SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Episodes
Crazy years: from $60M in secondaries to layoffs & back to cash positive
How We Bootstrapped Backblaze from $0 to IPO and $87m in ARR
How to Convince High-Performers to Take a Pay Cut & Work for You
9 Lessons from Building Marketing Teams at HubSpot, Drift, and Airmeet
SaaStock Starts Oct 16th in Dublin, 5000 SaaS Founders and Big Bootstrap Stage
October 16th in Dublin. Meet 5000 SaaS founders in a week or so. Aircall Co-Founder will share how he hit $130m ARR. Muck Rack founder will share why he did $180m Series A and secondary after bootstrapping to $50m.
Can this company leverage 250 engineer beta testers for bug testing tool to close $3m pre seed round?
Mobile bug testing company got 20 companies and 250 engineers using their platform to identify 50 bugs per week. Question is, can they convert these users into real paying customers? They quit their full time jobs in June and hope to have revenue by this December.
Ukrainian Volunteer Group Uses This App to Raise $200k/mo, Now Available to Western Customers
24 year old hits $30k MRR in 6 months with unique SaaS cold email scripts
Zero to $30k in MRR in 8 months. Yash reveals the scripts he used to cold email and linkedin message his first 5 paying customers. He profits $10k/mo and things a valuation of $2.5m is too low. How long will it take him to hit $60k in MRR for his influencer marketing search tool?
HR Tech Exec Invested $200k into his own HR SaaS, Raising $200k on $3m Valuation Now
Ex Corporate HR Exec builds nest egg to launch HR tech SaaS in 2019. Today he's doing just $10k in MRR but says pipeline is biggest it's ever been. Can he use that data to close his $200k seed round next week?
This Hotel Tech SaaS Just Exited to Constellation Group After Hitting 30% EBITDA Margin and sharing 25% of profits with employees
Constellation software just bought this company after the bootstrapped CEO hit 60% yoy growth and over 200 paying customers. The company did 30% EBITA margin last year and is now part of Constellation Software Juniper Group.
Behind The Term Sheet: How this $76m Seed Stage Fund Really Works
3 questions every smart founder asks this VC. How much follow on capital for a $1.5m initial check? How many deals does he look at each year? How long will his current $76m last?
How this Hotel SaaS Hit $1.3m ARR and 1400 Customers
This father and son SaaS team turned down a $7m all cash offer - a 6x multiple. They serve 1400 small hostels and vacation homes to help them manage bookings. Should the bootstrapped team have taken the $7m?
How He Built a $10m Revenue Company Around Camp Ticket Software, Bootstrapped!
His largest customer pays him over $150,000 per year to manage after school camps. This 3 pronged revenue model has allowed founder Asaf Darash to hit $10,000,000 in total revenue. 40% comes from SaaS, 40% comes from payment processing where he takes a 1% fee, and 20% is an insurance like product - if your kid gets sick and can't make the camp you paid $2k for, they'll refund.
His First Exit Was for $200m, His Next Startup Hit $1m Then Almost Failed, Now 100% YoY Growth at Customer.ai with unique LLM model
Are you smarter than everyone else or did you just get lucky? Larry Kim sold his first company for $200m. His second company got down to $500k cash in the bank before he leveraged non-dilutive funding from Founderpath to extend runway. The runway enabled a big pivot and revenue doubled to $3.7m. Can Customers.ai hit $6m ARR this year?
I smell a $10m ARR SaaS Company. Why this 22 year old is smart to start with an Agency!
22 year old convinces 4 customers to pay $5k/mo. None of the have churned over the last 8 months. Will he use this "recurring professional services" model to eventually get into SaaS?
UserTesting Competitor Has 40 Beta Users, Here's How She's Gonna Convert them to Paid
She makes lots of money consulting. Is it possible to run a successful SaaS gig with such a big safety net?
How 3 University Grads Plan to Take on Buffer with AI Social Media SaaS
3 university graduates launch their no code SaaS on Bubble. How'd they get 15 paying customers in 3 weeks? Why'd they split equity 33% each? How did they get Linkedin Navigator for free?
Finally! How to move from consultant to SaaS CEO (from a consultant who did $800k revenue last year)
Bsolve agency did $800k revenue in 2022. 50/50 Co-founders decided to take a pay cut to invest $150k in their new SaaS tool SPRobot to help with document management. Will they hit $1m ARR in their first 12 months?
Startup Hits $3k MRR by selling through podcasts. $2.5m Valuation on $255k Pre-Seed too expensive?
They have $125k cash left in bank, burning $7k/mo and revenues just hit $3k MRR. Will this team of 8 have enough runway to hit $1m ARR by helping customers turn their employees into marketing machines?
How this SaaS For Music Venues Survived Covid Then hit $3m ARR
COVID should have killed this SaaS tool for live music venues. Instead, he's grown ARR 3x to $3m+ and has investors knocking down his door. With 300 customers paying $7k+/mo his team of 27 is considering embedded finance next.
The King of India Workspaces: How he Logged 20k Bookings Last Month and Took Home $30,000
This marketplace processed over 20k bookings in India last month helping workers find quick co-working space. They take 20-30% of bookings generating $30k in MRR. Now that they've been acquired, the question is, can they grow the value of the parent companies stock to make the exit a big win for everyone?
Non Tech Founder Quickly Gives Up 50% To Tech Co-Founder To Scale Revenue Faster
Non-Engineer launches SaaS using no code. Realizes he needs a co-founder to compete and gives up 50%. Now at $2k in MRR across 30 customers helping them repurpose podcast content. His goal is $20k MRR by December 2023.
The Ultimate Challenge: Selling a SaaS to Universities, he hated what his Daughter went through
This father hated watching his daughter struggle with college admissions. His SaaS for Colleges has its first 12 customers and $120k of ARR. Can he sustain the revenue growth to $1m+ or will he have to kill it before it gets a real chance?
How He Doubled Revenue To $2.4m Using a 5 Page Google Doc over the past 12 months
His sales team uses a unique 5 page google drive Doc. It helped him hit $2.4m in revenue up from $400k in his first year in business (2021). Today he's bootstrapped serving 160 customers with his buyer collaboration platform. Is a big 2024 fundraise next?
The $30m ARR Battle: How 1 VC Forced a 5x Exit When Restaurant SaaS CEO Wanted to Keep Building
CEO, "I'm not happy with VC ArrowRoot who forced us to sell for 5x when I thought we could have gotten 8x". How this experienced SaaS CEO led his company through multiple debt and equity rounds since 2008 to $35m ARR today.
Nigerian Founder Uses WhatsApp Group to Go $0 to $60k in 5 Months for Testing Tool
This Nigerian SaaS founder used a secret WhatsApp group to get his first $60k in sales. His new SaaS helps companies automate their code testing so they can release faster. $45k invested in the MVP so far. He owns 51% of the company, bootstrapped.