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SaaStr 764: State of the Cloud 2024: The Cloud AI Era with Bessemer Venture Partners, Anthropic, Jasper, Abridge and EvenUp Bessemer Venture Partners is committing $1 billion in capital to back AI-native companies and founders at the bleeding edge. Sameer Dholakia, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners speaks with Julia Chapin, COO at Abridge, Kate Jensen, Head of Revenue at Anthropic, Rami Karabibar, CEO and founder at EvenUp, and Timothy Young, CEO at Jasper, on the impacts of AI on the State of the Cloud. The discussion delves into the integration of AI into SaaS, marketing, healthcare, and legal industries, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities of implementing AI solutions. Key topics include building defensible business models, embracing multimodal capabilities, and strategizing change management for successful AI adoption. Gain valuable insights into the importance of trust, partnerships, and user-centric applications in leveraging AI for sustainable business growth. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Hey everybody - thanks to the 10,000 of you who came out to SaaStr Annual. We had a blast and big news -- we'll be back in MAY of 2025. That's right, the SaaStr Annual will be a bit earlier next year, May 13-15 2025. We'll still be back in the same venue, in the SF bay area at the 40+ acre sprawling san mateo county events center. Grab your tickets at saastrannual.com with code jason50 for an extra discount on our very best pricing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by: remote.com When the right person for the job is a world away, Remote Talent brings the world to you. As the top job board for remote-first companies, we give you powerful tools to post your listings and reach the world's top candidates and remote professionals. Start building your dream team from anywhere—visit Remote.com/jobs today. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This episode is sponsored by: Anrok A question for SaaS finance leaders, do you know where your customers are? Anrok tracks where your sales are creating exposure, and automates tax calculation and filing worldwide. Built for high-growth software companies, Anrok protects your revenue and saves you time. Visit anrok.com/saastr to learn more.
Building a company for $0-$1M in revenue differs wildly from $1-10M ARR. And scaling from $10M to $100M is wildly different still. Sameer Dholakia, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners with decades of operational experience, shares what you need to change as you scale from $10M to $100M ARR. The short answer is almost everything. Keep an open mind as you move into the next chapter of your company. “Everything that got you to where you are isn't going to get you where you want to be,” says Dholakia. Watch the full video, including Q&A: https://youtu.be/ucgtUQiyEJE Sameer's slides: https://www.slideshare.net/saastr/sameer-dholakia-saastr-workshop-wednesdays ***** SaaStr Europa is back! And this time, we're heading to London for 2 fun-filled days of content, networking, and SaaS. Join us June 6th and 7th for SaaStr Europa 2023. Use code FAVE100 for $100 off tickets at saastrlondon.com. ***** Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the
Bessemer Venture Partners unpacks the most important trends of the cloud economy, and explores the new milestone entrepreneurs need to value above all else—reaching Centaur status, or $100M in ARR—and the paths to get there. Releasing insights for founders with big ambitions, Sameer Dholakia, Elliott Robinson, and Mary D'Onofrio share the insights from cloud benchmark data and dive into the strategies that three Centaur companies took to scale their cloud businesses to $100M ARR. Full video: https://youtu.be/pUKwyAxwAqI Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the
PagerDuty's CEO, Jennifer Tejada, and Sameer Dholakia, former CEO of SendGrid and current PagerDuty Board Member share what fellow founders can learn from PagerDuty's post-IPO reality, and the realities of operating as a public company, two years later.
Bryan and Krissy discuss Suicide Squad, Bryan's son following in his mediocre footsteps and the incredible new fashion stylings of Fred Durst. Then Bryan tells Krissy about his last minute invitation to have dinner with Mark Cuban, Falon Fatemi and Maz Jobrani at the Podcast Movement Expo. It's Bryan's brush with fame and, as expected, he blew it! It's a predictable outcome to an unusual day in the life of The Commercial Break podcast. LINKS:Watch this episode on YoutubeTCBTV-minusSponsorFUM (Use Code TCB)MEMPHO Music Fest (Oct 1st-3rd 2021)Subscribe to The Commercial Break Podcast Youtube ChannelNew Episodes on Tuesdays and now Fridays everywhere!Text or leave us a message: +1 (470) 584.8449FOLLOW US:Instagram: @thecommercialbreak @bryangcomedy @tcbkrissyClubHouse: @bryangreen @tcbkrissyClubHouse: The Commercial Break Club on Clubhouse! (home of live recordings)Twitter: tcbbryanFacebook: The Commercial Break PodcastYouTube: Youtube.com/TheCommercialBreakEmail: info@tcbpodcast.comA Chartable Top 100 Comedy Podcast#1 Trending Comedy Podcast Worldwide! (Chartable)#1 Trending Comedy Podcast U.S.(Chartable)An Apple Top 100 Comedy Podcast Top 1% Downloaded Podcasts, Worldwide (ListenNotes)A Hot 50 Podcast (Podcast Magazine)
All of us are shaped by our personal stories and experiences, and at times, the unfortunate events that occur throughout our lives are the ones that can motivate us beyond our own belief. Openness, optimism, and dedication are few of many words to describe Sameer Dholakia, the CEO at Twilio SendGrid. Founded in 2009 and acquired by Twilio in 2018, SendGrid is an industry-leading, cloud-based email and communications platform. Today, Sameer and Chad sit down to discuss: Sameer's advice for those facing hard times, and how he leveraged the struggles in his own life to become the father, husband, and CEO he is today. The culture at SendGrid, and his values as a leader. The state of the world and the necessity for optimism. Plus much more! — This episode of Mission Daily is brought to you by our friends at TriNet. TriNet makes HR easier, from payroll to benefits to compliance. AND they offer full-service solutions tailored to your industry and your company, whether your team is 10 people or 1,000. Check out TriNet today at trinet.com. — For full show notes and more, go to mission.org/missiondaily.
It takes guts, grit, and an uncommon dose of wisdom to lead a business team. Sameer Dholakia has all three qualities, plus two decades of leadership experience in enterprise software. Dholakia is the CEO of SendGrid, one of the world’s premier email delivery services. SendGrid serves 50,000 customers and delivers 1.3 billion emails each day—more than double Twitter’s daily Tweet volume. In addition to its classic transactional email API, SendGrid more recently rolled out an email marketing product that has already been adopted by 5,000 users. Dholakia is an experienced tech executive with a love of history and a passion for building strong teams and big businesses in the enterprise software industry. In our interview, he shares his most effective leadership habits, including the importance of humility, how to foster an outstanding company culture, and strategies for turning around a dire financial situation. I’m so grateful Dholakia took the time to share so much of his knowledge and experience with the Powderkeg community, and I admire his resolve to always keep improving himself and his company. Connect with him on Twitter @spdholakia to share your appreciation, and enjoy the show. In this episode with Sameer Dholakia, you’ll learn: --- How you can begin using email marketing tools for your startup (13:40) --- Strategies for launching a new product within your existing brand (21:27) --- The only mistake in business you can’t recover from (33:26) --- Why you should be a humble leader (36:30) --- How to dig yourself out of a bad financial situation (42:48) --- The two biggest challenges SaaS companies face (47:08) --- How to create an exceptional company culture (53:54) If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. You can also follow us on Soundcloud or Stitcher. We have an incredible lineup of interviews we’ll be releasing every Tuesday here on the Powderkeg Podcast.
Jeff Lawson is the Founder & CEO @ Twilio, the company building the future of communications allowing you to engage customers like never before on voice, SMS, WhatsApp or Video. Prior to their IPO in 2016, Twilio had raised over $250m in VC funding from some of the best in venture including USV, Bessemer, Salesforce and Techstars just to name a few. As for Jeff, prior to founding Twilio, Jeff was the Founder & CTO @ Nine Star Inc and enjoyed a spell at Amazon as a Technical Product Manager. Sameer Dholakia is the CEO @ SendGrid, the category leader in email delivery, reaching half of the world’s digital users every 3 months. Last year Twilio acquired SendGrid bringing email into one seamless customer engagement platform. As for Sameer, prior to joining SendGrid, he spent 4 years at Citrix, where he drove the company’s product strategy for cloud infrastructure and server virtualization. Sameer joined the company in 2010, when Citrix acquired VMLogix, where he served as CEO and doubled revenues during each year of his tenure. Before that, he worked for 12 years at Trilogy, where he held key leadership roles helping the company grow from a start-up to a $300 million business. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Jeff came to found Twilio and what was that a-ha moment for him? How did Sameer enter the world of SaaS and come to be CEO @ SendGrid? How did Jeff and Sameer assess the culture fit between the 2 companies when deciding whether or not to join forces? How did they formulate and approach creating a new set of values with the 2 companies coming together? How do they distinguish between culture and values? How can leaders both be authoritative and vulnerable simultaneously? What does Jeff mean when he says, “the developer first approach is a maturation of the supply chain of software”? How has Jeff seen his original thesis for “developer first” evolve and change with time? What does truly special customer experience look like in the developer first model? In terms of product strategy, how do Jeff and Sameer approach when is the right time to release a second product? What does Jeff mean when he says, “you have to maximise the number of at bat opportunities you have”? Why does Sameer think that SendGrid waited too long to release additional product lines? What were his core learnings from that? How do Jeff and Sameer think about what what truly special leadership looks like today? How do they approach speaking so that people will remember? What are some of their biggest tips to aspiring entrepreneurs with regards to that and team empowerment? Why do both Jeff and Sameer believe that so much of the management wisdom today is outdated? 60 Second SaaStr: What do Jeff and Sameer know now that they wish they had known at the beginning? The book they have gifted most often and why? What does it take to truly be a great board member? What do the next 5 years look like for Twilio? How big could it get? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Jeff Lawson Sameer Dholakia
The post E901: Twilio SendGrid CEO Sameer Dholakia shares how he led $30m co. to $2b acquisition with strategic focus on marketing, product & team, embedded values & scalable culture, aligning with the right partners, knowing what great looks like, & expanding platform that’s already delivered over 1 trillion emails to date appeared first on This Week In Startups.
The post E901: Twilio SendGrid CEO Sameer Dholakia shares how he led $30m co. to $2b acquisition with strategic focus on marketing, product & team, embedded values & scalable culture, aligning with the right partners, knowing what great looks like, & expanding platform that’s already delivered over 1 trillion emails to date appeared first on This Week In Startups.
Guess what? You made it. You've built a company, and you're thinking it's time to take it to the next level. Part of starting something new is thinking about how you exit. We speak with two experts who have recently steered their companies through an IPO and an acquisition. Meet Sameer Dholakia, CEO of Sendgrid; and John Levisay, CEO of Bluprint & Craftsy. For more information about Sameer Dholakias and Sendgrid, visit: https://sendgrid.com/ For more information about John Levisay and Bluprint & Craftsy, visit: https://www.mybluprint.com/home For more information about this episode's sponsor, Husch Blackwell, visit: https://www.huschblackwell.com/ This episode features music by Lee Rosevere. Our theme song is Lover in Japan by Retrofette. And a big thank you to Mile High Hustle's sponsors: Husch Blackwell, General Assembly, and Zayo Group.
Regular listeners might remember that I interviewed the guys at Send Grid last year. SendGrid was Founded in 2009, after graduating from the TechStars program, and developed an industry-disrupting, cloud-based email service to solve the challenges of reliably delivering emails on behalf of growing companies. SendGrid is a leading digital communication platform, enabling businesses to engage with their customers via email reliably, effectively and at scale. A leader in email deliverability, SendGrid has processed over 40 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers as well as more traditional enterprises. I catch up with SendGrid CEO, Sameer Dholakia in London and chat about becoming the first startup accelerator graduate to ever go public (with DropBox following shortly thereafter). We also discuss the story behind SendGrid becoming a leader in email deliverability that processes over 40 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers as well as more traditional enterprises.
Choose co-founders based on their core values. Pick investors who will be there in your darkest hour. Make hiring the best people your top priority, and treat them like owners - not employees. Sameer Dholakia, CEO of business email service SendGrid, discusses the most important strategies for a startup's success, including the concept of "servant leadership."
Choose co-founders based on their core values. Pick investors who will be there in your darkest hour. Make hiring the best people your top priority, and treat them like owners — not employees. Sameer Dholakia, CEO of business email service SendGrid, discusses the most important strategies for a startup's success, including the concept of "servant leadership."
Choose co-founders based on their core values. Pick investors who will be there in your darkest hour. Make hiring the best people your top priority, and treat them like owners — not employees. Sameer Dholakia, CEO of business email service SendGrid, discusses the most important strategies for a startup's success, including the concept of "servant leadership."
Hey everyone! Today’s interview is with Sameer Dholakia, CEO of SendGrid, a marketing and transactional email service that helps companies do a better job of delivering their e-mails. Today we’ll be talking about tech debt and why it’s a good thing, the power of e-mail marketing (they send out 22 billion e-mails on behalf of their customers every month), and their 30-90 day sales cycle. Click here for show notes. Leave some feedback: What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, leave a short review here. Subscribe to Growth Everywhere on iTunes. Get the non-iTunes RSS feed Connect with Eric Siu: Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @ericosiu
Mr. Dholakia is the CEO of SendGrid, a company that helps entrepreneurs deliver email and helps you avoid getting spammed. We talk about culture, product/buyer fit and the importance of listening to your customers.
Mr. Dholakia is the CEO of SendGrid, a company that helps entrepreneurs deliver email and helps you avoid getting spammed. We talk about culture, product/buyer fit and the importance of listening to your customers.
It takes guts, grit, and an uncommon dose of wisdom to lead a business team. Sameer Dholakia has all three qualities, plus two decades of leadership experience in enterprise software. Dholakia is the CEO of SendGrid, one of the world’s premier email delivery services. SendGrid serves 50,000 customers and delivers 1.3 billion emails each day—more than double Twitter’s daily Tweet volume. In addition to its classic transactional email API, SendGrid more recently rolled out an email marketing product that has already been adopted by 5,000 users. Dholakia is an experienced tech executive with a love of history and a passion for building strong teams and big businesses in the enterprise software industry. In our interview, he shares his most effective leadership habits, including the importance of humility, how to foster an outstanding company culture, and strategies for turning around a dire financial situation. I’m so grateful Dholakia took the time to share so much of his knowledge and experience with the Powderkeg community, and I admire his resolve to always keep improving himself and his company. Connect with him on Twitter @spdholakia to share your appreciation, and enjoy the show. In this episode with Sameer Dholakia, you’ll learn: -- How you can begin using email marketing tools for your startup -- Strategies for launching a new product within your existing brand -- The only mistake in business you can’t recover from -- Why you should be a humble leader -- How to dig yourself out of a bad financial situation -- The two biggest challenges SaaS companies face -- How to create an exceptional company culture Please enjoy! ---- Download show notes and transcripts at www.powderkeg.com This episode of Powder Keg is brought to you by DeveloperTown. If you’re a business leader trying to turn a great idea into a product with traction, this is for you. DeveloperTown works with clients ranging from entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies who want to build and launch an app or digital product. They’re able to take the process they use with early stage companies to help big companies move like a startup. So if you have an idea for a web or mobile app, or need help identifying the great ideas within your company, go to developertown.com/powderkeg. Thanks again to everyone who has shared an episode of Powderkeg, subscribed to us on iTunes, or left us a review. It’s the only way we’re going to spread this message and reach new people and we could do it without you. We’re coming out with new episodes every Tuesday, so make sure you subscribe on iTunes or at powderkeg.co/itunes
Sameer Dholakia, CEO of SendGrid, joins Turnpikers to discuss SendGrid's presence in the Denver and Boulder tech scene as well as his career path and how he got to where he is today. SendGrid is a cloud-based customer communication platform that delivers over 22 billion emails each month for Internet & mobile-based customers.
Allyson and Reuven are live from the patio of GigaOM’s Structure event with a great lineup: Sameer Dholakia (@spdholakia), Group VP & GM - Cloud Platforms, Citrix; Jim Blair (@OpenStack), Principal Infrastructure Software Developer, OpenStack and Lauren Sell (@laurensell) Director of Marketing, OpenStack; Jonathan Murray (@Adamalthus), EVP & Chief Technology Officer, Warner Music Group and Jared Wray (@jaredwray ), Founder and CTO, Tier 3; and Raejeanne Skillern (@RaejeanneS ), Director of Cloud Marketing, Intel. The guests touch on everything from open source cloud computing to the composable enterprise (organizations as building blocks). Show Timeline: • 0:00: Introductions and discussions of cloud conferences and News of the Week • 10:09: Interview with Sameer Dholakia • 21:47: Interview with Jim Blair and Lauren Sell • 38:45: Interview with Jonathan Murray and Jared Wray • 51:37: Interview with Raejeanne Skillern