20 VC 050: Starting, Building and Selling in SaaS with the King of SaaS, Jason Lemkin, Managing Director @ Storm Ventures
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2015
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jason Lemkin is Managing Director at Storm Ventures focussing on early stage SaaS and enterprise startups. Jason is an acknowledged thought leader in SaaS through his creation of the SaaStr community, connecting thousands of SaaS entrepreneurs and generating upwards of 1,000,000 views a month around core SaaS topics, with a particular focus on accelerating revenue and early-stage SaaS sales and marketing. Prior to Storm, Jason served as CEO and co-founder of Storm Ventures-backed EchoSign, the web’s most popular electronic signature service. Jason led EchoSign from inception through its acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc. in 2011. He then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where he oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document Services to $100,000,000+ ARR in 2013.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How Jason made his way into the SaaS and VC industry?
What actions did Jason do to get his blog to 1m+ page views per month?
What advice would Jason give to founders thinking of selling to large companies?
What type of entrepreneur does Jason like to invest in?
How does Jason see SaaS valuations, with recent enormous rounds from Zenefits?
What areas of the SaaS industries are neglected or undervalued?
Is the 40% growth rule broadly correct and can this be applied to early stage tech companies?
What is Jason's pre-investment meeting approach like?
What makes a founder insane in a good way, rather than a bad way?
How are SaaS companies innovating to acquire new customers?
Quick Fire Round:
- Apple: Hit or Miss
- Most exciting SaaS companies and sectors
- Jason's favourite book and why?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode:
Jason's Favourite Book: The Lion Who Shot Back
Follow: @saleshacker (amazing content from VPs of Sales @ Top Tech Startups)
Slack: Stewart Butterfield, Zenefits: Parker Conrad
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the 20 minute VC with your host, Terry Stebbings, and we are celebrating stay at the 20 minute VC as we usher in the 50th episode. My, how time flies. And there is no better guest to celebrate such an event than by welcoming Jason Lempkin, MD at Storm Ventures onto the show. I mean, where do I start with Jason? He is an |
| 0:24.2 | acknowledged thought leader in the SaaS industry through his creation of the Sasta community, |
| 0:28.9 | which now receives an astonishing 1 million page views per month. Prior to Storm, Jason was CEO and |
| 0:35.7 | founder at Ecosign, the most popular electronic signature |
| 0:39.8 | service on the web, leading to the acquisition by Adobe. |
| 0:43.8 | In today's interview, Jason and I have an incredible deep dive into the world of all things |
| 0:48.6 | SaaS. |
| 0:49.7 | But before we dive into today's interview, have you ever looked at an inbox full of Canada |
| 0:54.0 | applications and felt a little overwhelmed? |
| 0:56.0 | Well, you'll love hiring screens Blink algorithm. |
| 1:00.0 | First, build your job by selecting criteria such as work experience, qualifications and technical and transferable skills. |
| 1:07.0 | Then let Blink do its magic by scoring each candidate against your requirements and displaying every candidate in order of relevance for the job. |
| 1:14.8 | But without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to usher in episode 50 of the 20 minute VC. |
| 1:20.3 | I'm so honored to introduce to you, Jason Lempkin. |
| 1:23.8 | 3.2.1.0. You have now arrived at your Lempkin. Three, two, one, zero. |
| 1:29.7 | You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 1:32.8 | Jason, welcome to the 20-minute VC. |
| 1:34.9 | It's an absolute pleasure to have you here. |
| 1:37.1 | Yeah, thanks for having me. |
| 1:38.6 | Now, can you start off with a little background on yourself and how you made it into the VC world, |
| 1:43.5 | and particularly your blog, Saster, and how it made it into the VC world and particularly your |
| 1:44.6 | blog, Saster, and how it's become so successful. |
... |
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