SaaS it Up

Shalini Prakash is the Author of Clueless at 30: A Millennial's search for Everything and Nothing. Through her professional experience in venture capital, start-ups, and the corporate world, she helps entrepreneurs build innovative and scalable technology solutions. She is included in the '40 under 40 - India Alternative Investment professionals in India' list and recognized as a Linkedin Top Voice for her thought leadership in the start-ups and VC Industry. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the slash life (Find your Slash community), her experience in Israel, the rise of women entrepreneurship, and decision-making frameworks. More details at https://www.republicofsaas.com/the-millenials-playbook-shalini-prakash/

Manav Garg is the CEO of EKA and the founding Partner of Together Fund. Seven years back, he had started SaaSBOOMi along with his colleagues and has recently authored The Indian SaaS Story which is a playbook for many SaaS entrepreneurs in India. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the SaaS wave, future outlook, and some interesting trends in this space. As a strategic thinker, he is long on PLG & product thinking and is optimistic around the $1T SaaS opportunity for India. More details at https://www.republicofsaas.com/the-india-saas-story-manav-garg/

Thomas Smale is the CEO of FE International which has completed hundreds of millions of deals in SaaS, e-commerce, and content business acquisitions since 2010. In our Candid discussions, Saurabh & I spoke with Thomas about his worldview on the evolving SaaS business models, self-funded and bootstrapped entrepreneurs in emerging markets, M&A advisory, and how the business landscape has evolved. Thomas provides an excellent free valuation resource for Startups here. More details at: https://www.republicofsaas.com/m-a-advisory-in-the-saas-landscape/

After using Zoom on a daily basis in this remote-first world, we spoke with Yousuf Khan who has been an advisor to Eric Yuan. In our candid discussions, Nataraj & I spoke with Yousuf to understand his worldview around Investments, pricing strategies, advisory methodologies, and his love for Marvel Movies. Yousuf is one of the finest early-stage start-up advisors because of his global exposure, breadth of knowledge in multiple industries, and a people-first approach.

As Andrew launches his book, "Getting Acquired: How I Built and Sold My SaaS Startup", we spoke with him about his worldview around building bootstrapped and venture-backed companies. In our Candid discussions, Ricky & I spoke with him about his entrepreneurial journey and his superb marketing strategies. We also learn why he launched Bootstrappers and his plans for Microacquire. Ricky also shared his experience of buying his first start-up from the Microacquire platform, where thousands of entrepreneurs are currently trading micro-SaaS companies.

As we see the success of Write Useful Books in the non-fiction writer's community, we spoke with Rob Fitzpatrick to learn about his worldview. He went through Ycombinator back in 07 with an attempt to figure out the social advertisement before Meta managed to do so, which obviously didn't work out so well. He has raised funding in the US and UK, built products used by customers like Sony and MTV, designed and kickstarted a card game, co-founded the education agency Founder Centric, rebuilt a little sailboat, and has built and launched countless silly hobby and side projects which have (so far) managed to keep the wolf from the door. He is a techie who (grudgingly) learned enterprise sales. In our candid conversations, we spoke about non-fiction writers, the new business models around the publishing landscape, and more so, about a creator's journey. Contact Rob at https://www.robfitz.com Connect with the host: Foster & Maven.

Alex Chisnall is one of the best podcasters from the UK Tech scene and is also the owner of Podpreneur UK. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the new year resolutions, the future of the audio space and the art of podcasting, and how it opens up the doors of opportunities for you. Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year 2022. We'll come back next year with more interesting stories, deep insights peppered with wit and humor. Sleep well!

Mark Birch is the Founder and Producer of AWS Startups Show and is the Principal Startup Advocate APJ at Amazon Web Services(AWS). He is also the author of Community-in-a-box: How to build event-driven professional communities. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the flywheel effect, content, and communities. He also shared his experience of using the audio medium to effectively produce his AWS Startups Show.

As the world rattles with the pandemic, we spoke with Manoj Bharathi about the Bio-tech industry in general and the specifics of vaccines. In our candid conversations, we discussed the venture insights around the Bio-tech industry and how sales play an important role in everyone's life. Manoj also shared his decision-making framework for maximizing joy.

As SaaStock prepares for its In-Person conference in Dublin next year, we spoke with Alex Theuma about his journey and his worldview. https://www.saastock.com/saastock-2022/ In our candid conversations, we spoke about Tattoos, Guinness, Travels, Books, SaaS, and also the medium of Audio.

As Udemy goes for IPO, we spoke with the Co-founder of Udemy, Gagan Biyani, who is currently building the next big thing in the ed-tech space, Maven. Arielle & I spoke with Gagan about the future of education. In our candid conversations, he shares his worldview around the CBC space and his passion for the medium of Audio. You may find more details here.

Andrew Warner is the founder of Mixergy. He is one of the finest business podcasters who has more than 2000+ interviews to his credit. This month, he is launching his book Stop Asking Questions which is being loved by the upcoming podcasters worldwide. In our candid discussions, he talks about the art of conversations and his worldview around the podcasting space.

Wes Kao is the co-founder of Maven.com. In this episode, she shares her spiky point of view on the future of education. In our candid discussions, she talks about her worldview on CBCs (Cohort-Based Courses). Arielle and I are learning the best practices & her secret sauce of CBC in her Maven Course Accelerator #MVN3. https://future.a16z.com/cohort-based-courses/

Arthur Nobel is a B2B SaaS investor at Knight Capital. In our Season finale, we speak with Arthur Nobel who shares his experience from both sides of the coin, of being a former entrepreneur and a current investor. He shares his founder journey at Flexpat, a company that facilitated Remote work prior to the pandemic. He is currently an advisory board member of Zephr. Arthur is also the author of Leaders of Growth, where he interviewed 47 leaders of world-class companies who grew their start-ups from $1 million to $25 million and beyond. Republic of SaaS Season 2 coming soon as we take the feedback from all our community members.

Denis Kalyshkin is an investor of I2BF ventures. Prior to joining I2BF, Denis held various positions in investment management, sales, and analytics in banks, VCs, and energy companies and was a co-founder in an ad tech start-up. Denis has an Applied Mathematics & Physics degree from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and a Corporate Finances degree from National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Simon Lau is the Product head of Otter.ai which is an AI-powered assistant that generates rich notes for meetings, interviews, and other important voice conversations. After meeting him at Clubhouse, we spoke to him about his views on the future of audio in the digital universe. The Audio revolution is here to stay in 2021.

Anna Boyarkina is the Product head of Miro, which is the online collaborative whiteboard platform that empowers distributed teams to work together efficiently and effectively. She shares her favorite book: "The Power of Moments: Why certain experiences have an extraordinary impact" by Dan & Chip Heath during our candid conversations. Feel free to join the Miro Community to navigate the Miroverse and learn from the digital mavericks.

Justin Mitchell is the Founder of Yac which is an audio-first messaging platform that helps you talk faster and build stronger relationships with your remote team. Yac is Featured in TechCrunch & Wall Street Journal after their recent fund-raise of $10M in funding from GGV, Slack, Betaworks, BoostVC, Active Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and more. Audio is indeed powerful, and it touches every aspect of our lives. It connects us with our loved ones, and strangers across the world. It tells us stories, and it keeps us company as we simply work in this new world. Just when ClubHouse opened up its platform to Android users, we had a candid chat with Justin to understand how the world of audio is shaping the future of work.

Alisée de Tonnac is the co-founder of Seedstars, which is a Swiss-based investment holding with a mission to impact people's lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. The groups' activities cover over 80 emerging ecosystems through a variety of activities such as acceleration programs, events & training, physical hubs called Seedspace, venture capital investments, and company building activities. We speak with Alisée to discover her worldview around her entrepreneurial experiences. Feel free to join our future conversations on the Seedstars House.

Kiran Mysore is a Principal at UTEC Japan leading their Global AI Investments, with a focus on Singapore and India. He is an AI-researcher-turned VC. Since joining UTEC in 2018, Kiran has led investments of close to $30 Million in frontier science & deep-tech companies incl. Tricog Health, Bugworks Research, OPALai, Agara & SWAT Mobility. He is also responsible for UTEC's collaboration with Blume Ventures in India named BUDHA (Blume UTEC Deep-tecH Accelerator). Before becoming a VC, Kiran worked on Open innovation in Deloitte Japan, and was an AI/ML researcher at The University of Tokyo where he also co-founded a student-led social enterprise named 'Kriya'. For his contribution to the ecosystem, Kiran was featured in the 2020 FORBES Asia 30 Under 30 list in the Finance & VC category.

Jakob Knutzen (CEO, Butter) is building an all-in-one platform with all the tools you need to host interactive workshops, training sessions, and live courses. Butter is the #1 product of the day on Product Hunt. With a strategy consulting background from BAIN, Jakob has eclectic international experience across continents and is an On Deck Fan. On Deck is where top talent comes to accelerate their ideas and careers, surrounded by a world-class community. On Deck is building the Stanford of the internet.

Zorian Rotenberg is the chair of the "CRO - Chief Revenue Officers" Group on Revenue Collective. He is a growth advisor(Sales/Revenue) who is currently helping the M33 team with portfolio companies with a focus on the sales strategy & revenue acceleration. He is a former PE & Investment Banking Analyst turned SaaS CRO focused on leading global SaaS sales teams from $20M to $100M in Revenue (incl: senior sales management, sales, CS/AM, and channel sales worldwide).

JB Daguené is a sales veteran turned entrepreneur turned investor who loves to eat SaaS for breakfast, B2B sales for lunch, and data for dinner. He is also a partner of 70 ventures which is a revenue accelerator for B2B startups. 70 ventures back ambitious founders with seamless investment from pre-seed to series A.

Dr. Felix Cardenas is the Managing Partner of Ascendis Capital and Director for the center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at EGADE Business School, Mexico. He develops corporate venture capital strategies with corporates, impacting growth and profitability. He has been an advisor and has conducted research for companies such as Cisco, Nokia, Alcan, Logitech, General Electric, Cemex, FEMSA, Credit Suisse, Proeza, Heineken, and Nestle. His research interests include private capital, entrepreneurial capital, innovation ecosystems, competitive strategy, innovation management, corporate entrepreneurship, value creation, and technology transfer. Open Innovation: Academic and Practical Perspectives on the Journey from Idea to Market, Oxford University Press. His research work has been presented in international congresses in San Francisco, Boston, Nueva York (USA), Geneva, Zurich (Switzerland), Istanbul (Turkey), and Nice (France). Special thanks to Dr. Claudia Quintanilla for her consistent support at EGADE business school. https://bit.ly/openinnovation2021

Gustavo Souza is the head of Partnerships at Rock content, an exciting start-up in the content marketing space in Brazil. He is also a partner of SaaSholic, an early-stage venture capital investment fund focusing on the Latin American region. He is a lawyer by formation but has found his areas of excellence in sales and marketing.

Steve Nouri is the Head of Data Science and AI at Australian Computer Society. He is a proactive social media contributor and a LinkedIn influencer. He is a data science leader who currently lives in Sydney, Australia, and spends his time sharing technical knowledge with prospective students and advising public policy towards a more sustainable and beneficial understanding of AI and deep tech. https://community.nasscom.in/index.php/communities/productstartups/saas-it-podcast-rise-data-economy

Johannes Müller is the CEO of Workpath. Workpath is the leading enterprise software provider enabling organizations to execute their strategies fast, flexible and effective in an increasingly dynamic and complex world. With simple and intuitive workflow tools, Workpath engages all employees in the strategy and execution process. https://ginsep.co/saas-it-up-a-podcast-providing-saas-insights-from-india-germany/

Cathy Guo is a Portfolio & Investment Manager at Antler India. Previously, Cathy was the CEO and Co-Founder of Dunya Labs, building developer tools for decentralized applications. She was also a founding team member at True Beacon, a new-age asset management company formed by the founders of Zerodha, and led early-stage venture investments in companies such as Clinikk and Stayqrious at First Principles, an early-stage seed fund in Bangalore. Also, wishing all our listeners a Happy International Women's Day on March 8th.

Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of ProductLed. He is the bestselling author of Product-Led Growth: How To Build a Product That Sells Itself and is one of the most sought-after product experts in the world. After working for some of the world's fastest-growing companies, today he trains teams around the globe on how to turn their product into a powerful growth engine.

Przemek Szustak is the founder of HempFoodie, Co-Founder of Chainges and now Product Manager at Tidio, a communication tool for businesses that keeps live chat, chatbots, messenger, and e-mail in one place. In this episode, Przemek talks about his learnings of enabling growth and when it's the right time to kill your darlings and pivot to a new approach.

Ajith Issac, Investor at STRIVE VC shares his insights around the SaaS ecosystem in APAC. Strive works with tech startups in seed, Series A, and Series B rounds and is active in Japan, South East Asia, and India.

Salim Ismail is the Founding Executive Director of Singularity University and Co-founder and Chairman of OpenExO, a global transformation ecosystem that connects world-class professionals with organizations, institutions, and people who want to build a better future through cutting-edge ideas and actionable methodologies. Futurist and best-selling author of Exponential Organizations and Exponential Transformation, Salim Ismail has been building disruptive digital companies as a serial entrepreneur since the early 2000s.

Michal Sadowski (CEO, Brand24), in the candid conversations, shares his worldview and why he believes so strongly in the SaaS business model. Brand24 is a powerful social media analytics platform that tracks keywords across different social media networks including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch. Based on the mentions, it calculates social media reach, the share of voice, and monitors hashtag performance.

Aleksandra Panyukhina, Head of events of Parcellab, shares her experiences of shaping and organizing virtual events. In 2021, People have shifted to remote work and it is unlikely they are going to want to get back into an office after that. The same goes for virtual events - once people realize they don't have to travel for big conferences anymore they may be hesitant to return to the old way of doing things. If you want to learn from the best podcasts in the global SaaS ecosystem, please refer Top 25 Saas Podcasts

Jonathan Moore has spent more than 14 years in South Korea. He is active in the Seoul start-up ecosystem where he mentors start-ups and drives innovation programs. Johnathan had a unique book recommendation which was authored by his university professor Hwy Chang Moon - "The Strategy for Korea's economic success". What are you reading these days?

Anant Vidur Puri is a Partner from Bessemer Venture Partners, and in this episode, he speaks about his experiences and the challenges of scaling a company. Bessemer Venture Partners is an American venture capital firm. The firm has over $5 billion under management and invests globally, with offices in San Francisco, Redwood City, New York City, Boston, Israel, and India.

In the 1st episode of the Republic of SaaS, Saswat and Oskar talk about the Indian and German Startup & Venture Capital Ecosystem. In these 24 condensed episodes, you will listen to some of the exciting stories from India, Europe, the Americas, LATAM, SE Asia, Russia, Japan, Korea, and Australia across the digital spectrum. To follow the rabbit hole, leave a voice message on https://yac.com/saas or access transcripts and other valuable insights at https://www.republicofsaas.com.