Founder Coffee - Intimate SaaS Chats

For this twenty-third episode, I talked to Hampus Jakobsson, co-founder of Brisk.io and The Astonishing Tribe, and now Partner at BlueYard. Hampus started with a group of friends in a dorm room and quickly embarked on an epic journey, sailing where the wind would blow. He made user interfaces for the big phone manufacturers, sold his company to BlackBerry for $150 million, worked there in mergers and acquisitions, started angel investing (in now 90+ companies), launched a new software startup to get more experience at raising money and is now at the other side of the table, investing in tech startups that are about to change the world. We theorize about how the world works, about the two different stages of a startup, the state of venture capital, work-life balance, and why you should not build someone else’s company.

For this twenty-second episode, I talked to Rick Perreault of Unbounce, one of the leading drag and drop landing page builders out there. Rick used to be a creative director at an agency. He then started off with a vision of a platform to build landing pages that would be as easy to use as, say, PowerPoint. Now he’s leading a company of 175 people that is largely bootstrapped. We talk about Rick’s childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, where he gets his inspiration for how to run his business, and why building the right company culture is everything.

For this twenty-first episode, I talked to Rob Walling of Drip, one of the leading marketing automation platforms out there. Drip started as a simple opt-in pop-up with an autoresponder. It then evolved into an email service provider, to finally become a marketing automation platform. That’s when it hit real product-market fit and churn immediately started plummeting. Rob sold Drip to Leadpages almost 3 years ago. Recently, he started TinySeed, an early stage VC fund and remote accelerator that aims to fill a gap in the market by providing funding to SaaS companies who don’t aim for the 100 million dollar goal. We talk about Rob’s passion for building, how he invested in WP Engine early on, the lack of marketing focus in SaaS companies, and why he works 35 hour weeks.

For this twentieth episode, I talk to Mikita Mikado, one of the leading proposals and quotes solution for sales people. Mikita pursued the American Dream and moved from Belarus to the US to start a company. At first he flipped burgers, worked in moving, in cleaning, … He took every job he could get. Then he started a web design business, got into extensions for content management systems, and then into documents solutions for sales people. In a period of only four years, Mikita built a company of about 160 employees focusing on learning, making an impact and having fun. We talk about how he grows the culture that makes PandaDoc special, why he spends most of his time communicating and strategizing, and his favorite hobby, surfing.

For this nineteenth episode, I talked to John Kim of SendBird, the user-to-user messaging backend that powers the chat of websites and apps like Reddit. Based on the belief that starting a company was the only way he could do what he loved, John started one of Korea’s first startups, raised money in an environment that had never heard about it, and then was one of the first to sell his startup to a company outside Korea. After this, John started a community for moms, raised money for it, pivoted (before that was even a word) to a messaging backend company, and got accepted to Y Combinator. He’s now leading one of the hottest messaging companies around. We talk about his extremely rational way of making decisions, the Korean ecosystem and work ethic, the Intrinsic Motivation Framework, and yet again, the Regret Minimization Framework.

For this eighteenth episode, I talked to Bryant Chou of Webflow, one of the leading website building platforms in the world. After working at Intuit, the company behind Quickbooks and other software, and then launching his own startup in mobile advertising, Bryant co-founded Webflow to bring responsive design capabilities to website builders. We talk about Webflow’s infinitely large roadmap, how it’s like to combine being a first-time parent with having a growth company, the Regret Minimization Framework and the importance of faster product-market fit.

For this seventeenth episode, I talked to Kevin Beales, Co-Founder of Refract.ai, a coaching platform for sales development reps based on conversation intelligence. Kevin started Refract.ai after he exited his previous business, because he had felt the challenge of being able to coach, develop and scale his sales teams. He then went from almost 0 to 5 million dollars in 18 months. This episode is all about learning. We talk about Kevin’s backstory, how he learns from other founders, the importance of good sales coaching, why he reads sales books and how he teaches his children to become great entrepreneurs. Read the transcript at https://blog.salesflare.com/kevin-beales-refract-ai

For this sixteenth episode, I talked to Krish Subramanian, Co-Founder of Chargebee, one of the leading payment platforms out there that powers subscription businesses. In the past year, Krish has doubled the size of his company to 150 employees. And his plans don’t stop there: he wants to go beyond payments and power all aspects of a subscription relationship. We talk about his backstory, why he got started on Chargebee, how he manages his fast growing company and keeps the vision clear, and what his typical working day as a CEO exactly looks like. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/interview-krish-subramanian-chargebee

For this fifteenth episode, I talked to Bart Lorang, Founder & CEO of FullContact, who are on a mission to revolutionize contact data. Before FullContact, Bart had 3 other companies, respectively in RPG games, web design and enterprise software. He grew up in rural Montana and now runs FullContact from Boulder, Colorado, 30 minutes from the ski slopes. We talk about how his wife’s address book inspired FullContact, how he aligns the 300 brains in his organization, and how he encourages a culture that is about the whole person. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/bart-lorang-fullcontact

For this fourteenth episode, I talked to David Cancel, Founder & CEO of Drift, a leading conversational marketing & sales platform. Drift is not David’s first baby, nor his first success story. He was previously Chief Product Officer at HubSpot after his company, Performable, was acquired. Before that he also launched and sold Ghostery, Lookery and Compete. We talk about his backstory, how he likes to build both startups and flowers, why he is still involved in every single hire... and why he doesn’t believe in development sprints. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/interview-david-cancel-drift