The Saas Revolution Show

Host Alex Theuma is joined by Larry Kim, Founder and CEO at Customers.ai."With the benefit of hindsight, it could have been done with even less than $18M. I think what happens is when you raise money, it allows you to make bets that you might not have otherwise made had you been operating on the edge of a knife."In this 35 minute episode, Larry shares:– How he transformed a consulting business into a $55M ARR SaaS company.– The content marketing strategy that generated 50,000 leads per month.– Lessons from his $150M exit to Gannett (USA Today’s parent company).– Why traditional inbound marketing is no longer effective in 2025.– How his new company, Customers.ai, is reshaping digital marketing and lead generation.– His learnings on bootstrapping vs. raising venture capital.Follow Larry Kim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrykim/ Website: Customers.ai Hear more from Larry Kim at SaaStock USA – He'll be speaking on the Founderpath Center stage sharing more on the WordStream journey and how to know when to sell.  

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One of our most listened to episodes, we're bringing back Keji Mustapha, CMO at Partech, who shares how the best founders scale themselves as their companies scale. "If more founders did that, they would probably enjoy what they were doing more. I mean, you quit your job and set out on this journey to build this incredible utopia that you see because you're excited about it. And then if you don't actually get to be excited about it because it begins to drain you, then it's all for nothing. And I think it's a shame. I think you should enjoy the journey while you're on it. And you can only do that if you set boundaries and make time for other things." Keji shares: • The importance of self-awareness and humility (that means knowing when you're not the best person for a task, and admitting it) • Her mantra for hiring great talent - emphasising that leaving a position unfilled is preferable to hiring the wrong person who creates problems for the team • At what stage a founder should get a virtual or executive a

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Nathan Latka, CEO and Chief Investment Officer at Founderpath (and the powerhouse behind SaaSOpen!), as he shares the truth about AI in SaaS ...and why it counters Microsoft's CEOs prediction. "I would get emails from real sales reps all the time that were terribly written and they'd go right to spam. I'd also get emails from CEOs that were really well written and I would click them or I'd reply and I engage. Nothing changes. All that changes now is that people with less resources can maybe get an outbound campaign going faster. But if you don't structure it in a way that captures the recipient's attention and gets them to reply like it's just useless, you're just spraying and praying. You're just paying for ChatGPT and credits that you know got you no value. So this is why the biggest in demand job towers here is going to be prompt marketing." Nathan shares: • His counter to Satya Nadella: how AI is transforming SaaS pricing to u

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Aviv Canaani, CRO at Datarails, who shares how he helped move the company from 90% outbound to 90% inbound. "One of our best performing ads is something actually I saw, usually it comes from the team, but I saw this TikTok ad for I think it was a B2C company. Something like, someone asked a lady a question and whatever they ask she says 'yup'. 'Oh, does it do this?' 'Yup'. 'Does it do this?' 'Yup'. So I sent it to the team. I'm like, let's try to do something like that for Datarails. It's been our one of our best performing ads on TikTok. So I think it's really understanding, you know, the channel you're focused on and you have to create the fun, engaging videos that align with what works in the channel, but with our own spin of marketing, our own software." Aviv shares: • Diversification and reducing dependency on any single ad channel • TikTok success in B2B; from user-generated content to understanding the algorithm • Reducing

One of our most listened to episodes, we're bringing back Mark Roberge, Co-Founder at Stage 2 Capital, who shares his sales acceleration formula 2.0 with our SaaStock Founder Members. Mark dives deep into the Sales Acceleration formula followed by his previous company Hubspot. He also answers the questions posted by our SaaStock Founder Membership community. Interested in becoming a member? Apply to SaaStock Founder Membership to supercharge your growth: https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 

One of our most listened to episodes, we're bringing back Chris Walker, CEO at Passetto (previously Founder and CEO of Refine Labs, a progressive demand generation agency that challenges the status quo in B2B marketing). Before launching Refine Labs, Chris led marketing at two B2B firms where he built the foundation of his unique perspective on demand generation. Now, at Passetto, a Growth Advisory Firm for SaaS CEOs Scaling from $10MM - $100MM+, Chris helps CEOs and CFOs get instant GTM clarity. Chris joined our host Alex on an exclusive founder members only workshop as part of our SaaStock Founder Membership (SFM), to share how you can grow your business and improve your demand generation strategies.       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 

Live from the SaaStock USA 2024 Scale Stage, Ashley Kramer, GitLab’s Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, sits down with AJ Eckstein, Founder & Creator at Creator Match and Fast Company. Together, they explore the imminent shift in how companies measure AI's impact on efficiency, questioning whether the productivity gains truly justify the risks and costs associated with AI adoption. Ashley argues that forward-thinking companies must move beyond traditional output metrics and focus on those that reflect real business value—such as enhanced software quality, faster time-to-market, consistent delivery, and, most importantly, improved customer satisfaction.       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Steve Oriola, CEO at Unbounce, who shares the leadership lessons he's learnt from navigating a SaaS M&A and the transformation AI has had on business. "We also survey base of employees and those values are landing pretty well. That's an important part of it, is that people understand how everyone works and how everyone should be working and how we should be making decisions. And we correct ourselves all the time on that." Steve shares: • How he's steering the marketing tech ship through choppy waters - from perfecting landing pages to building an AI-powered platform that actually tells you which customers are worth chasing • The behind-the-scenes of marrying two companies' cultures; complete with leadership team matchmaking and values that actually stuck • Why he's betting big on AI being more than just a buzzword • The secret sauce to staying sane as a CEO, including cold plunges, fitness regimes, and the art of not bringing

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Kevin Hu, Co-Founder & CEO at Metaplane, who shares how they navigated Metaplane's journey from pivot to Series A and beyond. "Most of us come from tens of thousands of years of subsistence farmers and we're one of the first generations that has the opportunity to build something that can have a large impact with software and capitals leveraged. And when it comes to the CEO job, one can hope that the problems never stop. When the problems stop, I think that's when growth stops. The best case scenario is when the problems are new problems all the time and it doesn't feel like Groundhog Day." Kevin shares: • The reasons that drove Metaplane to pivot (twice!) • The importance of attracting strong leaders and building a repeatable sales process as a company grows • His approach to decision-making and prioritisation; from the way he collects information to committing to decisions • Why being upfront about expectations and offering

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Abakar Saidov, CEO at Beamery, who shares his success story from Wall Street-er to tech unicorn. "A lot of entrepreneurs actually start businesses out of necessity. And necessity comes from two parts, either you have to do it because you have no other option, or you feel like you have to do it because you want the idea to exist so much. And usually I feel like if those are not your two reasons, one is like you can't imagine a world without this idea or you just have no choice. You're probably not going to make it through the the grind." Abakar shares: • On a mission to create equal access to work opportunities: The founding story of Beamery • Why customer experience is a key differentiator (and one of the reasons they've achieved such high NPS scores for implementations in an industry where low scores are common) • The top two qualities investors look for in founders • How evolving founder perspectives and motivations have shaped

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Taylor Hersom, Founder & CEO at Eden Data, who shares insights into their global scaling journey during the pandemic. "Your reputation is everything as you're growing fast and trying to make it to your next round. And when you have multiple competitors in a space, you don't want your customer or prospect googling your name and seeing something like a data breach." Taylor shares: • His approach to growing the business; from focusing on partnerships and referrals to differentiating through branding and content marketing • Key security concerns for founders, including reputational damage and the need for certifications like SOC 2 to close deals • How he capitalised on the increased focus on cybersecurity during the pandemic as more businesses moved operations online • How they identified an underserved niche and tailored their offerings and messaging to serve them effectively • The one thing their team does to drive inbound lead

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Preston "PK" Keller, Founder at Emergent3, who shares how he overcame an industry Goliath trying to kill his SaaS business. "When you've hit rock bottom and you're, like, going through hell, you cannot control all the environmental factors around you, but you can control how you react to it. And I read this book, The Gap in the Game, and it basically says, like, focus on the good things right now. That book got me through the darkest times. We also, you know, my wife was also pregnant with our third child and that third child had some serious health defects. She spent months in the NICU and this was during the lawsuit, during the rewrite, it was like there was so much going on in my life and I was like, I'm still so lucky. It forced you to just focus on like, hey, you can't control this environment and things that happen to you, but you can control how you react. And I focused on just, like, I just wanted to make someone else smil

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Tony Jamous, Founder & CEO at Oyster HR, who shares how building Oyster HR as a mission driven company helped them scale to SaaS unicorn-dome. "It enabled me to also be detached from the outcome. So no matter what happens, we miss a quarter or somebody quits, then you're not reactive to that. Instead, you remain always centred on your goals, on your values, on your principles and more in an acceptance mode. This journey of building businesses, it's, it's highs and lows. So how can you remain yourself in a mode of clarity, stability, no matter the highs and the lows?" Tony shares: • Hyper growth in the early days during Covid: From achieving product market fit without having a full platform to going from zero to a billion in market cap in two years • Maintaining a mission driven culture: Why instilling meaning and importance to the work employees do you is the backbone of a successful mission driven organisation • Reducing head

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Raluca Ragab, Head of UK & DACH at Eurazeo, who shares how to succeed as a growth company. "If you think of all the companies that had to raise a seed or series A in 2022, when it was hard, in 2023, when it was super hard, and even in 2024, anybody who's been successful to do that and is now graduating, right? So Maybe they were 1 million company in 2022 and they're 5 million in 2023 and they're now kind of becoming a growth stage company. Those companies, they were so scrutinised, they found it so hard to get funded that actually they have much stronger unit economics, they have great stories and they know how to deliver growth without having a bloated cost structure. So I do think that there's a second wave now of these companies that had to go through this kind of much harder time funding in their earlier stage and they never got to being efficient, that they just kind of got the basics and the fundamentals right and they're

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Marton Medveczky, Associate Partner at Flashpoint Venture Capital, who shares what exactly makes a founder investable in 2025. "There is always a huge difference between talking to the founder and then doing your own desktop research versus talking to a customer. So if you can do that, that's basically the best way to understand what people value about the product. And it also will help you to draw further conclusions about where to look or, like, what is actually the real paper that it solves. And oftentimes it's actually not what the founders think it is, right? Which is very funny, I think. And that's why customer calls are sort of like a super vital component for us to invest." Marton shares: • The key characteristics he looks for in a founder before investing • Nailing value propositions and pain points: the one thing founders *need* to be doing • What the next 12 months look like and if fewer companies are moving into ventu

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Palash Soni, Co-Founder & CEO at Goldcast, who shares his journey scaling the business to north of $10M in revenue. "We realised that the market is probably in bigger companies because that's where we are getting the pull from, and so our first actual like big customer was this company called Drift in Boston, which very popular Martech company. And that gave us the aha moment that okay, this is where the fit is. And so the moment Drift signed which was in end of Jan. 2021, at that time we were probably like $30, $40k in ARR. And when Drift signed then that started the chain sort of like the messaging and everything came together. Then we got to $1 million in three months." Palash shares: • Having an entrepreneurial itch from a young age; from buying sweets in bulk and selling them at a markup in his school days to renting out a video game console for a cent per hour • Why he believes marketing mediums evolve every 10 years, an

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined by Philippe Botteri, partner at Accel, who shares the 2024 Accel Europe: AI Eating Software. "Just look at the past couple of years, there's been $56 billion invested in AI companies and two thirds of that has gone into the top six companies of each region of the US and Europe, and also two thirds of that money has gone into foundation models. So what we're seeing is AI is really driving the growth and very concentrated in a very small number of companies both in the US and Europe." Philippe shares: • Capitalising on AI to drive growth • Increasing investment outside of foundational models • Why 2025 is going to be the year of the agentic revolution • Growth vs profitability: what's driving the momentum for software companies • The Game of AI Thrones - will it be a winner takes all market? and more!       Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined live from the SaaStock Studio at SaaStock Europe 2024 by Amos Haggiag, Co-Founder & CEO at Optibus, who shares his biggest learnings from building Optibus to a global unicorn. "We sell a mission critical product. When a customer chooses Optibus, if Optibus doesn't work, the public transportation stops working - busses don't arrive on time or don't arrive at all, passengers get the wrong information, like, it's a disaster. So the risk is so high that in order to anyone to choose Optibus, it's not enough to just bring like a really good product, you need to also convince [them] that you're not introducing risk, that you know how to work in complexity, you know how to work in different regions, it's very local. And because of that, at some point, we decided to change the organisation into more focus on the local region kind of management." Amos shares: • Optibus' funding journey to a $100M Series D funding round and a $1.3B valuatio

In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show our host Alex Theuma is joined live from the SaaStock Studio at SaaStock Europe 2024 by Muhammad Younas, Founder & CEO at vFairs and Winner of the SaaStock Awards "Founder & CEO of the Year: People's Choice", as he shares his key lessons bootstrapping the business to profitability and $30M ARR. "More than half of our business comes from word of mouth from our existing set of customer base. We are a strong believer that the best sales team is your existing customer base. So we go above and beyond. Even though we are in technology business, we typically say internally that we feel that we are in hospitality business. We want to be so close to the customer, give them that seven star experience that they go and spread that around." Muhammad shares: • Achieving profitability from day one • His number one piece of feedback for founders • Their go-to-market model and how they attract customers • Investing in talent above all else • The true definition of business