SaaStr 791: CRO Confidential: How Codeium Built A Billion-Dollar AI Company and a Winning Sales Machine with VP of Worldwide Sales, Graham Moreno

Chad Arimura is the Founder & CEO @ Iron.io, where he drives the team to build the world's best cloud infrastructure services. Now they do have some pretty sizeable clients including the likes of Google, Zenefits, Twitter, Whole Foods and they have the backing from the likes of Steve Anderson’s Baseline Ventures, Bain Capital, Matt Ocko from Data Collective and our friends at Sapphire Ventures just to name a few and Prior to co-founding Iron.io, Chad was CIO and founder of AllDorm Inc., a collegiate media and marketing company that provided fundraisers and viral marketing campaigns for clients such as Volkswagen, Domino's Pizza, and Visa. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Chad came to found Iron.io ? With a complex product like Iron, how much of a role does education play in the onboarding process for prospective new clients? To what extent does content marketing play the dominant marketing function for Iron both in terms of educating customers and converting potential customers? How does Chad view the balance of much larger ACV clients with long sales cycles compared to SME’s with smaller ticket sizes and shorter sales cycles? What are the challenges when selling to large corporates and CIO’s in the traditional corporates? 60 Second SaaStr What does Chad know now that he wish he had known at the beginning? What is Chad’s favourite reading material? How does Chad deal with stress as a Founder & CEO? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Chad Arimura

5 Sep 201623min

Greg Sands is the Founder and Managing Partner of Costanoa Venture Capital. Prior to founding Costanoa Venture Capital, Greg was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill, where he was an early investor in the likes of Feedburner, AllBusiness, and Return Path just to name a few. Before Sutter Hill, Greg was the first hire at Netscape after its founding engineering team. As Netscape’s 1st Product Manager, Greg wrote the initial business plan, coined the name Netscape, and created the SuiteSpot Business Unit, which he grew from zero to $150m in revenue. He also served as Manager of Business Development at Cisco where he architected a global channel management plan.   In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Greg made his way into the world of VC from Netscape? Why did Greg see the opportunity for an early stage B2B fund like Costanoa? Why did this fund not exist in B2B but was becoming popularised in B2C? To what extent does Greg agree SaaS investing is ‘traction capital’? When investing pre metrics, what are the signs of promise Greg looks for? How does Greg assess product market fit? Why is customer segmentation and customer archetypes so important? What does Greg make of the ‘full stack CEO’? Is it better to be specialised or jack of all trades? When is the right time to specialise? 60 Second SaaStr Greenfield opportunity in SaaS? Biggest advice to startup founders in SaaS? Easier or harder to raise money now than before? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Greg Sands

2 Sep 201624min

Jon Herstein is the Senior Vice President of Customer Success at Box where Jon works to ensure that all of Box's Enterprise and Business customers are phenomenally successful. Jon has worked with some of the biggest names in the tech world, including Accenture, Informatica and most recently NetSuite, where he served as VP of Professional Services for North America and EMEA. Before NetSuite, Jon led the turnaround of Informatica's European consulting practice during a multi-year expatriate assignment, which eventually led to a 65% jump in revenue. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Jon made his way into the newly created category of customer success? How does Box define customer success and how does that impact their view and approach to the SaaS industry? Box has gone through the definition of private hypergrowth and is now in the next phase as a public company - how has that affected the CSM strategy? Box now have some very large accounts, how do you distinguish between the role of sales vs CS in large accounts? How do they partner to drive expansion? Jon is renowned for prioritizing career paths for his team, how does he accomplish this and balance this with wider operational and strategic goals of box? 60 Second SaaStr: What's the most common question Jon hears from CSM leaders? What's one innovative idea Jon has tested that might be shared with the audience, vis-a-vis Customer Success? What do you know now that you wish you had know when you started? The biggest mistake current saas companies are enacting with their CS process? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Jon Herstein

29 Aug 201625min

Kristen Koh Goldstein is the Co-Founder @ HireAthena, the on demand workforce specialising in accounting, HR and payroll. Prior to Hire Athena, Kristen was the Co-Founder @ Scalus, where she raised millions of dollars in venture capital from top VCs including Google Ventures and Sherpa Capital. Before that Kristen was the Co-Founder @ BackOps, the world’s fastest growing back office solution. If you enjoy the show with Kristen today and would like to join Jason and I @ SaaStr Annual 2017 next year, then all you have to do is checkout SaaStr and buy your tickets for SaaStr Annual 2017. In Today’s Episode Kristin Discusses: Why it is that the faster you hire, the longer it takes to build your business? How to make the transition from a family to a village with your team? Why it is imperative to hire slowly and fire fast? How to communicate new hires to the existing team to ease onboarding friction? Why hiring outside of your circle is full of risks? What you can do to mitigate those risks? What happens when you wake up one day and realise you are the problem in your own business? What really is scaling with regards to the product? How important is product consistency in the scaling process? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Kristen Koh Goldstein

26 Aug 201625min

Matthew Bellows is the Founder @ Yesware and a specialist in helping sales people close more deals faster. Yesware serves more than 750,000 salespeople at companies like IBM, Groupon, Salesforce, Twilio, Yelp, VMWare, and Zendesk. Prior to Yesware, Matthew was the VP of Sales at Vivox. Before that, he was GM at Floodgate (acquired by Zynga) and Founder/CEO of WGR Media (acquired by CNET Networks). In Today’s Episode with Matthew We Discuss: How Matthew came to be Founder and CEO @ Yesware? What was the a-ha moment for him? Whether sales is an art or a science and what makes Matthew feel this way? Why all founders should do sales until $1m ARR? What were Matt’s personal learnings from scaling the sales team with Yesware? Why a CEO cannot also be a VP of Sales? When is the right time to hire an exec to run the sales team and begin sales specialisation? How Matthew approaches the hiring process? What is the best way to receive high quality candidates? What does his interview process look like? With the array of data on sales activity how can managers balance management with micro-management? What are the inherent problems? 60 Second SaaStr: If Matthew could do the process again, what would he redo? How does Matthew deal with rejection in business and sales? Strategies to optimise email open rates? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Matthew Bellows

22 Aug 201621min

Ryan Fyfe is the Founder & CEO @ Humanity, the employee scheduling software that allows you to value your employees. Ryan has built Humanity to serve more than half a million users across 87 countries, with a team exceeding 100 people and continually growing across 3 continents. They have raised funding from our friends at Point Nine and a huge thank you to Christoph @ Point Nine for making the introduction today. In Today’s Episode with Ryan We Discuss:   How did Ryan come to be founder and CEO at Humainty? How does Ryan and Humanity use data to affect the marketing decisions they make with regards to customer acquisition? How does Ryan look to integrate customer success into the pre-purchase period to facilitate adoption? How does Ryan view free trials with Humanity? How do they A/B test free trials to optimise for conversion? How can startups ensure efficient time to value in a trial period and what is the role of customer success in this? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Ryan Fyfe

19 Aug 201621min

Michael Litt is the Founder & CEO @ Vidyard the video intelligence platform that allows you to create, measure and strengthen engagement of your video content. Vidyard are based in Canada and have raised over $60m in VC funding from the likes of Battery Ventures, Bessemer, SoftTech, Salesforce Ventures, some incredible names there and the list goes on but I would like to say a  huge thanks to Matt Garrett @ Salesforce Ventures for making the intro. In Today's Show with Michael We Discuss   How did Michael come to found Vidyard, as Paul Graham described, ‘The Google For Business’? How does Michael assess value based pricing and how has his views transition with the growth of Vidyard? What does Vidyard’s internal sales organisation look like? How does Michael look to optimise this structure? How does Michael view the utility of the freemium model? What are the inherent advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered? In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear: Productivity tips and tricks? Cool hobbies, what are they? Fave SaaS material? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Michael Litt

15 Aug 201629min

Today’s episode is taken from SaaStr Annual 2016, featuring Meagen Eisenberg, CMO at MongoDB and former VP Demand Gen at DocuSign, sharing her playbook for optimizing the funnel at every stage and converting leads into real, paying customers. If you want to join me and Jason @ SaaStr 2017 then head to saastr.com where you can buy tickets. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:   Why you need to think about more than just pipeline? What are the other elements of the funnel you should focus on? How to optimise your forms for data capture to allow your sales team to follow up successfully? How marketing can provide support to sales to attract new customers? How does nurturing align the buyer with your sales team? How do you accurately measure success within email marketing? How can startups on a tight budget maximise exposure through content and social media?   If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Meagen Eisenberg

12 Aug 201631min