This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to build mission-critical billing infrastructure for complex B2B SaaS pricing models. My guest is Griffin Parry, Founder and CEO of m3ter. Griffin Parry is a serial Entrepreneur. In 2013, he founded GameSparks, a backend-as-a-service platform for video games, which he sold to Amazon in 2017.  Combining his firsthand experience with the challenges of usage-based pricing at GameSparks with the problems he encountered at a much larger scale at AWS became the founding idea behind m3ter. He founded m3ter in October 2020 - it's a platform that helps B2B Software companies manage complex pricing and automate complex billing calculations.  Their mission:  To enable B2B Software companies to deploy and manage usage-based pricing intelligently. This inspired me, and hence, I invited Griffin to my podcast. We explore what it takes to build a successful pricing and billing infrastructure company. Griffin shares his experience identifying and solving real market problems. He talks about the importance of a strong founding thesis and continuous iteration and why he opted to build for operational complexity and enterprise integration from the start. Last but not least, he shares some of his big lessons on how he defined his ideal customers and what not to do when approaching those customers if you want to gain traction.  Here's one of his quotes Early on, we overdid it. We would go, 'We are revolutionizing your pricing. And they go, 'Okay, why?' And we go, 'It's going to allow you to ship product faster because you're gonna have more pricing agility. We just weren't talking the same language as them. We just pulled it back, pulled it back, simplified the story, and now we meet them where they are. We go, 'Billing operations is a real pain point for you, isn't it? And they go, 'YES.' During this interview, you will learn four things: Griffins' 3 success factors in growing his business.  How he's building trust with his ideal customers from the start. What he's doing differently to give development a headstart when it comes to building new products. Why he hired a data scientist from day one - and why you should possibly too. For more information about the guest from this week: Griffin Parry Website: m3ter 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 way healthcare nurses can work to improve patient safety. My guest is Hadassah Backman, CEO of Guardoc Health.  Hadassah has nursing roots: She started her career as a registered nurse and has built hands-on experience in emergency room and hospice care.  This clinical background gives her unique insights into the challenges faced by frontline healthcare workers. Besides that, she holds a master's degree in public health policy and management from Columbia University.  At this intersection, the big idea for Guardoc was born - which she founded in July 2021 - in the middle of COVID-19. Guardoc is a clinical data integrity solution that uses artificial intelligence to address nursing challenges. Their mission: to prevent medical errors, reduce wasted nursing hours, and improve care for chronically ill older adults. And this inspired me, so I invited Hadassah to my podcast. We explore what's broken when it comes to supporting nurses in preventing medical errors.  Hadassah shares her vision of how to solve it and how she bootstrapped her way to delivering a solution that nurses just kept talking about. She elaborates on some of her big lessons learned (and the resilience needed) in getting traction and attracting funding. Last but not least, she advises on building momentum through laser-sharp focus and smart product development decisions.  Here's one of her quotes We have apps streaming to our phones. You can watch your kids on your phone remotely. You can open doors and close doors and lock people out. There are all these things - but we still haven't figured out how to help what, to me, is the most important workforce. Because they really deliver holistic care to patients so that they can provide the care that they were trained to do and that they want to do. And so that really compelled me to ask: why isn't there a solution that captures mistakes? During this interview, you will learn four things: Why taking a 'user-centric' approach is not enough to succeed in building a successful software business.  How she started to deliver remarkable value without having built any product yet - and how that helped accelerate the journey. What she did differently to put a flywheel for growth in motion for her business - in a world that requires a high-touch GTM approach. How she's built a resilient mindset to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship successfully. For more information about the guest from this week: Hadassah Backman Website: Guardoc Health 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 deep vertical business solutions that deliver 10x value for every 1x in price charged. My guest is Dan Uyemura, CEO of Pushpress. Dan has had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. He was a Dot-com era pioneer: During college, he founded Mixture.com, a platform that was ahead of its time and preceded social media giants like Myspace.  After working in tech, including a stint at Myspace, he made a dramatic career pivot by opening his own CrossFit gym.  He quickly got frustrated with the poor software options available for gym management. So in January 2012, he leveraged his tech background to create PushPress and rebel against manual paperwork and complicated, overpriced software. Their mission: to make gym management
 the easiest part of starting a fitness business.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Dan to my podcast. We explore his journey from MySpace coder to gym owner to software entrepreneur. Dan shares his insights on what it takes to create a competitive advantage that's hard to beat. He elaborates on empathy-driven support, value-based pricing, and the "layer cake" approach that makes his SaaS products invaluable. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on customer value over traditional SaaS metrics and shares innovative strategies to outmaneuver competitors. Last but not least, he shares his data-driven decision-making framework and lessons on team building.  Here's one of his quotes "Money is an output. It's the result of energy spent somewhere else. So the problem is, a lot of people build those businesses around money. How do I make more money? How do I generate more money? How do I increase my top line? Or bottom line? The reality is that's an output, and you can never affect an output. You can only affect the input. And the input is the order of magnitude and the sheer volume of value you provide to customers. That's what you got to focus on." During this interview, you will learn four things: How he's tuning his product strategy to grow a highly defensible position against competitors. His framework for building conviction and speeding up decision-making in feature development How he overcame the balancing act of horizontal feature breadth with vertical depth improvements His approach to innovating pricing models to outmaneuver competitors and accelerate growth. For more information about the guest from this week: Dan Uyemura Website: Pushpress 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 democratize political data and anticipate regulatory changes. My guest is Victor Kristof, Co-founder and CEO of DemoSquare.  Victor is a fascinating individual with a unique blend of academic excellence, entrepreneurial spirit, and a passion for leveraging technology to enhance democratic processes. He holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, where he developed algorithms and statistical models to study human behavior within social and political systems. That research became the foundational idea behind DemoSquare, a SaaS startup he co-founded in November 2022.  Their mission: to "democratize democracy" by making political and regulatory data more transparent and accessible with artificial intelligence. It will change how companies and their public affairs teams navigate the complex world of politics and regulation and, potentially, how citizens engage with democracy. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Victor to my podcast. We explore the journey of transforming academic research into a change-making political data platform. Kristof shares his lessons learned by doing customer interviews and pivoting in the right direction. He highlights the value of sharing ideas openly, adapting to constant change, and maintaining resilience in the face of rejection. Last but not least, he offers practical advice on investor relationships, sales strategies, and personal stress management.  Here's one of his quotes I've heard several times people saying, "I have this super cool idea. I don't want to share it with anyone until I do it. I had the complete opposite experience. Even when it wasn't completely ready, we were not selling it, just talking about it to people, not even in a professional or formal context. You go to a party, you go to a family gathering, and you meet with some friends. You just share your ideas and see what's happening. The most important feedback I got came from these informal discussions. I cannot count how many introductions to potential customers I've gotten through these informal discussions. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to gather feedback and validate your idea - and use both positive and negative feedback to refine (or even pivot) your product. How finding the right co-founder can have a multiplicative effect on your business. How to stay resilient in the Face of Rejection from both customers and investors. What to look for to select investors who will make a difference for your business.  For more information about the guest from this week: Victor Kristof Website: DemoSquare 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 all of us to have conversations that drive action and meaningful connections. My guest is Joaquim Lecha, CEO of Typeform.   Joaquim (Kim) is a tech entrepreneur on a big mission, bringing over 20 years of experience in high-growth companies. He started his career in M&A, strategy, and financial advisory. In 2012 he joined the tech world as the CFO of Socialpoint, a world-renowned mobile game developer, later taking on the role of Chief Operating Officer. In 2018 he joined Typeform as Chief Operating Officer and quickly rose to become the CEO. Their mission: to create a world where conversations drive action and meaningful connections.  Under his leadership, Typeform has grown impressively (+$1B valuation), now serving well over 150,000 paying customers worldwide and achieving profitability. He recently got recognized as one of the Top 50 SaaS CEOs of 2023 by The Software Report. This inspired me, so I invited Joachim to my podcast. We explore what it takes to profitably scale a SaaS business as it experiences rapid growth. He discusses what fueled their initial growth and what strategic changes he had to make to ensure growth won't stall. Last but not least he offers practical wisdom on product development, customer-centric innovation, and maintaining resilience in the face of challenges. Here's one of his quotes I was coming from games. I had not heard from those types of products so many times the word 'Love'. People love Typeform. So my most immediate reaction to all of that is, how can we make more people aware of this great product?  And I even thought, since I come from a financial type of background; 'if we can find that scalable with quick feedback loop type of motion, and in addition to that, it's got a less than 12 month payback period. Then we can fund it.'  So with that in mind, we got to work. We grew our customer base by 2.5x and our revenue by almost 4x. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to ensure your pricing reflects the true value your product provides to customers - so you don't undervalue your offering. How to choose marketing and sales approaches that can bring in thousands of new customers and provide quick feedback loops. How he found a segment in the market where Typeform provided the most value - and what that meant to their growth trajectory.. What to focus operations and hiring strategy on - if you aim to create a sustainable, resilient, and easily scalable business over time. For more information about the guest from this week: Joaquim Lecha Website: Typeform 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to build a successful bootstrapped SaaS company in the highly competitive scheduling software market. My guest is Bridget Harris, Co-founder and CEO of You Can Book Me. Bridget has had three distinct careers, showcasing her versatility and adaptability: She started in the television and film industry. Then, transitioned to politics, serving as a political advisor focusing on constitutional reform and the House of Lords. Her political career culminated in a role as an advisor to the UK Deputy Prime Minister. Finally, she co-founded YouCanBook.Me, where she now serves as CEO. Their mission: To provide the best booking experience for businesses' clients and customers.  Under Bridget's leadership, YouCanBook.Me has achieved impressive growth: The company has reached $5 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) without external funding. That route was a deliberate one. She decided from day one to avoid external funding that might have distorted business priorities, saying "I'd rather make a million dollars slowly than lose a million dollars fast", And this inspired me, and hence I invited Bridget to my podcast. We explore her bootstrapping journey over the past 12 years. She shares how she's successfully competing in a saturated market against well-funded competitors and tech giants like Google and Calendly. She elaborates on how she's maintaining a customer-centric approach while managing limited resources. Last but not least, she shares insights on how she overcame the challenges of pricing, overcoming feature bloat, refactoring legacy code, and adapting to market change. Here's one of her quotes Feature bloat is real. You can say, 'Let's be really generous about our free tool and have loads of features in the free tool.' All you're doing is confusing free users who need a really simple tool and don't want to think because they're not paying for the software. So they just literally want it to work.  So if you have a problem that your free users can't contact support, it means that your free tool is more complicated than it needs to be.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How she's aligning her entire team so they deliver on time and grow an eagerness to go above and beyond.  What she learned from refactoring their pricing approach and the lessons nobody talks about is that  How to avoid feature bloat in your development process. What she's doing differently to create the best customer experience.  For more information about the guest from this week: Bridget Harris Website: You Can Book Me Bootstrappers Manual 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 from the last 5 years to turn Plum into the best Talent Intelligence solution on the market. My guest is Caitlin MacGregor, Co-Founder and CEO of Plum Caitlin MacGregor co-founded Plum in 2012 and has been an earlier guest on my podcast (#54 in February 2019).  She was voted "most likely to save the world" in her high school yearbook, foreshadowing her future as an innovative entrepreneur. Before founding Plum, Caitlin built two other businesses, which gave her insights into the need for change around talent processes in the age of automation. Fast forward, she was recently selected for the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ North America Class of 2024, a program that supports high-potential women entrepreneurs. Caitlin's drive to democratize access to psychometric data so that no one would have to rely on luck for someone to realize their superpower still underpins the core of the company - although how this is brought to market has evolved a lot. And it's noticed - HR Tech voted Plum the best Talent Intelligence solution in the market in 2023 This inspired me, and hence I invited Caitlin back to my podcast. We explore the journey over the past 5 years. How did the market change in general - in particular in relation to how we attract and manage talent? She also shares what this means to all of us in the coming years. She then drills into how this has changed their priorities around product strategy and Go To Market. As we discuss this, she reveals some valuable lessons learned in product development, positioning, and segmentation, and how her role as CEO changed in this period of rapid change.   Here's one of her quotes 12 months ago, we were working on how we best resonate. It was really just about how you get to that Aha moment, and it really has nothing to do with the product and the solution. It was really like the Why. Why should you care about Plum? How do we align to a top three boardroom problem? And how do we connect to that strategic problem [....] so we were able to get into a strategic conversation with the right people that had the power to decide to do things differently.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How Plum expanded from talent acquisition to full employee lifecycle management  What made them decide to bet on Enterprise instead of SMBs What internal capabilities organizations need to develop and prioritize to gain competitive advantage and become the winners of the future?  How her role as a CEO had to change to effectively lead the rapidly growing organization that Plum is today. For more information about the guest from this week: Caitlin MacGregor Website: Plum Plum Flourish Assessment 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 complex code understandable for business leaders. My guest is Matt Van Itallie, Founder and CEO of Sema. Matt has a diverse background spanning law, consulting, education, and tech, and he has held leadership roles at edtech and govtech companies like Social Solutions, and PeopleAdmin.  He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School after studying history at Swarthmore College. He's also a thought leader on the impact and responsible adoption of AI in the tech industry. This multidisciplinary experience gives him a unique perspective as a tech founder and CEO. In September 2017, he founded Sema, a codebase scanning tool.  Their mission: to bridge the gap between the technical and non-technical worlds, particularly in the context of software development. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore how most tech organizations carry more debt in their codebase - and the business risks that brings. Matt shares his vision of how to solve this - in a world where AI-generated code and Open Source are rapidly gaining popularity. He discusses the learning process he had as a founder in creating a singular, non-consensus vision for the company - and how their unusual approach upfront helped them gain deep differentiation and first-mover advantage.  Here's one of his quotes What I know now that I didn't know as a baby entrepreneur was there are so many different versions of 'No,'  except 'Here is some money.' Everything else is 'No'  "I love it. So interesting. I can really see this helping. This is a pain point. Yes, I want to pilot Yes, I want to tell my friends." That's all No. It's all versions of No, except "here is some money." During this interview, you will learn four things: How he uncovered a new, totally overlooked, target market where his product quickly became mission-critical, rather than a nice to have. Why he's prioritizing building trust-based relationships with key players in the industry and how he's achieving this. What he's doing differently around creating a team that is more than the sum of its parts. His recommendations on choosing your business model wisely.  For more information about the guest from this week: Matt Van Itallie Website: Sema 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 drive change and adapt as a B2B marketer in an evolving business landscape. My guest is Christian Klepp, Co-Founder of EINBLICK Consulting and Host of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast.  Christian is a global citizen, entrepreneur, podcast host, and B2B branding expert with over 13 years of experience across diverse markets. Throughout his career, he worked with major global brands like Philips, Caterpillar, Samsung, and Logitech.  He is a true "third-culture kid." He grew up in Austria, the Philippines, Singapore and China - and is currently living in Canada, giving him a multicultural perspective and ability to bridge East and West. In 2019, Christian took a leap of faith and co-founded his own B2B branding and marketing consulting firm called EINBLICK. He's also the host of the popular "B2B Marketers on a Mission" podcast, where he interviews talented professionals in the B2B space and provides a platform for sharing cutting-edge insights with the B2B community. Being a regular listener of his podcast inspired me to invite Christian to my podcast. We explore why marketing isn't optimally leveraged inside many B2B SaaS companies. He shares insights from well over 100 podcasts on what marketers should do differently to increase alignment and buy-in across the organization to make a larger impact. Last but not least, he explains how to avoid complacency in marketing and how, by leveraging different perspectives, the company can stand out more and increase resilience to adapt faster to market change. Here's one of his quotes The way that marketers need to deal with addressing buy-in is they need to understand how their organization works. How does your company generate revenue? Where is the most revenue coming from? Which industries? Which customers? Do you understand what EBITDA is? Because if you don't understand, you better start learning about it quickly because that's what your board cares about. During this interview, you will learn four things: How to turn marketing into a core driver for the business.  How to get insights that matter beyond just interviewing customers. How to approach podcasting strategically, get instant value, and what to prioritize first to get going. How to go about analyzing competitors' strategies to further strengthen differentiation. For more information about the guest from this week: Christian Klepp Website: EINBLICK B2B Marketing on a Mission Podcast (Spotify / Apple) 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 empower business users, especially in SMEs, to easily find insights in their data without technical complexities. My guest is Thomas Wulff Wilhelmsen, Co-founder and CEO of Less. Thomas and his co-founder Daniel previously worked as consultants in the data space before founding Less. Their experiences and frustrations in this role inspired them to create an analytics product for people like themselves. And that led to the birth of Less in September 2022. The name "Less" embodies their goal of stripping away complexities to build a product that focuses on the end goal and takes care of the technical aspects behind the scenes. Their mission: Set doers free to do what they do best: Roll up their sleeves and solve problems.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Thomas to my podcast. We explore what's, after decades of development, still broken in the Business Analytics solutions market. Thomas shares his lessons learned from steering Less' journey as a customer-funded startup. He shares how he got early traction with paying customers and how he's creating a culture of analogical thinking to solve problems in creative ways.. Last but not least, he'll inspire you with his fresh perspective on crafting a compelling narrative that sells.  Here's one of his quotes "We've been focusing more on the persona than on the sector or industry. We call them doers. People that are curious by nature, that are frustrated with being dependent on other people and want to build cool things that they can show to other people in their teams and drive that change internally." During this interview, you will learn four things: Where he finds inspiration from taking Storytelling for his business to the next level. What he's done differently from the start to get traction and stay in control as the business grows.  How he ensures everyone understands what's important, and does the right things right to create fans from the start. Why he embraces being "customer funded" rather than just bootstrapped. For more information about the guest from this week: Thomas Wulff Wilhelmsen Website: Less 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 in identifying an emerging opportunity and building an innovative, fast-growing company that transforms how we shop online. My guest is Angelo Coletta, CEO and Co-founder of Zakeke. Angelo is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and exited multiple companies.  In 2017 he co-founded Zakeke, an AI Visual Commerce platform. It's doing groundbreaking work in transforming the B2B customer journey and shopping experience. With this focus, it's now  serving 10,000+ eCommerce brands worldwide across 400+ industries Their mission:  To improve the industry's environmental footprint through the use of technology in the display process, the shopping experience, and the purchasing experience. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Angelo to my podcast. We explore how the shopping experience is still broken today - and why. Angelo shares his how he's building an organization to fix this and shares anecdotes about his lessons learned in choosing the right team, fostering a culture of innovation, and setting ambitious long-term goals. He then elaborates on creating resilience across the business, customer-centric product development, and how strategic acquisitions and investment in eco-system helped to scale their business. Here's one of his quotes I wanted to create a company that was totally based on a long-term vision. This is one of the most difficult choices to make when you start because it means you burn more money in the first years of the company. My opinion is that if you don't start as a long tail business, it's difficult to transform a company with 200 or 300 big customers into a company able to serve 1000s of customers, maybe most of them small customers. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why have a global mindset from day 1. Why focus on product excellence first before you consider a marketing push? What Angelo specifically prioritizes when it comes to hiring the right people that will help the company grow in good and tough times.  The strategies he applied to establish trust and leverage their growth opportunity via the e-commerce ecosystem.  For more information about the guest from this week: Angelo Coletta Website: Zakeke 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 social a positive place again - for everyone. My guest is Matthew McGrory, CEO of Arwen AI. Matthew is a tech- entrepreneur on a big mission. He has held tech leadership roles: IT Director at Logicalis, Director Managed Services at Acora, and Managing Director at Carrenza (a cloud service provider acquired by Six Degrees Group),  In the period from July 2018 and September 2020 he took a break from his corporate life to become a House Husband. In that period he developed a passion for using AI to drive positive change. That led him to cofound Arwen AI in September 2020. Arwen AI is a platform that helps its customers actively moderate and manage their community, across both paid and organic. Their mission: to make social media a more positive place by filtering out hate speech and toxicity.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matthew to my podcast. We explore what's broken in today's Social Media world. Matthew shares his vision to make Social a place without toxicity and spam. He then elaborates on his hard-won lessons from his journey to speed up direct sales and benefit from using ecosystems to grow even faster. Last but not least, he shares his framework to increase resilience across the organization.  Here's one of his quotes I thought, 'This is great, we'll create some technology, fix the problem and everyone will buy it.' I was so wrong on that part. I got to about demo number 200, it was with a US broadcast news organization. And the head of digital said, 'Listen, I'm protected by the First Amendment, I can let anything go up on my channels. I don't have to get rid of it. You're giving me an extra job to do. An extra cost. Tell me why this is valuable to my business. Tell me how it makes me money or saves me money.' During this interview, you will learn four things: How he gained traction in a market where customers resisted to buy because they saw the solution as an extra job and an extra cost.  What he did differently to gain technical and commercial momentum. What he invested in early on to get access to strategic accounts and speed up the commercial contracting process in enterprise sales situations. How he goes about to keep the business humming, and keeping everyone aligned and motivated - especially in tough times. For more information about the guest from this week: Matthew McGrory Website: Arwen AI 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to take GTM efficiency to the next level for enterprise SaaS companies. My guest is Josh Ellars, CEO of OpenGTM. Josh has over 15 years of experience leading successful go-to-market (GTM) functions at high-growth SaaS companies like Metalogix, Qualtrics, and OpenGov. This extensive background gives him unique insights into scaling SaaS businesses. In 2021 he founded Patri, which was rebranded OpenGTM in 2023. OpenGTM is platform to create content buyers love, capture high-intent leads, and uncover the truth behind your buyers and pipeline.  It's mission: to unite sales, marketing, customer success, and product around the attributes of highly-retained customers in order to boost revenue and retention. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Josh to my podcast. We explore what's broken in today's world of Go-to-Market (GTM). Josh shares his wealth of experience in scaling SaaS businesses. He emphasizes the importance of the "sell, design, build" methodology, where market demand pulls product development. He also explains, how their approach helps companies cut through the noise of the crowded go-to-market tech landscape. And last but not least he shares some big lessons learned on differentiation and growing efficiently. Here's one of his quotes Too often in Go To Market and in company building in general, we're driven by product market fit. And that's wonderful. But a big portion of that is really identifying: Is there security and regulatory fit? Is there a financial fit? Can we get some sort of return out of this investment we're making in this customer? And I absolutely saw that I had to learn the hard way and lose some very large deals. That got me thinking that I think there's a better way to to vet these opportunities.  During this interview, you will learn four things: What B2B SaaS companies should look for beyond product-market fit to grow more efficiently. Their framework that drives product strategy in order to build remarkable products.  How they avoid getting caught up in tech-stack rationalization.  How to expand market scope gradually while maintaining a narrow focus on the ideal buyer profile.  For more information about the guest from this week: Josh Ellars Website: OpenGTM 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

#326 - Niklas Hanitsch, CEO of SECJUR - on balancing culture and growth challenges A story about maintaining a blue ocean market in the rapidly evolving compliance automation landscape. This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to sustain in a heavily competitive market. My guest is Niklas Hanitsch, Co-founder and CEO of SECJUR. Niklas is a tech entrepreneur on a Mission. He was an idealist punk who turned lawyer, then SaaS founder. He's got deep expertise in data privacy, compliance, and agile product development. And entered the prestigious Top 40 under 40 list by Capital Magazine in November 2023.  Over the years, he grew the belief that while data protection and compliance requirements are important, the implementation should not become a stumbling block for companies. And that became the big idea behind SECJUR, an AI-driven compliance automation platform, which he founded in December 2017. Their vision: A world where businesses are always compliant, but never have to think about it. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Niklas to my podcast. We explore how personal tragedy grew into entrepreneurial drive. He shares how he bootstrapped the company towards growth, navigated fundraising during a recession, and built a resilient team culture from the start. Beyond that, he elaborates on his frameworks for strategic decision-making, hiring for values fit, and relentlessly delivering customer value. Last but not least he shares practical advice on how to stay motivated and sane in the crazy world of building a software business. Here's one of his quotes "Bootstrapping was definitely something that made us successful because we had time to really focus on the business and not focus on fundraising, on report creating reports and stuff like this. So we learned a lot about what customers really want in that time, because we could spend all our time with customers." During this interview, you will learn four things: How Bootstrapping gave him an advantage you cannot get when you start your venture with VC backing.  His approach to staying ahead of the competition as the market gets more crowded.  His advice (having been a lawyer himself) on how to go about committing to contracts His 3-step framework for hiring talent For more information about the guest from this week: Niklas Hanitsch Website: SECJUR 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 finally solve the problem of managing all your personal and professional relationships. My guest is Matt Achariam, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Clay. Matt has a diverse background in product development and design.  He was a principal at design agency FortySix, working with clients like Disney, BBC, Expedia, and the University of Pennsylvania and held product roles at Custora (acquired by Amperity) and LayerVault (acquired by Tiny Capital) and  He has a lifelong obsession with the craft of design, sparked by childhood curiosity about why certain objects elicit feelings of joy. This led him to question the status quo in relationship management software - and that's how the vision behind Clay was born. In 2018, he and his co-founder, Zach Hamed, founded the company, an app for managing personal and professional relationships.  Their mission: to help people be more thoughtful and helpful with their relationships, ultimately helping them achieve more and be happier by putting others first. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore his journey of building Clay. Matt shares how he and his team create meaningful differentiation beyond just solid functionality. He elaborates how they gained early traction and created strong organic growth that enables them to now manage over 100 million relationships. Last but not least, Matt shares his insights on navigating tradeoffs, maintaining confidence in decision-making, and staying true to company values while scaling rapidly. Here's one of his  quotes Be very clear about the values and the lines that you will cross and won't cross because when things start speeding up, momentum is something very precious.  When you move really fast, you have to move with confidence. And if you don't have the confidence and that foundation, you're not going to be able to make decisions rapidly. During this interview, you will learn four things: His unconventional approach towards creating a "minimum remarkable product" instead of a "minimum viable product"  How they strengthen their differentiation by focusing on things other than just functionality, and where he focuses to find inspiration. How they've managed to achieve all their growth to be entirely organic and driven by word-of-mouth What signals, he in hindsight, wishes they had paid more attention to in order to grow even more. For more information about the guest from this week: Matt Achariam Website: Clay 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 can survive crises and emerge stronger every time. My guest is Lee Rubin, founder and CEO of Confetti.  Lee is a visionary culture leader with over a decade of experience in B2B sales. In 2014 she founded Wekudo - a remote corporate event planning agency. The idea behind it came while working at ZocDoc, where she struggled with the bureaucracy and logistics of planning team-building events.  Soon after that, she founded Confetti, realizing that the problem could only be solved through a combination of technology and people (not just people).  Under Lee's leadership, Confetti achieved exponential 600% growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and grew it as the leading solution for virtual team-building through a relentless focus on quality experiences. Their mission: to simplify event planning while empowering organizations to build stronger, happier, and more holistic teams through unforgettable shared experiences that make work life more memorable. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Lee to my podcast. We explore her journey to build a successful B2B SaaS company in a period when most of her competitors ceased to exist. Lee shares her story about a remarkable pivot during Covid, and why she decided to do nothing when "back to work" kicked in again. She also shares how she wasted 3 valuable years at the start, and what she could have done differently to avoid that. Last but not least, she elaborates on what ingredients she doubles down on to build a product people just keep talking about. Here's one of her quotes The main contributor to our success is that we built a platform that had a very strong form of agility. The platform can support various different use cases if we really want it to. It allowed us to pivot super quickly [during Covid]. The last invoice that we got from an in-person event and the first invoice that we got for a virtual was 10 days. We didn't spend time sitting in sadness that our events business was in shambles. We got right back to the drawing board, back to playing and having fun and trying to see what sticks - and the virtual events stuck. During this interview, you will learn four things: What she has done differently to survive during & post-COVID when other competitors closed their doors. How she managed to pivot her entire business in less than 10 days when Covid started.  What she learned from niching down, where everyone else was widening the net - and how that played to their advantage.  How she's embedded delivering "wow factor" in every aspect of her company - and why this has become unnegotiable for her.  For more information about the guest from this week: Lee Rubin Website: Confetti 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 sticky and healthy B2B SaaS business. My guest is Emeric Ernoult, Founder and CEO of Agorapulse. Emeric is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in social media and SaaS. He co-founded affinitiz, one of the first modern social network SaaS platforms in France in the early 2000s. In 2010 he founded Agorapulse, social media platform. He grew it from generating €140,000 in annual revenue to achieving the same figure every three days, without taking significant outside funding.  This makes Agorapulse an inspiring bootstrapped SaaS success story. Hence I invited Emeric to my podcast. We explore his insights on what it takes to create a successful B2B SaaS company without having to rely on external funding. He shares is big lessons learned running the business through a PLG motion, and explains why they've pivoted to a sales-led SaaS motion, thereby moving up market. Last but not least, he elaborates on his approach to customer segmentation, creating measurable business value, and how to enable constant evolution Here's one of his quotes "Do not raise money. VC firms and investors are going to tell you that you're going to get more than money... if you don't know how to leverage that money, you're basically just given away part of your company for something that you're not going to get value from." During this interview, you will learn four things: Why you should prioritize investing in amazing customer support, especially when bootstrapping and the product is still evolving How to go about hiring people that have the highest chance to bring your company success What to focus on when you want to transition from PLG to a sales-led motion His first principle when it comes to prioritizing features to create products people start talking about and keep talking about.  For more information about the guest from this week: Emeric Ernoult Website: Agora Pulse 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 startup into a +$100M ARR growth business. My guest is Jim Yu, Founder & Exec Chair at BrightEdge Jim Yu is the visionary. He started his career at Mercator Software (now IBM), serving as Director of Product Development, and then moved to Salesforce.com, where he was a Director of Product Management.  He graduated from university when he was 16 years old, and holds an MBA from Stanford University, a Master's in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of South Dakota.  In 2007 he founded BrightEdge where he's been at the helm as CEO for 16 years. He grew BrightEdge into a global leader, helping more than 8,500 of the world's largest brands drive measurable, predictable revenue from their websites and search engines Their mission: to help marketers deliver content that resonates with their audience and drives business impact. More specifically, BrightEdge aims to transform online content into tangible business results, such as traffic, revenue, and engagement. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jim to my podcast. We explore his journey of building BrightEdge into a successful SaaS company that crossed the $100M ARR bar. He elaborates on his first principles when it comes to building core differentiators, being intentional about market choices, and setting clear milestones for each growth stage. Lastly, he shares his advice on managing go-to-market investments and staying driven by a strong mission to scale intelligently. Here's one of his quotes It really paid off was when we found the big box retail segment. So if you think about social networks, they have a lot of web pages that represent musicians or people or things like that. But on the retail side, they have a lot of products, they have a lot of categories. And if those show up well on search, it leads directly to purchases and revenue.  So the next use case we built into our technology was connecting the dots back to purchases and orders. And so then you could see, as you optimize for organic search, what was the impact on revenue, and then that's when we started to really get forth. We ended up getting most of the big retailers. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why he has been intentional about certain GTM techniques and how he's picked his verticals to bet on. His first principle on making strategic choices that are aligned with the core capabilities and DNA of the company. His approach to scaling, and when to step on the gas and when not. How he defined their unfair advantage and what makes them different as a company For more information about the guest from this week: Jim on Linkedin Jim on Twitter Website: BrightEdge 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 most challenging productivity challenge in Manufacturing: human action. My guest is Max Fischer, Founder and CEO of Deltia. Max is a mechanical engineer. In 2014 he was a founding member of HackZurich, the largest hackathon Switzerland has ever seen.  In 2015 he co-founded Actyx and digitized 40+ factories. In this startup, he led product management, sales, and marketing teams.  Meanwhile he has established himself as a thought leader in the space of digital transformation for the factory floor. In November 2022, Max founded Deltia, a startup focused on helping factory operators track, analyze and improve efficiency by identifying the best possible processes and assisting workers with digital tools. Their mission: to make human work in manufacturing more productive and less error-prone by taking out the guesswork.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited Max to my podcast. We explore what's broken in identifying productivity opportunities in manufacturing. Max explains how for the first time ever - this is possible. He shares some of his big lessons on building the company, especially when it comes to foundational questions like "who's it for" and 'what's it for' - and how that helped them remain highly focused.  He elaborates on his first principes for building the platform - and how that helps them stay resilient and offer scalable solutions. . Here's one of his quotes There are a lot of decisions that you take both on the technical level and what customers you're serving. Who is the user that you're trying to focus on? We decided quite early on to not specifically target the Toyota's of this world. The automotive OEMs are basically the best-run manufacturing companies in the world. There are use cases, obviously, also for technology, no doubt about that. But I think a big opportunity is to help the 98% of other factories to come to a similar level to where Toyota of Volkswagen are today. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why functionality is important - but not as important as system design  How to go about building for business scalability rather than just technical scalability of your solution. Why the dream is not to help Toyota or Volkswagen - but companies much smaller and weaker than those brands. What they are doing differently to accelerate stakeholder buy-in from IT, legal, and Unions. For more information about the guest from this week: Max Fischer Website: Deltia 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 redefine the way we learn and solve the growing skills gap. My guest is Ruban Phukan, CEO of Goodgist. Ruban is a serial entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience building technology products that solve real-world problems. He's written books about AI and holds several patents in this field.  He was part of Yahoo's first data scientist team, collaborating closely with co-founder David Filo to use data to address complex business problems.  In 2005, he co-founded Bixee.com, India's first vertical search engine employing patented technology. This company then merged with market leader MakeMyTrip and DataRPM, a pioneering Enterprise AI platform for industrial IoT, which was then acquired by Progress Software in 2017. He 2019 he co-founded GoodTrade.AI, an asset management and investment analysis platform centred around Generative AI. Most recently he co-founded GoodGist, an AI startup for upskilling and research that tackles the challenges of scaling corporate skill development.  Their mission: To organize the world's knowledge and make it universally accessible, conversational, and digestible in bite-sized chunks on demand. Their belief is that this creates a significant moat for their clients against competitors in today's fast-paced landscape, And this inspired me, and hence I invited Ruban to my podcast. We explore the challenges of continuous learning in today's fast-paced technological environment.  He explains his first principles for making his strategic bets and why he opts to take a platform approach rather than a point solution approach. Last but not least, he explains his lessons from niching down and verticalizing his GTM approach around the platform.  Here's one of his quotes We don't try to build a custom solution for a custom problem. We try to look at the problem and say, 'Okay, so we are not trying to only solve for a gas turbine failure, how do we build that technology, so that now instead of just only solving for data coming out of gas turbines, it can also look at data coming out of smart cars? How can it also handle data coming out of smart televisions? So, the focus has always been in trying to understand the problem and try to generalize, so that it can solve more business use cases, without having to recreate something new every single time. During this interview, you will learn four things: How he's accelerating traction by packaging his horizontal platform around highly valuable & business-critical problems. How he goes about successfully serving the mid-market and large enterprise companies in their own unique ways. His approach to identifying new value possibilities in the market that are worth building solutions for. How he makes decisions on what to invest in, and what not.  For more information about the guest from this week: Ruban Phukan Website: Goodgist 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 that required a 180-degree pivot to find strong product market fit. My guest is Ryan Leitzeiser, Co-founder and CEO of Obie Insurance. Ryan has over 10 years of experience in an executive role in technology and commercial real estate (CRE) investment and development. Having worked at Hudson Capital Investments and as an Investment Analyst at Ram Real Estate, he has a strong background in CRE valuation, underwriting, asset management, and private equity.  In July 2018, he co-founded Obie, a Y Combinator-backed startup that's set out to make some waves in insurance technology. Their mission: To provide a simple, affordable, and transparent insurance experience for landlords and real estate investors. This inspired me, and hence, I invited Ryan to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the world of insurance, particularly when it relates to Real Estate. He shares his experiences and big lessons learned from having to pivot the business. He elaborates on what he did wrong, and the courage it took to correct course - the then turn that into a growth engine that is hard to stop. Last but not least he talks about some of the essential traits to develop to build a business that lasts. Here's one of his quotes Insurance is an admin nightmare for them [Lenders] during the closing process. We provide them with technology and tools as it relates to insurance for their consumers so that mistakes are not made. And ultimately, for a lender, this help that we provide them ultimately unlocks a ton of customers for us. In fact, we have lenders that will charge their customer base a fee, if they don't use us. During this interview, you will learn four things: What traits to look for in employees if you want to attract people who can solve customer problems and provide great experiences. What to do differently if you want your customers to make your solution mandatory for anyone they do business with.  His learnings on growing confidence and commitment from others. What he's learned to be critical behaviors to adhere to in a company if you want to build a business that lasts.  For more information about the guest from this week: Ryan Letzeiser Website: Obie Insurance 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 lean organization that has the power to win the biggest brands in the retail market. My guest is Ed Bradley, CEO of Virtualstock. Ed started his career in wholesale distribution and has extensive international experience in Supply Chain across Australia, Singapore, United States, and Canada.  In 2004, he co-founded VirtualStock. During this period, the company pioneered new ways for retailers’ to expand their product range, increase transparency with suppliers, and provide detailed order information for customers.  It made the product evolve into a global drop shipping and marketplace SaaS platform Today, the company has 20 years of experience in logistics, supply chains and e-commerce, as well as an extensive roster of blue-chip clients.  Their mission: Sell more products online, without the risk This inspired me, and hence, I invited Ed to my podcast. We explore the 20-year journey of building a lasting SaaS business. Ed shares what worked and what didn't, how he managed to grow the business without external capital, and how working with the largest retailers in the UK enabled this. He elaborates on why he's keeping the organization lean, and how that helped to create meaningful and durable differentiation, survive major setbacks, and win the bulk of the UK retail market as a customer.  Here's one of his quotes People will always buy from people. And so it's all got to do with understanding the customer. In our world, that means two things: our customer is the retailer, but we need to understand their customer, who is the consumer. And so if you get those two things right, if you really have that knowledge, and you care about their business, and you care about their customer, then the rest will follow.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How one customer can accelerate the trajectory of your business.  Why he'd opt for bootstrapping the business again if he ever got the choice.  How to keep your organization lean - and why that helps to grow defensible differentiation.  How he survived a major crisis in the business, and how this made them come out stronger.  For more information about the guest from this week: Ed Bradley Website: Virtualstock 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 way we think and use about Business Intelligence. My guest is Ryan Janssen, Co-founder and CEO of Zenlytic. Ryan is a serial entrepreneur and visionary leader in data analytics and AI. He brings experience from previous roles at Ernst & Young, McKinsey, Private Equity and venture Capital funds, and Ex Quanta: AI Studio, giving him a strong background in AI and data analytics.  His time in the VC world likely gave him valuable insights into what investors look for, how to pitch effectively, and how to strategically scale a business. All his hands-on experience let him to co-found Zenlytic in July 2020. It's a BI tool for commerce brands and DTC businesses.  Their mission: making data insights accessible and actionable for everyone. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Ryan to my podcast. We explore what's still broken in enabling non-data scientists to create unique insights to compete with the largest brands in the world. Ryan shares his big lessons learned in building a company that pioneered the promise of generative AI. He elaborates on his first principles around value creation and what he's doing differently to stay lean while delivering high performance as a business. Last but not least he shares his tips on being able to prioritize long-term thinking as the company grows and create a business that lasts. Here's one of his quotes I think the real winners will be the people that are building nimbly. The people that are applying creative uses of this tech and finding creative new ways to deliver value that doesn't look very much like the generation of software that preceded them. During this interview, you will learn four things: What you can do differently to ensure faster development and better quality with a lean team. Why you should break predictability to find new growth opportunities. How you can outcompete much larger big companies on their own strength. When you have lots of leads the challenge is not how to close them - but how you qualify them  For more information about the guest from this week: Ryan Janssen Website: Zenlytic 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 a global challenge: helping field sales sell more and faster. My guest is Zach Barney, Co-founder and CEO of Mobly. Zach Barney is an experienced SaaS sales leader and entrepreneur. He has been building and leading SaaS sales teams since 2010 at companies like Vehlo, Nearmap, Teem, and HireVue. Over his career, he has personally closed over $4 million in ARR, and his teams have closed over $40 million.  In 2023, he co-founded Mobly to reduce the high percentage (+25%) of sales activity that never gets logged into CRM systems. Their mission: To redefine lead capture and qualification for event marketers. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Zach to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the lead generation process at in-person events. Zach explains his journey with Mobly to solve this problem - and elaborates how this fits in a much broader vision. He elaborates on the big lessons he learned around gaining traction and using pricing as a lever for growth. Lastly, he elaborates on how he's building a moat around his product. Here's one of his quotes We learned that we needed to change our pricing model. Our first handful of customers we were grossly under-charging them and it was largely due to the fact that we were pricing based on the number of seats. Somebody would openly tell us 'Yeah, well this person can share the license with this person.' So, we realized 'I guess we made a mistake on how we price this because this should be like a $20,000 contract and you're telling me that you're gonna pay 2000…' During this interview, you will learn four things: How he and his co-founder managed to get very comfortable doubling down on building a product without hardly spending anything. What he changed to his pricing strategy to increase average deal-size AND make grow each customer account from there onwards. What strategic choices he made around phasing his product strategy to ensure they got traction as early as possible - and keep growing it. Why he's decided to build defensible differentiation around data and not features.  For more information about the guest from this week: Zach Barney Website: Mobly 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 outcompete everyone in the category. My guest is JJ (Projjal) Ghatak, Co-founder & CEO of OnLoop. JJ (Projjal) is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. He held business leadership roles across technology (Uber), management consulting (Accenture Strategy) and corporate development (Essar Capital). Besides that, he's a proud naturalized Singaporean, SMU Scholar, Stanford MBA, and awarded World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2022. In 2020, JJ founded OnLoop in an attempt to solve a problem he'd experienced throughout his career: How hard it is for managers to turn high potential individuals into high performing teams.  Their mission: Convert every manager in the world into a great manager.  And this inspired me, and hence I invited JJ to my podcast. We explore the broken world of employee & team performance. JJ shares his journey of solving this problem by driving everyday habits and feedback rather than mere documentation. He shares his biggest lessons on creating product market fit, demand generation, and how to strategically prioritize your focus as a CEO as your company evolves. Lastly, he elaborates on his approach to challenge the status quo and outcompete established players.  Here's one of his quotes Most enterprise software is built as a System of Record. So if you look at employee engagement software, what it is, is a quarterly survey, which is then creating dashboards and data. And so it's a System of Record, not a System of Action.  What you need to drive behavior is a System of Action. So if you think about it from another analogy, people understand is, you don't get fit by doing an annual health checkup every three months. You get fit by going to the gym. And actually 10,000 steps is the best thing that happened to fitness because it made it very easy to drive a system of action. And we think about team health and team performance in the exact same way During this interview, you will learn four things: The framework JJ is using to help him ensure he's focused on the most impactful priority on his list - every day. That founders should focus on creating value, and salespeople on capturing value. And why it will hurt you if you mix this up. His perspective on identifying their ideal customer segment to capture value and scale revenue in a predictable, repeatable way. His first principles when it comes to building remarkable products. For more information about the guest from this week: JJ (Projjal) Ghatak Website: OnLoop 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 win the global content plagiarism battle. My guest is Jon Gillham, CEO of Originality AI.  Jon Gillham is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. Before he started his SaaS business, he ran a content marketing agency.  Having been one of the earliest adopters of generative AI through his agency, he understood the wave of plagiarism problems that was coming, even before Chat GPT and GPT-4 were released. That became the founding idea behind Originality AI - a company he founded in November 2022. Their mission: help Web Publishers be sure they are producing Original Content and can hit publish with integrity. This means: publishing unique, Human-Created content ... the kind Google and we, the readers wants! And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jon to my podcast. We explore the growing challenge of AI-generated content -and how this impacts trust. Jon shares the challenges he's faced on his journey to solve the problem. He also explains why he decided to focus on a very specific niche and not education, while he was offered contracts with brand names as big as Harvard and Purdue. Lastly, he elaborates how they are able to build extremely competitive products with just 1 simple organizational tweak. Here's one of his quotes We built and ended up launching the weekend before Chat GPT launched. And when Chat GPT launched it kind of blew things up. We had people coming from all different parts of the world. Academia was coming our way. User-generated sites were coming our way to say - this is now a problem that we need to wrestle with. During this interview, you will learn four things: What to do / not to do when you want to create defensible differentiation with your product. Why he turned away very big sales opportunities - and why that was a critical, but right choice. How he maintained a good work-life balance (and what he learned from that in hind-sight). How to outperform all your competitors on review sites. For more information about the guest from this week: Jon Gillham Website: Originality AI 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 tackle a very challenging industry problem and scale impact. My guest is Theo Saville, Co-founder and CEO of CloudNC Theo is a Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineer (M.Eng, University of Warwick), with a background in defense, laser-based metals 3D printing research at Warwick Manufacturing Group, and sales.  He entered metals 3D printing expecting to be able to harness a technology ready to disrupt manufacturing but gradually became disillusioned with the state and future applicability of the technology. When he was exposed to CNC machining, he quickly realized its disruptive potential if it could be automated to the same degree as plastic 3D printing.  And that led him to co-found CloudNC in 2015. Their mission: to make single-click manufacture a reality. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Theo to my podcast. We explore what's broken in today's manufacturing world and how that's growing to a $400 billion industry. Theo shares his journey of solving a complex problem in a very unusual - but effective way. He elaborates how they're looking for leverage in everything - and how that's led to using video marketing to get over 10M+ impressions a month - showcasing software to automate machines. Last but not least, he stresses the importance of setting clear objectives - especially as your startup scales.  Here's one of his quotes The idea was to first build software that makes it automatic to program these machines. And we raised our seed rounds on the basis of that. We realized after, I think, two or three years that it would take 10 years to actually build software that was capable enough to be saleable to any factory with these machines, there's just too much variation from factory to factory. So we went, I know, let's reduce the complexity of the problem. Let's build our own factory, make it really simple and standardized, and then copy and paste factories, and in that way, disrupt the industry.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How they pivoted from selling a new platform to individual manufacturers to a model where they simply plug in what they already use.   What made them decide to move from a product-led sales approach to an eco-system-led sales approach? How they created defensible differentiation and a unique value proposition in the very crowded market for manufacturing software. What unusual opportunities niching down has provided them. For more information about the guest from this week: Theo Saville Website: CloudNC 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 non-trivial testing problems of some companies that we all blindly rely on . My guest is Harpreet Singh, Co-CEO of Launchable. Harpreet is an entrepreneur, innovator, developer, creative product leader, and seasoned DevOps leader who has dedicated his life to building new solutions for software teams. He's got extensive product marketing & Product management experience at Sun Microsystems.  Then helped CloudBees find product market fit and create a business based on OSS that scaled to multi-millions in ARR. Then moved to Atlassian where be became the GM for Atlassian Bitbucket, where he helped set the blueprint of what became the strategy at Atlassian to embrace DevOps tools in the market. In September 2019 he co-founded Launchable and shares the CEO role.   Their mission: Help dev teams launch fearlessly. Their point of view: 80% of software tests are pointless. We’ll help you see the 20% that matters most. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Harpreet to my podcast. We explore what's broken around software testing these days. Harpreet provides his vision of how to address this. He elaborates on the journey of building an AI-powered software delivery platform and shares his most valuable go-to-market lessons - particularly why he didn't opt for a product-led growth motion and how he avoided getting stuck in red oceans. Last but not least, he shares his advice to peer SaaS CEOs on scaling their businesses while staying true to their core mission. Here's one of his quotes I spent a year and a half at Atlassian. They are the Gurus of product lead growth. So I got to see that close enough. And I came in and said we should probably do this. And I came to the realization that it's not one size fits all. Different teams have different needs, and the kinds we are serving have very different needs, then this product led growth. During this interview, you will learn four things: His lessons on how to simplify customer communication so it resonates optimally.  His advise on how to go beyond the obvious and find the biggest possible problem to solve for your ideal customers. How to choose your Go-to-Market model and what specifics to look for  How he landed BMW as one of his early customers and what that taught him. For more information about the guest from this week: Harpreet Singh Website: Launchable 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 meaningful global change by making problem creators responsible for solving it together through technology. My guest is Oscar Rundqvist, CEO of eComID.  Oscar is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. A massive mission. He's founded and led multiple companies since 2010 - and has also gained experience as an investment analyst and head of growth and digital experience in online retail.  In September 2023 he co-founded eComID - based on negative trend he saw developing after COVID in online retail: A rapidly growing global returns problem. Their mission: To help the fashion industry reduce online product returns, shrink the environmental footprint, and guide shoppers to discover and buy products they'll truly love. This inspired me, and hence, I invited Oscar to my podcast. We explore how online shopping is broken and created a massive global retail returns problem - both in cost, waste and emissions. Oscar explains his vision of how to solve this with technology and by getting an entire industry to work together in new ways. He then shares his first principles for building a lean SaaS business that moves the needle impact-wise. Lastly, he elaborates on his lessons learned to stay nimble and avoid making fatal mistakes. Here's one of his quotes Coming from the industry, we managed to take the right decisions often. But we did it by taking a lot of bad decisions, but we found them really fast. So, what we do is that we explore a lot of different things. When we have something, for example, a feature idea, let's imagine that we explore 50 different ideas at the same time, but then we always keep the retailers very close. So we have weekly meetings with all of the retailers that we work with right now to always validate and align the need.  During this interview, you will learn four things: How to get an entire industry to collaborate on solving the same problem.  Why he doesn't fear competition, and is actually cheering them to take on the opportunity. His first principle on keeping the focus on moving the needle in the leanest possible way. Different ways to build trust with organizations that are 1000+ times the size of your startup. For more information about the guest from this week: Oscar Rundqvist Website: eComID 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 use AI in a way that makes salespeople more human again. My guest is JB Daguené, Founder and CEO of Evergrowth. JB is tech-entrepreneur on a mission. He's had an impressive career in B2B SaaS Sales and has advised multiple tech companies for well over a decade.  He's addicted to endurance sports and has finished multiple marathons, ultra-running, ultra-cycling, and IRONMAN races. He also knows what it is to stand out from the crowd. His LinkedIn profile is testimony to that: He eats SaaS for breakfast, B2B Sales for lunch, and AI+Data for dinner. And he likes his food spicy! In that spirit, he founded Evergrowth in December 2015. It started as a consulting business and turned into a B2B SaaS business, pioneering the Future of Account-Based Sales. Their mission: To elevate the sales profession by empowering businesses with AI-driven strategies that are as human as they are smart. And this inspired me, and hence I invited JB to my podcast. We explore how the B2B sales process is deteriorating and what needs to be done to fix it. We explore the big lessons learned from turning a consulting into a SaaS business. JB shares how his first principles as a consultancy helped them create defensible differentiation - and use AI to further expand that. He also explains how he's positioning his business to attract the right deals - and why everything in his business is designed around one customer success template. Here's one of his quotes Salespeople never had a good reputation. And I think it didn't get better because of the noise that was created by all the tools-driven approaches. So they need to acknowledge this and understand that in order now to have meaningful conversations and create meaningful pipelines, they need to understand how to speak their customer's language better than their competitors and better than their customers themselves. I'm super biased on having that opinion, but that's really the only way to win in 2024. During this interview, you will learn four things: How JB managed to create defensible differentiation - and how he's using AI to grow it. How to avoid your SaaS business ends up in the graveyard of the market. How to turn engineering, marketing, sales, business operations, and customer success into an unbeatable engine for your business. How endurance training helps you become a high-performing leader that doesn't break down. For more information about the guest from this week: JB Daguené Website: Evergrowth 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 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