappy go-to-market attitude with Insightly’s CMO Chip House
June 16, 2023 16:00 - 20 minutes - 14.2 MBChip House has had a long career in SaaS with companies such as ExactTarget, Salesforce, and SharpSpring. Now as the CMO at Insightly, we caught up with Chip at the Ascent Conference in San Francisco and got him to share his experiences with all things B2B marketing, including: Product-market fit The role of customer success in marketing Leveraging AI, and Solving the attribution problem. Other resources to check out: Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who ...
Ep. 71 - Can AI help your team write better sales emails? With Lavender AI’s Jen Allen-Knuth and Will Aitken
June 16, 2023 14:00 - 27 minutes - 18.6 MBHow many good sales emails have you gotten? Personally, I can count them on one hand. Most of us can sniff out a sales email in a split second--the headline is cheesy, it’s about them, and it’s completely irrelevant. Obviously, sellers haven’t done their homework. That’s the opportunity we discussed in my interview with Lavender AI’s Jen Allen-Knuth and Will Aitken at the Ascent Conference in San Francisco. Their tool helps sellers write better emails—or as Aitken says, “stop them from ...
Ep. 70 - Bringing the buzz back to the sales floor (even virtually) with Colin Specter of Orum
June 09, 2023 13:00 - 20 minutes - 14.2 MBPeople just don’t pick up the phone like they used to, and as a result, outbound call response rates are few and far between. A rep that makes 100 calls a day may only get a handful of connects. It’s such a grueling and inefficient process that many companies have abandoned the phone altogether. The problem is that sales ultimately is based on having valuable conversations. And if you’re not having them, your pipeline will suffer. So, what if you could improve the connection rate and have...