Category: Forward Launch Your SaaS Podcast

GUEST BIO

Etienne Lecompte is the Founder and CEO at PowerHub. He's also an angel investor and the host of the Renewables:Unscripted Podcast. He helped build PowerHub from his spare bedroom into a respected software company in renewables, leading to the acquisition of the company in 2019.

MAIN INSIGHT

Don't ask for forgiveness, ask for permission. Think outside the box when promoting your brand.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. When planning to attend events, think about where you should go and what should you do there – should you attend, exhibit, sponsor, or “crash”?
2. Think about why you want to be there – e.g. to get in front of someone, or to do market research
3. Have a twist on how you're going to accomplish that. For example, you might try to ask for “out of the box” ideas as part of your event sponsorship package, or you might show up at the event in a different way to stand out.

MORE FROM PowerHub

PowerHub is asset management software built for the renewable energy industry. Learn more at https://powerhub.com

GUEST BIO

Irina  Poddubnaia is the founder of TrackMage, a SAAS company that simplifies the work of eCommerce business owners by automating the order tracking process. Prior to founding TrackMage, Irina ran a fulfillment center in China for 2.5 years without speaking Chinese. She launched TrackMage entirely remotely without external funding and has successfully run it to this day.

MAIN INSIGHT

Focus on the type of customer that energizes you and be clear on what their customer journey is.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Start looking at what content they're consuming and where. Do competitor research. Use this to identify trends other brands are using to get attention.
2. Experiment with creating posts with different type of content and see if your audience responds to it. Use your personal social profiles to test content, then create polished versions of the content that resonates.
3. Stand out from the crowd. Use a different format than the standard powerpoint. Make your content sound authentic and like it was written by a real human, not a robot.

MORE FROM TRACKMAGE

TrackMage simplifies the work of eCommerce business owners by automating the order tracking process. This allows them to cut down time spent on customer support by 70% and build long-term relationships with the customers on autopilot. Their tracking page has the capability to display all the shipments inside of a wholesale order. Reach out to Irina on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-poddubnaia/ or learn more at https://trackmage.com/

GUEST BIO

Itai Sadan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Duda, the leading web design platform for web professionals, agencies, and SaaS platforms that serve SMBs. With more than $100 million in funding, Duda has over 18,000 customers worldwide and hosts over a million active websites. Itai has been featured in several publications, including Forbes, TechCrunch, and Entrepreneur, and is a regular speaker at industry events. He holds a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Ben Gurion in Israel.

MAIN INSIGHT

You can always gain a deeper understanding of your ideal customer profile (ICP). Clarifying your ICP helps everyone in your company become more focused.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Understand your data – look at different slices of your customer base, e.g. the company size, revenue size, industry, pain points
2. Identify how those different segments perform over time in order to understand which segments are your best customers
3. Make sure this slice of the market is big enough to build a business off of
4. Look for customer segments that are going to grow with your company over time and continue using your product. E.g. they will be repeat users, or the segment as a whole is growing, or there is a trend in which more of that type of company will purchase from your product category
5. Build features and craft your messaging towards what is helpful for your best customer segment.

MORE FROM DUDA

Duda is a great platform for marketers or marketing teams who need a website builder, including for creating landing pages and microsites. Duda also offers a white label format, which has proven to be useful for several SaaS customers who integrate with the platform to offer websites to their customer base. Learn more at https://www.duda.co/ or reach out to Itai at duda.co via email.

GUEST BIO

Sandra Iđoški is the CEO of Collabwriting, a startup whose main purpose is to help content marketers and creators create better content. We do this by simplifying two key things – research and teamwork around it. Sandra previously worked as a CCO at Teodesk, an innovative IT company that aims to resolve business inefficiency within the Telco industry. Their content marketing strategy at the time set them apart and helped them reach new markets. She considers her biggest accomplishment to be helping scale Teodesk from the local Serbian market to the US, UK, and EU markets.

MAIN INSIGHT

Know the industry insights before you start building your product.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1.  Share your in-house values widely in order to stand out and attract your audience
2. Find the intersection between topics based on your company's unique value and your company's target audience
3.  Start tracking everything you do when posting content – e.g. the time, day, hashtags used when posting on LinkedIn. Use automation to extract data about the best practices for your own company.
4. Filter your user feedback to ensure that you're prioritizing the most valuable improvements to make to your products. The book “The Mom Test” has good insights on how to figure out which feedback is coming from real, consistent users and which feedback is just coming from people who like to hear themselves talk.

MORE FROM COLLABWRITING

Collabwriting is a web-based tool that allows users to create highlights, leave comments, and organize content around topics on any website, making the research and data collecting process easier. Learn more at https://collabwriting.com/

GUEST BIO

Steve Benson is CEO and founder of Badger Maps, the #1 App in the App Store for outside and field salespeople. Steve is also CEO of Badger Sales University. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve joined Google, where he became Google Enterprise's Top Sales Executive globally in 2009.

MAIN INSIGHT

Focus your time and energy on revenue from the beginning. Sell the product you think you'll sell even before it's done.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The founder should be the first salesperson in the company. Craft the product around the insights learned from customers.
2. Hire the first two salespeople before bringing on a Sales VP, and create a customer success team as early as possible.
3. Listen to prospects early on – determine what it would really look like to solve this problem for them.
4. Study users throughout the weeks and months after they start using the product and make sure they stay engaged. Hop on calls and message them; take notes to figure out exactly how they're using the product

MORE FROM BADGER MAPS

Badger Maps, the #1 Route Planner for Field Sales, has helped sales teams to increase their sales by 20-25%. Learn more at https://www.badgermapping.com/

GUEST BIO

Nick Ezzo is the head of corporate marketing and demand generation at Auditoria, with over 20 years of experience in technology marketing. Prior to joining Auditoria, he provided digital marketing and demand generation leadership at Sage Intacct, Host Analytics, and Equilar. Nick has also held marketing, business development, and consulting roles at companies such as Aspect, Home Box Office (HBO), and Nuance Communications. He holds a bachelor's degree in Communications Systems Management from Ohio University and has a patent for web-based marketing.

MAIN INSIGHT

If you're not measuring data ahead of time, you can't report on it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1.  Look at the closed-won opportunities you have over the most recent quarters. Determine how long it took to close the deal, what actions you took, and where it came from. Use that to figure out what metrics to capture
2. Have the CEO get sales reps to all capture data in the same way and in the same format. 
3. Think through the way metrics are captured to make it simple to input and informative for reviewers. For example, have a required “Date” field where sales reps input the day they had a sales call.
4. Replicate the process of what was successful in closing those customers
5. Refine the sales process – figure out what's working, and if something isn't working, remove it and combine it with another step.

MORE FROM AUDITORIA

Auditoria.AI's SmartBots can streamline communication with key stakeholders by automating tasks and capturing documentation. By connecting to systems of record and shared email inboxes, SmartBots can prioritize and assign tasks, reducing friction and task repetition. Learn more at auditoria.ai

GUEST BIO

Pratik Thakker is an Indian-born digital and tech entrepreneur based in Israel. He is known as Israel’s tech ambassador to India and has a strong social media presence with over 180K followers and 200+ million views. Pratik is the Founder and CEO of Webzoly, a company that helps global businesses hire remote talent. Additionally, he is a co-founder and COO at Testlify, a talent assessment platform that uses AI and deep analysis to help companies find the best talent in a precise, automated, and impartial way.

MAIN INSIGHT

Make sure each employee is connected to the mission and culture. Be an employee-driven company.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Set expectations for the role, mention the salary range, and ask pre-qualification questions. This helps candidates understand whether it's worth their time to invest in applying
2. Use a pre-screening process
3. Communicate with all applicants, whether or not they were hired

MORE FROM WEBZOLY AND TESTLIFY

Learn more about Webzoly or Testlify by visiting webzoly.com (global remote hiring platform) or testlify.com (AI talent assessment platform). Pratik is happy to offer one-on-one demos of both of the platforms. Reach out to him directly via LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/pratik-thakker/

GUEST BIO

Ernesto Gaxha is a co-founder of SplitSpot, an innovative rental platform that has served thousands of residents in several cities in the US. He is a Harvard/MIT grad who started his career as an institutional investor before entering the world of startups.

MAIN INSIGHT

Craft an initial pitch that differentiates your brand within the first 60 seconds of speaking to a prospective customer.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Look at your competitors' messaging. Determine the features of what you're offering and how it's different from existing products in the market.
2. Brainstorm ways that your company is different. Put yourself in the shoes of people receiving the message — what was it that caused them to give you the time of day?
3. Create a 60-second pitch or less that explains who you are, what you do, and how your product is different from what's typically out there.

MORE FROM SPLITSPOT

SplitSpot is a platform that helps make the process of renting easier for residents, landlords, and property managers. They aim to provide a solution to some of the challenges presented by the current housing crisis. If anyone has properties that they think could be a good fit or has an interest in discussing the issue, they can reach out to Ernesto by email at his name at splitspot.com.

GUEST BIO

Adam Tank is a seasoned professional with over 10 years of experience in the water industry, specializing in innovation, software, and business development. In his current role as Chief Customer Officer at Transcend, Adam is responsible for the success of the clients and marketing initiatives related to the Transcend Design Generator and automation of preliminary engineering activities. Before joining Transcend, Adam served as the North America Smart Cities Director at Suez and led a robotics spin-out of the General Electric corporation, which focused on cutting-edge potable water pipe rehabilitation techniques. Adam received his undergraduate degree in microbiology from Kansas State University and his M.B.A. from the University of Arizona. In addition to his professional career, Adam is an avid water blogger and podcaster, foster dad, long-form author, and an advocate for volunteer organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

MAIN INSIGHT

Involve customers and continuously gather feedback throughout the product development process to ensure that you are building the right thing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Start by having an internal discussion with your company to understand what your ideal future for the company looks like.
2. Create a minimum viable content piece or product mock-up to show customers what the future will look like.
3. Get feedback from existing and potential customers in real-time to see how they feel about the concept.
4. Continuously get feedback as you build the product or service.
5. Set up touchpoints or checkpoints with initial interested customers.
6. Try to have sales conversations with customers to understand what they are willing to pay.
7. Keep getting feedback to ensure that you are building the right thing.

MORE FROM TRANSCEND

Transcend Design Generator (TDG) is an intuitive, online generative design platform that enables capital planners, project developers, and engineering professionals to rapidly generate preliminary engineering designs for critical infrastructure, including the Water & Wastewater treatment and Power Sectors. Learn more at https://transcendinfra.com/

GUEST BIO
Katherine Wells is the CEO and founder of Serenity, a network that allows aging service providers, older adults and their loved ones to care together. She created the company out of her direct experience of silos in senior care. Katherine's own experience of caring for her aging parents, who were not expecting to need care, inspired her to launch Serenity, which gives providers an easier way to communicate and collaborate with family members in a secure, digital way.

WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT
Katherine advises marketing executives and founders to grow or promote their businesses by implementing the product with a small test group of users, getting them set up, having them share it with everyone in their organization, and giving them a quick and easy way to connect with other companies or service providers they are working with. Then, a sales conversation is initiated with those other companies.

Katherine emphasizes the importance of building a viral product when it comes to growing or promoting a business. She suggests focusing on solving one problem in a particular industry or company, measuring the results, and de-risking the experiments. She also encourages entrepreneurs to have big visions, lead in a way that allows others to follow, and to communicate the results of their experiments in order to grow their product.

MORE FROM SERENITY
Serenity helps streamline communication in the senior care industry and provides a digital channel for people to communicate with one another. Reach out to Katherine at serenityengage.com, and to attend their event, Collaboration in Aging, to discuss the issues faced by seniors in the industry.