Episodios

  • #322 - Jim Yu, Founder BrightEdge - on his system to grow from $0 to $100M ARR

    #322 - Jim Yu, Founder BrightEdge - on his system to grow from $0 to $100M ARR
    Jul 17 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to turn a startup into a +$100M ARR growth business. My guest is Jim Yu, Founder & Exec Chair at BrightEdge Jim Yu is the visionary. He started his career at Mercator Software (now IBM), serving as Director of Product Development, and then moved to Salesforce.com, where he was a Director of Product Management. He graduated from university when he was 16 years old, and holds an MBA from Stanford University, a Master's in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of South Dakota. In 2007 he founded BrightEdge where he's been at the helm as CEO for 16 years. He grew BrightEdge into a global leader, helping more than 8,500 of the world's largest brands drive measurable, predictable revenue from their websites and search engines Their mission: to help marketers deliver content that resonates with their audience and drives business impact. More specifically, BrightEdge aims to transform online content into tangible business results, such as traffic, revenue, and engagement. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Jim to my podcast. We explore his journey of building BrightEdge into a successful SaaS company that crossed the $100M ARR bar. He elaborates on his first principles when it comes to building core differentiators, being intentional about market choices, and setting clear milestones for each growth stage. Lastly, he shares his advice on managing go-to-market investments and staying driven by a strong mission to scale intelligently. Here's one of his quotes It really paid off was when we found the big box retail segment. So if you think about social networks, they have a lot of web pages that represent musicians or people or things like that. But on the retail side, they have a lot of products, they have a lot of categories. And if those show up well on search, it leads directly to purchases and revenue. So the next use case we built into our technology was connecting the dots back to purchases and orders. And so then you could see, as you optimize for organic search, what was the impact on revenue, and then that's when we started to really get forth. We ended up getting most of the big retailers. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why he has been intentional about certain GTM techniques and how he's picked his verticals to bet on. His first principle on making strategic choices that are aligned with the core capabilities and DNA of the company. His approach to scaling, and when to step on the gas and when not. How he defined their unfair advantage and what makes them different as a company For more information about the guest from this week: Jim on Linkedin Jim on Twitter Website: BrightEdge Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    45 m
  • #321 - Max Fischer, CEO of Deltia - on building for business scale.

    #321 - Max Fischer, CEO of Deltia - on building for business scale.
    Jul 10 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to solve the most challenging productivity challenge in Manufacturing: human action. My guest is Max Fischer, Founder and CEO of Deltia. Max is a mechanical engineer. In 2014 he was a founding member of HackZurich, the largest hackathon Switzerland has ever seen. In 2015 he co-founded Actyx and digitized 40+ factories. In this startup, he led product management, sales, and marketing teams. Meanwhile he has established himself as a thought leader in the space of digital transformation for the factory floor. In November 2022, Max founded Deltia, a startup focused on helping factory operators track, analyze and improve efficiency by identifying the best possible processes and assisting workers with digital tools. Their mission: to make human work in manufacturing more productive and less error-prone by taking out the guesswork. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Max to my podcast. We explore what's broken in identifying productivity opportunities in manufacturing. Max explains how for the first time ever - this is possible. He shares some of his big lessons on building the company, especially when it comes to foundational questions like "who's it for" and 'what's it for' - and how that helped them remain highly focused. He elaborates on his first principes for building the platform - and how that helps them stay resilient and offer scalable solutions. . Here's one of his quotes There are a lot of decisions that you take both on the technical level and what customers you're serving. Who is the user that you're trying to focus on? We decided quite early on to not specifically target the Toyota's of this world. The automotive OEMs are basically the best-run manufacturing companies in the world. There are use cases, obviously, also for technology, no doubt about that. But I think a big opportunity is to help the 98% of other factories to come to a similar level to where Toyota of Volkswagen are today. During this interview, you will learn four things: Why functionality is important - but not as important as system design How to go about building for business scalability rather than just technical scalability of your solution. Why the dream is not to help Toyota or Volkswagen - but companies much smaller and weaker than those brands. What they are doing differently to accelerate stakeholder buy-in from IT, legal, and Unions. For more information about the guest from this week: Max Fischer Website: Deltia Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    43 m
  • #320 - Ruban Phukan, CEO Goodgist - on creating business resilience

    #320 - Ruban Phukan, CEO Goodgist - on creating business resilience
    Jul 3 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to redefine the way we learn and solve the growing skills gap. My guest is Ruban Phukan, CEO of Goodgist. Ruban is a serial entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience building technology products that solve real-world problems. He's written books about AI and holds several patents in this field. He was part of Yahoo's first data scientist team, collaborating closely with co-founder David Filo to use data to address complex business problems. In 2005, he co-founded Bixee.com, India's first vertical search engine employing patented technology. This company then merged with market leader MakeMyTrip and DataRPM, a pioneering Enterprise AI platform for industrial IoT, which was then acquired by Progress Software in 2017. He 2019 he co-founded GoodTrade.AI, an asset management and investment analysis platform centred around Generative AI. Most recently he co-founded GoodGist, an AI startup for upskilling and research that tackles the challenges of scaling corporate skill development. Their mission: To organize the world's knowledge and make it universally accessible, conversational, and digestible in bite-sized chunks on demand. Their belief is that this creates a significant moat for their clients against competitors in today's fast-paced landscape, And this inspired me, and hence I invited Ruban to my podcast. We explore the challenges of continuous learning in today's fast-paced technological environment. He explains his first principles for making his strategic bets and why he opts to take a platform approach rather than a point solution approach. Last but not least, he explains his lessons from niching down and verticalizing his GTM approach around the platform. Here's one of his quotes We don't try to build a custom solution for a custom problem. We try to look at the problem and say, 'Okay, so we are not trying to only solve for a gas turbine failure, how do we build that technology, so that now instead of just only solving for data coming out of gas turbines, it can also look at data coming out of smart cars? How can it also handle data coming out of smart televisions? So, the focus has always been in trying to understand the problem and try to generalize, so that it can solve more business use cases, without having to recreate something new every single time. During this interview, you will learn four things: How he's accelerating traction by packaging his horizontal platform around highly valuable & business-critical problems. How he goes about successfully serving the mid-market and large enterprise companies in their own unique ways. His approach to identifying new value possibilities in the market that are worth building solutions for. How he makes decisions on what to invest in, and what not. For more information about the guest from this week: Ruban Phukan Website: Goodgist Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    43 m
  • #319 - Ryan Letzeiser, CEO of Obie Insurance - on the courage to pivot.

    #319 - Ryan Letzeiser, CEO of Obie Insurance - on the courage to pivot.
    Jun 26 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey that required a 180-degree pivot to find strong product market fit. My guest is Ryan Leitzeiser, Co-founder and CEO of Obie Insurance. Ryan has over 10 years of experience in an executive role in technology and commercial real estate (CRE) investment and development. Having worked at Hudson Capital Investments and as an Investment Analyst at Ram Real Estate, he has a strong background in CRE valuation, underwriting, asset management, and private equity. In July 2018, he co-founded Obie, a Y Combinator-backed startup that's set out to make some waves in insurance technology. Their mission: To provide a simple, affordable, and transparent insurance experience for landlords and real estate investors. This inspired me, and hence, I invited Ryan to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the world of insurance, particularly when it relates to Real Estate. He shares his experiences and big lessons learned from having to pivot the business. He elaborates on what he did wrong, and the courage it took to correct course - the then turn that into a growth engine that is hard to stop. Last but not least he talks about some of the essential traits to develop to build a business that lasts. Here's one of his quotes Insurance is an admin nightmare for them [Lenders] during the closing process. We provide them with technology and tools as it relates to insurance for their consumers so that mistakes are not made. And ultimately, for a lender, this help that we provide them ultimately unlocks a ton of customers for us. In fact, we have lenders that will charge their customer base a fee, if they don't use us. During this interview, you will learn four things: What traits to look for in employees if you want to attract people who can solve customer problems and provide great experiences. What to do differently if you want your customers to make your solution mandatory for anyone they do business with. His learnings on growing confidence and commitment from others. What he's learned to be critical behaviors to adhere to in a company if you want to build a business that lasts. For more information about the guest from this week: Ryan Letzeiser Website: Obie Insurance Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    37 m
  • #318 - Ed Bradley, CEO Virtualstock - on transforming retail.

    #318 - Ed Bradley, CEO Virtualstock - on transforming retail.
    Jun 19 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to build a lean organization that has the power to win the biggest brands in the retail market. My guest is Ed Bradley, CEO of Virtualstock. Ed started his career in wholesale distribution and has extensive international experience in Supply Chain across Australia, Singapore, United States, and Canada. In 2004, he co-founded VirtualStock. During this period, the company pioneered new ways for retailers’ to expand their product range, increase transparency with suppliers, and provide detailed order information for customers. It made the product evolve into a global drop shipping and marketplace SaaS platform Today, the company has 20 years of experience in logistics, supply chains and e-commerce, as well as an extensive roster of blue-chip clients. Their mission: Sell more products online, without the risk This inspired me, and hence, I invited Ed to my podcast. We explore the 20-year journey of building a lasting SaaS business. Ed shares what worked and what didn't, how he managed to grow the business without external capital, and how working with the largest retailers in the UK enabled this. He elaborates on why he's keeping the organization lean, and how that helped to create meaningful and durable differentiation, survive major setbacks, and win the bulk of the UK retail market as a customer. Here's one of his quotes People will always buy from people. And so it's all got to do with understanding the customer. In our world, that means two things: our customer is the retailer, but we need to understand their customer, who is the consumer. And so if you get those two things right, if you really have that knowledge, and you care about their business, and you care about their customer, then the rest will follow. During this interview, you will learn four things: How one customer can accelerate the trajectory of your business. Why he'd opt for bootstrapping the business again if he ever got the choice. How to keep your organization lean - and why that helps to grow defensible differentiation. How he survived a major crisis in the business, and how this made them come out stronger. For more information about the guest from this week: Ed Bradley Website: Virtualstock Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    50 m
  • #317 - Ryan Janssen, CEO of Zenlytic- on successfully pioneering Generative AI.

    #317 - Ryan Janssen, CEO of Zenlytic- on successfully pioneering Generative AI.
    Jun 12 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to change the way we think and use about Business Intelligence. My guest is Ryan Janssen, Co-founder and CEO of Zenlytic. Ryan is a serial entrepreneur and visionary leader in data analytics and AI. He brings experience from previous roles at Ernst & Young, McKinsey, Private Equity and venture Capital funds, and Ex Quanta: AI Studio, giving him a strong background in AI and data analytics. His time in the VC world likely gave him valuable insights into what investors look for, how to pitch effectively, and how to strategically scale a business. All his hands-on experience let him to co-found Zenlytic in July 2020. It's a BI tool for commerce brands and DTC businesses. Their mission: making data insights accessible and actionable for everyone. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Ryan to my podcast. We explore what's still broken in enabling non-data scientists to create unique insights to compete with the largest brands in the world. Ryan shares his big lessons learned in building a company that pioneered the promise of generative AI. He elaborates on his first principles around value creation and what he's doing differently to stay lean while delivering high performance as a business. Last but not least he shares his tips on being able to prioritize long-term thinking as the company grows and create a business that lasts. Here's one of his quotes I think the real winners will be the people that are building nimbly. The people that are applying creative uses of this tech and finding creative new ways to deliver value that doesn't look very much like the generation of software that preceded them. During this interview, you will learn four things: What you can do differently to ensure faster development and better quality with a lean team. Why you should break predictability to find new growth opportunities. How you can outcompete much larger big companies on their own strength. When you have lots of leads the challenge is not how to close them - but how you qualify them For more information about the guest from this week: Ryan Janssen Website: Zenlytic Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 m
  • #316 - Zach Barney, CEO Mobly - on taking on a forgotten market in sales automation.

    #316 - Zach Barney, CEO Mobly - on taking on a forgotten market in sales automation.
    Jun 5 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to solve a global challenge: helping field sales sell more and faster. My guest is Zach Barney, Co-founder and CEO of Mobly. Zach Barney is an experienced SaaS sales leader and entrepreneur. He has been building and leading SaaS sales teams since 2010 at companies like Vehlo, Nearmap, Teem, and HireVue. Over his career, he has personally closed over $4 million in ARR, and his teams have closed over $40 million. In 2023, he co-founded Mobly to reduce the high percentage (+25%) of sales activity that never gets logged into CRM systems. Their mission: To redefine lead capture and qualification for event marketers. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Zach to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the lead generation process at in-person events. Zach explains his journey with Mobly to solve this problem - and elaborates how this fits in a much broader vision. He elaborates on the big lessons he learned around gaining traction and using pricing as a lever for growth. Lastly, he elaborates on how he's building a moat around his product. Here's one of his quotes We learned that we needed to change our pricing model. Our first handful of customers we were grossly under-charging them and it was largely due to the fact that we were pricing based on the number of seats. Somebody would openly tell us 'Yeah, well this person can share the license with this person.' So, we realized 'I guess we made a mistake on how we price this because this should be like a $20,000 contract and you're telling me that you're gonna pay 2000…' During this interview, you will learn four things: How he and his co-founder managed to get very comfortable doubling down on building a product without hardly spending anything. What he changed to his pricing strategy to increase average deal-size AND make grow each customer account from there onwards. What strategic choices he made around phasing his product strategy to ensure they got traction as early as possible - and keep growing it. Why he's decided to build defensible differentiation around data and not features. For more information about the guest from this week: Zach Barney Website: Mobly Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    42 m
  • #315 - JJ (Projjal) Ghatak, CEO of OnLoop - on challenging the status quo.

    #315 - JJ (Projjal) Ghatak, CEO of OnLoop - on challenging the status quo.
    May 29 2024
    This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to outcompete everyone in the category. My guest is JJ (Projjal) Ghatak, Co-founder & CEO of OnLoop. JJ (Projjal) is a tech entrepreneur on a mission. He held business leadership roles across technology (Uber), management consulting (Accenture Strategy) and corporate development (Essar Capital). Besides that, he's a proud naturalized Singaporean, SMU Scholar, Stanford MBA, and awarded World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2022. In 2020, JJ founded OnLoop in an attempt to solve a problem he'd experienced throughout his career: How hard it is for managers to turn high potential individuals into high performing teams. Their mission: Convert every manager in the world into a great manager. And this inspired me, and hence I invited JJ to my podcast. We explore the broken world of employee & team performance. JJ shares his journey of solving this problem by driving everyday habits and feedback rather than mere documentation. He shares his biggest lessons on creating product market fit, demand generation, and how to strategically prioritize your focus as a CEO as your company evolves. Lastly, he elaborates on his approach to challenge the status quo and outcompete established players. Here's one of his quotes Most enterprise software is built as a System of Record. So if you look at employee engagement software, what it is, is a quarterly survey, which is then creating dashboards and data. And so it's a System of Record, not a System of Action. What you need to drive behavior is a System of Action. So if you think about it from another analogy, people understand is, you don't get fit by doing an annual health checkup every three months. You get fit by going to the gym. And actually 10,000 steps is the best thing that happened to fitness because it made it very easy to drive a system of action. And we think about team health and team performance in the exact same way During this interview, you will learn four things: The framework JJ is using to help him ensure he's focused on the most impactful priority on his list - every day. That founders should focus on creating value, and salespeople on capturing value. And why it will hurt you if you mix this up. His perspective on identifying their ideal customer segment to capture value and scale revenue in a predictable, repeatable way. His first principles when it comes to building remarkable products. For more information about the guest from this week: JJ (Projjal) Ghatak Website: OnLoop Subscribe to the Daily SaaS Reflection Get my free, 1 min daily reflection on shaping a B2B SaaS business no one can ignore. Subscribe here Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed (Just see what peer B2B SaaS CEOs say) My promise: It’s short. To the point. Inspiring. And valuable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    42 m