SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Under his product leadership, Procore has grown exponentially, went public in 2021, and recently crossed the coveted $1B ARR milestone. The Evolution of Vertical SaaS The shift from horizontal to vertical SaaS solutions represents a fundamental change in how enterprises buy and implement software.

Construction 250

Construction Scale SaaS Travel 250

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

After writing An Elegant Puzzle about the challenges of engineering management in high-growth organizations, his focus shifted to a career path that’s much less understood – the technical leadership track. Solvers tend to be reactive to what leadership is really worried about. But the work is still there, it still needs to happen.

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership VP of Engineering CTO Coach 274

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2025

Key Takeaways The discussion highlighted how AI is not just another feature but a fundamental shift in how software products are built and consumed. ” This focus on quality over quick implementation has helped Zoom successfully integrate AI across 12 different products.

AI 261

AI Cybersecurity User Experience Scaling 261

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

With over 20 years in the infrastructure software space, Dave previously held executive roles at Microsoft, VMware, and GitHub. The ideal leadership hire is someone who has seen both startups and scale. Think of it as an orchestra where each section has its part, but together they create something cohesive.

Scale 178

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 178

Payrix

JANUARY 28, 2025

In this episode of PayFAQ: The Embedded Payments Podcast, host Ian Hillis welcomes Matt Downs, President of Worldpay for Platforms, to discuss software-led payments predictions for 2025 and beyond. remains the largest interchange and software market, Matt predicts a loosening of regulatory constraints.

Payments 130

Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Payment Methods 130

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

For the subsequent ten years in software, we’ve optimized every little bit of how we sell it. But today, it’s different because the kinds of software we sell aren’t the same. Six months ago, security was the number one prohibition preventing businesses and software companies from buying AI. It isn’t predictable.

Venture Capital 331

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 331

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2023

Software is Fractal A SaaS product is richly nuanced and contains multiple layers. Leadership needs to consider funding areas, not just a single feature, because more supplemental subfeatures and finetuning will be required every time. Leadership needs to delegate to the talent they have hired.

CTO Coach 242

CTO Coach CTO Hire CTO Leadership 242

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2025

The company is successfully evolving from its SMB roots into a serious enterprise software contender. This architecture gives customers flexibility to adapt the software to their needs without dependency on tech teams, while still offering enterprise-grade capabilities.

Scale 177

Scale SMB Acquisition Enterprise 177

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2025

What’s Next The next 12-18 months will be critical for SaaS companies looking to establish leadership in vertical AI. For SaaS founders, the opportunity lies in building specialized solutions that leverage foundation models while adding unique domain expertise and data advantages. IBM’s Instruct Lab approach, delivering 98.5%

AI 178

AI Scale SaaS Government 178

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 8, 2020

We’d like to share some insights from what we’ve learned so far about software delivery and operations over the past few weeks of working from home during COVID-19 , and how we as an engineering team have adjusted to this unprecedented, unpredictable situation.

Software Delivery 223

Software Delivery Software Review Software Systems Review 223

TechEmpower SaaS

AUGUST 21, 2023

Many CEOs of software-enabled businesses call us with a similar concern: Are we getting the right results from our software team? We hear them explain that their current software development is expensive, deliveries are rarely on time, and random bugs appear. What does a business leader do in this situation? Are you ready?

Technical Review 390

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Systems Review 390

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2024

I think Lotus Software (of 1-2-3 fame) must be close. It shipped Lotus 1-2-3 in January ’83 and sold $50m in software in its first year on the market — that must be $100m+ in today’s $$$. “No software” and the internet are great. Versus, apparently, a plan for $1m in revenues the first year acc.

Startup 261

Startup Finance Software Metrics 261

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Using Dave Kellogg’s “ Four Sources of Pipeline ” framework, marketing should source 60% of the pipeline for a representative enterprise software company. . Marketing SaaStr Session #1: “The State of Software Buying: From SMB to Enterprise with G2’s CMO”. Presented By: Amanda Malko – CMO – G2 – @amandamalko.

Scale 358

Scale Marketing SMB Leadership 358

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2025

Surprisingly, my CTOone of the most startup-oriented people I knowstayed at Adobe for years, while others left to take leadership roles at companies like Brex and Gong. How BigCos buy software, how they build software, who they choose to acquire, etc. You cant predict how people will adapt, so dont stress too much about it.

Startup 140

Startup Scale Acquisition Leadership 140

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

About Dave Kellogg Dave Kellogg brings a rare combination of marketing and executive leadership experience to his analysis of SaaS businesses. And see everyone at 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay for 300+ more sessions, workshops, and braindates like this! The “five-five” CMO who excels at everything is a unicorn.

Sales Hiring 194

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 194

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2025

The ultimate gathering of SaaS and AI leadership is about to happen in San Francisco. We’re bringing together the true founders, revenue leaders and product visionaries that are actually driving the next wave of AI first software. It’s days away now! SaaStr Annual + SaaStr AI Summit 2025! Not talking heads. Not theorists.

AI Search 155

AI Search AI New CTO Scale 155

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2024

Who is Peter Gassner CEO and Founder of SaaS Leader Veeva Systems Peter Gassner has established himself as a significant figure in enterprise software, particularly through his leadership at Veeva Systems. Instead of building generic enterprise software, he went all-in on life sciences. Classic vertical SaaS expansion.

SaaS 261

SaaS Leadership Cloud Enterprise 261

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

This gets more challenging when you have stakeholders who aren’t the ones buying the software. There was no software yet. It worked because it fit within financial operations, and they led with software, workflow, and budgeting, which matter for BILL customers. So, you have to pay attention to each of these stakeholders.

SMB 307

SMB Payment Services Payments Payment Methods 307

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

Last year, the company doubled its headcount, tripled revenue and landed on G2’s Top 100 Global Software list. . For us, that means including a clear understanding of the challenges and obstacles facing AEs, SDRs, CSMs and Revenue leadership. And some of the marquee customers include MongoDB, Gitlab and Qualtrics. .

Scale 359

Scale Artificial Intelligence Payments Payment Services 359

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2024

Deeper Bio: Early Life and Education Graduated with a Computer Science degree from The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo Demonstrated early interest in technology and software development Served in the Israeli Defense Forces’ Intelligence Corps, where he developed technical and leadership skills Early Career Began career as a software developer (..)

Scale 248

Scale SaaS Company Culture Leadership 248

Kellblog

JULY 17, 2022

Go sell some software. Go sell some software. Go sell some software. Go sell some software to prove there’s a market. Only one enterprise software company I can think of had a distinctive voice: Splunk. Thought leadership — are we seen as a thought leader? Do want to build a brand?

Branding 144

Branding Startup Software Sales Recruiting 144

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2024

AI in B2B SaaS: The Incumbent Advantage On the AI revolution in B2B software, it’s the age-old ‘startups are innovating and racing to get distribution, and the bigger companies have distribution and are racing to innovate.’ “We had the best board meeting we’ve ever had,” according to Brian.

AI 284

AI Marketing SaaS Interviewing 284

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2023

If there’s one rule almost everyone universally agrees with when building software, it’s that focus is critical. Point Solution Software Is Extremely Limiting There exists a set of companies that could be built and are often not built that would break this rule of building software with a singular focus. the compound startup.

Startup 261

Startup Software Sales Hiring Pricing 261

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2022

These pillars helped propel Miro, a visual collaboration software company, to a valuation of $17.5 Leadership took user feedback seriously, and spent lots of time iterating on the product to ensure that users could get the most value from it. The company needed to hire more leadership roles and middle management to keep up.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Scale Company Culture B2C 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

Many Vertical SaaS leaders do payroll, finance, accounting, and much more — not just the core software. Toast and Shopify and Bill are really more payments companies today than SaaS companies. You probably have to go multi-product much earlier. Churn is all over the place with SMBs. So be honest.

Payment Solutions 261

Payment Solutions Inbound Sales Team Marketing Scale 261

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2020

This is important to project churn rates, assess timing of software payments, and estimate the impact on cash flows/burn. Sixth, leadership. Great leadership is different than great management. Management and leadership are different. Many of them will suffer from it.

Startup 247

Startup SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 247

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

I am a former CXO and current investor and board member in the B2B software space. In the past, software companies needed to provide solutions covering a wide range of capabilities to be relevant for centralized IT buyers who would deploy across multiple functions in the company. Myth #3 – One winner takes all .

Enterprise 284

Enterprise SaaS Cloud Scale 284

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

From the beginning, Airtable convinced themselves that they had a different category of product through the creation of a software creation platform that anyone can use. The software creation pitch is faulty because it’s not obvious to average/most customers that they can build software to directly fit their needs.

Scale 275

Scale Software Review Scaling Sales Hiring 275

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2022

G2 is the largest and most trusted software marketplace, helping 60 million people every year make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Zoho offers beautifully smart software to help you grow your business. That’s why we give boards and leadership teams an elegant solution that simplifies governance.

Payments 49

Payments Payment Solutions Sales Recruiting Onboarding 49

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2023

Whether you use GitLab or not to build and manage your software, you’ve at least looked at it and learned from them. They’ve also paved the way in running distributed teams at scale, and in ethical leadership. We try to get as many of their founders and CROs and CMOs to speak at our events as possible.

Leadership 305

Leadership Pricing Scaling Startup 305

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2024

Loren has been a SaaS SMB+ leader for years, running Shopify Plus and revenue leadership roles at Bill and Podium as well. Not all these services have the high gross margins of software. This week’s Workshop Wednesday was with Loren Padelford, CRO of Slice, a $100m+ ARR vertical SaaS platform for independent pizza shops.

Sales Hiring 272

Sales Hiring SMB SaaS Leadership 272

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

It includes a breakdown of the Sales AI landscape, adoption of GenAI and Sales software across buyer groups. The misconception and three focus areas We are called GTMfund because we support companies with all things go-to-market, not because we invest in GTM software. We do invest in GTM software, but not that frequently.

Investment 111

Investment Technical Review Development Team Review Scale 111

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2024

The best leadership finds a way even in slightly tougher times. They both seem cool, yet only one can push out 50% more software a quarter. If you can build great software 50% faster than the competition in two years, that compounds. The best leaders find a way. One thousand folks want to join you and think you’re great.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 301

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

In our first post about our online community , we mentioned launching the Global SaaS Leaders Slack group because we saw a need for the kind of software-and-SaaS-focused community we’d want to be a part of. Our Guiding Principle: Our Software and SaaS Community Must Be Good for You in Order for It to Succeed. Professional moderation.

SaaS Payments 148

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Software Review 148

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2023

Every client uses the product differently, so it’s hard to make the software better. You need to get everyone together and determine what people are trying to achieve with your software. Determine stakeholders and how you can configure the software to meet five or six goals. It’s hard to ramp new teammates in CSM and PS.

Scale 273

Scale Leadership Customer Success Scaling 273

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Selling into financial institutions (FIs) has long been the end goal for many software-oriented fintech businesses. We believe, however, these fears are worth tackling, and the current moment is actually an ideal time for fintech businesses to start selling software products into FIs.

Scale 112

Scale Software Sales Banking 112