Traction - podcast cover

Traction

Lloyed Lobowww.lloyedlobo.com
On the Traction Podcast, we bring you discussions with founders and CXOs of the fastest-growing companies in technology, covering everything from product, marketing, innovation, fundraising and more through proven strategies for rapid growth. Presented by: Boast.AI R&D Tax Credit Software - https://boast.ai Launch - https://www.launchacademy.ca Traction Community - https://tractionconf.io

Episodes

How To Scale a Startup Into a Megabrand Using Speedboat Marketing with Chandar Pattabhiram, Coupa Software

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Chandar Pattabhiram, Chief Marketing Officer at Coupa Software. With so much attention on Product-Market fit, many startups forget about Go-to-Market fit which is crucial for long term sustainable growth. Chandar discusses how to drive what he calls “speedboat marketing,” sharing strategies and hard-earned lessons from 25 years of scaling companies. Specifically, Chandar dives into: 4:11 - Why so many startups fail at...

Jul 12, 202256 minSeason 1Ep. 59

Marketing With $0: How Branch Grew to $4 Billion with Mada Seghete

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Mada Seghete, Co-Founder at Branch. Driving growth doesn’t always mean hiring a big team and spending a lot of money. It starts with prioritizing activities that have the biggest reach and impact at the best ROI and moving towards your goal with high velocity. In this session, Mada shares the growth playbook that took Branch from 0 to $4 billion. She covers topics such as channels, demand, brand, community, team, tool...

Jul 08, 20221 hr 8 minSeason 1Ep. 58

5 Founder Lessons From Building and Scaling TaskRabbit

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a talk by Leah Solivan, General Partner at Fuel Capital and Founder of TaskRabbit from the in-person Traction Conference. The idea for TaskRabbit came about in 2008 around the time the iPhone first launched, while Leah was living in Boston and bootstrapping the company. In the process of bootstrapping, the entire trajectory of her journey changed. She went from being an engineer at IBM with no network or entrepreneur ...

Jun 29, 202226 minSeason 1Ep. 57

Fundraising Lessons From Two Exits & a Unicorn with Waseem Daher, Pilot

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Waseem Daher, Founder and CEO at Pilot.com. Fundraising is never easy, but the right preparation can make all the difference. Waseem joins us to share the KPIs and questions that investors look at during various stages of investment. Waseem is a three-time founder with two successful exits (Ksplice acquired by Oracle and Zulip acquired by Dropbox) and he has recently raised $100+ million from Jeff Bezos (and other not...

Jun 27, 202252 minSeason 1Ep. 56

How MongoDB Transformed From Sales-Led to Product-Led Leading to 20x Increase in Market Cap with Sahir Azam

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Sahir Azam, Chief Product Officer at MongoDB. Sahir shares how MongoDB transformed from a traditional software company—sales driven, longer cycles, etc.—into more of a consumer-style self-service model. Overseeing the growth of MongoDB’s Atlas, Sahir shares his learnings (the good, the bad, and the ugly) about building and bringing to market one of the fastest-growing cloud products of any scale (70% YoY, $400M ARR, 2...

Jun 24, 202256 minSeason 1Ep. 55

Clinching Your Series A with Mar Hershenson, Pear VC

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Mar Hershenson, Managing Partner at Pear VC. There is a lot of confusion among founders as to the right approach to raising a series A because each industry, whether it’s e-commerce, consumer, SaaS, or marketplace, has a different set of rules and tactics. In this session, Mar Hershenson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Pear VC gives us a masterclass on clinching your Series A. Today, Mar covers the following topic...

Jun 21, 202251 minSeason 1Ep. 54

How To Nail Product Positioning So Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It with April Dunford, Ambient Strategy

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a talk on Product Positioning by April Dunford, Founder of Ambient Strategy and Author of Obviously Awesome from Traction Conference 2019. Positioning has an impact across all key product decisions, from roadmap to pricing. Buyers need context to understand new innovative offerings. Businesses that figure out how to set that context have a distinct advantage over those that don't. April provides a methodology for pick...

Jun 15, 202229 minSeason 1Ep. 53

From Basement to Billions - How Qualtrics Did It

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a fireside between Ryan Smith, Founder and Executive Chairman at Qualtrics, and Jason Lemkin, Founder at SaaStr from the in-person Traction Conf in San Francisco. Ryan shares his journey from a bootstrapped startup to a multi-billion dollar company and the challenges and learnings along the way. In this session, Ryan and Jason discuss: 1:01 - The Qualtrics founding story 7:14 - Stress of managing cashflow in the early...

Jun 13, 202234 minSeason 1Ep. 52

How To Sell Your Startup with Mark Achler and Mert Iseri

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Mark Achler, Managing Director of MATH Venture Partners, and Mert Iseri, Entrepreneur in Residence at MATH Venture Partners. A successful exit is a dream for many founders, but it often seems like a black box or a game of chance. So how do you bake an exit strategy into your business from day one, whether it’s an acquisition/selling your startup, a merger, an IPO, or something else? In this session, Mark and Mert shar...

Jun 10, 20221 hr 16 minSeason 1Ep. 51

How To Raise Your Seed & Series A with Brian Ascher, Venrock

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI and Brian Ascher, Partner at Venrock dive into the top themes driving startup funding and how founders should think about raising capital in this market. Brian has had a successful career investing across unicorns, exits, and IPOs and has been named to the Forbes Midas List multiple times. Specifically, Brian dives into: 5:04 - What Brian looks for in founders when he invests 14:40 - What's driving decision making in VC today,...

Jun 06, 20221 hr 3 minSeason 1Ep. 50

From Zero to $10M ARR & $160M Funding in Two Years with Vishal Sunak at LinkSquares

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Vishal Sunak, Co-Founder and CEO at LinkSquares. LinkSquares has grown 1,000% in two years, with 400+ brands including Fitbit and Twilio as customers. The company was recently placed No. 253 on the annual Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Fresh off their $100M Series C funding at an $800M valuation, Vishal joins us to share the founders’ perspective of scaling a company to $10M ARR in...

Jun 01, 20221 hr 12 minSeason 1Ep. 49

Five F'ups (& Learnings) from Building & Funding Unicorns with Harj Taggar, Y Combinator

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a fireside chat between Harj Taggar , Partner at Y Combinator , and Alda Leu Dennis, General Partner at Initialized Capital from the in-person Traction Conference. Previously, Harj was a Co-founder and CEO at Triplebyte and Co-founder and President at Auctomatic. Harj was also the first seed investor in a number of unicorns including Instacart, Coinbase, Rippling, and Opendoor. In this episode, Harj dives into: 1:26 -...

May 31, 202221 minSeason 1Ep. 48

Scaling From $1M to $500M: Five Strategies To Drive Your Next Wave of Growth with Karen Peacock at Intercom

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Karen Peacock, CEO at Intercom which helps more than 25,000 companies including Amazon, Microsoft, and Shopify to engage and support their customers and prospects. Intercom has been named one of the top 100 private cloud companies globally by Forbes for five years in a row. Before joining Intercom, Karen served as the Senior Vice President of Small Business at Intuit, where she helped build one of the world’s largest ...

May 27, 202223 minSeason 1Ep. 47

How To Play Offense During a Downturn with Gokul Rajaram

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Gokul Rajaram , CxO at DoorDash , Board member at Coinbase and Pinterest, and an angel investor in over 100 companies with more than 40 exits and unicorns. With massive shifts and uncertainty in the markets right now, the default for most companies is to work on a defensive plan to get through it all. Whilst defensive strategies might help a company survive, thriving is a different matter. To exit this current climate...

May 25, 202258 minSeason 1Ep. 46

The State of Venture Capital and Getting to $100M ARR with Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Byron Deeter , Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners . With massive shifts and uncertainty in the markets right now, founders, CEOs, CFOs, and board members alike want to know what the new rules are to play by. In this episode join Byron for a deep dive on what's going on in Venture Capital and how you can build a cloud unicorn in the current climate. Byron started as a SaaS CEO and has invested in probably more SaaS I...

May 18, 202257 minSeason 1Ep. 45

Partnership Lessons from Scaling Stripe & Notion from Zero to billions with Cristina Cordova

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Cristina Cordova, Partner at First Round Capital. Partnerships are one of the most effective forms of marketing, but one of the most difficult to predict and scale. In this session, Cristina pulls from across her decade-long career running partnerships at Stripe and Notion to share the inside scoop on deals that had an unexpected outsized impact — as well as the ones that went sideways. Specifically, Cristina discusse...

May 17, 202254 minSeason 1Ep. 44

Trello’s Journey From Idea to 20M Users and $425M Exit with Michael Pryor, Trello

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a fireside chat between Michael Pryor, Cofounder at Trello and Frederic Lardinois from TechCrunch at Traction Conf. When Atlassian acquired Trello for $425 Million in 2017, the product had nearly 20 million users, all through word-of-mouth. In this session, Michael shares his journey building Trello from idea to exit and discusses how to build products that everyone loves. Specifically, Michael covers: 1:32 - Coming u...

May 11, 202229 minSeason 1Ep. 43

The Rise of Usage-Based Pricing with Patrick Malatack and Kyle Poyar

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Patrick Malatack, Partner at Matrix Partners and Kyle Poyar, Partner at OpenView. Is the end of subscription pricing near? Research from OpenView states that companies with usage-based pricing grow 38% faster... Of the IPOs over the last three years, seven out of nine that had the best net dollar retention all have a usage-based model. Welcome to a new era of software buying, where customers pay for the value they rec...

May 05, 202251 minSeason 1Ep. 41

How to Reach $10M ARR on a Shoestring Budget with Matt Epstein, Rippling

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Matt Epstein , Chief Marketing Officer at Rippling . Not many CMOs have grown a company from $0 to billion dollar valuation in record time. Matt has done it twice. Matt was employee #1 at Zenefits, where he created a leading HR brand and helped grow the company from $0 to $65M ARR. Today he leads Marketing at HR unicorn Rippling, where he's taken big bets. In this session, Matt shares his tips for driving major impact...

May 02, 202246 minSeason 1Ep. 40

The Highs and Lows of Fundraising with Founders of Expensify, LaunchDarkly, Coda, and SaaStr

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a panel he moderated at the recent SaaStr Annual Conference with the founders of Expensify, Coda, LaunchDarkly, and SaaStr. Panelists: Shishir Mehrotra, Co-Founder and CEO, Coda Edith Harbaugh, Co-Founder and CEO, LaunchDarkly David Barrett, Founder and CEO, Expensify Jason Lemkin, Founder and CEO, SaaStr You'll hear about the highs and lows of fundraising, working with a VC board, and real talk about what it really i...

Apr 27, 202249 minSeason 1Ep. 39

How To Build & Scale a Marketplace From $0 to $Billions with Matt Mickiewicz

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a fireside chat between Matt Mickiewicz , Co-founder of 99designs, Hired, SitePoint, and Flippa, and Andy McLoughlin Partner at Uncork Capital from the IRL Traction Conference. Matt shares his secrets to building disruptive multibillion-dollar marketplaces. Specifically, he covers: 1:19 - Back story on how he got into doing some of the most popular marketplaces of the last decade 2:25 - Interacting with professionals ...

Apr 25, 202220 minSeason 1Ep. 38

5 Questions To Unleash Your Company's Hidden Power with Matt Hulett, PetMeds

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Matt Hulett , CEO and President at PetMeds , and Author of Unlock: 5 Questions to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Power. Previously, Matt was the President of Expedia and Rosetta Stone. Whether you're starting a new business or bringing an existing one to the next level, it can be daunting. Instead of wasting months and large sums of money on an extensive strategic planning process, join Matt as he walks through his fiv...

Apr 21, 202251 minSeason 1Ep. 37

How To Do PR With No Budget with Gina Gotthilf, Latitud

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Gina Gotthilf, Co-Founder at Latitud. PR can be a game-changer but for many startups, PR begins and ends with receiving a nod from TechCrunch. While TechCrunch is a great publication (and a mention from it is no small feat), there’s a lot more that goes into a winning PR strategy. Gina shares how you can use PR tactics with no budget to grow your business. Previously, Gina led growth at Duolingo, where she helped grow...

Apr 21, 202251 minSeason 1Ep. 36

4 Rules to Navigate Uncertainty & Build a Billion-Dollar Company with John Kim, Sendbird

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes John S. Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of Sendbird. Sendbird is the world's no.1 chat API, serving over 100M monthly chat users across leading companies such as Reddit, Delivery Hero, Yahoo!, Rakuten, Paytm, Accolade, Livongo, and DHL. John shares the four techniques that enabled his company to become a billion-dollar company at breakneck speed. Specifically, John covers: 2:37 - Career pivots from software engineer to gamer ...

Apr 15, 20221 hr 7 minSeason 1Ep. 35

The Product-Led Growth Playbook for the Enterprise with Annie Pearl, CPO, Calendly

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Annie Pearl, Chief Product Officer at Calendly. As more and more enterprises put employees in the driver’s seat to pick the right tools for their organizations, product leaders have put more emphasis than ever on end-to-end users. With everything from pricing to packaging being looked over very deliberately, will the final product frustrate those users or delight them? Annie shares insights on how to build and drive p...

Apr 11, 20221 hrSeason 1Ep. 34

The Science of Scaling From Zero to Billions with Mark Roberge, Stage 2 Capital

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Mark Roberge, Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital. Previously, Mark was the CRO at HubSpot seeing it from the earliest stages through post-IPO. “When to scale?” and “How fast?” are two mission-critical questions for start-ups, yet most entrepreneurs lack a rigorous approach to answering them. After peeking inside the go-to-market machinery of hundreds of start-ups over the last decade, Mark Roberge shares a scientifi...

Apr 07, 202259 minSeason 1Ep. 33

The Fuel Powering Enduring, Multi-Billion Dollar Businesses with Sarah Tavel, Benchmark

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a talk by Sarah Tavel, General Partner at Benchmark from the IRL Traction Conference in Vancouver. Sarah started her career at Bessemer Venture Partners, and invested in Pinterest when it was a small five person company with about 30,000 registered users. She loved the company so much that she joined Pinterest to become their first product manager. Sarah led product at Pinterest through a period of hyper-growth, and w...

Apr 04, 202219 minSeason 1Ep. 32

Reverse Freemium: How To Go From Sales-Led to Product-Led To Drive Growth with Oji Udezue and Michael Litt

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Oji Udezue, Product Lead at Twitter (and former CPO at Calendly) and Michael Litt, Co-Founder and CEO at Vidyard. The most successful IPOs and fastest-growing private companies of the past decade all started with a freemium, self-service product. Zoom, Atlassian, Slack, Dropbox are just a few. But building a freemium, self-service product when you already have a successful enterprise business can seem like a daunting ...

Mar 30, 20221 hr 15 minSeason 1Ep. 31

Sh*t VCs Say with Jason Lemkin and Justin Kan

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Jason Lemkin, Founder at SaaStr, and Justin Kan, Co-Founder at Fractal.is . Justin co-founded Kiko Software, a Web 2.0 calendar that pre-dated Google Calendar by four years; Justin.tv, a lifecasting platform; Twitch, a live streaming platform for esports, music, and other creatives that was acquired by Amazon for almost $1 billion. More recent roles include Partner and GM at Y Combinator and CEO of Atrium, a software-...

Mar 29, 202230 minSeason 1Ep. 30

Embedding Fintech Into Your Products to Drive Growth with Matt Harris, Bain Capital Ventures

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. Want the key to unlocking the next unicorn? Today, more and more companies are embedding finance (payments, lending, insurance, etc.) into their products — not only to drive growth and revenue but also to stay competitive. Starbucks has the second most used payments application in the United States and they’re not a bank. Analysts estimate Shopify’s payments revenue to gr...

Mar 23, 202257 minSeason 1Ep. 29