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Gifting can be a powerful outbound strategy that captures attention far more effectively than an email. 

In this week’s SaaS Backwards podcast episode, we spoke with Kris Rudeegraap, Co-CEO and Co-Founder at Sendoso, a gifting and direct mail platform that helps revenue teams 6x second call rates, double win rates, and close deals 29% faster.

Kris shared how his background in software sales and experience with gifting inspired him to create Sendoso. He provided insights into the company’s initial go-to-market strategy, its evolution from a "growth at all costs" mindset to a more efficient, profit-driven approach, and how this shift has shaped its success.

We also discussed common objections and misconceptions about gifting, such as it being “too expensive” or impractical without someone’s address—and how Sendoso addresses these challenges.

Kris backed up Sendoso’s impressive results with client success stories: Gong influenced over $30 million in pipeline by mailing pinatas, Guru improved meeting conversion rates by sending cupcakes, and Verkada saw a remarkable increase in ad conversion rates by offering a Yeti mug as a meeting incentive across social media and LinkedIn campaigns.

Read more Sendoso success stories here and view customer examples here. 

Key takeaways from this episode:

• The power of gifting as an outbound strategy
• How Sendoso helps clients select the right gifts for the right people at the right time
• Insights into the fundraising process and the current environment for startups

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

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Building meaningful connections with individuals using different channels can be more effective than running an ABM program that only provides a shallow understanding of what’s happening within an account. 

In this week’s SaaS Backwards podcast episode, we spoke with Dmitri Lisitski, Co-Founder and CEO at Influ2, a person-based advertising platform that allows you to reach specific people within target accounts and see who interacts with your ads.

Dmitri takes us behind the scenes and discusses how his frustration with imprecise ABM platforms led to the creation of Influ2, which aims to solve this problem by targeting individual decision-makers within an account rather than only providing this broad view.

We discuss the orchestration between sales and marketing and the significance of nurturing relationships over time in enterprise sales. Dmitri explains how the best thing marketing can do for salespeople is target the same account they’re trying to chase and influence their decision, build awareness, and track intent. 

Our conversation also covers the role of thought leadership in generating conversations and supporting the sales process, the impact of AI on content creation, and attribution challenges in B2B marketing.

This episode provides valuable insights for SaaS CEOs, CMOs, and B2B marketing and sales professionals.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• The humanization of sales and marketing in the enterprise motion
• Why the use of AI in content development falls flat and what to do instead
• Measuring the impact of advertising on revenue

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

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Listen, assess, plan, execute, iterate. This week’s podcast guest Janet Jaiswal outlines these as the essential steps in developing and implementing successful marketing strategies in the SaaS industry.

Janet Jaiswal is Blueshift's Global VP of Marketing and has 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS marketing, working with companies like IBM, eBay, and PayPal. 

In this episode of SaaS Backwards, she discusses her expertise in scaling companies through effective go-to-market strategies and the importance of process, technology, and skill sets at different stages of a company's growth. 

In our conversation, Janet provides insights into the relationship between SEO and content marketing, the importance of identifying and refining the Ideal Customer Profile, and the critical role of product marketing in driving alignment between marketing and product management. 

Overall, this episode provides a comprehensive look at the strategies and tactics that SaaS marketing leaders can use to drive growth and enhance profitability for their organizations.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• The changing landscape of search engine algorithms and the importance of prioritizing content that conveys value quickly
• The challenges and opportunities of ICP expansion and insights into the process
• Why product marketing is crucial when scaling a SaaS company

More Resources from Janet Jaiswal:

• Masterclass on Product Marketing: A deep-dive into Product Marketing for B2B SaaS scale-ups
• Defining your ICP: Discover the optimal approach to identifying your true target market

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

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It seems like lead generation has become the Red-Headed stepchild of modern marketing. But it’s certainly not going away—especially since most SaaS companies have built their sales and marketing infrastructures around it.

It does need to evolve though, and that was the gist of our discussion with Cristina Daroca, Senior Director of demand marketing at Riverbed Technology.

Leads are not created equal. 

For example, if someone wants a demo or to speak with sales, “Speed to lead” still applies. You should follow up with them as quickly as possible when they’re sales ready.

However, for content downloads of assets such as white papers, it’s not a good idea to annoy them with a quick phone call. Instead, try understanding where they are in their journey so you can provide the right assistance at the right time. 

Daroca also talks about how ABM and demand generation should not be separate functions and must work closely together. It’s when people start engaging with content where your ABM motion can start. 

Overall, lead generation and the lead funnel aren’t the problem. It's about how we evolve that to ensure that we're creating the demand so that when leads come in, they’re the ones we actually want. 

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Like sales, marketers have a hard time with a product or service they don’t believe in. 

When Amber Bogie was searching for the right marketing opportunity, she was less concerned about the product and more concerned about joining a mission driven company. 

So, she developed a quadrant:

• What does the company offer as a product? 
• What is the company culture and how does that fit in with you?
• What is the role itself and how does that fit with how you want to grow?
• What kind of leadership does it have?

She found that at Reachdesk—a company committed to delivering customers and prospects a moment of delight and connection had the right mix.

Now three months into her new gig, Bogie is bringing a holistic view of the marketing and sales funnel where targeted demand generation fills the top, and once they enter the CRM, account-based touchpoints begin with channels and tactics creating a flywheel effect. 

And account-based experience (ABX) is the key piece to create the flywheel. Brand drives demand, ABX throughout the entire journey, and customer advocacy fuels back to the top. 

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Aligning with Sales is job one for David Gabriel, head of marketing for the fast-growing startup eVolve MEP.

“Sales has the hard job. They’re in the trenches and we want to do everything we can (as marketers) to make their jobs easier.”

That doesn’t mean that they aren’t looking at the long-term picture—they do many things that keep them in touch with their customers.

For example, they surveyed customers during COVID and found they were itching for group interactions. So they put together a Top Golf event, and it completely sold out. “If we’d followed the mainstream thinking on events we would have missed out on that opportunity.

Surviving at a startup requires serious agility combined with a north star of profitability and marketing ROI.

Gabriel achieves that by hiring “T-Shaped marketers,” which he defines as having a core skill but can also serve as utility players in all aspects of marketing. Depending on what sales is seeing determines what marketing focuses on - so the marketers have to be ready to pivot.

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Most companies do “checklist marketing” by default: We need to be on every social channel. We should have a newsletter for every customer segment. We need to go to all these conferences.

Fractional CMO Yasmin Morrison challenges her clients to think about marketing more like an investment portfolio and every quarter, you make bets. 

If it doesn’t pay dividends, get out. Double down if it does.

And you can put the odds massively in your favor if you apply the 80-20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) where a small percentage of activities drive a large percent of results.

For example, 20 percent of your web pages are driving 80 percent of your traffic. Or, 20 percent of your blog posts are driving 80 percent of your leads.

“Because SaaS companies collect a lot of data, they’re usually sitting on a gold mine,” she says.

After conducting market research for one client, she found that two out of 100 integrations had significantly more demand than all the others combined. 

They wrote one blog post on one topic and one use case. A month later, they had 10Xed their web traffic. 

Speaking in terms of marketing as an investment portfolio will also improve communications with the CFO—it’s language they understand.

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Having been with Refine Labs, MJ Peters knew how to sniff out the opportunity to work with a company that gets marketing. 

Now four months into her new gig as the VP of Marketing for CoLab Software, MJ talks about building a demand gen first marketing model where marketing is measuring only Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and Sales Accepted Opportunities (SAOs) as opposed to anything further up the funnel (like MQLs, content downloads, etc.) that’s normally tracked in the lead gen model. 

That’s still hard to do—the industry has problem awareness (engineer tools live on a desktop making it hard to collaborate efficiently) but making the case to do anything about it is still a tough sell. 

And it takes time. Demand gen happens more slowly than lead gen because you’re measuring lagging metrics instead of leading indicators. 

Leadership has the stomach for it though. They’ve invested heavily in customer research, and MJ sees the opportunity to create a category for “Design Engagement Systems” where people would eventually search more on that term, leading right to them. 

Given that most companies aren’t working with a blank slate, MJ also has advice for those that want to make the shift but can’t turn lead gen off overnight. 

And as long as they’re open minded, the right marketing leader can have a big impact. 

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Where most SaaS companies experience problems with the effectiveness of demand capture strategies, Paddle had the opposite problem—they weren’t focused on long-term customer creation. 

In the beginning, that was fine because they “were so busy and productive "Hoovering" up the in-market demand.”

Davies says that as a CMO, you always carry two time frames in your mind. One which is this quarter and next, making sure you’ve got a full pipeline, and the second timeline, which is how we’ll be positioned two years from now and how we’re warming them up now for future sales. 

Some just aren’t ready now, and you don’t want to lose them in the future. 

Another problem was messaging. Salespeople were stumbling around explaining the company’s mission to their customers. 

Davies set out to change the overall company narrative to fit more in line with the Challenger Sale where you reframe the problem for prospects so that they’re looking at this problem in an entirely new perspective and bring them along for the journey. 

“That results in a much easier sale whether they’re with sales or self-serve, they can go faster with less friction because marketing has paved the first few roads for them.”

In other words, demand generation for Paddle is making sales easier, and Davies explains in a way that all SaaS companies can emulate.

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Getting specific about your ICP is an old saw—but why then aren’t more companies marketing efficiently?

Our guest, Annie Wissner, says the reason is because we’ve become too used to bull markets where you have wiggle room in marketing execution.

“We're still in that digital wave where it's primarily about Google Search, but there's a lot of other methodologies that can be utilized to get to customers and prospects in a much lower cost and effective manner.”

The times they are a changing—and those of us like Annie that have been through three recessions have a good idea about what comes next.

Bottom line, the companies that operate marketing with efficiency will thrive and those that don’t…

Well, don’t be in that category.

Check out this episode for some clear strategies you can execute on immediately.

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Suuchi Ramesh, founder and CEO of Suuchi Inc had envisioned a need for one single source of truth in supply chain across suppliers, factories, brands, retailers, warehouses, and customers when they began operations in 2017.

A bold vision, for sure.

But the timing (pre-COVID) helped making the space ripe for disruption.  

In the same way that you’d eat an elephant (one bite at a time), Ramesh was able to break the problem statement into parts by connecting brands and retailers in the fashion industry with the network of factories in the Western hemisphere and expand to beauty, and Food & Beverages that make up 90 percent of their clientele.

Today, after successfully building from a series A fund raise three years ago, their efficient money management strategy has positioned them well for growth as they raise the next round and expand their go-to-market strategy to generate demand in the 10 percent dramatically increasing their total addressable market. 

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We knew that Dan Johnston, CEO of WorkStep had a great story about how they’ve shifted the go-to-market strategy as they’ve expanded post series B--especially for B2B SaaS marketers that have had to make the case for patience.

That’s in here, but the overall story is much bigger than that.

Having started managing a third-party logistics warehouse that imported trampolines, Johnston noticed something unsettling. It was staffed primarily with temp workers fraught with hidden costs. 

Not only is there constant turnover and constant training, but there’s also a detrimental human impact. Workers can’t move up in the organization and lose $5-$6 per hour in the spread.

People shouldn’t be treated as cogs in a machine. They have valuable skills that are critical to the success of an organization. They’re talent. 

That was the problem to solve. Starting small, WorkStep limited itself to Portland, Oregon where they provided software solutions that make it easy to directly employ frontline workers for their supply chain roles.

Starting small also gave them a big opportunity to learn about what their customers and their employees really need—to reduce turnover at scale.

Recently, WorkStep wrapped up a $25-million Series B fundraise to add fuel to what’s already working, and the best part is that the entire ecosystem wins. 

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The founding story of Fireflies.ai told by co-founder Krish Ramineni sounds like a post-college rock band that turned into software hack. 

Instead of going to graduate school (working as a PM at Microsoft), Ramineni took his would-be co-founder up on an offer to “hang out” and “work on different things” in some free co-working space that a VC had given them in Boston.

When they had something real, they went back to San Francisco, went heads down, bootstrapped, went through an accelerator, and raised a seed round. 

A month later, the pandemic hits, everyone goes remote, and the roller coaster ride begins. 

In the past 4 years, Ramineni and co-founder Sam Udotong have been scaling up the abilities of an enterprise voice assistant (or AI) meeting assistant. But it’s a lot more than the mystery attendee you see popping up in your Zoom meetings. 

But competing in a crowded space (with technology that wasn’t new) Ramineni and co-founder Sam Udotong knew they needed a broader vision for the product. 

So, they started looking at what teams needed that could be accomplished beyond automated notetaking. Their idea was transforming the product into voice workflow system for enterprises and for organizations. 

For example, if you’re in a zoom meeting, you could say “Fireflies, pull up the Q2 financial reports and tell me what went right and what went wrong.”

Fireflies has capitalized on a product-led growth strategy from the beginning. They don’t spend very little on advertising today, and instead, doubled down on the freemium model, which gets the Fireflies.ai name is naturally viral in every single meeting. 

Also, because they’ve spent a lot of time and effort to integrate with the major CRMs, and because they have a compelling vision of what could be done with the tech in the future, we’re switching our transcription service now.

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A community can be a "cheat code" for rapid learning and career advancement, and this week’s guest knows that better than most.

In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Kathleen Booth, SVP of Marketing and Growth at Pavilion, the world's largest private community for go-to-market leaders. 

Our conversation explores the concept of community-led growth and how Pavilion encourages this by providing a platform for members to grow their network, sharpen their skills, and develop lifelong connections. 

Overall, Kathleen provides valuable insights into the intersection of community, social media, and growth strategies for SaaS companies. 

Key takeaways from this episode:

• The importance of community-led growth for SaaS companies and strategies for leveraging communities to drive growth and engagement
• How CEOs and marketing leaders can use social media to build relationships, drive pipeline, and engage with prospects
• The challenges executives face in prioritizing social media efforts and the need to shift from viewing social media as a "nice to have" to a "must have" for business growth

This episode is ideal for SaaS CEOs, CMOs, and marketing professionals looking to leverage community-led growth strategies, enhance their LinkedIn presence, and drive pipeline through organic and personalized outreach.

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

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Before you buy tech for Account Based Marketing (ABM), and even before you start picking target accounts, check out this episode with StrategicABM’s Chief Marketing Officer Declan Mulkeen.

Their firm is 100% focused on ABM and Mulkeen talks about how the tech vendors have popularized the approach in recent years, but they didn’t create it. (it’s been around for over 20 years, and he proves it.)

But today, most companies are getting into trouble by purchasing the tech first and launching ABM programs second. 

That’s only one of the myriad of reasons that companies are experiencing poor results according to Mulkeen, who advises that "you should do ABM without technology and get it working first. And then you can worry about what tech you need later." 

In fact, the only tech you need is a pen and paper. Write a strategy, think about the business outcomes, start small, test and measure. 

If you’ve been struggling with ABM, wonder if it’s the right strategy, or don’t understand how it fits with other marketing and sales initiatives in the first place, the answers are waiting for you here in this action-packed 30 minutes of straight talk about ABM. 

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Referrals are the lifeblood of every business. The cost of acquisition is the lowest, and they tend to close faster and at higher rates, making the sales process WAY easier. 

So why do companies spend so much on paid channels where the cost per lead is going up and the quality is going down at such a rapid pace?

Referrals have always been hard to scale—especially if you haven’t trained your people to ask.

Referral Factory founder Kirsty Sherman believes she’s figured out a solution, even for B2B SaaS companies, where the referral process can be embedded into the platform by providing incentives for users to easily refer their connections. 

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Raising capital for your SaaS has one purpose—to amplify and scale the business. It cannot define the business model or product-market fit for you. 

And once you raise capital, the whole dynamic changes. The pressures are different (you’re now on the clock to deliver return for investors) and so is the go-to-market strategy (the founder relationships won’t be enough to scale). 

 With several successful fundraises and exits under his belt, Jeff Solomon, CEO of Markup Hero talks about how he’s bootstrapped companies to a certain monthly recurring revenue rate that made it much easier to attract the right capital.

 Having started his current venture (Markup Hero) as a side project, he’s now able to decide whether or not to keep it as a lifestyle business or raise capital for a bigger exit.

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Most companies fail with ABM because of their ad hoc execution. They target accounts as a wish list and continue to do business as usual. 

The truth is that successful ABM requires an organizational mindset shift, and that doesn’t happen by changing it all at one time. 

“Marketing usually gets it,” says Jennifer Leaver, senior global ABM Manager at Bazaarvoice. “The tougher sale is with sales. There’s a lot of change management involved.”

Leaver’s approach to ABM adoption was to start small with “sales friendly’s” (Two salespeople out of 200) where she piloted an ABM program and focused on engagement metrics into their target accounts such as click-through rates, impressions, and web traffic. 

Later, she was able to measure pipeline in terms of full funnel metrics, they increased pipeline generation by 129%, increased opportunities by 57%, and deal velocity increased by 122%.

With triple digit number increases across the board, full adoption after that wasn’t hard.

If you’re thinking about adopting an ABM program or would like your ABM to reach its full potential, this episode is a must listen. 

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Healthcare is one of the most difficult industries to penetrate, even for established brands.
They’re risk-averse, have strong defenses against being sold to, sales cycles are long and they significant data protection requirements.

So how do you do gain traction as a financial management startup targeting hospitals and healthcare systems?

In this episode of SaaS Backwards, Ben Beadle-Ryby talks about how they’ve met this challenge by: 

• Building the company around subject matter experts with deep industry roots to earn immediate credibility and early customers
• Leveraging VC connections who have connections in the space
• Ensuring that they have all of the necessary certifications to protect data
• Investing in long-term demand through thought leadership; positioning Akasa as thought leaders in AI applications for healthcare
• Aligning his company's employees, customers and prospects around a larger mission to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare in the U.S.

Ben also talks about ways they built the company to increase the odds of being successful, including how they built the founding team and product concept. He introduces the idea of "founder dating," that helped them work on team dynamics and recruitment, as well as doing a lot of up-front work to "pressure test" their initial product ideas.

There's a lot of takeaways here in just 30 minutes... enjoy!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
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Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

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Business Development Representatives (BDRs) have typically been a sales function, as part of the compartmentalization of sales functions defined in Aaron Ross’ Predictable Revenue (2011).

What worked well for a decade has met challenges today. They don’t want the phone calls or emails until they’re ready.

In short, buyers have changed their research and buying process--what was predictable five years ago is…

Well, not so much.

Because prospecting is actually marketing, some innovative organizations have moved them under marketing and changed the incentives to focus on engagement over number of meetings booked.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for many B2B companies that have built their sales (and marketing) infrastructures around the Predictable Revenue Model.

As Vice President of Marketing at Intellum, Robyn Hazelton has led the charge to move their BDRs under marketing, develop a closer relationship with sales, and align all their sales, marketing, and customer success motions around the buyer.

In this episode, she talks about how they made the move to marketing, the organizational challenges, and how to use the data to drive better decisions.

The results speak for themselves—dramatically shorter sales cycles and four times higher revenue over the previous year.

It’s an illuminating interview and will help you evaluate whether or not your current sales and marketing process could be modified for greater efficiency.

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

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We’re at an inflection point as sales and marketing practitioners. 

Some of us have heeded early warning signs as marketing and sales KPIs become harder to achieve, and others are just starting to pay attention. Or rather, they’re being forced to—because buyers are taking more control and our outdated methods of prospecting are off putting. They don’t want your phone calls pressuring them to take a demo. They’re ignoring your emails. And worse, when you are a motivated buyer, you first have to go through the SDR gauntlet of BANT questions, only to be handed off to someone down the road that can actually answer your questions. 

We have to do something different, but what? 

Nelson Gilliat, author of The Death of the SDR and Birth of Buyer Centric Revenue, thinks he has some answers.

He also makes some bold assertions about the future of the Predictable Revenue Model that turned B2B sales into an assembly line of specialization, and talks about how some innovative organizations are already experimenting with different models that are in-line with their buyers to great success. 

Gilliat also questions the whole model of quotas and commissions (that predates the Predictable Revenue Model) with some interesting arguments about how it not only incentives the wrong behavior, but also how it short changes people in their professions. 

While it sounds like a pipe dream (only a handful of companies are experimenting with different models) Gilliat does pinpoint many of the root causes of problems with our modern sales process that we’ve had for years. 

There are also some baby step changes that you can make today that will move your organization in a better direction down the lin

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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In this episode we explore the product-led growth go-to-market motion with Breezy Beaumont, head of growth and marketing at Correlated. It's a SaaS that helps product-led growth companies to find expansion, upsell, cross-sell, and other revenue opportunities based on how people are using their product.

If like us, you're trying to distance your marketing from the "fake" MQL, you might consider a product-led growth go-to-market strategy. It's no small change if your product cannot or does not already support free users and provide you with instrumentation and in-app promos to sell users an upgrade. But the benefits are huge. 

We all know and use one or more PLG applications daily (Slack, LinkedIn, DropBox, Calendly). But can we make it work where we work? If the product was made to support PLG, or can be made to do so, now what?

Among the really interesting subjects we explore are:

• How the pipeline is different for PLG. It's a continuous cycle not linear. And this has benefits beyond the upsell in terms of staying close to your customer.
• How your organization is different with PLG.  Sales, marketing and customer success are now much more integrated and collaborating throughout the customer life cycle.
• How sales can now be customer and product advocates vs driving people through what she calls a "manufactured" pipeline (love this, btw).
• And how the old model for predictable revenue has to give way to a more statistical and usage-based view of where and when revenues will be achieved.

It's a refreshing take on what we all do for a living. Take a listen and let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

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Brian Trautschold is not your usual YCombinator alum, though he does credit his success in part to what he learned from the experience and the people he's met.

Talking about their recent funding round of $15.5 million, he and his cofounders built the company to be capital efficient, and this has enabled business model and outcome flexibility; they don't have to be the next unicorn to achieve their own ambitions for the company. And the risk of failing to achieve unicorn status and being absorbed at a low valuation by a competitor, which "sucks for everybody," is reduced.

We dive deep on business model, too, in particular about how integrations can help drive the business. Brian's take here is refreshing, too. He talks about customer needs set the prioritization of integrations rather than taking a look at the ecosystem and deciding to build integrations based on market penetration of the players. It's a really organic way to approach it, and the way he puts it is interesting, too.

This CEO conversation is notable for how open Brian is with his decision-making, especially with the hire of a marketing leader to help move the firm from founders doing too much to professionalizing the organization and enabling scale-up.

There's a lot to take away in this conversation, so I encourage a listen! And as always, there's a transcript on our blog if you'd prefer to read it.

Let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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There are few marketing leaders with the perspective, experience and insights of Jay Gaines. He's also one of the more generous people I've met; he truly enjoys sharing his expertise to help other marketers. In this episode, Jay talks about:

• Covid and the resulting content tsunami - good content just isn't good enough anymore
• The value of context and empathy in marketing (you read that right)
• How to use a quarterly "lightning strike" to cut through the noise and drive revenue
• Making the case for creative - it's not all about the numbers (but you need to manage your KPIs)
• How to use direct mail in today's world (yes, USPS direct mail)
• When and how SaaS founders need to invest in product marketing
• Talking the language of CFOs, a skillset that's as valuable as it is under-appreciated
• And more

It would be hard to imagine anyone not learning something they can use from this episode.

Enjoy... and please let me know what you think! Thanks!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.
 

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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The transition from product-led growth (PLG) to an enterprise sales motion is a strategic shift that many SaaS companies are making in order to accelerate growth and enhance profitability. 

This transition is driven by a variety of factors, including the need to scale, reach new markets, and meet the evolving needs of customers. 

In this episode of the SaaS Backwards Podcast, we had the pleasure of hosting Juan Jaysingh, founder and CEO of Zingtree, an AI-enabled customer experience automation platform.

Juan provided insights into why and how his company made the shift from a PLG model to an enterprise sales motion, emphasizing the need to focus on large enterprise customers who benefit the most from Zingtree's complex, no-code workflow solutions. 

In our conversation, Juan detailed the challenges and organizational changes required to make this transition, including adjustments in personnel, product development, and customer service.

Juan's experience and insights provide valuable lessons for CEOs, CMOs, and other professionals in the SaaS industry looking to understand the challenges and strategies involved in transitioning from a product-led growth model to an enterprise sales motion.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• Challenges and considerations for SaaS companies transitioning from PLG to enterprise sales
• How to improve customer experience by providing SaaS solutions that can be implemented quickly and show immediate impact
• How Zingtree incorporates AI into its platform to enhance customer support workflows and provide relevant information to agents

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

---

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Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

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We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

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Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Finding the right marketing leadership position is difficult (to say the least). You must have alignment with the CEO and executive team from the get-go. And it’s even better when you can follow them from one opportunity to the next.  

Now in her third opportunity with the same CEO, Helen Baptist from PathFactory discusses not only how to find the right leadership role, but also how to manage that change from within that so often required in a turnaround situation.

Whether you’re in the process of finding a new marketing leadership opportunity or putting out fires in your current one, Helen offers the following gems in this episode:

•Positioning yourself correctly for the opportunity
•What to do first in a turnaround situation
•Rooting out toxicity
• Buyer centricity to break down sales and marketing silos

Let me know what you think! Thanks!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.
 

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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It's a pattern we're seeing out there, and some agency friends experience in their careers when they make the mistake of putting themselves in this situation. CEOs at young companies hire a marketing leader, usually a woman with substantial experience, and expect her to singled-handedly transform the fate of the organization. 

And being the "one woman army" is a really difficult position from which to generate success.

In a meaningful discussion of recent experiences she's had as a marketing leader, Jenn Edwards takes us through the highs and lows of being the sole marketing pro at a young company, questions to ask and her point of view on whether or not it's a good idea to even take such a position.

If you're thinking about a new CMO / head of marketing job and you think you'll be a OWA or OMA, this is probably a great episode to listen to.

Let me know what you think! Thanks!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.
 

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Success at Account Based Marketing is not (necessarily) about the tech stack, maybe not even at all about it. According to Kristina Jaramillo, president at Personal ABM, it's doing the fundamentals correctly from both a sales and marketing perspective.

Kristina makes a strong case for doing the strategy ahead of the implementation (I know, I know) and then dives deep on how she helps clients to make significant progress in strategic accounts with a highly personalized approach.

If you think ABM is right for your organization, or you are struggling to show ROI from the ABM program in place at your firm, this is the episode for you.

Let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.
 

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

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Craig Fuller and his early-stage firm FreightWaves are living proof that media as a business is not dead. In fact, he's created a powerful new media company and with it a SaaS-like data subscription business to monetize the information coming out of the shipping industry.

Moving physical goods is an enormous business that most Americans haven't thought much about until recent headlines about logistics issues breaking supply chains. But Craig's company has been helping shippers and investors to take advantage of its unique aggregation of data to increase timeliness and reduce costs, and also to trade effectively on the data.

Craig likens his strategy to that of Bloomberg, LP, but in reverse. His media company is driving the revenues that fuel is data business.

Like me, you might be skeptical that anyone else can follow in Michael Bloomberg's footsteps... that he was singular phenomenon. But after listening to this episode, I think you'll want to dig deeper into this company, founder and business model.

We've long promoted the idea that owned media is important to help SaaS firms control the narrative and bring their stories to prospects and customers. FreightWaves does this as well as anything we've seen...since Bloomberg itself.

Let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Every once in a while you have a conversation that truly changes how you think about the world. This episode was that kind of experience for me. Latane Conant is a thoughtful and thought-provoking proponent of a new way to think about marketing for B2B marketing leaders.

In one of the densest 30 minutes you'll invest in your marketing career, Latane covers these topics and more:

• Calling for CMO title to mean Chief Market Officer, in recognition of the larger role CMOs should play vs the questionable KPIs they are often forced to report on
• Abandoning the MQL in favor of a more holistic view of how organizations buy and qualifying them vs individuals
• Targeting people and companies that fit your ideal customer profile AND who are in-market now, relying upon intent data to help reach your "dark funnel" 
• CMOs must be maniacally focused on predictable pipeline, sales velocity formula and net retention, the foundations of the SaaS business model

This episode and #16 with Casey Carey are really must-listens for CMOs that see the writing on the wall but don't have the blueprint for how they are going to move their SaaS companies forward. You've realized that stuff you've been doing is declining in effectiveness, but what next?

Let's discuss after you've had a listen!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Casey Carey is CMO at HR tech platform Kazoo, an all-in-one solution for SMBs. In a wide-ranging discussion Casey illuminates how he approaches the role of marketing leadership, how he's taken the focus off lead generation (he's in the camp that believes that lead gen is dead or nearly so) and how he aligns with sales to drive revenue for his company.

Many CMOs face the "lead generation imperative." Casey posits that lead generation is the outcome of great marketing strategy - that is - by positioning and messaging well, understanding the customer in a deep, nuanced and meaningful way, and letting them do their own research to decide if your solution is right for them, you can more than meet your objectives. And he has the numbers to back it up.

For CMOs wondering how they are going to thrive over the next two years (especially new CMOs seeking to re-establish credibility for marketing in their organizations), this is a mini-masterclass in elevating the role of marketing and driving revenue for SaaS.

Take a listen and let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Refersion was founded in 2014. Prior to that, CEO Alex Markov was in digital marketing and dabbled in programming since he was a kid. Alex credits his career experience in affiliate / influencer marketing to help him to reimagine affiliate marketing and innovate on the model.

Important innovations included simplifying the onboarding process for merchants, and also tapping into emerging managed e-commerce platforms like Shopify. Importantly though he came to it from a developer's POV, he based his innovations on intimate knowledge of the pain points and gaps in solutions that e-commerce entrepreneurs were experiencing

Refersion was an intentional bootstrap. It allowed them to rule their own destiny and manage to KPIs that were more organic to the business than what might have been mandated by VCs.  Alex was moonlighting until the business was able to support his basic needs. He called it a grind-it-out business model that enabled him to work on his passion with very little risk. He learned a lot about the real world of business as a result of having to make traction with an MVP product.

Alex tested the need for the product before having it by setting up a landing page that explained the main features he planned to build. The first couple hundred responses  encouraged him to build the product. Alex is the second SaaS Backwards guest to mention using groups on social media to generate feedback and initial interest in his product (also true of Lemlist).

"You either build your product or you raise money - very hard as a sole founder to do a good job at both," asserts Alex. As a bootstrap startup you have also to be willing to take a longer view. Hiring decisions are harder when you're keeping your eye on the bank balance. He made the first hiring decisions based on where he was spending too much of his own time, adding staff to offload work from his plate. And one of the key initial hires was in customer success, which remains a major focus for Refersion.

An early decision that helped him grow was to build a partner ecosystem - SaaS firms like Shopify but also agencies that craft the e-commerce experience. They spend a lot of time on teaching agencies about the offering and that adds to sales momentum. These investments in partnerships and a platform model have been the main drivers of Refersion's growth. It's an interesting contrast with the venture-fueled model of SDRs, AEs and a lot of outbound pressure to try and generate sales. 

Alex recently sold the business to Assembly, an e-commerce company owned by Providence Strategic Growth, a decision he says was made at the right time. "All companies need to grow up," said Markov. "Now we have the best of both worlds, we can run the business as we always did but now it's like we're on steroids." He credits Assembly with accelerating investments in the business and bringing new capabilities via Assembly's extended family of companies.

It's a great interview and I can

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And the best part?

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Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Here's another episode that is just incredibly valuable for CEOs and CMOs at early stage SaaS firms. Whether you're a services firm moving to SaaS, bootstrapping, or pre-launch, there's a wealth of insight shared by Amit Bivas, VP of Global Marketing at Optimove.

Optimove is a marketing SaaS that helps companies to communicate right message to right segment at the right time... consistent with the micro-audiences we hear leading edge CMOs talk about -- targeting smaller and smaller cohorts to act on their motivations and intent.

Bivas explains how Optimove helps large enterprises to use data as a differentiator. In particular he talks about how it helps commoditized products and brands to create a better customer experience to create repeat purchase. And to customize that experience at scale and as their preferences change.

Optimove was originally a services firm taking data from retailers and wholesalers to understand how customers migrated from "state to state" or segment to segment. Early on, the founders knew they wanted to become a software company that could scale. All revenues from its services business were invested to build the software so they could have a platform to scale. Since it was started as a moonlighting project, they were able to funnel a lot of revenues back to product development.

Among the highlights from this episode:

• When you start as a service provider you gain a lot of experience and understanding before you build the product. And those customers who you are selling services to can become your first customers for the software. And since you know their issues so intimately, you can build the roadmap based on real-world customer experience. 
• You do need to be prepared, however, for the reality that not every services customer is going to want your software, and you put at risk the services relationship when you transition to a software company - people still want their hands held. 
• You need to make sure that your critical mass is centered around the product not the service for a variety of reasons - ability to scale and when you do take investment, services are not as highly valued as SaaS revenues. 
• Moving consultants into customer success and solutions engineering roles also helps support the transition from services to SaaS.

A great interview and insights for those considering a startup or transitioning from an established services company to a Software-as-a-Service company.

Let us know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead gen

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Terry Sydoryk is the CEO of Chaordix, a SaaS that helps brands to build communities with their end users.  This sounds quotidian at a surface level, but it's remarkably impactful.

Effective growth and nurturing of a community can drive product innovation, enable feedback for consumer / CPG brands where it's hard to generate contact with end users and makes it possible to be closer to employees as well. B2B brands also can generate tremendous value from communities of users.

This episode is  a great thought starter for product and brand managers who are looking for ideas on how to engage more deeply with end users. I also made a call for social media strategists to take a deeper look at communities as an extension of their SoMe plans.

Our conversation is also interesting in that this firm was originally a "consultant with kit" before Terry joined. In order to scale up, they realized that the crowdsourcing opportunity had a wider applicability than they could implement as a service and achieve growth ambition. And so, a SaaS was born.

This idea of a services firm leveraging a homegrown technology to transform to a SaaS model isn't new, but it remains a difficult transition to make. Terry  offers valuable insights on how he helped make it happen.

You're really getting two episodes in one here!

Love to hear your feedback on this one.

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

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We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

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This episode features an enlightening conversation with business transformation change agent Michael Richardson , founder and managing director of Tech Azur, a consultancy providing support for digital business transformation initiatives, scale-up operations and c-suite advisory. 

His advice? You don't have to learn everything the hard way. What does that mean? Operationalizing the organization to be able to scale is often a blind spot for CEOs. "What got you funded won't get you scale," according to Richardson. 

As a founder, CEO or CTO, you should be proud of what you've built, early customer success and impressing investors. The skills to operationalize are not necessarily the same as what got you to your first big VC round. You have to grow the organization across many areas of expertise.

For founders, why would you seek an outside expert? The CEO when he/she presents wants to seem like a superhero, but the investors know there's no such thing as perfection and no exec can know anything. In fact, they look for continuous improvement and realism in how you plan to scale. Act in a foreground role or in a coaching mode. Don't mask the issues but deal with them.

The virtual c-suite exec can help you deliver on the pitch you made - and post-funding you're just 90 days from your first meeting with your new bosses. Take the weekend off post-close but now the hard work really begins. With a virtual c-suite augmentation you can keep the core team focused on the really hard work that is right here, right now - and amplify what the core team can do.

Examples - young SaaS firms dealing with large companies can be a mismatch in terms of process and procedure, and if it's your first big money raise, you might not know what is expected from your investors and get off to a bumpy start. Outsourcing a senior operating role can help you grow these skills in your SaaS.

Michael and I drill-down deep into what it takes to build a scaleable SaaS and there's a lot here for scale-up CEOs, CTOs and CMOs to learn from this deeply skilled and experienced exec.

Take a listen and let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.

SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

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Transitioning from a Product-Led Growth (PLG) motion to an enterprise sales motion requires strategic alignment and effective change management within a SaaS Marketing team.

In this week’s episode, we discussed the challenges and considerations in this transition with Karen Budell, the CMO of Totango + Catalyst, two SaaS software companies collaborating to drive sustainable revenue through customer relationships. 

Budell highlights the significance of grasping the nuances of the buyer's journey and understanding the shift in market dynamics when transitioning from a PLG approach to targeting enterprise customers.

She also focuses on the importance of change management during this transition and tackling challenges head-on to ensure a successful integration and go-to-market strategy. She likened it to moving in with a partner and combining belongings, emphasizing the necessity of open and honest conversations within the team.

This episode also touches on the importance of thought leadership and the role of written content, industry events, and proprietary events in marketing. Executives involved in mergers and acquisitions within the SaaS industry and marketing professionals interested in transitioning marketing strategies from PLG to enterprise sales will find value in Karen’s insights.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• Why early learnings, customer feedback, and market insights are essential for crafting a successful merger strategy
• The crucial role thought leadership plays in influencing the buying committee
• The need for alignment, transparency, and clear communication in agency relationships

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

---

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We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

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💡 It’s completely free.

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Guillaume Moubeche is a fascinating SaaS founder. He recently gained fame for a PR stunt in which he publicly mounted a VC fundraising campaign only to turn down $30 million. But he is so much more than that. He's a real deal entrepreneur who cracked the code on bootstrapping his startup and he did so through a modern approach and old-fashioned focus on the customer.

"G," as he likes to be called, covers a lot of ground in this "things you can do, too," episode that should be of high value to any SaaS founder in the early days, VC-fueled or not. In particular, G talks about how:

• Bootstrapping can lead to hyper-growth, and high profitability. The PR strategy around the public fundraising and rejection was to shine a spotlight on the viability of bootstrapped SaaS and his company in particular.
• Creating a business was a way for him to create freedoms he experienced in a gap year between his chemical engineering degree and marketing studies. First business with his dad failed for lack of customers. Went in business with a friend to help others drive sales and then decided to start his own business helping others to drive sales.
• He identified opportunity - saw that sales campaign tools available weren't doing the job. Met a couple of tech geniuses in an incubator, built some things for others and decided to form a company among them.
• Built an MVP in a few weeks, took market and initial user feedback and kept innovating. Relentless iteration got them to a product and company that people really want to use.
• Selling on value vs features. Lemlist's unique value proposition started with dynamic images within emails. Used his own tool to acquire customers. By running his own campaigns on Lemlist he could show how it worked.

This episode is a deep dive on how G growth hacked via organic, hand-to-hand marketing, sales and customer success.

He also talks about how focus is key - doing one thing as a big differentiator. Mass customization of email was the point of difference for Lemlist. Participating in FB groups (like startup founders) to generate audience and fans. And eating your own dog food to show the value of the solution.

G also talks passionately about how from the early days until today he remains most focused on his users, spending hours a day in touch with them to ensure his success.

Give the episode a listen and let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

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Gaurav Harode is the founder and CEO of Enablix, a sales enablement platform that makes it easier for marketing and sales to manage, collaborate on and share content with prospects. According to Harode, "organizations create content on a daily basis, but there's no simple solution to get it in the hands of salespeople."

He's got the mission sorted now, but his SaaS started out as a knowledge management solution. With so many well entrenched competitors, and ROI elusive, he found it difficult to gain traction. A pivot to helping sales be more effective has been key to growth and a path to a sustainable business.

The new positioning answers a true yearning within marketing and sales organizations to work better together and for marketing to be able to provide more relevancy in its content for the sales process. And speaking of that process, Gaurav reveals an interesting nuance in the difference between scripted journeys as envisioned by marketing and the truth of the iterative and somewhat random nature of enterprise sales  and relationship building... and how Enablix helps its users to succeed in that environment.

Lastly, Gaurav discusses a lead generation tactic he's found that pays for itself, G2, and his search to expand investments in ways that are equally ROI-obvious. A great listen for those in early stages who want some inspiration on bootstrapping their SaaS products.

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

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Neil Becker is a soft spoken yet hard driving CMO. His approach to marketing is that it must serve the organization's purpose, which is to sell its products. This puts marketing in a service provider role to sales, where the two teams share the same KPIs.

Interestingly, Neil is the second SoftBank-funded CMO to appear on the podcast (the other was Erez Yerselove of Globality), and they share a lot of perspective on the transformative nature of a $100 million investment.

This is a fast-paced and valuable conversation that touches on post-funding goal setting and building the organization to scale, how marketing and sales can do better together, ABM as a strategic practice (doing it for real), and the power of thought leadership to change marketplace realities.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode.

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Accelerating SaaS growth is a multifaceted challenge. For the right kinds of SaaS applications there might be nothing that accelerates growth  faster than a strong integration or "platform" ecosystem. Fraser Davidson, CEO of iPaaS Cyclr goes deep in this episode on the value and strategy for building integrations.

Davidson puts forward the idea that there are three kinds of integrations: Strategic to the product, which should be built in-house (think Google Maps for a real estate SaaS); Commercially important to drive sales and retention (the more integrations in use, the stickier your SaaS); and, Emerging use cases that aren't yet important but might need a path to support and could develop into something meaningful.

Fraser also talks about what a CEO needs to consider post-funding - setting priorities as you scale your SaaS fueled by VC or PE money. It's a revealing and valuable conversation with a CEO who used to be a private equity exec, so he really knows the subject in depth. Lastly he talks about leadership at Cyclr being a match between a business exec and a tech visionary (he's the former) and how he makes that work to Cyclr's and his clients' advantage.

Fraser is a fascinating interview subject and his company is a valuable resource to SaaS firms which are scaling up. Take a listen and let me know what you think!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

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Erez Yereslove is a serial marketing leader whose company, Globality, is changing the way professional services are sourced. By applying AI to the process, the company creates efficiency in specifying requirements, finding the right partner (starting with incumbents) and negotiating a clearer scope and fairer deal for all.

Erez talks about innovating in professional services, reveals a new feature that enables proposal comparison "apples to apples" vs "apples to kumquats." Saving time for CMOs and CIOs as they procure services and for the suppliers as well is a key benefit. AI and natural language processing make the process of buying services more organized, detailed by asking questions buyers might not anticipate (going way beyond what is possible in an RFP) and effective by narrowing the choices to likely fits. It's also valuable for supplier diversity and finding suppliers outside your home territory or for services where the buyer has no network to draw from.

Interestingly Globality is an enterprise commitment to change the way professional services are procured, and so is an interesting case study in go-to-market. They're elephant hunting by design, with highly focused and strategic approach to identifying, proposing, and onboarding clients.. Conversely, there are thousands of suppliers on the platform who make themselves available to economic buyers.

This is a fascinating conversation with a successful CMO on how he's driving go-to-market for a groundbreaking product and service to its clients. Enjoy!

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

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Jim Sharpe was a man with a strategic plan just a few weeks into his tenure as CEO of Aventri, an enterprise-class SaaS for live events, when the pandemic hit. While many SaaS weren't impacted, his firm's life blood, trade shows and private in-person events, came to a halt.

Using his strategic plan as a starting point, Jim, his team and their board / investors, regrouped, reinvested and pivoted the business to support the virtual events his clients were holding. He's also driving toward a new vision for in-person events where virtual attendees are an important and permanent part of the strategy going forward.

This is very deep dive on how leadership can and did make the difference between go forward or go home... the pandemic could have been fatal to Aventri, but it looks like it won't just have survived but in fact will thrive as 2021 unfolds.

Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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The irrepressible Dan Tyre is our guest for this episode, and he makes a compelling case that the Inbound methodology can and must be applied far beyond lead generation to make your company as successful as it can be. If you want to be jazzed up for 2021, this is the episode for you.

Dan talks about how the flywheel, a model that HubSpot introduced to represent the integration of sales, marketing and customer success, is central to achieving goals in 2021 and beyond. He also talks about how the principles of Inbound apply to organizing your business internally as well, as described in his book, "Inbound Organization." It's a great listen.


Resources for SaaS Execs

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

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Gregg Bienstock and his parter Tim Stevens follow a path we've come to recognize; subject matter experts who decide to get into the software business. Gregg provides a nuanced and "open book" look at how the company was formed, learned from its missteps and capitalized on its opportunities. 

Gregg  reveals another side of success we also are noticing as a pattern: he engages clients and leads his team with empathy, humility and open-mindedness. By allowing himself to be vulnerable he's developed relationships that matter, yielding fruit that helps him grow the business by meeting the real needs of his clients and prospects.

Resources for SaaS CMOs and CEOs:

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Vytas Kisielius, CEO of ReferWell, is one of the smartest, most perceptive, successful and approachable CEOs I know. He's the kind of leader you just innately want to help achieve his goals, right after meeting him.

In this episode, Vytas and I talk about what's working for his SaaS, how he needed to dramatically pivot sales strategy and product positioning to accelerate growth, how CEOs can know when to delegate as you are scaling and more. He also goes into some detail on the relationship he has with the firm's founder and investors. It's a great episode with a lot of inspiration and questions to ask for SaaS CEOs and CMOs as they scale their own enterprises.


Resources for SaaS CMOs and CEOs:

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Chalva is a wonderfully thoughtful CMO with a great background in advertising and consulting before he became a client-side marketing leader and multiple time SaaS CMO. 

In this episode we talk about the new CMO's imperatives including alignment with the CEO and board, the need for a CMO to be a tech-savvy leader as well as a marketing leader, and how to build consensus and drive innovation. A great wide-ranging conversation with a powerful marketing mind.

Resources for SaaS CMOs and CEOs:

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Send us a text

SaaS entrepreneurs must be adaptable and willing to pivot based on feedback and market needs.

In this episode of the SaaS Backwards Podcast, we spoke with Mo Hallaba, the CEO of Datawisp, a company that simplifies data analysis for business users. Mo discusses the challenges he faced in user acquisition for his gaming platform and how a networking group he started for the gaming industry led him to meet his current co-founders.

Mo shares his unconventional journey from finance to entrepreneurship and discusses the unique challenges and rewards of starting a SaaS business.

Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey, the importance of adaptability, and the strategies for building and growing a successful SaaS company.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• Why starting a networking group can be a valuable strategy for driving opportunities and connections in the SaaS industry
• How being open to pivoting and making adjustments based on market feedback can lead to finding product-market fit
• How conducting demos as data consultations can lead to more targeted and efficient sales processes

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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Joey Knecht, CEO of Proteus talks about how he manages his SaaS to success. He measures a lot but is unusually focused on the value of relationships.

In this wide-ranging conversation we cover buyer enablement, the role of the CEO as the company scales up and what's working for his BDRs today.

Resources for SaaS CMOs and CEOs:

Recently closed a funding round and need to ramp growth?
Check out our comprehensive "scale-a-saas" guide:

Think your website could generate more leads?
Get our inbound lead generation self-assessment

Want to be a guest on SaaS Backwards?
Click to meet with Ken Lempit to talk about an episode.
SaaS Backwards is a free service to the SaaS community.

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

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With the growing frustration among marketers with traditional pay-per-click and social media advertising, what can a SaaS CMO do to get their message in front of the right people at the right time?

In this episode of the SaaS Backwards Podcast, Co-Founder and CEO of SparkToro Rand Fishkin joins us to discuss how they’re solving this problem by providing valuable data on where to reach target audiences outside major platforms like Google and Facebook. 

SparkToro is a market research and audience intelligence tool designed to help small and medium businesses, independent entrepreneurs, and challenger brands uncover the publications and people influencing their target audiences.

Rand discusses the challenges and opportunities in the current marketing landscape, emphasizing the need to return to traditional media planning and the importance of investing in sources of influence beyond the big platforms. 

He also touches on the recent leak of Google's Content Warehouse API and its implications for SEO, stressing the importance of earning media and retaining valuable content creators.

Our conversation with Rand covers audience research, marketing strategies, team building, content marketing, AI impact, SEO, and predictions for the future of marketing. This episode provides a wealth of insights for SaaS CEOs and CMOs looking to navigate the evolving marketing landscape and leverage audience research to drive growth. 

Key takeaways from this episode:

• How having known and trusted team members, like co-founders, can reduce risk and improve the success of a startup
• The importance of thought leadership in content marketing and the need to create content that resonates with amplifiers, not just customers
• SEO and link-building strategies and the importance of focusing on quality links from pages that receive traffic rather than just acquiring links from various domains

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

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Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.

Send us a text

Utilizing the network effect by onboarding partners of customers simultaneously can lead to organic growth and increased platform adoption in SaaS companies. 

In this episode, Doug Heckman, Chief Solutions Officer at Surefront, discusses how they leveraged the network effect to drive and accelerate the adoption of their collaborative platform. By providing a no-cost license to every partner of their customers and handling the onboarding and training process at their own expense, Surefront facilitated a seamless transition for all parties involved. 

Doug also highlights his passion for solving "unsexy" but critical problems in the industry. The conversation provides deep insights into Surefront's journey, challenges, and innovative strategies to achieve success.

This episode is ideal for individuals involved in enterprise software solutions and CEOs and CMOs of B2B SaaS firms looking for strategies to drive their businesses forward and accelerate growth.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• How a deep commitment to customer success, especially at the enterprise level, can drive outsized growth and reputational benefits
• Strategies to push customers off the status quo, including demonstrating the ROI of adopting a solution and highlighting the costs of doing nothing
• How focusing on decision support content and targeting customers further down the buying cycle can lead to more impactful SaaS marketing efforts

Other resources to check out:

Interview with Vinay Bhagat, Founder and CEO of TrustRadius who publishes a yearly report about how B2B buyer behavior is changing.

The Lead Gen Mistake I Guarantee You’re Making – how to create content that better identifies intent from today’s b2b buyer.

And, if you want an outside look at your content with actionable advice, take advantage of our Content Audit. Valued at $20K in free consulting

---

Not Getting Enough Demos?

Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

🔗 Get a Free Messaging & Conversion Review

We’ll analyze your website and content through the eyes of your buyers to uncover what’s stopping them from booking a demo. Then, we’ll give you a personalized report with practical recommendations to help you turn more visitors into sales conversations.

And the best part?

💡 It’s completely free.

No commitments, no pressure—just actionable advice to help you book more demos.

Your next demo is just a click away—claim your free review now.