Podcasts about b2b saas

People have been asking me to sit on the other side of the mic for a long time. With my wife's debut children's book, Charts for Babies, coming out next month, we figured: why not do it together? What followed was one of the most honest conversations I've had on this podcast. Michelle asked things no one else would think to ask—and many things I've never shared publicly. You'll hear about the specific moments that pushed me to start the newsletter, how I think about quality and iteration, what most stresses me out, and the scariest moment of my life. This was so fun, and so special, and I hope you like it.We discuss:1. The collection of moments that led me to what I do now2. When I added a paywall, and how I knew it was working3. The hidden treadmill behind shipping a newsletter post and podcast episode every week4. The most stressful moments I've had in business and in life5. How I think about stress, consistency, and keeping the business small—Pre-order Charts for Babies: https://www.amazon.com/Charts-Babies-Picture-Book/dp/1419785184—Brought to you by:WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lennyMetaview—The AI platform for recruiting: https://metaview.ai/lennyDX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers: https://getdx.com/lenny—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-i-built-a-1m-subscriber-newsletter—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Michelle Rial:• X: https://x.com/TheRialMichelle• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellerial• Website: https://www.michellerial.com—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction and role reversal(04:06) What would Lenny be doing without the newsletter?(07:20) The moments that led to starting the newsletter(09:58) Does Lenny still enjoy the work?(12:42) Stress management and misophonia(14:00) The psychedelic trip that changed everything(15:45) Online happiness course and baseline optimization(17:30) Thunder round: Lenny's misophonia worst sounds(20:20) What makes Michelle's charts so shareable(23:55) Where chart ideas come from (and why meditation helps)(26:59) Where does “Lenny” come from?(28:54) Being recognized in public(31:24) Early projects(36:30) Michelle and Lenny's yin and yang(37:49) Missing office culture (but not really)(39:37) Lenny's face blindness(40:47) The $100M fraud attack story(42:50) Michelle's childbirth emergency(47:22) Michelle's creative process(51:58) Lenny's favorite children's books(54:00) Product management lessons in parenting(55:31) Defining product management in five words(58:23) Why Michelle pivoted to children's books(01:01:30) The power of iteration and real experience—Resources and episode mentions: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-i-built-a-1m-subscriber-newsletter—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Ryan was a successful lawyer with a massive problem. He couldn't find a task management tool that worked for his firm, so he built one himself. He thought he'd solved the problem, but for 8 agonizing months, he couldn't sell a single subscription.In this episode, Ryan breaks down the gritty reality of bootstrapping Filevine into a $3B legal tech startup doing over $200M in revenue. He shares how a random Instagram ad campaign ended his sales drought, how he fought off a Tiger Global-backed competitor built on Salesforce, and how he's completely rewriting his company's architecture to win the AI legal tech war against the likes of Harvey and Legora.Why You Should ListenHow 8 months of zero sales almost broke him.Why building customizability into your core product is the ultimate defense.How to recruit top engineers when you have zero funding.Why SMBs often have "beer money but champagne tastes."How to pivot from SaaS to AI.Keywordsstartup podcast, startup podcast for founders, legaltech, product market fit, bootstrapping, B2B SaaS, enterprise sales, AI startup, founder story, finding pmf00:00:00 Intro00:07:20 Recruiting an Amazon Engineer with No Funding00:11:52 The First Conference and the "Terrible" MVP00:15:23 The Dark Months: Zero Sales from Cold Calling00:19:28 The GTM that Saved the Company00:27:36 Why In-Person Events Beat Cold Calling00:36:19 Moving Upmarket to Avoid Demanding SMBs00:37:32 Beating a $50M Salesforce-Backed Competitor00:46:45 Rewriting Filevine for the AI EraSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Is your traditional SaaS experience becoming obsolete? In this new 20-minute rapid-fire format, Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman tackle a specific listener question: How does a senior operator transition from a legacy B2B SaaS role into a high-growth AI company? The market is shifting toward a meritocracy where recent hands-on capability outweighs decades of tenure on a CV. The hosts break down exactly how to position yourself for companies like CoreWeave and EliseAI. They discuss why hiding your lack of technical engineering skills is a mistake, how to build a portfolio of "work product" using low-code tools like Replit and Claude, and why being able to articulate the failures of AI models is actually the strongest signal of fluency. Key Takeaways: - Stop relying on a static resume and start building a portfolio of practical applications. As Sam Jacobs notes, the hiring landscape has shifted so that "your work product needs to speak for itself... demonstrating that you're capable of working with these tools, not theoretically, but practically through your conversations that you're having with hiring managers." - We are entering a career reset where agility beats seniority. Asad Zaman warns that "whenever there is a platform shift... the value of experience goes down a little bit," which creates a massive opportunity for younger leaders to "move up faster if you present in a very compelling manner because people are not looking at titles the same way." - Cultural currency matters as much as technical skill. To be taken seriously by founders in this space, you must consume information where they do. As Asad Zaman puts it, "If they find out that you're not on AI Twitter or AI X, I think they will think you're not a serious person... the information is not gonna be found in these old school channels." Connect with the Hosts: Host: Sam Jacobs - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/ Host: AJ Bruno - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/ Host: Asad Zaman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaman1/   Topline is not JUST a YouTube Channel! Subscribe to Topline Newsletter: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-newsletter Tune into Topline Podcast, the #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-podcast Join the free Topline Slack channel to connect with 600+ revenue leaders to keep the conversation going beyond the podcast: https://www.joinpavilion.com/topline-slack   Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:58 Viewer Q: Transitioning to AI 02:48 Show Work Product, Not Just CVs 04:36 Applying SaaS Principles to AI 05:58 The AI-First Mentality 08:58 Articulating AI Limitations 11:30 The Meritocracy Shift 13:55 Unexpected AI Wins 21:27 Staying Culturally Relevant 24:29 Summary: How to Get Hired  

High-Quality Video on Any Budget: The Framework That Works | Tom Voller Dodge Your Films InterviewMost businesses waste money creating beautiful videos nobody watches. Tom Voller's production company has created content for Red Bull, Ironman, SumUp, and NATS, but his most valuable insight isn't about expensive equipment. It's that your biggest competition isn't your industry rival; it's TikTok and Instagram. You're competing for attention where 99.9% of commuters scroll past content in under 10 seconds.What You'll Learn:Why Most Video Content Fails: Businesses create 3-4 minute beautiful videos that nobody watches past 10 seconds. Avoid this costly mistake by starting with two critical questions.The iPhone vs Cinema Camera Debate: You can erode your brand's perceived value with cheap content, but quality messaging filmed on an iPhone outperforms expensive production with weak messaging.The Seven Strategic Uses of Video: Video drives growth through recruiting, sales enablement (highest ROI), conversion optimisation, investment attraction, brand building, market education, and geographic expansion.The Building in Public Revolution: US venture capital firms now employ teams to find founders creating content. Multiple entrepreneurs have secured investment without ever pitching.Breaking Into New Markets: Find one good customer, create one testimonial video, and watch your regional sales multiply.Key Quotes:"You can very quickly erode your perceived value by creating cheap content. But you can release quality content that has been filmed on an iPhone if the message cuts through the noise.""Their biggest competition is TikTok. It's Instagram. You're competing for people's time.""Who is this for? And what do you want them to do after they've seen it?""Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you've written three things you wanna communicate, get rid of one of them."Tom Voller's Background:Tom Voller runs Dodge Your Films, a content production company that has created video campaigns for Red Bull, Ironman races across 300+ global events, SumUp, and NATS. His company specialises in working with B2B SaaS firms from Series A through unicorn status, with creative directors and production crews positioned globally.Action Steps:If You Haven't Started: Ask two questions before filming: Who is this video for? What do you want them to do after watching? Create a detailed profile of your ideal viewer, then work backwards. Start with your iPhone and authentic messaging rather than waiting for perfect production.If You're Already Creating: Audit your existing videos and cut your message in half. If you've written three things to communicate, eliminate one or two. If viewers drop off after 10 seconds, your opening isn't addressing their specific need quickly enough.For Everyone: Stop competing with your industry rivals and start competing with TikTok for attention. Build in public by sharing your founder journey on video. Create customer success videos in every new market; one local evangelist on camera will multiply your regional sales. Content shared by you as an individual will significantly outperform content shared by your company page.Whether you're a small business owner hiring your first sales executive, a SaaS founder seeking Series A investment, or an established company breaking into new markets, this episode provides the framework for video success without the Hollywood budget. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send a textIn this special solo edition of Sidecar Sync, Mallory Mejias unpacks Anthropic's 2026 State of AI Agents report and translates what it actually means for associations. Drawing from data across 500+ technical leaders, she explores how organizations are moving beyond basic chatbots to multi-stage AI agents that handle workflows end to end. From research and reporting to customer service and coding, the results are clear: speed and quality are driving ROI—not just cost savings. Mallory also addresses the biggest barriers—data infrastructure, integration, and employee resistance—and outlines practical next steps associations can take right now to unlock their institutional knowledge and better serve members. The technology works. The real question is: are your people and your data ready?

Why is marketing the one industry where you can be “too young” and “too old” at the same time?

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Most agency owners don't fail because they're bad at delivery. They fail because they underprice, overcomplicate, and build businesses that trap them instead of freeing them. Today's featured guest unpacks the type of life he envisioned when he set out to start an agency, it took to scale from charging $2,500 a month to closing $45,000/month retainers, surviving a market collapse, and making the counterintuitive decision to split one agency into two. Eli Rubel is the founder of Matter Made, a B2B SaaS marketing agency, and No Boring Design, a premium design studio serving high-growth tech companies. He entered the agency world in 2019 after burning out on the venture-backed SaaS model, despite a previous exit. What drew him to agencies wasn't prestige or scale; it was a desire to take control over his time, lifestyle, income, and location. Agencies, when built correctly, offered the fastest path to freedom without sacrificing ambition. Over the next few years, Eli scaled MatterMade aggressively, navigated a brutal tech downturn, and rebuilt his business with sharper positioning, stronger pricing, and clearer operational boundaries. In this episode, we discussed: Why hiking prices was the right choice early one How and why he decided to create his second agency The reason that shared services failed fast Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Toggl: Agencies could be losing 15–30% of their profit every year without seeing it. The usual suspects are time tracking, messy manual timesheets, scope creep, untracked revisions, and all those "quick" client requests that never get billed. That's why Toggl created the Agency Profit Heist, a fast, interactive way to uncover exactly where your margins are leaking. Start your investigation now at toggl.com/smartagency and use the code SMARTAGENCY10 at checkout for a 10% off annual plans. Why Agencies Beat Venture-Backed SaaS (If You Want Freedom) After years in venture-backed SaaS, chasing growth at all costs, Eli was done with a model he realized was grinding him down. The pressure, the lack of control, and the delayed payoff didn't align with what he actually wanted: family, flexibility, and financial independence. Agencies offered speed to cash and autonomy, which SaaS didn't. Instead of swinging for a hypothetical future exit, Eli chose a business model that paid well now and let him design his life intentionally. It was a shift he made with eyes wide open and clear expectations. The "best" business model depends on what you want your life to look like. For Eli, agencies weren't a step down. They were a strategic upgrade. Hiking His Prices Relying on Capacity and Confidence Eli's agency launched at $2,500 a month, not because that was the "right" price, but because he backed into a simple income goal. Sixteen clients at $2,500 got him to $40,000 a month. On paper, it worked. In reality, it broke fast. As soon as clients started saying "yes" too quickly, Eli knew something was off. The work was heavy, margins were thin, and building a team at that price point wasn't sustainable. Instead of obsessing over competitive pricing, he leaned into price sensitivity testing. Every time the team hit capacity, prices went up. If prospects said no, it didn't matter, they couldn't take on more work anyway. If prospects said yes, it justified hiring and scaling. Over three years, pricing climbed from $2,500 to $45,000 per month. What he learned was that underpricing doesn't just hurt margins. It traps you in constant hiring, delivery stress, and low-leverage work. Raising prices isn't greedy, it's operational discipline. What Actually Changes When You Raise Prices Eli didn't wake up one day and charge $45,000 for the same work he was doing at $2,500. Early on, the offering was vague: "We'll help with demand gen." Strategy was loose, scope was unclear, and the team was tiny. As pricing increased, the delivery model matured into a defined pod structure with paid media, design, strategy, and leadership baked in. However, once his agency hit around $15,000 per month, the services didn't change much after that. What changed was credibility. Case studies stacked up. Results became undeniable. Sales conversations shifted from "this is a great deal" to "this is what it costs to remove risk." Eli was upfront with prospects: MatterMade would be $10,000–$15,000 more per month than competitors, and nothing about the deliverables would look different. The difference was the track record. For buyers who weren't cash-sensitive, that pitch landed hard. They weren't paying for tasks. They were paying for certainty. Why Splitting One Agency into Two Was the Right Move At its peak in 2021, MatterMade was flying high, with $4.2M in EBITDA, tech clients everywhere, and acquisition talks underway. Then the tech market collapsed. Almost overnight, VC-backed clients cut agencies, froze spending, and hunkered down. They went from crushing it to losing nearly $200,000 a month. Eli held on too long, assuming it was temporary, and paid dearly for it. During the restructuring, Eli noticed something interesting: design had become a bottleneck across tech companies. Designers were laid off, but the need for creative work didn't disappear. So he spun up No Boring Design as a separate entity, fast. New brand, new site, launched in a weekend. Within months, it was profitable. Separating the businesses allowed each to have crystal-clear positioning. MatterMade stayed focused on growth marketing. No Boring Design became a premium creative solution for companies stuck in hiring freezes. Trying to keep design tucked inside the marketing agency would have slowed everything down. Separation created speed, clarity, and growth. Why Shared Services Across Agencies Sound Smart and Fail Fast One of Eli's biggest mistakes came after the split. He tried to create a shared management company to handle leadership, recruiting, and operations across multiple agencies. On paper, it looked efficient. In practice, it was chaos. Each agency had subtle but important differences in how it worked. SOPs drifted. Leaders got stretched thin. The "squeaky wheel" agency got attention while others suffered. Eventually, Eli unwound the entire structure. The hard truth: unless your companies operate almost identically, shared services create more friction than savings. Clarity beats efficiency. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

Justin Fineberg built a 500,000+ follower audience on TikTok and Instagram before launching Cassidy, an AI automation platform for non-technical users. By consistently creating content about AI and technology, he turned inbound interest into his initial customer base and market validation. In this episode of BUILDERS, Justin breaks down how he leveraged short-form video to identify product opportunities, the mechanics of maintaining authentic audience relationships while monetizing, and how to transition from social-led distribution to scalable B2B SaaS go-to-market.Topics Discussed:Leveraging ChatGPT's launch as an inflection point to ride mainstream AI interestConverting consultant requests into product insights and early customer signalsThe platform mechanics of TikTok vs Instagram for B2B contentTransitioning from 100% social-sourced revenue to multi-channel B2B salesBuilding repeatable content systems that survive founder time constraintsTesting product messaging and features through content before formal launchGTM Lessons For B2B Founders:Timing content focus with market inflection points compounds growthInbound consulting requests are product requirement documents in disguiseContent systems must be friction-free or they'll die under operational loadGood content transcends platform-specific algorithm hackingSocial distribution creates unfair launch advantages, not permanent moats//Sponsors:Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.ioThe Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co//Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I HireSenior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Rodolfo "Fico" Dañino revela cómo Crehana pasó de ser una startup de cursos a un software integral para empresas y el camino para levantar $70M.En este episodio aprenderás:- La evolución estratégica de B2C a B2B SaaS en el mercado latino.- Por qué obsesionarte con el reporting y la data es clave para levantar Serie A.- Cómo manejar el rechazo de fondos Tier-1 y usar el feedback para crecer.- La estrategia de M&A: Cómo comprar otras startups para acelerar el crecimiento.- Por qué los follow-ups mensuales son tu mejor herramienta de fundraising.Frase clave:"Tienen que seguir mandándoles follow-ups mínimo mensuales de cómo va la empresa, así les digan que no." - Rodolfo DañinoCapítulos:00:00 - Los inicios de Crehana y el paso por Wayra06:03 - El primer gran error: Cómo NO ponerle nombre a tu startup13:20 - El salto a la Serie A: Convencer a fondos globales desde Perú27:27 - El pivote a B2B: De cursos online a software de talento41:53 - M&A: Cómo comprar otras startups para crecer en la región51:32 - Growth at all costs vs Rentabilidad: Lecciones de la Serie B57:59 - Consejos para founders que levantan capital hoyInvitado:Rodolfo Dañino - Co-fundador de CrehanaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodolfodanino/Sígueme para más sobre innovación y startups:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jaimersb/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimersbWeb: https://www.jaimesotomayor.comEpisodio en YouTube: https://youtu.be/cjTmjy0XTWQ #Crehana #RodolfoDañino #StartupsLatAm #SeriesB #B2BSaaS #InnovacionSinBarreras #Fundraising

AI doesn't have to flatten your messaging into the same forgettable copy as everyone else.   In this episode, Chris Silvestri, Founder of Conversion Alchemy, discusses why B2B SaaS teams are facing a "trust recession," how weak positioning leads to churn and misaligned expectations, and why a strong point of view rooted in customer insights is now the real differentiator. Chris shares his research-first process for finding message-market fit, which includes customer interviews, competitor language analysis, and sales-call testing. He also explains how AI can be used as an input machine to deepen empathy, rather than just generate output. Additionally, he explores synthetic personas, context management, and practical ways emerging SaaS teams can validate messaging, even when customer data is limited.

In this episode, I sit down with Doug Bell — Fractional CMO, former leader at Automation Anywhere, LeanData, and Searchmetrics, top‑40 Substack writer, and co-host of Cannonball GTM — to unpack why modern go‑to‑market playbooks are breaking… and what the next generation of GTM looks like in an AI‑driven world.We go deep into the new patterns shaping high‑growth companies — and the uncomfortable truths most teams don't want to face.

Viktor Gamov talks to Leonid Igolnik (Former CTO at Clari) about his career in B2B SaaS engineering leadership. Leonid's first job: teaching kids Pascal. His challenge: changing buyer behavior and scale complex systems.Books mentioned:► Influence without Authority: https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Without-Authority-Allan-Cohen/dp/0471463302► Drive: https://www.danpink.com/books/drive/► Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking: https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316172324SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited by Noelle Gallagher, Peter Furia and Nurie Mohamed Music by Coastal Kites Artwork by Phil Vo

In this episode of the FINITE Podcast, Jodi sits down with the brilliant Dario Debarbieri, CMO at HCL Software. With a career at the intersection of marketing and AI, Dario offers a candid look at the Intelligence Economy and what it means for the modern B2B marketer.We explore a world where artificial intelligence interacts with audiences in real-time, reading the sentiment of minute digital movements to deliver personalized content in exactly the right context. Dario explains why the traditional 4 Ps of strategy may now matter less than your data quality, and why marketers must evolve from artists into engineers to survive.Key topics covered in this episode include:The Intelligence Economy: Why data is the new oil and how to use the right tools to extract and refine it.Marketers as Engineers: How the role of the marketer is shifting toward technical precision and data science.Context is King: Moving beyond simple demographics to understand the situational context of your buyer.The Ethics of AI: Navigating the fine line between helpful personalization and creepy intrusion (e.g., following a customer to their Alexa at bedtime).Listen to the full episode to hear how hyper-personalization is setting companies apart and how you can prepare for a future where AI is the norm.

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.In episode #9 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Simon Manz, founder of entitys.io, a cloud-based Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform specifically designed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the B2B sector.Simon joins the podcast to unpack one of the hardest pivots in SaaS: transforming a professional services company into a product-focused software business.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & Product Overview1:24 — Simon's Background & Journey to Entities3:03 — Pivoting from Services to SaaS Product7:14 — Culture Change & Team Transformation12:36 — Identifying the Right ICP15:00 — Building Relationships in B2B Mid-Market22:38 — Why Bootstrap vs VC Funding25:48 — Positioning & Marketing Strategy28:13 — Building Reviews & Community36:19 — Wins, Failures & Key LessonsSimon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-manz/entitys - entitys.ioSubscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796

Welcome to the CanadianSME Small Business Podcast, hosted by Maheen Bari. In this episode, we explore how real time data intelligence and website monitoring give businesses a powerful edge by detecting competitive moves, regulatory changes, and pricing shifts the moment they happen. Our guest is Eric Do Couto, Head of Marketing at Visualping, the website change detection platform trusted by over 2 million users and a majority of Fortune 500 companies. Eric shares lessons from scaling a global B2B SaaS platform and explains how SMEs can turn monitoring into actionable intelligence. Key Highlights Scaling B2B SaaS: How Visualping grew from early adopters to millions of global users.   SME Competitive Intelligence: Practical ways small businesses can monitor competitors without overload.   Dogfooding Intelligence: How Visualping uses its own platform internally for market insight.   AI Powered Monitoring: How AI filters signal from noise to surface changes that matter.   Momentum and Vision: What recent G2 recognition signals and what's ahead for Visualping in 2026. Special Thanks to Our Partners: UPS: https://solutions.ups.com/ca-beunstoppable.html?WT.mc_id=BUSMEWA Google: https://www.google.ca/ A1 Global College: https://a1globalcollege.ca/ ADP Canada: https://www.adp.ca/en.aspx For more expert insights, visit www.canadiansme.ca and subscribe to the CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. Stay innovative, stay informed, and thrive in the digital age! Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as direct financial or business advice. Always consult with a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.

Turn your idea into a launched, profitable MVP in 2-6 months: https://www.saasmastery.com/?video=67MX3_N4LfoOr prefer a one-off advisory call? Here's my calendar: https://www.saasmastery.com/call?video=67MX3_N4Lfo--- Most founders struggle to get their first 100 customers for their SaaS, not because their product is bad, but because their GTM is.Today, I sit down with Margo, who has been helping B2B SaaS founders with marketing and customer acquisition for the last 8 years.If you're in the process of building a SaaS, then this video will give you a working Go-To-Market strategy that works in 2025 and beyond.Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:48 - 3 big mistakes to avoid 3:22 - How to get the first 10 customers 4:45 - 5-step Go-to-market strategy (First 100 customers) 11:36 - Scaling beyond the first 100 customers 13:26 - Ending-------------------- Resources: Enhance decision-making in software development and product management with the right leadership - https://saasmastery.com/call ▸▸ SaaS Mastery website - https://www.saasmastery.com/ Get in touch with us, and let's talk about your project! https://saasmastery.com/call #SaaS #MVP #SaaSMastery Chapters (00:00:00) - How to Find Your First 100 Customers(00:00:42) - 3 Mistakes SaaS Startups Make to Get Their First(00:03:22) - How do we get our first 10 customers?(00:04:54) - How to Find and Convert Early Adopters: My Core Go(00:07:19) - 3 Creative Outreach Strategies for Early Adopters(00:10:10) - 4 Steps to Your Landing Page(00:11:22) - 5 Steps to Scaling Beyond The First 100 Customers(00:13:26) - How to Win Your First 100 SaaS Customers Fast

Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp and HEY, joins Wes Bush to unpack what fuels his “challenger” approach to building software. Jason shares why he has been more public lately, how being an underdog shaped his motivation, and why he loves shipping products that surprise people, especially when a small team takes on problems most assume require massive headcount. They dig into Jason's product philosophy: build what you personally need, avoid “validation” theater, and let the market be the only real judge. Jason explains the difference between resonance and validation, why he believes asking customers hypothetical questions leads teams astray, and how strong point of view can be a durable differentiator when features get commoditized. The conversation also covers why 37signals writes books, why they do not obsess over attribution, how product-led growth became their default, and what it really takes to maintain products over time. Jason closes with advice for founders on risk, independence, and the billboard message he would share with every B2B SaaS builder. Key Highlights: 01:52 - Why Jason Got More Social (He's Building Again)03:10 - The Underdog Mindset and Where It Came From06:43 - Building to Surprise: Why HEY Went Full Stack08:10 - How New Product Ideas “Pick” You12:16 - Why Jason Refuses to “Validate” Ideas Upfront14:01 - Finding a Real Point of View Without Faking It20:11 - Why the Books Exist (Sharing the “Recipes”)25:53 - Product-Led Growth: Let the Product Sell Itself28:43 - When to Build More Products and When to Focus36:26 - Founder's Job: Inject Risk, Then Trust Your Gut Resources: Basecamp (Jason's company): https://basecamp.comConnect with Jason Fried on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonfried/

Daphne Tay, Founder and CEO of Bluente, joins SlatorPod to talk about building an AI-powered document translation platform that goes beyond text and tackles the complexities of formatting at scale.Daphne explains that formatting challenges vary significantly across file types, from scanned PDFs to multi-column layouts and complex graphics, requiring deep technical handling of document structures.The CEO points to legal and financial services as core verticals, citing the example of investment banking teams uploading hundreds of pages overnight to meet tight deal deadlines. Daphne discusses how large language models have accelerated translation quality and increased market openness to AI adoption, especially among legal professionals who want to reduce time spent on non-billable translation tasks.She highlights that human reviewers still remain essential for court filings, arbitration, and high-stakes documents requiring certification or final sign-off.Daphne shares that Bluente raised funding to expand internationally, increase brand visibility, and partner with investors experienced in scaling B2B SaaS and AI businesses.The pod wraps with Daphne outlining a forthcoming feature that enables temporary translation memory, allowing only recently edited sections of a document to be retranslated while preserving previously approved text.

How to Fix Your Underperforming B2B SaaS Funnel for Quick Revenue Wins In the fast-paced world of B2B SaaS, the ability to go to market, iterate on feedback, and close deals rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage. Unfortunately, many sales and marketing teams find themselves stalled by underperforming funnels that drain resources without delivering measurable results. When growth plateaus, the challenge lies in transforming these stagnant pipelines into high-velocity growth engines without requiring massive capital or long timelines. So, how can B2B SaaS teams identify the hidden leaks in their customer journey and unlock quick-win revenue through a strategic, data-driven approach? That's why we're talking to April Syed (CEO of Aperture Codex), who shares her expertise on fixing an underperforming B2B SaaS funnel for quick revenue wins. During our conversation, April discussed the importance of leveraging data to pinpoint “quick wins,” such as streamlining sales processes and eliminating high-friction points in user onboarding. She explained how to fix “conversion killers” like messaging misalignment and highlighted the necessity of aligning marketing and sales efforts to ensure a seamless experience. April also advocated for a culture of continuous testing, using small, incremental experiments to de-risk major strategic shifts. She emphasized the value of regular customer journey mapping to maintain a predictable, sustainable, and highly efficient path to profitable growth. https://youtu.be/VeeFMznhCfw Topics discussed in episode: [07:24] Why your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) must be a “living, breathing” document reviewed quarterly, not a static file sitting in a deck. [11:24] The critical mistake of treating marketing as a cost center rather than a revenue driver, and how it leads to “vanity metrics” over actual sales. [13:53] Why you should focus on small, incremental tests to “de-risk” big spends before committing to expensive strategies like rebrands. [18:05] The 5-Point Conversion Diagnostic: A framework to analyze time-to-value, messaging alignment, behavioral triggers, follow-up timing, and pricing friction. [23:07] A real-world example of how “pricing friction” (forcing an annual upgrade) caused a loyal promoter to churn to a competitor. [27:24] How to audit your funnel for “Quick Win” revenue opportunities in under 30 days by analyzing where deals stall in the CRM. [35:27] Why no marketing asset is ever “final”, and why high-traffic landing pages should be in a state of constant A/B testing. Companies and links mentioned: Apryl Syed on LinkedIn  Aperture Codex  Superhuman Notion  Motion Transcript Christian Klepp, Apryl Syed Apryl Syed  00:00 Brand for instance, doesn’t work itself into any metric, but it makes every metric better across the board. Sometimes we’re chasing these metrics and like the attribution of where a particular deal came from, or how did they find out about us, and we’re not thinking about all of the things that are outside in the flywheel that are, you know, causing that person to, yes, eventually convert. But were there seven or eight other things that kind of they interacted with. Christian Klepp  00:26 In the world of B2B SaaS speed is the name of the game. Get to market, quickly collect feedback, quickly iterate quickly and close deals quickly. But what happens if your sales and marketing teams get stuck with underperforming funnels that don’t generate the results you need? How can teams turn these funnels into growth machines without massive spend or long timelines? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking with Apryl Syed, who will be answering this question. She’s the CEO of ApertureCodex who gives founders the strategy and the psychology needed to jump into fast revenue gains. Let’s dive in. Okay, and away we go. Apryl Syed, welcome to the show. Apryl Syed  01:12 Thank you so much, Christian. I’m so excited to be here. Christian Klepp  01:15 Glad to have you on the show. I think we had such a great pre interview conversation. I kept telling myself I should have hit record, and I talked to you the first time, right? But, you know, two times is a charm or three times. But anyways, this is the second time we’re talking. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation Apryl, because we’re going to touch on a topic today that I think is not just relevant to sales teams. It’s really important to marketing teams as well. So I’m going to keep the audience in suspense just a little while longer while I set up this first question. Right? So you’re on a mission to help B2B SaaS teams turn underperforming funnels into growth machines without massive spend or lengthy timelines, and for people that didn’t hear that the first time, I think everybody wants something like that, right, quick results without spending massively, right? So for this conversation, I’d like to focus on the following topic and just unpack it from there, right? So how can SaaS teams leverage a quick win revenue approach for better and more predictable growth. And I mean, come on Apryl, who the heck doesn’t want that, right? Who doesn’t want predictable growth, right? So I want to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So first one is, where do you see many SaaS teams struggle with revenue growth? And the second question is, what are some of the key causes of this? Apryl Syed  02:44 It’s really great, by the way. As a side note, I got turned down for a podcast this week because they said I talked too much about quick wins, and they felt that it conflicted with their policy. I won’t mention the name, they’re an agency out there, but they were all about big spend, and they felt that I conflicted with that. And this exactly ties in. This is probably why the subject that I talk about so. Christian Klepp  03:13 Well, I’m sorry for them. Apryl Syed  03:15 Yeah, that’s okay. That’s okay. We don’t, we don’t match. You know, I’m not for everyone. Well, I think that, like SaaS teams don’t realize that they’ve got data. And within their data really, really lies some of the tweaks, opportunities and things like that that can make them extra revenue that they might not be looking at today. And I think, you know, perhaps it’s in tweaking their sales process. Maybe they don’t have a sales process misalignment between sales and marketing. Marketing is talking about one thing, sales is selling another thing, or could be marketing is marketing to one type of industry and user, and sales is saying that’s not the right user. It’s something completely different, that misalignment in itself causes revenue conflict, revenue opportunities. And you know, sometimes it’s spending on expensive tools before you’ve actually broken down some of those points in the funnel. Or could be tools that you’re getting a lot of data from, or they’re not doing anything with the data on a regular basis. So I think, you know, those are where I see some of those, like, struggle with revenue because of some of those issues and and then I think your second question was kind of like, well, how to, how do they kind of avoid some of those scenarios? Right? Christian Klepp  04:40 It was more about the the key causes, but you but, but you did talk about that already, right?   Apryl Syed  04:44 So, right, right? That definitely is there. Well, I think, you know, it’s also could be, you know, where they’re chasing certain metrics and focused in, and we had this conversation earlier. It’s like brand, for instance, doesn’t work at. Yourself into any metric, but it makes every metric better across the board. So sometimes we’re chasing these metrics and like the attribution of where a particular deal came from, or how did they find out about us, and we’re not thinking about all of the things that are outside in the flywheel that are, you know, causing that person to, yes, eventually convert. But were there seven or eight other things that kind of they interacted with before they got to that point? And we had to get them ready? So, you know, can definitely be about just chasing those metrics too much, which means you avoid doing things that don’t give you that instant metric. And I think that is a big challenge and pitfall that that teams can can certainly fall into. I think also the the challenge of treating marketing as a cost center and not letting them be in charge of all of those metrics down to the sale that happen. And that might sound weird to some folks, but I’ve certainly been in enough teams and enough experiences across you know my background that I’ve seen that sometimes you can make a change in marketing. It produces a lot of leads, but those leads aren’t qualifying and they’re not turning into revenue, and yet, if the metric is producing leads, well then marketing can walk away the end of the day and meet their metrics and jobs, but if the metric is revenue, then they’ve got to go all the way to that end cycle and see that it’s a qualified opportunity. That, of course, goes back to my original point that if sales and marketing aren’t in lock sync with each other, and they don’t have a good relationship and dynamic, then it ends up in finger pointing when things aren’t going wrong, instead of both teams coming together, being on the same page and figuring out what’s going to work. And that’s that’s really the key. Christian Klepp  07:03 Absolutely, absolutely. And I think you might have brought it up, and maybe I didn’t catch it, and if not, I apologize. But like, one of the things that I didn’t notice, too, is, like, this misalignment of who, who the who the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is, like the assumptions that both sides have and then somehow they just cannot meet in the middle. Apryl Syed  07:24 Well, I kind of brought it up just slight when I said that marketing might be marketing to one person, and sales is selling to another, but if we just want to double click, you know, on on that, that agreement around the ICP, the reason why it’s so important, and I think it’s hard for some SaaS companies, because there’s, there could be a lot of ICPs. And I kind of have this philosophy that with an ICP, people usually maybe do these personas, as I call them, one time, maybe at a, you know, a planning session or whatever, where they’re kicking off, you know, and kind of like planning who those are, and then they leave them. They sit in a deck somewhere. They’re never looked at again. They’re never revised. I like a more fluid method with personas. I like personas to kind of be active, living and breathing in something that’s reviewed on a quarterly basis, I think is a better cadence. And the reason being is, like, we want to see how many deals we’ve closed in that particular area, how many so we should be looking at the metrics right by persona. We should also look at the messaging by persona to see how that’s working. And we should, you know, look at our team and how that flow has gone through into the sales process by persona. And kind of looking at this lens, we may figure out that one persona is working really, really well, or two or three might be working really well. And maybe there’s two or three that aren’t working really well. We might want to flush those out or put them in, what I would say is like a vault or a holding pattern. They might come back later if something’s happened, and we might want to add different ones. And the reason why quarterly is important is because, if you are selling business to business, for instance, in that business environment, there are different things that might be happening in the world, you know, geographically, politically, that might be impacting a certain persona. And it’s important to also look at that lens on a quarterly basis and say, Okay, what’s the mindset of this particular persona? What are they dealing with? What are some of their issues? What are their pressures? What is their emotional state, and then how do we want to message into that emotional state during this time? How do we want to change and revise our messaging for what’s going on in their world right now, this quarter, right you can’t keep you can’t keep messaging the same and messaging constant needs to be looked at. I would say, on a regular basis, one to check and make sure it’s working. If it’s working, keep it working at some time. At some point, though, it might stop working, and it’s important to catch that as you see those numbers trailing off, as you see that change, and not wait until too long has passed and just double down on the same persona for the sake of really work, working with it, because it was the original plan. Christian Klepp  10:27 Yeah, absolutely, absolutely these, um, these personas are, and I believe that too, they it’s not something that that’s written in stone, and then you, you to use that archaic expression, just keep it on the shelf, and then it collects dust, right? Apryl Syed  10:40 Yeah Christian Klepp  10:41 It’s something that should be monitored, as you said, because certain certain companies are working in industries where, for example, government regulation impacts them. Apryl Syed  10:51 Yes. Christian Klepp  10:52 If government regulation changes, then that perhaps also influences the way they make decisions, or decide to work with external vendors and partners and so forth, right? Apryl Syed  11:05 Absolutely. Christian Klepp  11:07 You brought you brought up a few already in the past couple of minutes. I’m just, I just want to go back to pitfall. So one of them, I think, was chasing this, chasing metrics. Right? This, this habit of constantly chasing metrics. What are some of these other pitfalls that you’d say marketing teams should avoid them. What should they be doing instead? Apryl Syed  11:24 Well, I think, you know, another pitfall that I’ve seen is kind of launching a big rebrand and expecting, you know, or that could also be a plot, a platform overhaul, software overhaul, and expecting that that’s going to move the needle faster when you could test that type of messaging out in really small ways before you go and do that big rebrand. And I’m a big fan of those, like small tests, verify and then go big. Like I’m not I’m not saying don’t ever go big. What I’m saying is like, test and measure before you go into a big cut, a big, fresh rebrand, because it’s expensive, and you want those big, expensive expenditures to be a little bit more of a sure thing than a risky thing. So de risk the big spends, riskier moves. Do small, incremental tests and say, how could we test this out on a small scale. How could we test or rebrand out? How could we test a platform change out before we do that in a small way? So I think that’s another one. I talked about a cost center. Treating marketing as a cost center is another one. So I think those are, like my big, my big three, I would say, in terms of pitfalls. Christian Klepp  12:41 Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. You, you hit on something there with your with your third point. And I want to go to that, because that’s a topic that, um, that as a marketer, personally, it riles me up a little bit, but, like, you know, but, but we have to look at this as professionals too, and say, okay, you know what? In the world of B2B, that type of pushback is almost expected, right? Because I’m not sure what your experience has been. But I also work with a lot of companies that have done either little or no marketing before, so it’s, it’s to a certain extent, it’s like Terra Australis incognita. It’s uncharted territory. They are not sure what to expect. So it’s only, it’s only normal that they, that they view it with some kind of, I wouldn’t go so far as to say, suspicion, but yeah. Like, how do you know it’s gonna work, right? So over to you. Like, what’s your experience been? How do you deal with companies that view marketing with that kind of suspicion or or have these doubts, like, Is this even going to work for us? Right? How do you deal with that? Apryl Syed  13:53 Well, I mean, from my perspective, I think again, I go back to the small tests, small wins in those beginning, like, let’s get our sea legs before we go and launch some big strategy. And I think that’s, you know, a big divide between, you know, maybe myself and yourself and some other you know, marketing agencies and firms out there is, I would rather get small, incremental wins to start. I’m not against big strategies and big spends. I think they’re both needed, but when you’re kind of coming into a team that’s either had little to no success with marketing, because maybe they’ve had some bad experiences with agencies that haven’t delivered, or they’ve tried ads, or they’ve tried this thing and they kind of have that bad taste in their mouth, right? Or they just have not done anything at all, and perhaps they’ve, they’ve grown despite that. So they’re kind of like, Hey, I’ve seen success without doing this. So why? Why do I need this? So I think an educational approach is important, kind of giving the here’s the industry benchmarks, here’s what we should. See, here’s how we are going to test. Here’s a recommended way that we do small, incremental tests. And then I also think a really, really important piece is, if it’s a company that’s been around long enough is to dive into that data I have. I have a customer that I would say sits in this category. They’ve grown tremendously. They’ve had a very successful business, and they’ve never marketed before. And if I were to come in there with some big rebrand strategy, big moves, look at me like you’re crazy. We don’t need that. I mean, in all honesty, what are they looking for? They’re looking for incremental revenue gains. So how am I going to produce incremental revenue gains? I’m going to look at their data and see where there’s holes in gaps today, where, yes, marketing, but marketing is a very, very broad term. Marketing can be brands, marketing could be emails, marketing can be social media. Marketing can be customer advocacy, customer emails churn, you know, upgrading customers into other models. So when I say I look at data, I look at what their customers are doing, and what I get from that is, where is my ideal customer, because it’s going to show me in their base. So who might I want to go after and experiment with? First, those are going to be my biggest areas for opportunity of wins, where, with their existing customer base, can I sell something more or different for them to increase revenue in that way? I think that’s another big and then I look at where there may be failures across the process in their data. If it’s a SaaS company, let’s look at their free the trial, trial, you know, to paid, paid to churn, and look at those numbers and say, are they hitting industry standard for their industry? Can I improve any of these metrics? Let me go look at all of the various different things that are going to change these metrics. Where can I start to experiment to get incremental change? That’s how you give success to a team. And they start feeling like, Okay, we should invest more here. We should do more here, because it’s working. Now, let’s double down. Let’s triple down. Let’s do more, then you can go after those bigger strategies. Christian Klepp  17:26 Yep, yep, no, absolutely, absolutely, no. I’m glad, I’m glad you brought those up, because that’s a great segue into the next question, which I think you’re all too familiar with, right? So I think when we first talked, right in our previous conversation you were talking, you mentioned something called a five point conversion diagnostic, which uncovers, I think you refer to them as conversion killers, right? You can cover these conversion killers without expensive tools or massive product like changes or revamps, right? So if you could please walk us through this five point approach and how teams can leverage that. Apryl Syed  18:05 Now this is particularly for SaaS, that trial to onboarding experience and the time that I the thing that I look for the most in there is time to value. How long does it take for the customer to experience value is going to be indicative of how long their trial has to be with that onboarding experience, and are they legitimately going to get into the point of buying early, even because they can’t wait to utilize this tool or buying, of course, the moment that the trial, the trial the trial ends. That is all about time to value. The second is about messaging alignment. So does the promise that we give, if it’s a landing page, whatever that experience is that someone comes through to then get to that product, does the promise of what we’re giving them match what the experience is going to be in the software, and how long does it take again, from that time to value, for them to get to that matched experience of what we promised that will also be a predictor of so if we were, you know, on a scale from zero to 10, 10 being like matched, it perfectly, zero being not matching at all, we’d want to rate our company on that scale, and kind of see for the time to value and for the misalignment, where are we? Then I would kind of go after like behavioral triggers, and I would try to figure out what actions correlate with conversion. So I would look at everybody that’s converted, and I would say, what parts of the software did they touch right? Are they looking at, are they experiencing, which then would predict, like, if people do these five things and the solution, then we know that they’re going to convert. And you can use either, like a Pender or you know, products like that that give you some of that analysis and data. Or maybe it’s, you know, sitting in your CRM, but that would tell you and inform you about your messaging as well. Like, what should we be messaging about? These are the key things that people want out of this solution, and that’s going to inform your next piece, which is, I would look at the follow up timing, the sequencing. How frequently do we talk? I often, I’m a big superhuman fan, and I talk about superhumans onboarding experience, which I think is awesome. And of course, they get a little bit of a leg up because they are an email solution, so they see when you’re in the tool. But I have found that, like the timely messages and the trickling of features that they give you right when you’re ready to use that feature has been so well thought out. And if you have, if you have not experienced it, and you’re a SaaS product owner, Founder, CEO, I highly encourage you to go through their onboarding experience, because that, to me, is like the pinnacle, or one of the pinnacles of what you should want your users to experience, like these just great aha moments right when they’re ready to receive them as part of that trial period before conversion. That make sure that we’re just touching them at the right moments. And then the last piece that I look at is pricing and packaging friction. And here’s, this is, you know, this is something that’s changing an awful lot right now. SaaS is under pressure to maybe look at not seeds, but maybe it’s volume, but then volume is not great, because people can’t predict it, and certainly can’t budget appropriately for it. So there is all kinds of pricing friction happening right now that needs to be figured out, but understanding where people are dropping off and where in that you know, how many clicks do they need to do before they buy? What is that whole buying process like? What is the upgrading process like? Put it through the pressure test. See how many steps it is. Challenge yourself. If you can reduce the steps, make it easier. I’ll give you an example. I was a big, big user of the motion app for a really long time. I probably sold, let’s say, 10 to 20 of these to other people, because I was such a promoter and such a fan of motion, they changed something in their solution related to how many credits, and what happened is it stopped recording my meetings for me automatically, which meant didn’t go into my notes anymore. Didn’t automatically create my tasks for me. That’s a pretty big feature, and obviously I so I went to upgrade, and the upgrade didn’t allow for me to choose a monthly it only allowed me to upgrade to choose an annual. Christian Klepp  23:06 Why? Apryl Syed  23:07 Yeah, which did what to me as the user. I then went into the shopping mode, essentially, and I said, Now I’m going to go shop and look at, well, what other tools are out there that can do the same functionality. Because now, if I have to commit to an annual plan, so much changing in AI this year, I’m not sure if I can commit to an annual plan. It had nothing to do with the amount of dollar spent. It had everything to do with commitment. And here I was a promoter of their solution. I ended up canceling and I went with notion, because I realized that notion had added a significant number of AI features at a much lower price, which I know a lot of people complain about notion being expensive, and it isn’t as good of a user experience now that I’m using motion and yet notion. Yet, I’m still on notion, and I left motion app, which is probably better, because they put me through this experience. And I say that as an example not to and I don’t know if they fix that, but we make these decisions all the time, sitting from our lens, looking at what we want the outcome to be, and we don’t think through what that user experience is going to be, and we’re killing conversions, in some cases, by these little levers and moves that we make, and sometimes we don’t even realize that. So I really encourage, encourage founders, encourage, you know, everyone at the company go back through and look at these tiny little things that each one of them on the loan alone could be costing you revenue, costing you conversions along the pathway. Christian Klepp  24:53 Absolutely, absolutely. And we’re working with a client that’s that’s an that’s in tech right now, and the thing that we keep. Talking about is you gotta, you know, yes, of course you’re excited if you start developing more features and what have you right? But look at this through the lens of the user, right? I mean, I can totally relate to your to your situation. I mean, even things like for example, and this is probably like oversimplifying it. But the last update that Instagram did is driving me absolutely crazy. Like, why would you update something your interface that has already been working for the users, and now? Why do you update it so and completely change where the buttons are on the layout so people have to waste time looking for worse, the send button. I mean, you know, it’s just beyond me, right? Apryl Syed  25:45 Yeah, and it’s funny, and they actually, Instagram, for a long while, did a lot of user testing before they would roll out features, and did these limited, I didn’t see any of that necessarily. With this last rollout. Christian Klepp  25:58 No. Apryl Syed  25:59 Apple did a very similar, like their latest update introduced many phone changes in terms of prioritization of, you know, messaging and all that sort of stuff. And it’s like a common we’re finding commonality saying, like, Oh man, I hate this latest I don’t know how many people have said I hate this latest update, and it’s because it’s created too much friction in the process. We need enough friction, but not too much friction. And that balance, in itself, unfortunately, is like the most difficult thing to figure out. And if you’re not talking to your customers, if you’re not talking to people, you will never figure it out, because you’ll be making an assumption. Christian Klepp  26:38 Exactly, exactly. Okay, so we talked about this at the beginning of the conversation, but you mentioned something called a quick win revenue framework. And I know from what you were telling me that that was a little bit controversial to somebody else you spoke to. Apryl Syed  26:55 Yeah. Christian Klepp  26:56 But you know what we are, we are all embracing in the show. You know. Apryl Syed  27:00 Thank you. Christian Klepp  27:00 Not not judgmental. But in fact, the focus here is to help B2B Marketers. In your case, B2B SaaS Marketers to become better and to improve. So if we’re going to focus on this quick win revenue framework, where would you identify low hanging revenue opportunities in under 30 days. So talk to us about that. Apryl Syed  27:24 Yes, well, it sits at this crossroads between marketing and sales, right? And that’s why you’ve got to have such a tight friendship relationship with you know, your sales leaders and your customer success leaders. I think it has to be like such a great ecosystem. So first thing I would do is pull CRM data. I would look at where deals are stalling, you know, I would map the current funnel with actual numbers of where you have people. I would overlay that with like the industry and kind of like the marketing messaging that is created those those types of deals. And kind of look at that from the lens of, okay, here’s what we’re creating, and here’s what sales is able to close easily. Here’s what’s really lagging and taking a long time in the funnel. And it’s not to say that, like, longer is better than shorter, because, like, an enterprise deal takes longer to close than a SMB (Small and Medium-sized Business) deal. So the answer isn’t always that the SMB deal is better, but looking at that and saying, Is there anything here that is that is giving me an indicator of something I can improve on? Can improve on. So that would be, you know, number one, go through that audit, take a look at the data, see what you’ve been producing from a marketing standpoint so far, and then say, is there anything that we should be testing to do differently better? You know, what are your hypotheses that you want to go out and you want to prove with some AB testing, two look at conversion killers, right? That’s either messaging, follow up, timing or onboarding friction, some sort of friction in the process. Friction could be a form fill too it could be, you know, too heavy, too long of landing page, I would look at every single detail and way that people are coming in through the funnel and say, are we doing anything to kill conversion and sometimes, and I’ve experienced this with one brand that I’m working with, and we have an agency that’s also in there that’s doing some ad performance, and they’re getting industry well above industry standard rates. And I asked the agency, because I’m sitting in kind of like my fractional executive role, and I said, Tell me out of your entire client, raw. Stair. Where does this client sit? And they said, Oh, at the top, best performing client we have, you know what that signaled to me? They’re comfortable. They’re getting great results. They’re not trying to improve anything. They’re just trying to hold the fort down and just keep getting these great results because they think that’s a place of safety. Christian Klepp  30:23 Stop rocking the boat Apryl. Apryl Syed  30:26 I know, I know, but I look at that and say, You’re not trying hard enough. You’re not examining right and going through the funnel and looking for all the tweaks and looking for. Christian Klepp  30:36 What can it improve? Apryl Syed  30:37 Can it be improved? You’re not trying to do any of that. And in fact, I’m adding that to you. I’m adding those things. I’m asking for those things, just because I come from that space and saying, like, Hey, we should be pushing here. We should be pushing here. We should be they don’t want to push. And they’re slow, slow, slow to react. And what’s going to happen is it’s going to earn them a change out in agency, right? Because they’re not pushing. Now, unfortunately, what I think is, if that was happening, obviously was happening before I was involved this customer, they thought they’re getting, they’re getting, like, six to one on their spend. That’s fantastic. We should be happy, right? And I’m like, no, no, no, I’ve pushed, I have pushed that envelope before. I’ve seen, you know, 14% conversion on landing pages. I’ve seen 49% conversion on landing pages. When you get it really right, you should always be pushing and pushing and pushing that envelope. So really diagnose and look, are there friction killers in those processes, and where can you be improved? And it is not like, I’m getting results good enough, so let me stop. It’s not stop because that might be one of your levers to really, really get quick wins, because you could tweak something and then even tip the scale further. And who doesn’t want a big win like that? The other thing is, like, I think there’s I look at I look at email sequences and messaging. I look at every single message that we’re sending a customer through the process, through their buying journey. You know, for one client, I basically call it a customer journey map, which a lot of people don’t do anymore, but my journey map is from the moment that they hear about you, all the way through buying, how do we touch them? What do we touch? And then from buying through that sales cycle, what is that like? And the reason why I map that out is because when you do and you put the different sections, you can kind of say, well, this is the process today. What would we like that process to be? And you will find in every single one of these customer journey maps that I’ve done, five to 10 areas where you’re like, instantly know, you instantly know the experience you could be providing better. I did this for one client, and we uncovered, like, the review process for their terms and conditions. On average took like, 10 days with an average back and forth between their lawyers and our lawyers, maybe 15 times that is that a desired customer experience? No, that’s a friction creator, which could be a deal killer, could be a deal staller. So what does that desired experience look like? What should we aim to get to? How are we going to do that? What should we test first? That’s just an example of one that might be in there. So look at everything. Then it becomes, you know, build exactly what you think you’re going to test, go and launch and measure those tests. And you don’t need this to be six months, right? Depending on how much data you’re getting through, it might only take you two weeks of data. It might take you a week of data on these experiments and levers that you’re going through so figure out how long you need to run the experiment for. Run that experiment, measure those changes, and then either permanently implement the change or make changes right and refresh and do another test. Christian Klepp  34:24 Wow, that was quite the list. And I’m sure you’ve, you’ve had, like, as you, as you’ve mentioned, you’ve had pushback for, you know, some of this, for this process, because it’s it. It makes teams uncomfortable, right? But I think the point is, you know, everybody says, right, change is uncomfortable. Improvement is uncomfortable. Uncovering ways to make things better should make you feel uncomfortable, right? Apryl Syed  34:53 So true, so true. And I always, I always think like, if you’re uncomfortable and you’re feeling like. A maybe, I don’t know all the answers here. It’s a really good place to be, and that’s where real growth happens. That’s where real change happens. Christian Klepp  35:06 Yeah. So I did have one follow up question for you, Apryl, like, you know, based on this framework that you’ve just proposed, like, How often would you recommend? And I know it depends, but how often would you recommend teams to continuously monitor some of these, some of these attributes and these factors that you’ve that you’ve brought up in the past couple of minutes. Apryl Syed  35:27 Gosh, I think it is very dependent on the data that’s coming through. If you were experiencing problem in an area, deep dive in there and uncover it. Kind of do that audit and analysis and create some tests that you could run to improve it. But as a measure, the customer journey map, for example, for existence, I think that’s a living, breathing document. I think we should look at it quarterly. We should update it with the experiments and the learnings and the new things that we’ve implemented permanently so that we can track how that experience is going and make sure that it’s our desired experience that we’re putting out there. Because I think a lot of times stuff just happens and it’s not our desired experience, but we kind of think like, oh, well, this is the process, the way it has to be, or, you know, so and so said that it has to be three days. So it’s three days, and it’s like giving you a moment to step back and be like, Why could we do it different? Could we do it better? Could we do it in two days? I don’t know. Could we do it in one and, you know, so I think as often as that customer journey, when updates happen, put those updates in their document. It, look at it, say, like, what’s next on the list should always be improving. When you get to the point where you don’t have any more insights in there, and you think it’s oiled up in the best that you could possibly do it, bring some customers in, bring some customers in to look at it and get their opinion. Ask them about it. It’s a great point to now be in survey mode and ask some questions about where you might have conflicts internally, or where you just aren’t sure where to go. So I think that when it comes to like email sequences, and remind you know like those provide provides, messaging, emails, one thing landing pages, like, I think your landing page just should be in a constant AB turnaround. Every time you have five to 10,000 people hitting a landing page, you should be trying to tweak that message to see if you can make it better. Message, layout, colors, all of the kind of industry standards there, you should be constantly trying to tweak that. If you’re not using landing pages and you’re sending stuff to a page, you should try landing pages so it’s just the constant improvement of those email sequences kind of, kind of, I feel, I feel they should be similar. I feel like you’ve got to examine those on a pretty regular basis, maybe it’s monthly, and kind of determine which messages are you going to trade out. I’m doing a pretty big switch out right now for, you know, an SMB app that’s, you know, selling to other businesses. So it’s a B2B, SaaS company, and we are revising all of their messaging, going through every single one, but trying to create, like a very purposeful journey now where there hasn’t been necessarily one before. And what I just said to one of the leaders yesterday is like, this is version one of what will be probably 10 before we’re done with this iteration. Because every single time we see the data and see how people are moving through the flow, we’re going to we’re going to see that those things that we didn’t consider, there’s going to be broken pieces. Like, don’t be in a position of thinking that any of your marketing is final ever. That’s a good position to be in. It’s never final. I think about this for websites as well. Like people like, oh, we go through our big website refresh, we get the website done, and then now we don’t have to touch the website. Oh, you should be, like, touching the website all the time. Experiment with the messaging on the homepage. Like to think that you got the messaging right the first time. I wish, I wish, and I’ve been in this industry for more than 25 years, I wish, and I’m considered, considering, considered a messaging, you know, wizard. Sometimes, it sometimes takes five or six tries before you get that like, nailed one, and that’s because persona, you know, it’s like how the person is feeling. It’s the emotional draw, and it’s the features, the problem of the pain and all of that coming into one like, I wish, I wish there was an AI tool that could get that right. But it’s not, they’re not. Christian Klepp  40:00 I haven’t found one yet. Apryl Syed  40:01 Yeah. You know, it’s only through really, really overworking that message and seeing the data come in that you kind of like, finally get to maybe a place that’s good, and then guess what? Your persona changes or something happens to so. So don’t ever think of it as, oh, to set it and forget it, it. It should be like it. And there’s also, like, Don’t tweak it too fast that you don’t have enough data coming through. Like, that’s also, I can, I can see that being a message, but have enough data, review that data on a regular basis, make some changes, test it. It’s like little incremental tests and learn. So that’s going to be kind of like it’s either in that category, which is like, test and learn, test and learn, test and learn constantly tweaking, or a quarterly or an annual kind of review. Christian Klepp  40:54 Fantastic, fantastic. Apryl. This was such a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Um, please. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you. Apryl Syed  41:07 Well, my company is Apeture Codex. Best way to get in touch with me is just Apryl Syed at LinkedIn. That’s where I’m most active, is on LinkedIn, and you can book an appointment with me right off of my LinkedIn. And so that’s like the best, best way to find me out there. Christian Klepp  41:27 Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to drop those links in the show notes once the episode goes live. So Apryl, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Apryl Syed  41:38 All right. Thank you so much, Christian. Christian Klepp  41:40 Okay, Bye, for now. Apryl Syed  41:41 Bye.

Send a textIn this episode of the Sidecar Sync, Mallory and Amith dive deep into two seismic shifts rocking the AI landscape for associations: the rise of “agent tollgates” in SaaS platforms and the growing security concerns around Model Context Protocol (MCP). Sparked by comments from HubSpot's CEO about monitoring and monetizing agent access to customer data, the conversation explores what happens when vendors start charging for AI agents to access “your” data—and why this may signal a broader shift in the software business model. Amith unpacks why true data ownership matters more than ever and explains how AI data platforms eliminate traditional ETL bottlenecks while preserving control. Then, the duo pivots to MCP security risks, breaking down real-world attack vectors—from prompt injection to supply chain compromises—and offering practical guardrails for safe experimentation. The message is clear: embrace AI boldly, but build with governance, ownership, and security top of mind. 

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ClickUp scaled to $300M ARR in one of the most competitive SaaS categories in the world.In this episode, Reggie and Vitaly sit down with Chris Cunningham, Head of Social at ClickUp, to break down the SaaS growth strategy behind ClickUp's rise — from living in a startup house to becoming a category leader in the project management space.They unpack what it really takes to scale a B2B SaaS company in a saturated market: scrappy go-to-market tactics, early product-market fit lessons, unconventional hiring strategies, aggressive product development, and building content as a long-term competitive moat.You'll learn:• How ClickUp attacked a crowded SaaS market dominated by incumbents• The scrappy growth tactics that generated early enterprise deals• Startup scaling lessons from hiring, product launches, and GTM mistakes• Why modern B2B marketing strategy must include a dedicated content creator• How AI SaaS features (including ClickUp 4.0 and Super Agents) are reshaping productivity software• The balance between shipping fast and shipping polished in high-growth startupsThis conversation dives deep into SaaS startup scaling, founder-led growth, B2B content marketing, AI integration in SaaS products, and how to build a durable brand in a competitive industry.If you're a SaaS founder, B2B marketer, product leader, or growth operator trying to win in a crowded market, this episode is packed with practical lessons.Subscribe for more founder-led conversations on SaaS growth, AI in marketing, startup strategy, and building scalable marketing systems. Try Vista Social for FREE today Book a Demo Follow us on Instagram Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on Youtube

And we're back with TMK-as-usual! We are joined by Wendy Liu and Jimmy Wu from the Bay Area Current — a new leftist publication writing about the working class in San Francisco and beyond — as we chat about mapping out the rising milieu of right-wing culture in San Francisco, from the growing scene of tech intelligentsia publications that each have their different flavor of right-wingism to the psychic damage and hostile architecture of an urban landscape overflowing with B2B SAAS billboards. ••• Meet the New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia https://bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new-right-wing-tech-intelligentsia/ ••• Tech Billboard Decoder: The Great Tech Vibe Shift https://bayareacurrent.com/tech-billboard-decoder-the-great-tech-vibe-shift/ ••• AI Company's Billboards Say Workers Are Disposable. But Are We? https://bayareacurrent.com/ai-tech-company-to-workers-youre-disposable-but-is-it-true/ ••• San Francisco's Billboards Aren't For You https://bayareacurrent.com/the-billboards-arent-for-you/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan's book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed's substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Kapil Surlaker, VP of Engineering, Data and AI Infrastructure at LinkedIn, joins guest host Bhaskar Ghosh for a technical and thoughtful discussion on how AI is reshaping enterprise. Kapil shares how LinkedIn built strong data foundations over more than a decade, and how that foundation enabled generative and agentic AI use cases. He reflects on building Espresso, a distributed database created out of necessity, and explains why he would not build it again today. The conversation explores AI infrastructure, model flexibility, privacy guardrails, and operational responsibility. His message to leaders is clear. Reinvent yourself continuously, or risk becoming irrelevant. In this episode, you'll learn: [04:07] From personalization to hiring agents [08:30] Modern AI infrastructure and model flexibility [14:58] Why LinkedIn built Espresso [23:08] AI can write code but you own the pager [26:33] Data as a success layer [30:06] Privacy, governance, and guardrails in the AI age [37:56] Reinvent or go extinct About Kapil Surlaker Kapil Surlaker is a seasoned technology leader who has worked across distributed systems, large-scale databases, and AI infrastructure. He began his career at Oracle building foundational database technologies before joining LinkedIn during its hypergrowth phase. At LinkedIn, he played a central role in building Espresso, a massively scalable distributed document database, and later led AI and data platform modernization efforts that powered personalization, ads, search, and emerging generative AI use cases. His work spans infrastructure, privacy engineering, governance systems, and enterprise AI transformation. Subscribe to our podcast and stay tuned for our next episode.

What if scaling your B2B SaaS business could be as simple as asking, “Who, not how?” In this episode of Predictable B2B Success, host Vinay Koshy speaks with Mike Malloy, founder of Malloy Industries, whose knack for executive matchmaking and battle-tested leadership has helped companies leap from $2M to $20M+ in revenue. Hear how a pandemic, a move to the beach, and life-changing moments sparked Mike Malloy's mission to build a business fueled by core values like generosity and trustworthy leadership. Discover the frameworks, scorecards, and insights that reveal why “what got you here won't get you there,” and learn how fractional executives can help founders multiply their impact without burning out. Ever wondered what holds SaaS companies back from scaling, or why founders get stuck in “if I want it done right, I'll do it myself” thinking? This episode is packed with practical tips, stories including the business lessons behind an infamous bankruptcy, and actionable strategies for founders ready to level up. Plus, you'll find out what Hawaiian shirts and dad jokes have to do with building a remarkable brand. Curious? Dive in to uncover the future of scalable leadership and why fractional expertise may be the game-changer your business needs. Some topics we explore in this episode include: How Malloy Industries was founded and Mike Malloy's career journey.Core values in business and ways to operationalize them.Pattern recognition in executive matchmaking for SaaS growth.Building scalable sales systems and the importance of delegation.Customer acquisition cost and cash flow management tips for SaaS founders.Cultural alignment vs. skillset when hiring fractional executives.Sales scalability scorecard and diagnosing sales process gaps.Transitioning from founder-led sales to fractional leadership and avoiding revenue dips.Time management and delegation for CEOs using frameworks like “who, not how.”Referral-based networking and educational marketing for fractional executive services.And much, much more...

This episode explores the future of search and digital discoverability with an experienced SEO executive and growth advisor who has worked with high-growth marketplaces and SaaS companies. The conversation unpacks how the mechanics of online discovery are being reshaped by AI, shifting user behavior, and the declining reliability of traditional traffic channels. Together, we examine why visibility is no longer just a marketing function but a product and experience challenge — where trust, intent, and usefulness determine whether users discover and choose a product. The discussion also covers how teams should rethink SEO from a tactical ranking exercise into a strategic growth capability, what durable acquisition looks like today, and how organizations can adapt their playbooks to stay relevant as search continues to evolve.

AI is revolutionizing the legal industry, but the hidden risks of hallucinations are costing companies millions. Discover how Monjur is solving the AI verification paradox by combining cutting-edge LLMs with human attorney supervision to protect growing businesses.   Rob Scott, Co-founder and CEO of Monjur, joins the Born in Silicon Valley podcast to reveal his journey from managing partner of a tech law firm to bootstrapping a legal AI startup to $3 million in ARR. He breaks down the exact RAG architecture and proprietary confidence scoring system his team built to eliminate AI hallucinations and achieve over 98 percent accuracy in legal workflows.   We dive deep into the challenges of pivoting a SaaS 1.0 company to an AI-first model, the realities of raising a Series A, and why the future of legal tech is about amplifying human empathy rather than replacing it. Whether you are a startup founder looking to leverage AI or an entrepreneur curious about the future of legal tech, this episode is packed with actionable insights on scaling a B2B SaaS business.   Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Technical Setup 02:35 Rob Scott's Background and Legal Expertise 05:16 Transitioning from Law to Tech Entrepreneurship 08:16 Client-Centric Approach in Startup Development 11:27 AI in Legal Services: Opportunities and Risks 14:27 Target Audience and Market Strategy 17:15 Building a Reliable AI System 20:03 The Role of a Non-Engineer in Tech Development 23:07 Bootstrapping vs. Venture Capital 26:10 Hiring and Team Dynamics in a Growing Startup 29:02 Future Growth and Scaling Strategies 32:14 Challenges in Transitioning to AI 35:07 The Future of AI in Legal Work 37:57 Client Relationships and AI's Role 40:54 Vision for the Future of Monjour   Host: Jake Aaron Villarreal leads the top AI recruitment firm in Silicon Valley, www.matchrelevant.com, uncovering stories of funded startups and going behind the scenes to tell their founders' journeys. If you are growing an AI startup or have a great story to tell, email us at: jake.villarreal@matchrelevant.com

"AI should be a tool, not a replacement...I've seen some very terrible ads." -Nicole Ramirez   Nicole Ramirez is a journalist-turned-marketer with deep experience leading growth marketing across CPG, financial services, B2B SaaS, media, and healthcare. She specializes in translating complex marketing challenges into measurable growth by blending performance marketing with customer-centric storytelling. As Co-Founder of BrandME and a LinkedIn Personal Brand Strategist, Nicole helps executives and professionals build thought leadership, visibility, and opportunity through strategic content, coaching, and fractional CMO consulting. She is also the host of the Talk Digital To Me podcast, a published Forbes and Entrepreneur contributor, and a featured speaker at events including TEDx and SXSW. Website: https://www.brandmelabs.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolerayeramirez/    Alison Daley is an entrepreneur, product designer, and international trainer passionate about using authentic storytelling and purpose-driven marketing to create meaningful impact. She's the creator of the Ernestine McClendon Talent Grant, a scholarship initiative that turned goodwill into real-world brand engagement. Through her work, Alison helps leaders and teams align who they are with what they create. Website: https://recruitinginnovation.com/  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alisonldaley   In this episode, we explore expert insights on digital marketing, AI strategies, personal branding, and recruiting innovation for growth-driven professionals.   Apply to join our marketing mastermind group: https://notypicalmoments.typeform.com/to/hWLDNgjz   Follow No Typical Moments at: Website: https://notypicalmoments.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/no-typical-moments-llc/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4G7csw9j7zpjdASvpMzqUA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notypicalmoments Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NTMoments  

"AI should be a tool, not a replacement...I've seen some very terrible ads." -Nicole Ramirez   Nicole Ramirez is a journalist-turned-marketer with deep experience leading growth marketing across CPG, financial services, B2B SaaS, media, and healthcare. She specializes in translating complex marketing challenges into measurable growth by blending performance marketing with customer-centric storytelling. As Co-Founder of BrandME and a LinkedIn Personal Brand Strategist, Nicole helps executives and professionals build thought leadership, visibility, and opportunity through strategic content, coaching, and fractional CMO consulting. She is also the host of the Talk Digital To Me podcast, a published Forbes and Entrepreneur contributor, and a featured speaker at events including TEDx and SXSW. Website: https://www.brandmelabs.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolerayeramirez/    Alison Daley is an entrepreneur, product designer, and international trainer passionate about using authentic storytelling and purpose-driven marketing to create meaningful impact. She's the creator of the Ernestine McClendon Talent Grant, a scholarship initiative that turned goodwill into real-world brand engagement. Through her work, Alison helps leaders and teams align who they are with what they create. Website: https://recruitinginnovation.com/  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alisonldaley   In this episode, we explore expert insights on digital marketing, AI strategies, personal branding, and recruiting innovation for growth-driven professionals.   Apply to join our marketing mastermind group: https://notypicalmoments.typeform.com/to/hWLDNgjz   Follow No Typical Moments at: Website: https://notypicalmoments.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/no-typical-moments-llc/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4G7csw9j7zpjdASvpMzqUA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notypicalmoments Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NTMoments  

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #8 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Max Armbruster, founder of Talkpush, a conversational AI-driven recruitment platform designed to automate high-volume hiring processes.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction and Hiring Challenges1:18 — First Principles of Recruitment3:44 — Bias and Company Culture6:07 — Founder Involvement in Hiring7:56 — TalkPush Origin Story9:26 — Building a Remote International Team13:03 — Remote Work Culture and Cadence20:37 — AI Voice Interviews and Screening24:03 — Preventing Cheating in AI Interviews30:51 — Bootstrap vs VC Funding Journey41:44 — Lessons Learned and Actionable AdviceMax - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxarmbruster/ Talkpush - https://www.talkpush.com/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796

This week, our host Ian Truscott chats with B2B marketing leader Lisa Bonnano, and then he and Robert tackle the topic of vibe coding killing SaaS software over a cocktail.   Lisa Bonanno is a revenue and customer-focused marketing executive with 20+ years of experience optimizing and scaling global pipeline engines from inquiry to advocacy for B2B SaaS businesses. Ian dives into Lisa's marketing leadership experience, what drew her to marketing as a profession, her views on getting a marketing education, what we can learn from B2C, and: What is on Lisa's rider when she's considering a new gig Where she starts when starting a new gig The advice she gives to young marketers looking to follow in her footsteps What she would chuck into our Rockstar CMO Swimming Pool - our portal to marketing hell The tune that gets her marketing mojo working After catching up with Lisa, Ian joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, for a chat about whether business users getting access to AI-generated code, or vide coding, is going to kill SaaS software.  If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them! Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn  Lisa P. Bonnano on LinkedIn Robert Rose on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Tuesday 2¢ - Is The Vibe Killing SaaS? Ian's firm - Velocity B Robert's newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: We'll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over (2010 Version) Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career ✓ Claim : Read the notes at at podcastnotes.org. Don't forget to subscribe for free to our newsletter, the top 10 ideas of the week, every Monday --------- Brian Halligan co-founded HubSpot, ran it as CEO for about 15 years, and now coaches Sequoia's fastest-growing founders as their in-house CEO coach.We discuss:1. His LOCKS framework for evaluating founders2. Why you should build your team like the 2004 Red Sox3. Why hiring “spicy” candidates beats consensus picks4. Why enterprise sales will be the last white-collar job AI replaces5. Some of my favorite “Halliganisms”—Brought to you by:Sentry—Code breaks, fix it faster: http://sentry.io/lennyDatadog—Now home to Eppo, the leading experimentation and feature flagging platform: https://www.datadoghq.com/lennyWorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/sequoia-ceo-coach-why-its-never-been—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Brian Halligan• X: https://x.com/bhalligan• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan• Delphi: https://www.delphi.ai/bhalligan• Podcast: https://sequoiacap.com/series/long-strange-trip—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Brian Halligan(03:56) The perpetual state of constructive dissatisfaction(05:25) Coaching CEOs(07:49) The art of interviewing and hiring(11:21) Getting the most out of reference calls(13:10) Homegrown talent vs. big company hires(16:31) Traits of successful CEOs(19:40) Brian's LOCKS framework for evaluating founders(21:34) Are great CEO's born or made?(23:41) Giving effective feedback(25:54) The future of go-to-market strategies(31:56) Understanding forward deployed engineers(34:17) How the CEO role has evolved over the last 20 years(38:10) Halliganisms(01:01:18) The CEO's role in scaling a company(01:02:41) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• Dev Ittycheria on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dittycheria• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com• Parker Conrad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkerconrad• McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com• Brian Chesky's new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach• Jensen Huang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenhsunhuang• Winston Weinberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winston-weinberg• James Cadwallader on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsca• Gabriel Stengel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabestengel• He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor on the future of careers, coding, agents, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/he-saved-openai-bret-taylor• Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures: https://orbit.mit.edu/classes/scaling-entrepreneurial-ventures-15.392• OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai• Ruth Porat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-porat• Mike Krzyzewski: https://goduke.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/mike-krzyzewski/4159• Dalai Lama's 18 Rules for Living: https://www.prm.nau.edu/prm205/Dalai-Lama-18-rules-for-living.htm• Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-30-years-of-building• Kareem Amin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemamin• Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com• Tobi Lütke's leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook• Katie Burke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-burke-965767a• Jerry Garcia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Garcia• Bob Weir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Weir• Phil Lesh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Lesh• Ron “Pigpen” McKernan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_%22Pigpen%22_McKernan• Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn't even started yet: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/marc-andreessen-the-real-ai-boom• The American Revolution: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution• Delphi: https://www.delphi.ai• Sonos: https://www.sonos.com• Yamini Rangan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaminirangan• The Boston Red Sox: https://www.mlb.com/redsox—Recommended book:• Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History: https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Send a textIn this episode of Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias zoom out to explore the AI infrastructure quietly reshaping everything beneath the surface—from Microsoft's new Maia 200 custom AI chip and the race to lower inference costs, to Google's Project Genie and the rise of interactive world models that could transform everything from credentialing simulations to digital twins of annual conferences. They also unpack bold predictions about the future of work, including AI-driven performance measurement, shrinking workforces, gig workers armed with better tools than enterprise teams, and the shift from hyper-specialization to adaptable generalists. The throughline? Infrastructure, experiences, and workforce dynamics are all evolving at once—and association leaders don't need to understand transistor counts to recognize that AI is getting cheaper, faster, and more capable by the day. 

Ah yes.The three words that have launched a thousand unnecessary redesigns.In this episode of Blame It On Marketing, we're joined by the brilliant Juliana Germinio from Yellow Zest to unpack the most vague, infuriating, soul-crushing piece of feedback marketers hear on repeat:“Can you just… make it pop?”Pop how?Pop why?Pop for whom??WHAT IS POP?!From rogue email links sending restaurant guests to skincare masks (we've all been baptised) to websites 80% complete before someone decides it's “not doing it for them” — we get into why bad feedback happens, why senior leaders default to aesthetics, and how marketers can stop drowning in subjective chaos.But this isn't just a rant. (Okay, it's partly a rant.)What you'll actually learn:

Shashank Bijapur, co-founder and CEO of Spotdraft, explores the transition from the archaic, manual world of legal practice to the high-velocity domain of B2B SaaS. In this episode, we strip away the jargon surrounding "LegalTech" to reveal how Spotdraft powers the invisible infrastructure of global commerce - from airport leases to ride-sharing agreements. Shashank provides a masterclass on finding product-market fit in the mid-market, the reality of AI's role in high-stakes legal workflows, and the strategic pivot from technical perfection to market-driven iteration.Key Takeaways1. The "Aha Moment": Identifying Stagnation in Essential Industries- Digital Lag: While photography (Adobe) and accounting (Intuit) underwent digital revolutions decades ago, legal innovation peaked in 1993 with Microsoft Word's "Track Changes."- The Opportunity Gap: Identifying ubiquitous, paper-heavy processes that remain manual despite technological advancements is the strongest signal for a SaaS disruption.- Democratic Software: The goal isn't just to replace a lawyer; it's to turn complex legal processes into software that is as accessible and intuitive as a consumer app.2. GTM Strategy: The Power of Mid-Market Focus- Avoid the "Gambler's Fallacy": Shashank emphasizes the importance of trashing unusable early products rather than doubling down on a failing idea.- Homogeneity Matters: The US is the primary target for Indian SaaS due to its massive, homogeneous market, which allows for a repeatable ecosystem and faster flywheels.- The Mid-Market Sweet Spot: Avoiding the high-churn "small business" trap and the "unobtainable enterprise" early on leads to a focused GTM where legal teams (the true buyer persona) have decision-making power.3. The Founder's Dilemma: Accuracy vs. Speed- Legal Training vs. Startup Reality: Lawyers are trained for 100% accuracy; founders must embrace "fail fast." Overcoming the urge to pursue a "perfect product" is essential to gathering user feedback.- Technical Maturity: In 2017, the promise of AI exceeded the technology's capability. Spotdraft pivoted to building robust workflows first, capturing the data needed to make today's LLM integrations effective.- The Talent Moat: When a founder lacks specific functional knowledge (like GTM or engineering), the solution is "talent density"—hiring highly motivated experts who believe in the mission.4. The Future of AI in High-Stakes Legal- The End of "Form Filling": UI is shifting from manual data entry to conversational interfaces where users describe an outcome, and the AI configures the workflow.- Context is King: General LLMs lack company-specific context. AI's value in SaaS comes from mapping global laws against a company's specific historical data and standards.- Humans in the Loop: AI will handle "grunt work" and pattern recognition, but $1M+ deals will still require a human handshake and strategic negotiation for at least the next decade.About Spotdraft:Spotdraft is an AI-driven, end-to-end contract automation platform designed to clear the "madness from quote to cash." It helps businesses of all sizes—from startups to giants like Uber and Airbnb—create, manage, and analyze contracts seamlessly.Chapters:00:10 - Introduction00:50 - Journey from Lawyer to SaaS CEO03:34 - The "Aha Moment" for LegalTech07:09 - Spotdraft's Hidden Role in Everyday Life11:34 - GTM Strategy: Building from India for the US18:24 - Balancing Legal Risk with Founder Speed22:56 - How LLMs are Changing Legal Workflows30:22 - Lightning Round: Lessons Learned & AI ToolsVisit our website - https://saassessions.com/Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilneurgaonkar/

Wade Tonkin is the Director of Global Affiliate Marketing at Fanatics, Inc., where he oversees one of the largest and most complex affiliate programs in the world. With over 20 years of experience in performance marketing, he has played a key role in shaping Fanatics' global partner ecosystem, driving growth through content creators, media publishers, loyalty partners, and innovative performance channels.This episode dives deep into the evolution of affiliate marketing at massive scale. The conversation spans growth levers beyond the traditional affiliate playbook—ranging from content partnerships, media integrations, sports‑driven real‑time demand, coupon ecosystem shifts, loyalty dynamics, influencer performance trends, incrementality measurement, BNPL behavioral changes, AI's emerging role in affiliate operations, transparency challenges with subnetworks, and experiments in compensation modeling. It also includes personal touches: international travel, hiking adventures, and the guest's surprising hobby as a certified bourbon steward.

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.In episode #7 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Benjamin Houy, founder of CopyCat Cafe, an AI-powered language learning platform—formerly known as French Together—that helps users learn French by imitating native speakers rather than focusing on traditional grammar rules.----------- Episode's Chapters -----------0:05 — Introduction & Background1:11 — Starting CopyCat Cafe6:03 — Competing with Duolingo10:46 — Building Lowlight (GEO Tool)14:34 — Lessons from B2B vs B2C17:31 — Working with a Co-founder26:08 — Growth Strategies29:57 — Rebranding to CopyCat Cafe36:01 — Biggest Wins & Failures39:18 — AI Empowerment at SaaS GroupBenjamin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminhouy/CopyCat Cafe - https://copycatcafe.com/Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-groupStay up to date:Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_groupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/, a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies.

Brian Halligan co-founded HubSpot, ran it as CEO for about 15 years, and now coaches Sequoia's fastest-growing founders as their in-house CEO coach.We discuss:1. His LOCKS framework for evaluating founders2. Why you should build your team like the 2004 Red Sox3. Why hiring “spicy” candidates beats consensus picks4. Why enterprise sales will be the last white-collar job AI replaces5. Some of my favorite “Halliganisms”—Brought to you by:Sentry—Code breaks, fix it faster: http://sentry.io/lennyDatadog—Now home to Eppo, the leading experimentation and feature flagging platform: https://www.datadoghq.com/lennyWorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/sequoia-ceo-coach-why-its-never-been—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Brian Halligan• X: https://x.com/bhalligan• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan• Delphi: https://www.delphi.ai/bhalligan• Podcast: https://sequoiacap.com/series/long-strange-trip—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Brian Halligan(03:56) The perpetual state of constructive dissatisfaction(05:25) Coaching CEOs(07:49) The art of interviewing and hiring(11:21) Getting the most out of reference calls(13:10) Homegrown talent vs. big company hires(16:31) Traits of successful CEOs(19:40) Brian's LOCKS framework for evaluating founders(21:34) Are great CEO's born or made?(23:41) Giving effective feedback(25:54) The future of go-to-market strategies(31:56) Understanding forward deployed engineers(34:17) How the CEO role has evolved over the last 20 years(38:10) Halliganisms(01:01:18) The CEO's role in scaling a company(01:02:41) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• Dev Ittycheria on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dittycheria• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com• Parker Conrad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkerconrad• McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com• Brian Chesky's new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach• Jensen Huang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenhsunhuang• Winston Weinberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winston-weinberg• James Cadwallader on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsca• Gabriel Stengel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabestengel• He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor on the future of careers, coding, agents, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/he-saved-openai-bret-taylor• Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures: https://orbit.mit.edu/classes/scaling-entrepreneurial-ventures-15.392• OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai• Ruth Porat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-porat• Mike Krzyzewski: https://goduke.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/mike-krzyzewski/4159• Dalai Lama's 18 Rules for Living: https://www.prm.nau.edu/prm205/Dalai-Lama-18-rules-for-living.htm• Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-30-years-of-building• Kareem Amin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemamin• Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com• Tobi Lütke's leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook• Katie Burke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-burke-965767a• Jerry Garcia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Garcia• Bob Weir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Weir• Phil Lesh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Lesh• Ron “Pigpen” McKernan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_%22Pigpen%22_McKernan• Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn't even started yet: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/marc-andreessen-the-real-ai-boom• The American Revolution: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution• Delphi: https://www.delphi.ai• Sonos: https://www.sonos.com• Yamini Rangan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaminirangan• The Boston Red Sox: https://www.mlb.com/redsox—Recommended book:• Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History: https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

If you're tired of chasing "flash in the pan" tactics that promise overnight results, this episode is your reality check. In this episode of Pipe Dream, host Jason Bradwell sits down with Dev Basu, CEO of Powered by Search, to unpack how to build an inbound-only growth motion that actually compounds over time instead of burning out your team and budget. Dev's core point is clear: stop creating remixable AI content and start building lived-experience content that creates goodwill as a moat. The marketers winning today aren't the ones doing more, they're the ones doing the simple things better and measuring what actually matters. For 16 years, Dev has helped VPs of marketing and CMOs at B2B SaaS companies build predictable pipeline without cold outreach. His approach targets two groups: the 5% in-market demand actively looking for solutions, and the 45% of right-fit customers who don't wake up thinking they need your software but would benefit from it. Dev walks through Powered by Search's playbook, which drives more than half their inbound leads through LinkedIn alone. His SAGE framework (Simple, Actionable, Goal-oriented, Easy to consume) focuses on publishing content about how they've done something, not generic how-to advice. This lived-experience approach can't be copied through ChatGPT or Claude, building genuine goodwill that compounds over time. The conversation breaks down the "do more, do better, do new" framework. Most companies don't need revolutionary tactics, they need to optimise existing channels ruthlessly. AI plays a role, but it's about speed, not strategy. Dev uses AI to accelerate production once they know what good looks like, not to figure out what to say. Then Dev drops the tactical goldmine: the 3x10 rule. Get 10% more right-fit traffic, reduce acquisition cost by 10%, and increase average contract value by 10%. When you stack these three improvements, they compound to roughly 30% more pipeline. He guarantees this in 90 days and explains exactly how, from internal linking to push pages onto page one of Google, to cutting wasted ad spend, to targeting slightly larger companies with higher willingness to pay. If you want a blueprint for building predictable B2B SaaS demand generation without the hype, this conversation delivers. Chapter Markers 00:00 - Introduction: Dev Basu and the inbound-only motion  01:00 - The 5% in-market demand vs 45% right-fit customers  02:00 - Eating your own dog food: How Powered by Search acquires clients  03:00 - The problem with flash in the pan tactics and LinkedIn slop  04:00 - SAGE content framework: Building goodwill as a moat  05:00 - Triangulating attribution to prove LinkedIn drives half the pipeline  06:00 - Lived-experience content you can't remix with AI  08:00 - The playbook: Five pillars of demand generation  13:00 - Do more, do better, do new: The framework for prioritisation  16:00 - Using AI for speed, not strategy  20:00 - Buyer psychology and why nobody wants to "get a demo"  22:00 - The 3x10 rule: 30% more pipeline in 90 days  23:00 - Getting 10% more traffic with simple internal linking  24:00 - Cutting wasted ad spend to reduce CAC by 10%  25:00 - Moving upmarket slightly to increase ACV by 10%  26:00 - The Grand Slam offer and guarantee  27:00 - Where to learn more about Powered by Search Useful Links Connect with Jason Bradwell on LinkedIn Connect with Dev Basu on LinkedIn Learn more about Dev Basu Explore Powered by Search and the Grand Slam Offer Check out Clay for enrichment Explore B2B Better website and the Pipe Dream podcast

Most B2B SaaS startups waste their Google Ads budget on broad keywords and homepage traffic without a plan in place. I'll show you exactly how to deploy Google Ads strategically on a low budget by focusing on infrastructure-first deployment that actually drives results.This systematic approach has helped clients generate significant revenue by focusing small budgets on high-intent keywords with the proper infrastructure in place.

SaaStr 841: Going From Blobs to Billions. Clay's Co-Founder Breaks Down Inbound, Outbound, and AI-Powered Sales. Clay's Co-Founder Varun Anand takes the stage at SaaStr to break down how the company went from paying for claymation blobs before generating any revenue to powering growth workflows for companies like Cursor, Anthropic, and Figma. He explains why brand has always been core to Clay's identity, how their CFO roast videos and creative campaigns are actually capturing mindshare in a world where B2B marketing is painfully boring, and why he pushes back on the "use AI for everything" mentality that's taken over the industry. Varun does a full live demo building an inbound qualification workflow from scratch using real audience volunteers, walking through everything from lead enrichment and waterfall data sourcing to AI-powered scoring, personalized meme generation, research brief creation, and CRM updates. He also brings audience members on stage to do live growth hacking for their actual business problems. Beyond the product, this session goes deep on hiring. Varun shares the origin story of the GTM Engineer role, how it went from an internal job title for Clay's non-traditional sales team to the most in-demand position in B2B SaaS, and what he actually looks for when evaluating candidates (hint: it's creativity, not a traditional sales background). He talks about Clay's take-home process, work trials, why they hire generalists who commit to specific roles, and the surprising backgrounds of some of their best hires. Whether you're building out your go-to-market motion, thinking about how to use AI without losing what makes your brand unique, or just trying to figure out what a GTM Engineer actually does, this session covers it all. --------------------- This episode is Sponsored in part by HappyFox: Imagine having AI agents for every support task — one that triages tickets, another that catches duplicates, one that spots churn risks. That'd be pretty amazing, right? HappyFox just made it real with Autopilot. These pre-built AI agents deploy in about 60 seconds and run for as low as 2 cents per successful action. All of it sits inside the HappyFox omnichannel, AI-first support stack — Chatbot, Copilot, and Autopilot working as one. Check them out at happyfox.com/saastr   ---------------------   Hey everybody, the biggest B2B + AI event of the year will be back - SaaStr AI in the SF Bay Area, aka the SaaStr Annual, will be back in May 2026.    With 68% VP-level and above, 36% CEOs and founders and a growing 25% AI-first professional, this is the very best of the best S-tier attendees and decision makers that come to SaaStr each year.     But here's the reality, folks: the longer you wait, the higher ticket prices can get. Early bird tickets are available now, but once they're gone, you'll pay hundreds more so don't wait.    Lock in your spot today by going to podcast.saastrannual.com to get my exclusive discount SaaStr AI SF 2026. We'll see you there.

Are you actually growing your product, or just stacking signups that never turn into usage?A lot of teams get stuck there. More registrations feel good, but it's not the same as real usage, paid adoption, and a pipeline you can trust. And now with AI in the mix, it's easy to create more activity without getting more signal.In this episode of B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks, hosts Stijn Hendrikse and Brian Grav bring on their first guest, Alex Laventer.Alex has spent years in growth roles in B2B SaaS, including leading growth at DataStax and now leading go-to-market work on an AI agent product at IBM.The conversation gets practical fast, what “growth” really means, and how teams split (or combine) growth marketing and product growth.You'll walk away with a clearer way to measure growth, how to set up tracking you can rely on, and where AI can help (and where it tends to distract), including lead scoring and workflow automation.In this episode, you'll learn:Why signups mislead growth conversationsWhere teams lose signal without trackingHow PQLs connect product and marketingPerspective on sales assist with PLGExample: AI-assisted lead scoring workflows By the end, you'll know what to measure, what to ignore, and what to fix next so “growth” stops being a vague label and starts being a real operating system. Resources shared in this episode:BSMS 88 - Why founders overestimate PLG, and what VCs should check before investingBSMS 23 - Product led growth vs. sales led growthThe Foundation of a Successful SaaS GTM (Go-to-Market) Strategy T2D3 CMO MasterclassSubmit and vote on our podcast topicsABOUT B2B SAAS MARKETING SNACKSSince 2020, The B2B SaaS Marketing Snacks Podcast has offered software company founders, investors and leadership a fresh source of insights into building a complete and efficient engine for growth.Meet our Marketing Snacks Podcast Hosts: Stijn Hendrikse: Author of T2D3 Masterclass & Book, Founder of KalungiAs a serial entrepreneur and marketing leader, Stijn has contributed to the success of 20+ startups as a C-level executive, including Chief Revenue Officer of Acumatica, CEO of MightyCall, a SaaS contact center solution, and leading the initial global Go-to-Market for Atera, a B2B SaaS Unicorn. Before focusing on startups, Stijn led global SMB Marketing and B2B Product Marketing for Microsoft's Office platform.Brian Graf: CEO of KalungiAs CEO of Kalungi, Brian provides high-level strategy, tactical execution, and business leadership expertise to drive long-term growth for B2B SaaS. Brian has successfully led clients in all aspects of marketing growth, from positioning and messaging to event support, product announcements, and channel-spend optimizations, generating qualified leads and brand awareness for clients while prioritizing ROI. Before Kalungi, Brian worked in television advertising, specializing in business intelligence and campaign optimization, and earned his MBA at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business with a focus in finance and marketing. Visit Kalungi.com to learn more about growing your B2B SaaS company.  

In this episode of Always Be Testing, host Tye DeGrange is joined by Cormac Jonas, CEO and Founder of The Jonas Agency, for a deep dive into what's actually broken in modern performance marketing. With years of experience across affiliate, paid media, and creator-led growth, Cormac brings a sharp perspective on why so many brands are optimizing campaigns while ignoring the bigger problem: flawed measurement.The conversation unpacks how misattribution, last-click bias, and platform incentives distort ROI, using the recent Honey browser extension controversy as a real-world example of how value gets misassigned across channels. They explore why TikTok and YouTube reshaped high-intent demand, how AI, CTV, and programmatic traffic are inflating “performance” metrics, and why owning an audience now matters more than owning traffic. This episode is a candid look at where affiliate and performance marketing are heading — and what brands need to fix before scaling spend.

Lazar Jovanovic is a full-time professional vibe coder at Lovable. His job is to build both internal tools and customer-facing products purely using AI, while not having a coding background. In this conversation, he breaks down the tactics, workflows, and framework that let him ship production-quality products using only AI.We discuss:1. Why having no coding background can be an advantage when building with AI2. Why most of your time should go to planning and chat mode, not prompting3. What to do when you get stuck: his 4x4 debugging workflow4. The PRD and Markdown file system that keeps AI agents aligned across complex builds5. Why kicking off four or five parallel prototypes is the best way to clarify your thinking6. Why design skills and taste are going to be the most important skills in the future7. His “genie and three wishes” mental model for making the most of AI's limitations8. How product, engineering, and design roles are converging—and what that means for your career—Brought to you by:Strella—The AI-powered customer research platform: https://strella.io/lennySamsara—Saving lives with AI built for physical operations: https://samsara.com/lennyWorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/getting-paid-to-vibe-code—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Lazar Jovanovic:• X: https://x.com/lakikentaki• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazar-jovanovic• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@50in50challenge• Starter Story course: https://build.starterstory.com/build/ai-build-accelerator?via=lazar (code LAZAR15 for 15% off)—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Lazar and professional vibe coding(04:53) What a professional vibe coder actually does day-to-day(09:26) Why non-technical backgrounds can be an advantage(12:24) The importance of self-awareness(14:42) His “genie and three wishes” mental model(17:43) Developing taste and judgment in the age of AI(21:46) The parallel project approach for better outcomes(29:30) Creating dynamic context windows with PRDs(36:56) Why elite vibe coders focus on planning, not coding(44:43) Creating MD files to guide AI development(50:57) Why prototyping still matters(56:50) Why “good enough” is no longer good enough(01:00:53) The future of engineering in an AI world(01:05:14) What to do when you get stuck: his 4x4 debugging workflow(01:14:27) Helping agents learn from their mistakes(01:15:35) Why watching agent output is more important than code(01:19:08) The incredible pace of AI development(01:22:55) Why emotional intelligence will become more valuable(01:28:30) How to become a professional vibe coder(01:30:10) Why building in public is the fastest path to opportunities(01:37:03) Final thoughts on focusing on quality over tech stack—Referenced:• The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year | Elena Verna (Head of Growth): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna• Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company• The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led• 10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-growth-tactics-that-never-work-elena-verna• Lovable: https://lovable.dev• Lovable + Shopify: https://lovable.dev/shopify• Everyone's an engineer now: Inside v0's mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch• Mobbin: https://mobbin.com• Dribbble: https://dribbble.com• 21st.dev: https://21st.dev• Lovable base prompt generator: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67e1da2c9c988191b52b61084438e8ee-lovable-base-prompt• Lovable PRD generator: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67e1e85fbeac8191a69b95c6d5c42ef6-lovable-prd-generator• Felix Haas's newsletter: https://designplusai.com• Bauhaus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus• Glassmorphism: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1197106608665398190/glassmorphism• UI style guide: http://uistyle.lovable.app• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com• Ben Tossell on X: https://x.com/bentossell• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• Peter Thiel says AI will be ‘worse' for math nerds than for writers: https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-ai-worse-for-math-professionals-than-writers-2024-4• Andrej Karpathy on X: https://x.com/karpathy• The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google's secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/surge-ai-edwin-chen• Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/experts-writing-ai-evals-brendan-foody• Slumdog Millionaire: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Learn the small shift that makes referrals repeatable. Check out our new video training. --What happens when years of planting seeds finally meets the right market moment?Alexis Trammel is Chief Growth Officer at Stratabeat, a B2B SaaS organic growth agency. She recently transitioned from account management into a biz dev role.  But the real story is how timing and preparation collided. For years, Stratabeat was doing the unglamorous work: niching down, building LinkedIn presence, publishing original research, speaking at conferences, nurturing relationships. Then GEO (generative engine optimization) hit right as AI anxiety peaked, and suddenly the leads started flooding in. This conversation explores what it looks like when the groundwork you've been laying finally pays off, and why most agencies aren't ready when their moment arrives.What You'll Leave With:Why lead flow needs to exist before you hire a salesperson—not the other way aroundHow years of niching down positioned them to catch the GEO waveThe compounding value of original research, LinkedIn presence, and conference visibilityWhy internal sales hires often outperform external ones when the foundation is thereHow to keep planting seeds even when you're not sure which one will sproutThe seasonality reality and why "when it rains, it pours" cuts both waysTimestamps:[00:00] Introduction to Alexis Trammel and Stratabeat[02:36] The long road of niching down and eliminating services[03:19] When AI panic created unexpected demand for GEO[05:16] Original research as a lead gen and credibility play[07:46] Coming back from maternity leave to a sales opportunity[10:00] Why the lead flow has to come before the sales hire[11:47] Wearing both the sales and marketing hats[14:10] Planning for seasonality when you're riding a wave[16:41] LinkedIn as long-term brand building, not cold outreach[22:04] GEO converting better than almost everything except referrals[30:12] The relationship groundwork that makes referrals possibleMentioned Resources / Links:Stratabeat - B2B SaaS organic growth agencyNever Eat Alone by Keith FerrazziAlexis Trammell on LinkedInTom Shapiro on LinkedIn

Chasing unqualified leads is costing you time, money, and momentum. Want better clients—not just more of them?In this episode of The Business Ownership Podcast I interviewed Mark Osborne. Mark is the  Fractional Revenue Leader for Professional Services & B2B SaaS at Modern Revenue Strategies. Recognized by AdAge Magazine as one of the world's Top 25 “Marketing Technology Trailblazers” in 2017 and a #1 Best-Selling Selling Author on B2B Marketing and Sales, Mark Osborne brings decades of experience creating Revenue Growth Systems for B2B SaaS, Tech, and Boutique Professional Services Firms. Mark has delivered tens of millions of dollars in revenue for his clients, often doubling revenues in 90 days through his focus on building Systems that emphasize strategic approaches to growth. He is founder of Modern Revenue Strategies offering a "10X ROI B2B Growth Guarantee" and a Free Diagnostic Tool to identify your fastest path to growth.Stop marketing to everyone. Start winning the right customers. Learn how to find your most profitable customers.Check this out!Show Links:Modern Revenue Startegies: https://modernrevenuestrategies.com/diagnostic/Mark Osborne on LinkedIn:  Mark Osborne, MBA, CEPA® | LinkedInBook a call with Michelle: https://go.appointmentcore.com/book/IcFD4cGJoin our Facebook group for business owners to get help or help other business owners!The Business Ownership Group - Secrets to Scaling: https://www.facebook.com/groups/businessownershipsecretstoscalingLooking to scale your business? Get free gifts here to help you on your way: https://www.awarenessstrategies.com/

For years, we've heard about AI transforming software development. But what if that same level of agentic, AI-driven collaboration could be applied not just to writing code, but to writing your entire go-to-market playbook? Agility requires that your go-to-market teams operate at the speed of insight, not at the speed of manual data entry and fragmented workflows. This means empowering them with tools that don't just provide data, but automate action based on strategic intent. Today, we're going to talk about the concept of an 'agentic' go-to-market platform, where AI doesn't just assist, but actively collaborates with sales and marketing teams to automate entire workflows, from strategy to execution. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, Marcio Arnecke, Chief Marketing Officer at Apollo.io. About Marcio Arnecke As Apollo.io's Chief Marketing Officer, Marcio Arnecke brings a visionary approach to scaling high-growth B2B SaaS marketing in the AI-driven sales landscape. With over two decades of experience driving revenue acceleration across global markets, he has consistently transformed early-stage technology companies into market-defining brands. Hisexpertise in AI-powered go-to-market strategies uniquely positions him to accelerate Apollo's mission of empowering sales teams through intelligent data and automation. Previously, he played a pivotal role in scaling marketing functions at SaaS giants like Intercom and Zendesk, where he drove remarkable growth from $40M to $1.7B, culminating in a successful IPO that raised $100 million in 2014. Leveraging his comprehensive background in demand generation, product marketing, and strategic storytelling, Marcio is focused on positioning Apollo as the go-to AI sales platform for SMB and mid-market teams. His approach combines data-driven insights with targeted narrative strategies, translating Apollo's technological capabilities into practical business value. Drawing from his global experience across Silicon Valley and international markets, Marcio aims to expand Apollo's brand and demonstrate how AI can meaningfully improve sales engagement for growing businesses. Marcio holds advanced degrees from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and Golden Gate University, complemented by a BS in Business Administration from Universidade Feevale in Brazil. Marcio Arnecke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcioarnecke/ Resources Apollo.io: https://www.apollo.io Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code AGILE at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/agile  The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Palm Springs, Feb 23-26 in Palm Springs, CA. Go here for more details: https://etailwest.wbresearch.com/ Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://www.thecrmc.com/ Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://ratethispodcast.com/agile Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

Young Entrepreneur John Magnor Shares B2B, SAAS and AI-Driven Business Success Strategies Youtube.com/@johnpmag About the Guest(s): John Magnor is a successful 24-year-old entrepreneur, primarily focused on building and scaling B2B companies, including software and service providers. With a career that began at 16, he has devoted himself over the past years to expand businesses through developing robust sales teams and streamlining marketing systems. John is the founder of Magner Equity Partners, aiming to create a portfolio of businesses scalable enough to be sold to private equity. His entrepreneurial journey is motivated by a passion for the business game and the art of marketing and sales. Episode Summary: In this riveting episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss engages with John Magnor, a young yet remarkably proficient entrepreneur who has made significant impacts in the B2B industry. Broadcasting from Buenos Aires, John shares his journey from a 16-year-old eager to break norms to becoming a key player in software and service-associated entrepreneurship. This episode shines a light on John’s unique approach to scaling B2B companies, underlining the importance of sales and marketing in business growth. John Magnor narrates his story, highlighting foundational motivations stemming from personal needs and family influence. The discussion flows into the importance of learning sales and marketing, with Chris echoing the sentiment, noting their pivotal role in any business venture. The conversation naturally gravitates towards the future trajectory of businesses, exploring the intricacies of AI technology in revolutionizing traditional market landscapes. With an impressive track record and insightful perspectives, John discusses his investment strategies and shares an exclusive look into his upcoming project, Nova, an AI-driven sales trainer and role player. Key Takeaways: John Magnor started his entrepreneurial journey at a young age, driven by the desire to deviate from the norm and make a mark in the B2B scene by leveraging his skills in sales and marketing. Magnor Equity Partners focuses on helping businesses scale by refining their sales processes and marketing systems, aiming to add them to John's expanding portfolio. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a crucial element in modern business strategies, offering unparalleled opportunities for growth and efficiency. The interplay between AI, sales, and marketing can drastically improve training and operational efficiency, as evidenced by the introduction of Nova, an innovative AI sales training platform. Chris Voss and John stress the importance of a solid business foundation, emphasizing the benefits of starting young and evolving with market changes. Notable Quotes: “Once you learn sales, you can work anywhere. Sales is an invaluable skill.” – John Magnor “AI is here to stay; companies not utilizing it are left in the dust.” – John Magnor “Business is the best sport…you can do this until you kick the grave.” – John Magnor “Build a foundation in your youth. It creates an amazing arc for the rest of your life.” – Chris Voss “Knowing sales and marketing is crucial. They are the building blocks of successful business ventures.” – John Magnor

Sam Lessin is a partner at Slow Ventures, a former VP of Product at Facebook, and a two-time founder who's now teaching etiquette to Silicon Valley's founders. In this unconventional episode, Sam explains why proper etiquette has become a vital skill for founders in 2026—especially as technology becomes more central to society and trust becomes harder to build. His etiquette book and courses have become surprisingly popular, teaching founders how to “show up in a room with a low heart rate” and quickly build trust.We discuss:1. Why etiquette matters2. Sam's framework for showing up confidently, with a low heart rate, in any room3. How to navigate introductions, small talk, meetings, and meals like a pro4. Simple hacks for remembering names and handling awkward social situations5. 30+ specific etiquette tips—Brought to you by:10Web—Vibe-coding platform as an APIDX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchersWorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/silicon-valleys-missing-etiquette-playbook—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts:https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Sam Lessin:• X: https://x.com/lessin• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wlessin• Website: https://www.wlessin.com• Podcast: https://moreorlesspod.com• Lettermeme: https://lettermeme.com/lessin—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Sam's background(04:18) The role of etiquette in business success(09:30) Introductions and entering a room(16:20) Engaging conversations and building relationships(23:55) Hygiene and dress code essentials(33:42) Dining etiquette(37:15) Tipping etiquette(41:36) The “B&D trick”(43:05) Humor in social settings(45:18) Self-deprecating humor(47:42) Winding down conversations(49:20) Scheduling etiquette(55:23) Communication and email etiquette(01:02:28) Meeting etiquette tips(01:04:03) Virtual meeting best practices(01:05:15) The importance of cleaning up after yourself(01:05:58) Exiting and follow-up etiquette(01:07:24) Final thoughts(01:09:20) AI corner(01:11:13) Contrarian corner(01:16:25) Lightning round—Referenced:• Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com• Kleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.com• “Lose Yourself” by Eminem on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7MJQ9Nfxzh8LPZ9e9u68Fq• Alison Gopnik on Childhood Learning, AI as a Cultural Technology, and Rethinking Nature vs. Nurture: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/alison-gopnik• Garry Tan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrytan• Bain & Company: https://www.bain.com• Evernote: https://evernote.com• Calendly: https://calendly.com• Morning Brew: https://www.morningbrew.com• Cursor: https://cursor.com• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can't stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• DigitalOcean: https://www.digitalocean.com• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com• SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com• Marc Andreessen on X: https://x.com/pmarca• Landman on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Landman-Season-1/dp/B0D4D8RTMD• Dave Morin on X: https://x.com/davemorin—Recommended books:• Modern Etiquette in Technology, Finance, Society, and at Home: A Slow Ventures Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Etiquette-Technology-Finance-Society-ebook/dp/B0G4HSKSY5• Life, the Universe and Everything: https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Everything-Hitchhikers-Guide-Galaxy-ebook/dp/B001ODEQ7A• The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-City-Religion-Institutions-Greece/dp/0801823048• Man's Search for Meaning: https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI• Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base: https://www.amazon.com/Area-51-Uncensored-Americas-Military-ebook/dp/B004THU68Q• The Lessons of History: https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-History-Will-Durant/dp/143914995X• The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/1250033314• The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Kings-Shanghai-Jewish-Dynasties/dp/0735224439—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com