Scaling SaaS -- from SaaStr
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
SaaStr 118: Why Tension Has Shifted From Sales vs Marketing To Customer Success vs Product & Why You Have To Hire For Ahead Of Where You Are Now with Todd Olson, Founder & CEO @ Pendo.io
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SaaStr 118: Why Tension Has Shifted From Sales vs Marketing To Customer Success vs Product & Why You Have To Hire For Ahead Of Where You Are Now with Todd Olson, Founder & CEO @ Pendo.io

Todd Olson is the Founder & CEO @ Pendo, the startup that allows you to capture all user behaviour, gather feedback and then provide contextual support. They have raised over $30m in VC funding from some of the very best in the business including Neeraj @ Battery Ventures, Megan @ Spark and Matt @ Salesforce Ventures just to name a few. As for Todd, prior to Pendo he held various different roles in product as well as co-founding 2 prior startups.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

  • How did Todd make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Pendo?

  • Why does Todd believe that there is inherent tension between customer success and product teams? How has this changed from sales and marketing team tension? What does Todd suggest to mitigate this tension?

  • How does Todd evaluate his hiring process? At what stage does one become a specialist vs a jack of all trades? Why does Todd always believe that you should hire ahead of where you are?

  • Todd has previously said that ‘money is not all the same’. How does Todd look to select his investors? What value adds are most desired for Todd? What do the best investors do that make them so?

60 Second SaaStr

  1. What does Todd know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning?

  2. What is Todd’s favourite SaaS reading material: Mattermark Daily, Tom Tunguz

  3. Creating a startup culture for adults?

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

Todd Olson

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.