B2B SaaS Podcast

In this episode, Mikael Dia, Founder and CEO of Funnelytics, shares insights into the journey and growth of Funnelytics, a marketing analytics platform. Mikael discusses how Funnelytics helps businesses visualize customer journeys and overlay data to optimize conversions and identify bottlenecks.Product Overview:Funnelytics is a marketing analytics platform that allows businesses to visualize customer journeys on a digital whiteboard. It helps users see conversion rates, identify bottlenecks, and understand the flow through various touchpoints. The platform integrates with tools like HubSpot and uses a tracking script on websites to collect and visualize data.Customers:Thousands of customers across various industries, including agencies, e-learning, SaaS, and e-commerce sectors.Revenue Distribution**:** Approximately 30% from agencies, 30% from midsize in-house teams, and 30% from mapping-only users.Customer Acquisition**:** Acquires approximately 50 new customers per week. Around 200 new free trials per week.Top of Funnel Channels:Initially relied on paid advertising to promote the free mapping tool.Currently, most traffic is organic, driven by word-of-mouth and users sharing their experiences.Self-attribution from customers points to sources like YouTube, Instagram influencers, and LinkedIn.Conversion Strategy:Uses a product-led approach with a free mapping tool and a free trial model.Focus on optimizing the onboarding experience for new users.Employs an SDR process to identify high-value leads from free trials and schedules kickoff calls to demonstrate the platform and assess fit for higher-level plans.0 to 1 Journey (Initial Days):Mikeal built the first version of Funalytics for his own agency needs. To gain early users, he:Launched a free mapping tool and built a community on Facebook.Offered a lifetime deal for early access to the analytics feature, generating over $200,000 in 48 hours and closing seven figures in non-recurring revenue in the first 12 months.Company Funding & Team:Funding**:** Raised $3 million in VC funding, primarily used to rebuild the platform for scalability.Initial Development Cost**:** Built with a small team of developers, funded by lifetime deal revenue and early income.Team Structure**:** Initially had three full-time engineers and one part-time engineer.Vision:Funalytics aims to become the command center for digital marketing teams globally, providing a universal language through its visual canvas and data integration. The company is focused on sustainable, profitable growth and is considering raising a Series A round to further scale its operations.Conclusion:Mikhail's journey with Funalytics highlights the importance of adaptability, leveraging user feedback, and maintaining a clear vision for growth. The episode provides valuable insights into building and scaling a successful SaaS product in the competitive marketing analytics space.

In this episode, Sahil Patel, CEO of Spiralize, discusses predictive conversion rate optimization for B2B SaaS companies.What Spiralize Does:Spiralize offers predictive conversion rate optimization by scraping and analyzing A/B tests from 34,000 websites.They identify successful A/B tests and implement them for clients to optimize conversions.Understanding A/B Testing:Sahil explains A/B testing using the analogy of a clinical drug trial, emphasizing the importance of statistically significant results.Scraping and Analysis Process:Spiralize utilizes their proprietary software to crawl the internet, capturing visual differences in A/B tests.They identify common elements across successful tests to determine proven winners.Expertise and Value Proposition:Sahil highlights the expertise Spiralize brings by analyzing data from thousands of websites, providing insights beyond what individual companies can achieve.Spiralize offers a blend of product and service to address the challenges and complexities of A/B testing.Customer Base and Business Model:Spiralize primarily serves B2B SaaS companies with at least 500 employees, spending $50,000 to $70,000 monthly on marketing.The company operates on a performance-based model, starting with a 90-day pilot followed by a monthly fee.Acquisition Strategy and Market Focus:Spiralize relies on client referrals and relationships with CMOs, leveraging the frequent job changes in the industry.They target the B2B SaaS market due to its relative newness in conversion rate optimization, offering more opportunities for growth.Team Structure and Engineering Role:Spiralize employs a team of software engineers to improve their proprietary software and assist clients in building and running A/B tests.Engineers focus on implementing significant changes in user experience rather than minor adjustments, maximizing impact.Future Vision and Goals:Sahil envisions CRO becoming as essential as SEO, with Spiralize leading the industry in the next five to ten years.The company aims to democratize conversion rate optimization, making it a standard practice for all websites.

Join host Upendra Varma in an insightful conversation with David Daneshgar, Co-founder and CEO of Whippy, an automation platform revolutionizing communication with AI.Discover how Whippy addresses manual work challenges across various industries, leveraging automation in HR, customer support, sales, and marketing.Gain insights into Whippy's positioning strategy, which involves solving real problems for specific niches, leading to focused go-to-market approaches.Explore Whippy's impressive growth metrics, with over 600 paid accounts and an ARR exceeding $3 million, primarily in the SMB sector.Understand Whippy's expansion into enterprise markets, with deals ranging upwards of $100K ARR, driven by a robust API catering to large-scale automation needs.Delve into Whippy's go-to-market strategy, predominantly outbound-driven, emphasizing cold outreach to identify high-value verticals and refine messaging.Learn about Whippy's customer-centric approach, tailoring solutions to niche industries like personal injury law, ensuring competitive advantage and high ROI.Gain insights into Whippy's sales cycle, with SMB deals closing within 60-90 days and enterprise cycles extending up to a year, highlighting the importance of sandbox testing and contract lifecycles.Explore Whippy's future growth trajectory, focusing on diversifying channels beyond outbound, including inbound, referrals, partnerships, and integration alliances.Understand Whippy's team composition, with a significant emphasis on engineering talent and strategic hiring in sales, customer success, and marketing.Discover Whippy's commitment to compliance and security, investing in certifications like SOC 2 and HIPAA to facilitate enterprise expansion.Gain valuable perspectives on bootstrapping versus external funding, with Whippy opting to stay bootstrapped to maintain flexibility and strategic decision-making power.Tune in to uncover the secrets behind Whippy's remarkable journey from a poker world champion's entrepreneurial vision to a thriving multimillion-dollar SaaS venture.

In this episode Gerald Zankl, Co-founder and CEO of KickScale provides valuable insights into KickScale's journey, strategies for navigating a crowded market, and ambitious plans for future growth and innovation.Company Overview:KickScale specializes in providing AI-driven insights into customer conversations to optimize sales meetings, offer targeted coaching, and automate follow-ups, ultimately saving valuable time for sales teams.Target Customer Base:Ideal customers are companies selling products with an annual contract value (ACV) ranging from $5k to $30k, primarily in the software development space.Customer Metrics:Currently serving 30 paying B2B customers, with approximately 97% in software-related industries.Deal sizes vary from a few hundred euros per month to $1-2k per month, depending on company size and sales team requirements.Growth Strategy:Leveraging inbound channels through content marketing, including free playbooks, and active engagement on LinkedIn.Conversion process involves qualification meetings, product demonstrations, and trial periods lasting between two to four weeks.Market Position and Vision:KickScale aims to empower sales reps by enhancing productivity and providing valuable insights, positioning itself within the rapidly growing market of sales enablement and conversational intelligence.Vision to hit $1 million in ARR within the next 12 months, focusing on scaling in the German-speaking markets initially before expanding globally.Investment and Compliance:Raised nearly half a million in external funding, leveraging public grants and business angel investments.Considering certifications like SOC 2 in response to customer requests, acknowledging the importance of data privacy and security.Team Structure and Development:Current team consists of 10 members, primarily focused on development, with expertise in front-end, back-end, and artificial intelligence.Maintaining cost efficiency while ensuring an attractive offer for customers to achieve sustainable growth.Future Growth and Metrics:Goal to achieve $1 million in ARR by the end of the next year, with plans for further expansion into additional markets and language support.Commitment to empowering sales reps and enhancing their daily work through automation and AI-driven insights.

Yash Shah, CEO of Momentum Ventures talks about his current venture & the story of how he built & sold his SaaS company ClientJoy.Momentum Ventures:Founded by Yash, Momentum Ventures specializes in assisting SaaS companies in acquiring, converting, and retaining customers by developing sustainable go-to-market strategies.Yash describes their engagement model, which involves problem definition, identifying skill gaps, and structuring teams to work as an extension of the client's team.The company primarily operates on an output-driven engagement model using OKR (Objectives and Key Results) methods, with weekly check-ins to track progress.Yash shares a case study with Cloud Presenter, a meetings and webinars platform, where Momentum Ventures optimized conversions and user activations to address challenges in customer acquisition.The engagement model at Momentum Ventures revolves around value-based pricing, where they focus on improving specific metrics to generate more revenue for SaaS companies.ClientJoy:ClientJoy, founded by Yash Shah, initially started as a CRM platform for agencies and freelancers to manage client relationships and projects efficiently.The platform addressed the challenges agencies faced in managing client relationships effectively, especially as they scaled.Yash explains how the platform gained traction through targeted inbound marketing efforts, focusing on addressing the pain points of agencies with content tailored to their needs.ClientJoy's growth strategy involved understanding their ideal customers deeply, which led to a significant focus on agencies with team sizes ranging from 11 to 50 people in the US and CanadaThey had around 16000 customers on the platform.Yash discusses various channels that contributed to ClientJoy's growth, including SEO-driven content marketing, lead magnets, competitor funnels, and targeted advertising on platforms like Instagram.The company's approach to nurturing leads involved providing valuable content related to agency growth rather than solely promoting their product, fostering trust and engagement with their target audience.The episode concludes with Yash sharing insights into ClientJoy's exit journey, highlighting the company's journey from securing government grants to multiple funding rounds and eventual acquisition discussions.This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of the strategies and journeys behind two successful ventures in the SaaS industry, providing valuable insights for aspiring founders and entrepreneurs.

Join Upendra Varma as he sits down with Sindre Halaand, CEO, and co-founder of Salescreen, to delve into the journey of Salescreen, a sales gamification platform, and the secrets behind its remarkable growth.SalesScreen's Mission and Customer Base:SalesScreen aims to motivate sales teams to achieve their goals with enthusiasm and efficiency.Primarily serves companies with large sales teams engaged in transactional sales, such as phone sales, real estate, and insurance, with established sales processes.Key Metrics and Growth Trajectory:Achieved $8 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with over 300 active paying customers and 20,000 monthly active sales reps.Experienced a 15% growth in a challenging year for the software industry, focusing on profitability while aiming for a 20%+ growth rate moving forward.Sales Motion and Go-to-Market Strategy:Transitioned from a primarily outbound sales approach to a blend of inbound and outbound, with a growing emphasis on product-led growth.Working towards a product-led sales motion to optimize resources and cater to both SMBs and enterprise clients effectively.Average Deal Size and Customer Profiles:Average deal size is above $25,000, with notable enterprise clients like Adobe.Targeting enterprises with a focus on scalability and compliance, including ISO 27001 certification.Company Evolution and Funding Strategy:Founded in 2011, Salescreen initially bootstrapped before raising approximately $7 million in funding.Strategically invested in international expansion, particularly in the US market, and compliance measures to meet enterprise standards.Retention, Expansion, and Future Vision:Maintains strong retention rates with 110-120% Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and 80-85% gross revenue retention.Envisions leveraging AI to enhance frontline manager support, empowering them to optimize performance and coaching.Open to potential partnerships or acquisitions but remains focused on sustainable growth and market opportunities.

Join host Upendra Varma in a deep dive with Ayush Singhvi, CEO of Byldd, as they unravel the secret behind building SaaS products for non-technical founders on a budget.Here are the talking points,Build operates as a startup studio and dev shop, assisting non-technical founders and domain experts in launching tech businesses.Ayush shares insights into Build's approach, focusing on refining founders' ideas, narrowing down visions into actionable phases, and rapidly launching MVPs to gather customer feedback.Build boasts approximately 20 active projects, with about six or seven long-term partnerships lasting over a year.Their unique approach leverages automated software development processes and proprietary IP to deliver MVPs under $10K in just one to two months.The typical deal size ranges around $15K, aiming to cater to bootstrap founders while maintaining a customer-centric product development model.Despite variations in project complexity, Build aims to deploy about two and a half engineers per project, along with a full product team for comprehensive support.Build's growth journey began in February 2020, starting with just one team member and now scaling up to a team of 55, with over 50 projects completed to date.

In this episode host Upendra Varma welcomes Matt Ford, co-founder and CEO of Prism FM, a vertical SaaS solution for the live music industry.Here are the talking points, Product:Prism FM organizes all elements of planning live events, including financials, paperwork, payments, and accounting.Understanding the Customers:Prism serves various customer profiles, including music venue owners, performing art centers, Broadway organizers, and talent agencies.Origins and Background:Matt's journey into building Prism stemmed from his experience as a concert promoter and tech entrepreneur.He identified the industry's need for a software system to streamline operations.Initial Growth and Challenges:Matt initially closed the first 20 deals personally, leveraging his network and attending conferences.Transitioning from founder-led sales to a team-based approach, Prism explored channels like SEO/SEM and traditional marketing.Sales Process and Pricing Strategy:Sales cycles vary, with smaller deals closing quicker and larger deals taking longer.Prism employs a sophisticated sales pitch focusing on price validation and showcasing value through time and efficiency gains.Product Marketing and Network Effects:Word of mouth plays a significant role due to inherent network effects, with existing users advocating for Prism within their networks.Product marketing emphasizes the platform's ability to connect and streamline workflows between venues and talent agencies.Team and Product Development:Prism's team consists of 26 members primarily focused on product development, engineering, sales, and customer support.Matt underscores the importance of in-house product development, emphasizing quality over outsourcing.Funding and Vision:Prism recently closed a $5 million Series B round, totaling $15 million in funding.Matt envisions Prism becoming an industry standard within the live music sector, with plans for expansion and potential acquisitions.Future Growth:While specific revenue targets remain uncertain, Matt believes Prism has the potential to reach hundreds of millions in recurring revenue.The focus remains on evolving the product to meet industry needs and capitalize on network effects.

Griffin Parry, founder and CEO of Meter talks about how their usage-based pricing SaaS has acquired over 30-40 customers with ACV's in the range of $100K.Here are the talking points,Meter's Mission:Meter aids B2B software companies in deploying effective pricing strategies for growth.Offers a pricing operations platform for companies utilizing usage-based pricing models.Helps in distributing customer spend and usage data seamlessly across the organization.Differentiation:Complementary to subscription management platforms like Chargebee.Provides necessary data integration and processing before billing systems.Product Overview:Offers a primary usage data tracking mechanism via API.Assists scale-up companies in coping with increased complexity by ingesting data from existing sources.Customer Base:Focuses on scale-up companies facing growth challenges due to organizational pain points.Targets finance personnel handling billing complexities in expanding businesses.Metrics and Customer Profile:Approximately 30-40 paying customers, with ARR ranging from $50 million to $200 million.ARR exceeding $100K per customer, indicating critical business value.Targets companies at Series B funding stage or beyond.Pricing Model:Utilizes usage-based pricing, charging based on data delivery and bill calculations.Offers predictability with significant minimums and overage charges for exceeding allowances.Growth and Sales Strategy:Utilizes inbound, outbound, and partner channels for lead generation.Engages in high-contact, value-added conversations to address customer skepticism.Sales cycle typically spans six months, involving reassurance and guidance through complex transformations.Zero to One Journey:Founded by repeat founders with prior experience in cloud infrastructure and usage-based pricing.Conducted extensive discovery conversations with potential customers before product development.Collaborated with design partners to co-create the platform and validate its effectiveness.Funding and Team Size:Raised $31.5 million in external funding, leveraging favorable market conditions.Currently employs a team of approximately 60 members.Next Milestone:Focuses on efficient and profitable growth, with a potential Series B funding round on the horizon.Aims to achieve $100 million in ARR, fulfilling the vision of building a successful B2B software company.

In this episode, we delve into the success story of ZenMaid, a Vertical SaaS company, with CEO Amar Ghose joining us to share insights.Here are the talking points,Amar explains how ZenMaid simplifies scheduling for residential cleaning businesses worldwide, highlighting the critical role of efficient scheduling in the cleaning industry.Discover ZenMaid's customer base, primarily consisting of small to medium-sized residential cleaning businesses paying around $100 per month, totaling approximately 2,000 paying customers and $2.5 million in annual revenue.Learn about ZenMaid's impressive growth rate of 25 to 30 percent over the past 12 months.Explore ZenMaid's diverse marketing strategies, including organic traffic, SEO, a thriving Facebook community, and industry partnerships.Understand the significance of ZenMaid's Facebook groups in fostering engagement, gathering feedback, and generating content ideas.Gain insights into ZenMaid's SEO strategy, centered around content creation, particularly through the annual Maid Summit.Discover ZenMaid's approach to industry partnerships and the mutual benefits derived from collaborations within the cleaning industry.Learn about ZenMaid's customer acquisition funnel, involving retargeting, email marketing, and personalized onboarding.Understand ZenMaid's churn metrics, with customer churn under 5 percent and revenue churn around 2 percent per month.Explore ZenMaid's journey from inception, starting with cold outreach to acquire the first 100 customers, followed by inbound growth fueled by SEO and industry partnerships.Hear about Amar's commitment to ZenMaid's long-term vision, prioritizing independence and organic growth over external funding, despite offers for investment.

In this episode, Amit RG, CEO of RichPanel, discusses their journey from inception to surpassing $2MN ARR.Here are the talking points,Understanding RichPanel's Value PropositionRichPanel's mission: Seamless customer service experience, eliminating the need for frequent contacts.Comparison with industry giants like Amazon and Uber, focusing on proactive support and streamlined operations.Target Market and Product DifferentiationPrimary focus: E-commerce companies; also serving SaaS companies.Unique approach: Analyzing reasons for customer contacts to proactively address issues.Differentiation from traditional help desks: Integration of self-service features akin to Amazon's My Account section.Metrics and Growth TrajectoryOver 2000 paying customers, predominantly in the US, with an average deal size of $10,000.Achieved over $2M ARR, doubling revenue annually since inception.Initial growth driven by personal contacts; scalable channels include word-of-mouth, organic search, and SEO.Conversion Strategy and Sales CycleInside sales model with a swift conversion cycle of 3-4 weeks.Conversion driven by trial usage and ensuring value realization; personalized support during the trial phase.Churn, Retention, and ExpansionChurn rate reduced to near 0%, with occasional downgrades and expansions.Limited expansion opportunities due to generous initial plans; focus on making the product more accessible.Early-stage Growth and FundingInitial growth from personal contacts; later scaled through interviews and customer feedback.Raised $2M in funding from Sequoia with initial selection from Y Combinator.Team Composition and Future Goals30-member team with a product-focused approach, including engineers, customer support, sales, and HR.Next milestone: Exploring new applications and integrations to enhance product offerings and market reach.

In this episode of the B2B SaaS podcast, host Upendra Varma sits down with Dana Dunford, the CEO of Hemlane, a property management platform. Dana sheds light on Hemlane's unique approach to property management and the strategies that have propelled its growth, particularly focusing on the development of a robust affiliate program.Here are the key takeaways:Company Overview:Hemlane offers a hybrid property management platform catering to rental property owners seeking an alternative to traditional property management services.With a portfolio of 23,000 rental properties across all 50 states, Hemlane stands out in the market for targeting small mom-and-pop property owners.Customer Acquisition:Dana emphasizes the challenge of creating a new category within an industry and discusses Hemlane's early reliance on referrals for customer acquisition.The company leveraged its network and personal connections to initiate warm introductions and gather valuable feedback from potential customers.Dana shares insights into Hemlane's affiliate program, which contributes to over 50% of customer acquisitions through strategic partnerships and referrals from satisfied customers.Sales and Pricing:The average customer pays just over $79 per month, with an average portfolio size of eight rental properties.Hemlane's sales approach is low-touch, with demos provided as needed, reflecting the self-service nature of its target market.The company maintains a churn rate of less than 1%, focusing on maximizing revenue retention and ancillary services to drive additional revenue streams.Funding and Growth:Hemlane has raised over $12 million in funding through Series Seed and Series A rounds, positioning the company for continued expansion.The company's strong performance has surpassed key milestones, with current projections well exceeding the $5-10 million ARR benchmark sought by investors for the Series B round.Vision and Future Plans:Dana envisions Hemlane as a catalyst for eliminating the stigma associated with rental property ownership and empowering individuals to build passive income streams through real estate investments.The company aims to further scale its operations, enabling property owners to manage and expand their portfolios seamlessly from anywhere.

In this episode, Surendra Varma, the founder and CEO of Emgage, shares insights into their journey of scaling from zero to 100 customers by offering virtual HR services alongside their HR software.Here's what you'll discover in this insightful conversation:Introduction to Emgage: Get acquainted with Emgage, a virtual HR platform designed to cater to the needs of startups and MSMEs. Surendra Varma shares the company's vision of simplifying HR management for growing organizations.Identifying Market Gaps: Learn how Emgage identified the challenges faced by startups and MSMEs in implementing traditional HRMS solutions due to lack of resources and expertise, leading to the inception of their holistic ecosystem approach.Product and Service Offering: Understand Emgage's unique proposition of combining HR software with consulting services to provide end-to-end HR solutions. Discover how their platform assists clients in setting up HR departments, managing HR operations, and digitalizing HR processes.Customer Base and Revenue: Surendra reveals that Emgage has acquired close to 200 paying customers, with an average deal size ranging from $1,200 to $1,500 per year per customer. Emgage primarily targets organizations with around 20 to 25 employees facing HR management challenges.Sales and Growth Strategy: Explore Emgage's sales approach, which involves a mix of inbound digital marketing efforts and outbound sales outreach. Learn about their short sales cycle of around two weeks and the importance of consultative selling in demonstrating value to potential customers.Customer Acquisition Channels: Discover how Emgage leverages digital presence, SEO, content marketing, and referrals to attract customers. Surendra discusses their focus on targeting startups and MSMEs in the Indian market due to its significant growth potential.Funding and Team Structure: Gain insights into Emgage's funding journey, with an initial investment of $200,000 from angel investors. Learn about their team of 40 members, comprising experienced professionals in sales, tech, customer success, and HR services.Vision for the Future: Surendra shares Emgage's vision of becoming a comprehensive HR ecosystem, offering solutions for all employee and employer-related challenges. The company aims to continue scaling its customer base and ARR, focusing on serving the zero to 500 employee segment.

In this insightful episode of the B2B SaaS Podcast, we delve deep into the success story of Vivantio, a leading enterprise service management platform, with CEO Greg Rich. Discover the strategies, insights, and metrics behind their remarkable achievement of surpassing $5 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) by selling $25,000 deals to customer service teams.Here are the key topics covered,Introduction to Vivantio: Greg Rich, the CEO and co-founder of Vivantio, provides an overview of their enterprise service management platform tailored for customer service and support teams.Understanding the Market: Learn about Vivantio's target market, predominantly mid-market teams seeking to upgrade from legacy or entry-level case management solutions to a more advanced service management platform.Product Differentiation: Greg explains how Vivantio simplified its license model, offering a single platform with customizable features, catering to various service teams across the enterprise.Customer Base and Revenue: Gain insights into Vivantio's customer base, serving approximately 400 customers with an average deal size of $25,000, resulting in an ARR exceeding $5 million.Growth Journey: Explore Vivantio's growth journey, focusing on strategic investments in SEO, content marketing, and educational initiatives to drive growth and market awareness.Sales Cycle and Expansion Strategy: Understand Vivantio's sales cycle, averaging 60 to 90 days, and their expansion strategy, achieving a net retention rate of 110% to 115% by upselling features and expanding usage horizontally and vertically within customer organizations.Churn and Retention: Discover Vivantio's customer churn rate and average tenure of approximately six years, indicating strong customer retention and loyalty.Team Structure and Vision: Get insights into Vivantio's team structure, comprising sales, marketing, product, support, engineering, and operational teams across the UK and the US, and their vision for future growth, including plans for equity funding to capitalize on the $26 billion market opportunity.

In this episode of the B2B SaaS podcast, dive into the remarkable journey of E Webinar with its co-founder and CEO, Melissa Kwan. Discover how E Webinar, a pioneering webinar automation solution, has scaled to new heights without relying on traditional VC funding. Melissa shares insights into the company's founding, unique features, growth strategies, and vision for the future, offering valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and SaaS enthusiasts alike.Discover the story behind E Webinar's inception and its unique features catering to sales and customer success needs.Gain valuable insights into E Webinar's growth trajectory, from bootstrapped beginnings to crossing the remarkable milestone of a million ARR.Explore the strategies behind E Webinar's success, including its product-led growth approach and focus on SEO and content marketing.Learn how E Webinar navigates customer support, trials, and conversions entirely self-serve, emphasizing product excellence and customer satisfaction.Delve into Melissa's vision for the future, focusing on sustainable growth, team well-being, and success without the need for VC funding.Whether you're an entrepreneur, SaaS enthusiast, or interested in balanced business growth, this episode offers invaluable wisdom and inspiration.You can also watch this episode on youtube here.

David Henzel, Founder of UpCoach, discusses their transformative journey from a DIY coaching course to a thriving platform with a 93% completion rate. The strategic partnerships, particularly with influencer Todd Herman, played a key role in the early success of UpCoach. Boasting a customer base of 5,000 with a mix of one-time and recurring paying users, UpCoach's top-of-funnel strategies include collaborations with coaches, podcast launches, and SEO efforts.Here are the key talking points,UpCoach achieved a remarkable 93% completion rate through a shift to core-based coaching.Early success attributed to strategic partnerships, particularly with influencer Todd Herman.The platform, priced at $39 and featuring a freemium option, targets coaches, focusing on smaller coaching organizations.Current customer base includes 5,000 coaches, with a mix of one-time and recurring paying customers.Top-of-funnel strategies involve partnerships with other coaches, podcast launches, and SEO efforts.Upcoming plans include enhancing features, improving ease of use, and launching an app marketplace.CEO David Hensel's personal journey from a disruptive student to running multiple agencies with 500 employees.Future aspirations for UpCoach centered around product growth and continued impact in the coaching space.You can also watch this episode on youtube here,

Alexandre Abu-Jamra, Co-Founder & CMO of Klooks, talks about their remarkable journey from a bootstrapped startup to landing million-dollar deals with industry giants like S&P and Bloomberg. Specializing in extracting financial data from PDFs and images, Klooks has become a trailblazer in transforming this data into actionable, verified insights for diverse analyses.Here are the talking points,

Robin Singhvi, Founder of SmartCue, talks how about how they acquired over 30 paying customers ( of 5-6 figure ACV deals ) primarily with founder-led sales. We deep dive into his entrepreneurial journey and learn how his monthly newsletter and enterprise sales expertise are propelling SmartCue's growth!

Sunny Saurabh, CEO of interviewer.ai, unveils the compelling journey of how his company is modernizing the recruitment landscape. By automating the initial round of interviews and offering stack ranking of candidates, Interviewer.ai offers businesses and universities a revolutionary way to streamline the hiring process.Here's what listeners will explore:

Adam Stone, CEO of StartAdam, sheds light on how his unique communication consolidation tool skyrocketed in user acquisition using the power of SEO. By connecting platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, and Telegram, StartAdam simplifies B2B communication in an ingenious way.Here's what you'll discover:

Tom Burton, Co-founder of LeadSmart Technologies talks about how he's reinventing CRM for the wholesale distribution space, where Excel sheets rule and cutting-edge tech is sparse.What to expect:

Brendan Weitz, Co-founder of Journey, joins host Upendra Varma to deep dive into how his company is revolutionizing the B2B sales and marketing realm with an innovative storytelling format. Brendan walks us through how Journey emerged from a prototype to a game-changing tool, aiming to make B2B transactions as seamless as B2C purchases on platforms like Amazon.Key insights from this episode:The inception of Journey and its mission to create a captivating buying experience for sales and marketing teams.How Journey transcends the conventional 16x9 presentation format to offer a more interactive, mobile-first experience in an asynchronous remote world.Brendan's take on targeting sales and marketing sectors, yet being open to a wide range of storytelling use cases.A snapshot of Journey's current customer base (around 200 customers) and its freemium model attracting tens of thousands of users monthly.The product's self-sufficient viral loop driving 50% of their signups, and their aspirational aim to match viral growth akin to tools like Loom or Calendly.A nostalgic journey into Brendan's past roles at major companies like Facebook, AdRoll, and Quora, and how these experiences shaped Journey's growth.The vision of Journey and its future go-to-market strategy.Team dynamics, funding details, and Brendan's ambitious outlook for the platform.You can also watch this episode on youtube here.

Jane Portman, CEO & Co-Founder of Userlist, discusses how they repositioned themselves from a customer messaging platform to a more established email service provider (ESP) category tailored specifically for SaaS businesses. In this interview, she shares insights on how they acquired their first set of customers, how they use content marketing to drive leads, and how their repositioning has helped them, among other topics.The interview covers the following topics:How Userlist helps B2B SaaS companies with email automationHow they acquired logos like SavvyCal and Transistor fm as customersHow they used personal branding to acquire their first few customers and why it doesn't scaleHow most of their top-of-funnel leads come from inbound leads via content marketingWhat their sales cycle looks like and why customers switch from their competitorsThe backstory of their repositioningTeam, funding, and vision.

Ahmed Elsamadisi, CEO & Co-Founder at Narrator, talks about how they are building an innovative data platform based on his own innovation of data schema (called Activity Schema). We talk about how he's come up with this brand new data modelling paradigm, how they're trying to build a business around this now open-sourced innovation, their customer acquisition strategy & lot more.The interview covers the following topics:The ways in which Narrator empowers data analysts in enterprises, offering quicker insights via the Activity Schema.Their journey to acquiring over 200 paying customers, including some prominent brands.Efforts to encourage data enthusiasts to amplify their innovation, fostering a ripple of positive online conversations.A glimpse into their current sales cycle.The intriguing "0 to 1" journey of Narrator.Insights into their team, funding trajectories, and a peek into their vision for the future.

Dan Balcauski, Founder & Principal Consultant at Product Tranquility, talks about how B2B SaaS founders should think about pricing & packaging their products. We talk about how to think about pricing, when it starts really mattering & finally how to increase prices without affecting your existing SaaS customers.The interview covers the following topics:How Product Tranquility helps high-volume B2B SaaS CEOs define pricing and packaging for new productsThe importance of pricing strategy for SaaS companies and the common mistakes that companies make.Why understanding customer segments, value drivers, and competition is crucial for creating a pricing strategy that maximizes profitability.Why companies looking to increase prices should align on goals, evaluate expected revenue and costs, and test changes at a smaller scale.Why pricing and packaging should be approached as a multidimensional strategy rather than just focusing on price level.

Vivek Khandelwal, Co-Founder of iZooto, discusses how they grew their audience marketing platform past $5MN+ in ARR while remaining completely bootstrapped. In this interview, we cover their product, journey from 0 to 1, growth over the past 12 months, sales cycle, and long-term vision. We also talk about how Upekkha, a leading SaaS accelerator, helped them grow manifold over the years.The interview covers the following topics:How iZooto helps publishers of all sizes with audience engagement and retentionHow they acquired over 1000 paying customers with approximately 16000 users on the platformHow they crossed the $5MN ARR mark and are on track to hit $10MN soonHow they have been growing in double digits almost every yearHow they hustled and used their connections to get their first set of customersHow they acquire approximately 60% of leads through outbound and the rest through inbound channels, with content and SEO playing a huge partHow their sales cycle looks across various sets of customersHow they joined Upekkha (a leading Indian SaaS accelerator) at around $250K ARR and how they benefitted from Upekkha's network, tools, and community over the yearsWhy Vivek recommends fellow SaaS founders join Upekkha and how they can benefit from the brilliant founder community they have builtTheir vision and team

Phil Alves, the CEO of Devstats (& Devsquad), discusses how they grew their developer performance improvement SaaS to 50 customers within 12 months of its launch, with an ACV of around $10k. In this interview, we cover their product, journey from 0 to 1, growth over the past 12 months, sales cycle, and long-term vision.In the interview, we discuss the following:How Devstats is the only engineering management tool for leaders focused on actionable performance data and healthy teams.How they acquired over 50 customers in the past 10-12 months with an ACV of around $10k, primarily using founder-led sales.How they used cold emailing to acquire all of their first set of customers.What their sales cycle looks like and how it took almost 10-12 months to close their first set of customers.How Phil built a hugely successful dev consulting company (Devsquad) with around 100 employees doing in excess of $10MN in top-line revenue.How he plans to bootstrap the company using his other successful dev consulting business.Their vision and team.

Robert Kirstuik, co-founder and CEO of Freshline, discusses how they have grown to over 100 customers with 200% year-over-year growth in the past 12 months, primarily using cold calling. We cover their product, their journey from 0 to 1, their growth journey over the past 12 months, their sales cycle, and their long-term vision.In this interview, we discuss the following:How Freshline helps food wholesalers and distributors become more efficient.How they have acquired 100 customers, each with up to 25 warehouses.How they are growing at over 200% year-over-year, primarily from cold calling and organic SEO.What their cold calling process looks like, with a conversion rate of 2-3% from call to demo.How their sales cycle works, taking around 4-5 months.Their journey from 0 to 1.Their vision, external funding, and team.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDQn_KLXjjQ

Lars Gronnegaard, the Co-Founder and CEO of Dreamdata, discusses the company's growth from 25 to 100 customers in the past 12 months. The following are some key points from the discussion:Dreamdata helps B2B SaaS companies with revenue attribution by pulling data from multiple sources.Dreamdata has approximately 100 paying customers with an average contract value (ACV) of around $30K.Dreamdata's growth has been 4x over the last 12 months.Dreamdata's social selling strategy on LinkedIn is responsible for most of the above growth.The discussion also covers topics such as their sales cycle, expansion, churn, external funding, and future vision.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDdLsh_A6-Q

Ryan Austin, Founder & CEO of Cognota, discusses how they have grown to over 100 enterprise customers with ACV in the range of $20K-$50K at over 150% YoY growth last year. We explore their top-of-funnel lead generation strategy, sales cycles, retention, and expansion strategy.Here are some key points from the discussion:Cognota is the first learning operations system for learning and development teams, as well as other business functions in the enterprise.They have approximately 108 enterprise customers using their platform, with ACV in the range of $20K to $50K.Around 80% of their new leads come from inbound content strategies, including webinars, blogs, and ebooks.Their sales cycle has a win rate of almost 25%.Their NRR stands at around 145%, with almost 90% logo retention.We discuss what it takes to build a new category and how they are approaching this challenge.Finally, we touch on external funding and their future vision.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zEFfo-hypo

Maryna Burushkina, Founder & CEO of GrowthChannel talks about how they've grown their programmatic advertising SaaS content past $1MN in ARR using content marketing. We talk about their top-of-funnel content strategy, middle-of-funnel lead magnets, lead nurturing process & sales cycle.How GrowthChannel makes it easy for businesses to plan, launch, & optimize programmatic advertising campaigns across 150+ channels from a single dashboard.How they have around 2200 business users across around 1000 customers & an additional 300 agencies on their platformHow they've hit almost 1 million in ARRHow content marketing is primarily responsible for their top-of-funnelHow they use Slack community & email sequences to nurture their leadsIs it advisable for new SaaS founders to start a Slack community?What does their content strategy look like?How their sales cycle looks likeTeam, external funding & future visionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgwB7kjeStM

Vaibhav Tiwari, Co-Founder & CEO of BuildPan talks about how they've grown their CI/CD tool for mobile developers to almost 2 MN in ARR with around 50 enterprise clients & 25000 freelance users on the platform. We talk about their 0 to 1 journey, current GTM strategy & their vision for the company.Talking points,How BuildPan allows teams to rapidly build and deploy quality applications where developers can integrate, merge, test & deploy their code.How they've used a free tier of their product to grow to almost 25000 freelance users during COVID timesHow they used communities to drive word-of-mouth for this freelancer growthHow they've grown to 50 enterprise clients & approximately $150K ARR in just 2 years.How they used their prior industry experience to get first few enterprise customers.How their GTM partners are responsible for most of the top-of-funnel lead generationHow their sales cycle looks likeTeam, external funding & future vision

Kobi Freedman, Co-Founder & CEO of Findings, talk about how they have used strategic partnerships to grow almost 6x last year to a few million dollars in ARR. We talk about how they are unlocking this viral growth & his vision for the company.How Findings is automating supply chain security and privacy compliance at scale being the one-stop-shop for all security VRM and compliance requirements.How they are serving around 1000 customers & almost 250K vendors of these customersHow they've hit a few million bucks in ARR with almost 6x growth over the past 12 monthsHow strategic partnerships are leading to most of their growthHow their sales cycle looks likeTeam, external funding & future vision

Vidya Santhanam, CEO of Fitbots, discusses how they grew to over 50 customers primarily using an inbound content strategy. She also shares insights into their journey from 0 to 1 and how she plans to grow her company with a focus on capital efficiency.How Fitbots helps companies track & manage OKRs to drive outcomes.How 20% of their revenue comes from the services layer.How they've grown to 50 customers across 5000 teams with around $6K ACV.How they got their first 3 customers from within their network.How almost 50% of leads are inbound through various content like blogs, podcasts etc.How their sales cycle looks like.Team, external funding & future vision

Santi Magazu, CEO of OrbitalAds talks about how they got their first 12 customers (with a ticket size of around $25K ) by reaching out to targeted leads on LinkedIn. We also talk about their SDR outreach process, conversion funnel & how he intends to grow the company going forward.How OrbitalAds helps companies (primarily agencies) optimise their paid search campaignsHow they got their first 10 customers in just 12 monthsHow LinkedIn outreach & email outreach on targeted niches is responsible for most of the new growthHow they are investing in inbound channels like webinars etc.Team, external funding & future vision

Francisco Navarro, CEO of LunarByte talks about how they have grown their B2B services firm close to 7 figure revenue. We talk about their 0 to 1 journey & difficulties in scaling a B2B agency. This episode is a bit special as I talk to a B2B Services founder here to compare & contrast how running & growing a services business varies when compared to a B2B SaaS company.How LunarByte works with B2B companies helping them build their softwareHow they price their software servicesHow “word-of-mouth”, “review sites” etc. act as a top of funnelHow does he handle the predictability of scaling developer resources & why it's tricky to grow fastWhat's their plan wrt hiring engineers offshore & Do their B2B clients impose any restrictions

Richard Lear, CEO of ApolloFactor talks about how they got high-ticket (1000s of employees) beta customers. We also talk about how the talent management platform stops employees from churning out & how he intends to grow the company going forward.How ApolloFactor helps companies detect employee satisfaction using AI & stops them from leavingHow they got the first 3 beta customersHow they built a pipeline for 20 more beta customersHow they are working with consulting partners as part of their GTM strategyHow they demonstrate ROI for their platformTeam, external funding & future vision

Andres Fonseca, Founder & CEO of ITRMachines talks about why they are moving away from their existing B2B GTM as they look to grow further.How ITRMachines help institutions by helping with their machine learning model needs (like forecasting, predictions etc.)How do their 20 customers pay them around $10k MRRHow recommendations from existing customers work as a primary acquisition channel for themWhy having to go through a long model co-creation process with customers is not letting them scale easilyWhy do they plan to pivot & serve a different market ( due to the current sales process )Team, founding story & external funding detailsYou can also watch the video on youtube here.

Sameer Sanagala, Co-Founder & CEO of Utilize talks about how they plan to grow from their customer base of 10 customers by picking select use cases & doubling down on them.How Utilize helps desk-less teams build custom software using their no-code platformHow they got their first 10 customersWhy having a horizontal platform is a double-edged swordHow they intend to grow by focusing on specific use cases rather than targeting everyoneTeam, founding story & external funding detailsYou can also watch the video on youtube here.

Ruben Naverette, Founder of Empowerpoints, talks about how they have grown their employee engagement tool to $3MN ARR with major customers like Starbucks.What Empowerpoints is all aboutHow they've grown to 12 customers ( with 68000 users ), including Starbucks, doing approximately $3MN in ARRHow they got their first customer while providing services to them through their development firmWhy cold outreach didn't really work for them & how they are betting on affiliate & white-labelling in the futureWhy they turned three acquisition offers & what's their visionHow they are completely bootstrapped

Arko Gaguli, Co-Founder of Legitify talks about how they are helping people notarize documents online & how they are on track to do around $170k in revenue this year.What Legitify is all aboutHow around 550 customers used their product at least onceIs this a subscription business & how do they track their metricsHow a whopping 70% of new leads discover their product from google without spending any extra effort on SEOTeam, vision & fundingYou can also watch the video on youtube here.

Claire Suellentrop, Co-Founder & COO of ForgetTheFunnel talks about how SaaS companies should look inwards & understand their best customers to effectively grow after reaching 1-2 $MN in ARR.How they worked with SaaS companies like SparkToro, MeetEdgar etc., helping them reposition & unlock their growth after a pointHow they ended up increasing the conversion rate of MeetEdgar by 40% by focusing on their stickiest cohortHow to position when you've got a product that is used by varying customer segments ( ACV )Why looking inwards, understanding the stickiest cohort & positioning based on this is the best way for SaaS companies to unlock massive predictable growthTeam, services they provide & how they work with SaaS companiesYou can also watch the video on youtube here.

Sami Rejeb, Co-Founder & CEO of ValueOrbit, talks about his journey of starting ValueOrbit. He talks about how he got his first set of customers & how he uses his credibility to close deals.How ValueOrbit helps revenue teams achieve predictable growth with advanced forecasting, deal qualification & real-time win guidanceHow he used his experience of working with 100s of CROs to build the first set of features for ValueOrbitHow he used a non-scalable approach to get the first 3 customers using his network & through various slack groupsHow he plans to build the top of the funnel by building the brand of LinkedInWhat's the exact process that he uses to convert a cold lead to a paying customerWhy do customers prefer a newer product like Value Orbit over more established ones in the categoryHow having direct access to credible CEO like himself helps build a more trusted relationship & close deals when competing with more established playersTeam, funding status & future vision for the companyYou can also view the video on youtube here.

Ahmad Al Fares, Founder & CEO of Celitech talks about how they are growing their company by bundling their eSim technology with top travel companies, which are made available for travellers.How Celitech helps travel companies offer co-branded international cellular data plans using 1 click e-sim technologyHow they're working with over 20 partners, including big travel companies like Expedia, Kayak etc. & how they're doubling revenue every 2 monthsHow he used warm intros to get the first few customersHow does their conversion funnel & sales cycle look likeHow their onboarding process looks likeHow they are working on optimising the placement to grow their deal size with a customerTeam, funding status & future vision for the company

Nate Wyne, Co-Founder & CEO of Floodlight talks about how they've grown past $1 MN$ ARR by helping companies measure their greenhouse emissions.How their product SAGE delivers asset-level measurements of greenhouse gases using satellites & ground sensorsHow they broke through to 20 customers doing past $1 MN$ in ARR in just 12 monthsHow they used warm intros from their institutional investors as a primary channel to acquire most of the customers so farHow they sell primarily to two personas - PE (private equity) firms to vet their deals & other companies who want to track their assetsHow their sales cycle looks likeHow an SEC ruling recently forced every C-level executive to start measuring & reporting their ESG reportingHow they manage to keep an ongoing subscription with PE firmsTeam, funding status & future vision for the companyYou can also view the video on youtube here.

Dan Barak, Co-Founder & CEO of Text Blaze talks about how they broke through 50k paid users primarily using word of mouth for their productivity-focused chrome extension.How TextBlaze (chrome extension) helps users become more productive using snippetsHow they are a product-led bottom-up company with around 200K total users, among which 50K are on a paying planHow they've grown to 7-figure revenue, primarily doubling over the past 12 monthsHow a vast majority of the new users come from word-of-mouth & few referralsWhat drives a satisfied user to spread the word about the product & how word of mouth worksWhat are they specifically doing to make this word-of-mouth channel successfulHow are they going to focus on top-down enterprise sales along with the bottoms-up model they currently useTeam, funding status & future vision for the companyYou can also view the video on youtube here.

In this episode, Andrea Tassistro, CEO of Foodetective, talks about how they used affiliates (who are food influencers on Instagram) to grow to 25k restaurants on their platform.We talk about, What Foodetective is all about.How they hit 25k users (restaurants - including on trail plan) with ACVs in the range of $2.5k to $10k with around 3x YOY growth.How they convinced food influencers to become their affiliates.How they intend to grow using licensing model over the next few years & how their enterprise sales team is closing these dealsTeam, funding status & future vision

In this episode, Eliad Saporta, CEO of Coriunder talks about how he grew his company to 50 high-value customers by building an affiliate network primarily through attending conferences in their niche.We talk about,What Coriunder is all aboutHow they hit 50 customers with around $20k ACVHow they got their first set of customers using his previous background as a consultantHow they are using conferences in their niche to build a huge network of affiliates & get newer clientsHow they typically end up converting a huge percentage of warm leads bought by their affiliatesHow their churn & expansion looks likeTeam, funding status & future vision

Karsten Madsen, CEO of MorningScore, talks about how his unique "motivation" based positioning in the SEO space truly differentiates them from the huge competition. He also talks about the tactics he uses to grow using SEO as a primary top-of-funnel growth channel.In this episode, we talk about, What MorningScore is all aboutHow they are serving 850 paying customers with around $600k ARR, growing at around 60% YOY How he used killer cold emails to get the first ten customersHow 40% of their new growth comes from SEO & rest from Google Ads, Facebook Ads & other channelsHow they use "alternative to competitor" SEO strategy in a highly competitive spaceHow their unique positioning is helping them differentiate Team & future visionHow they ended up building one of the most complicated software which needs to scrape the web regularlyIf you are building a SaaS in a highly competitive B2B SaaS space, you should listen to Karsten's unique insights & growth tactics. You can also watch this episode on youtube here.

I talked to Adam White, founder of a SaaS company called SquidVision. Adam has previously sold his SaaS company SEOJet for a seven-figure deal to one of his strategic partners. In this episode, we talk about,what SquidVision is all aboutHow he plans to launch Squidvision & get the first odd customers using a lead list, he built from previous experiencesHow he grew SEOJet to 200 customers & around 20K MRR in subscription revenueHow he worked with three partners to provide link-building services which had around 600K in revenueHow he ended up selling his company to one of the partners for a lower seven-figure dealHis vision for his new company & how he intends to reach thereYou can also watch the video here on youtube.

In this episode, I talk to Adele Theobald, founder of a HR platform called IDriveHR. We deep-dive into IDriveHR's journey so far with focus on their 0 to 1 journey, current lead generation strategies & conversion. Talking points,what IDriveHR is all abouthow they have hit 5K MRR with around 18 paying customershow the founders used their credibility in the HR management consultancy space to get the first few customershow are they effectively using Linkedin & other closed communities to drive top-of-funnel leadshow they innovatively use physical mail as part of the multi-channel outreach for warm leadsconversion funnel & sales cyclewhy they are priced so low on a per-seat basisYou can also watch this episode on youtube here.