Scaling SaaS -- from SaaStr
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
SaaStr 074: The 4 Step Playbook To Expanding Distribution Outside of Early Adopters & How Humans Really Want To Buy Software With Daniel Saks, Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ AppDirect
1×
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -28:43
-28:43

SaaStr 074: The 4 Step Playbook To Expanding Distribution Outside of Early Adopters & How Humans Really Want To Buy Software With Daniel Saks, Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ AppDirect

Daniel Saks is the Co-CEO of AppDirect, which he founded in 2009. AppDirect is the leading commerce platform for selling cloud services and at the firm, Daniel plays a key role in the growth and development of AppDirect, from attracting a leading team, to nurturing relationships with customers and partners. AppDirect has backing from some of the leading investors in the world including the likes of Foundry Group and J.P. Morgan. Prior to AppDirect, Daniel worked at Viant Capital, a boutique tech investment bank.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

  • How did Daniel make the move from family business to SaaS founder? How did he get the business off the ground in the early days?

  • From working in his family business, what did Daniel observe about the buying patterns of businesses? What makes Daniel believe humans like to buy from humans?

  • Is it a problem that many of today’s software vendors lean on direct sales? What are the first steps to create a multi-channel approach? What does it take to support indirect sales channels such as affiliates and resellers?

  • What is Daniel’s 4 Step Playbook for optimising the distribution of software? What does it take to move past the early adopter audience into the hands of the wider market?

  • Why does Daniel believe that the promise of SaaS is yet to be fully realised? What excites Daniel with the rise of the cloud and the movement away from on-premise?

60 Second SaaStr

  1. When is the right time to hire your first customer success rep?

  2. What does Daniel know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?

  3. Biggest challenge in the AppDirect journey and how Daniel overcame it?

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Daniel Saks

Scaling SaaS -- from SaaStr
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
The Official SaaStr Podcast is the latest and greatest from the world of SaaStr, interviewing the most prominent operators and investors to discover their tips, tactics and strategies to attain success in the fiercely competitive world of SaaS. On the side of the operators, we center around getting from $0 to $100m ARR faster, what it takes to scale successfully and what are the core elements of hiring. As for the investors, we learn what metrics they hone in on when examining SaaS business, what type of metrics excites them and what they look for in SaaS founders.