Wish you were at SaaStr this year? Us too...
With SaaStr Annual 2020 postponed, here's a roundup of the best content from speakers who would have presented, on customer success, sales, and remote work.
TL;DR
- SaaStr Annual 2020 was postponed to September, so ClientSuccess dug through the planned schedule and curated existing content from speakers who would have presented.
- The roundup links to content from SaaS leaders including Jason Lemkin (SaaStr), Mark Roberge (ex-HubSpot), Aaron Levie (Box), Amanda Kleha (Figma), and Sid Sijbrandij (GitLab).
- Several of the highlighted resources focus on themes that were especially relevant in early 2020, such as remote work and rethinking how you calculate churn.
This post is a change from our normal content on customer success best practices. Like many of you, our original plan was to spend this week hanging out with other customer success, SaaS, and cloud folks at the SaaStr Annual conference.
However, when we got the news on last week that it had been postponed to September, we knew we had to do something to help.
We've seen an amazing outpouring of support from the SaaS community. Yesterday, our friends at Pendo hosted a webinar with 20+ other sponsors to give everyone a chance to see all of the latest news that would have been announced this week.
On our side, we decided to dig through the schedule that we would have seen, and find highlights of great content that has already been shared by some of the speakers.
If you see speakers we've missed, send us a note at marketing@clientsuccess.com and we'll make sure this post gets updated.
Jason Lemkin: Founder/CEO @SaaStr
If you know SaaStr, or just SaaS in general, then you know Jason. If you haven't already, make sure you're following him on Twitter and on the SaaStr blog. You'll find tons of great content on all things SaaS, including customer success. Here are a few of our favorites:
- 9 Questions to Ask Your First Head of Customer Success
- A Top Customer Success Hack: Driving Up Activation Rates ASAP
Mark Roberge: Founding VP of Sales, and CRO @HubSpot
Mark now teaches at Harvard and runs a venture capital firm called Stage 2 Capital. His content tends to focus on how to build sustainable growth companies. Here's his presentation from SaaStr last year, and it is still as relevant today as it was 12 months ago:
- Step-by-step Guide to Revenue Growth: If you haven’t watched this session yet from last year, stop what you’re doing right now and go watch it.
Shane Murphy-Reuter: SVP Marketing @Intercom**, **
He shares at ton of great insights on his website. We especially liked this post on "Rethinking How You Calculate Churn".
Nicole Anasenes, COO/CFO @Squarespace
Nicole recently sat down with Bloomberg TV and was interviewed sharing her thoughts on the "Talent Equation" in today's economy. Watch the video here.
**Dave Kellogg, Ex-CEO **@Host Analytics
We were really interested to hear his session because it is close to our hearts: "Masterclass: Churn is Dead. Long Live Net Dollar Retention".
Luckily he shared on LinkedIn that he'd be turning his presentation into a blog post. We're anxiously watching kellblog.com for when that comes out!
**Aaron Levie, Founder/CEO **@Box
Aaron is another great one to follow on Twitter. He's constantly publishing great content about tech. We found two recent links that seemed particularly relevant today:
- Product Decoded Interview with Aaron: This is a couple of years old, but still has great content.
- Box Response to Covid 19: With everything going on related to the corona virus right now, it's good to stay on top of what other companies are doing.
Amanda Kleha, CCO @Figma
**Vivek Sharma, CEO **@Moveable Ink
- Why Tech Companies Need to Embrace Empathy as a Core Value: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-tech-companies-need-embrace-empathy-core-value-vivek-sharma/
**Ali Rayl, VP of Customer Experience **@Slack
- Her team at Slack put together this blog on how to get the most out of being a remote employee: https://slackhq.com/managing-remote-work-in-slack
**Michelle Zatlyn, CEO @Cloudflare: **https://twitter.com/zatlyn
- Great Twitter thread from Cloudflare employees talking about what International Women's Day means to them
- Promo video from SaaStr featuring CloudFlare
**Sid Sijbrandij, CEO **@GitLab
Especially relevant to everything going on right now, Gitlab has two articles that should help any company thinking about remote work right now:
Adam Blitzer, EVP/GM @Salesforce
- Listen to Adam on this recent podcast with Knotch covering entrepreneurship, values, and the future of marketing.
**Rahul Vohra, CEO **@Superhuman
- He’s talking at SaaS School this week, you can sign up to get his, and other, talks at this link.
Marten Mickos, CEO @HackerOne
- Article in Fast Company last month showing what HackerOne is doing to help expose and protect Enterprise companies from Cyber Attacks.
Jess Weimer VP, Global Revenue @ FinancialForce
**Stephanie Buscemi, EVP & CMO **@Salesforce
**Marie MacBain, VP of Research Operations **@G2
- Presentation at SaaS Summit ‘19: The Evolution of the Sales Intelligence Ecosystem
Web Sun: President & Co-Founder @Komodo Health
- His topic was going to cover how Komodo Health raised over $50 in VC funding from Andresson Horowitz and others. So since we’re not hearing that, we’ll at least start with this press release on their latest fundraise.
- Charting a Path for Healthcare
Rebecca Lynn: Co-Founder and General Partner at @Canvas Ventures
- Here’s a video of her speaking on a panel at the Geekwire Summit a couple years ago.
Matt Garratt: Managing Partner @Salesforce Ventures
Eddie Kim: CTO & Co-Founder @Gusto
- Recent podcast: The early days of building Gusto
Lauren Schwartz: Senior Regional Director, Enterprise Sales @Segment
- Panel Discussion on Taking Ownership of Your Career in Sales - “Women in Sales Everywhere” Event.
Mark Macleod, Founder @SurePath Capital
- His firm, SurePath Capital, recently published “The State of SMB Software” Report.
Lolita Taub, Chief of Staff @Catalyte
- She publishes a lot of great content on our page: https://www.lolitataub.co/
Sydney Thomas @Precursor Ventures
- What it’s really like to break into VC
- The Power To Change Wealth Inequality Lies In VCs Like Sydney Thomas
That's all we've got for now, but as we said before, if you see speakers we've missed, shoot us a note at marketing@clientsuccess.com and we'll make sure this post gets updated.
We hope to catch everyone at the rescheduled event in September!
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