Scale Or Die

On average, 30% of revenue for SaaS companies comes from partner programs. And huge publicly traded companies such as HubSpot and Shopify rely on their partner channels for nearly 40% of their revenue! Early on with your program, you might feel like a partner channel is growing painfully slow, but in reality, the long-term value of this channel is huge.In this episode, Bryn Jones, founder of PartnerStack, breaks down the ins and outs of how to build a great partner program for your company. Dave talks with Bryn about what investors think of partner programs, how to pitch investors on the idea, what percentage of sales should you give out in order to attract the right partners, and how to build your partner program in a responsible way. In this episode you’ll learn:0:00 Introduction3:18 Bryn talks about his experience at YCombinator8:40 Bryn breaks down the 3 main factors of a partner channel12:22 What does a really great partner program look like?15:02 What percentage do you see most SaaS companies giving up

For the past 6 years, Ed Fry has been working in B2B companies such as Hubspot, Hull.io, and Inbound.org. Shortly after our interview, Ed started working as a  SaaS growth consultant and now works as Head of Growth at Paddle, a UK-based SaaS for subscription and E-commerce.Our conversation with Ed covers the role of data in 2019. While data is becoming ever more available, the sheer volume of data at your disposal can also be frustrating. Where do you start? What do you do with all this data? How does data impact important growth metrics?In January 2016, Ed went on a journey to really get into data and data strategy to create more personalized experiences for customers. In this episode, Dave talks with Ed about how to use data to scale your startup, how to use data to personalize experiences for users, and what some B2B startups are doing wrong with data.Listen in and get some free growth consulting from Ed! In this episode you’ll learn:0:00 Introduction3:57 Ed’s 2016 deep dive into data11:56 Where most B2B s

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp, an original member of the Hubspot mafia (listen in for details), shares her in-depth knowledge of how to better unite sales and marketing teams. She’ll share her insights from years in leadership at some wildly successful B2B brands: BigCommerce, Gartner, Hubspot, and Convey. Our conversation covers how to host great user events that drive intimacy with your customers (she started Inbound) as well as some indicators of when exactly your business is at the point to host a customer event. We’ll also help you think about how to measure marketing success and create an inter-channel connectivity as you grow your brand.In this episode you’ll learn: 0:00 An introduction with Kirsten5:00 How to use events to create intimacy with customers (and how we ended up creating Inbound)12:10 When your business should start hosting events for customers26:20 How to coordinate your marketing and sales efforts33:53 Where sales and marketing commonly break down 40:59 The Salty SixThis is an actionable episode

Tithe.ly is a SaaS business that’s going after a huge, but underserved market: churches and religious institutions. And for the past several years, the business has been growing like crazy, with over 700 religious institutions signing up per month. But that’s not even the crazy part! Tithe.ly wants to make sure customers really love them. When a new prospect or customer signs up for the software, they get a personal welcome call from someone on the Tithe.ly team. In this episode, Frank talks with Dave about delivering delightful customer experiences, investing in content, and how to creatively scale a business.In this episode you’ll learn: 0:00 Introduction2:11 Learn about Tithe.ly’s business model4:08 Insights into growth channels 11:00 Creating exceptional touchpoints with customers24:34 Lessons learned about SaaS over the last 4 years 30:28 The Salty SixThis is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave

5 years ago, Jonathan Kim started Appcues to help product and growth teams create more relevant onboarding flows. Today, Appcues serves over 1000 customers and has grown to nearly 70 employees. Jonathan’s idea all started at the end of his career at Hubspot, as he was having a conversation with his boss, the future founder of Drift, David Cancel. In his words: “David Cancel comes over to my desk and he's like, ‘Hey man, like I've been seeing you and you're either at 110% and you're super passionate about something, or you're just not passionate at all. We caught up a little later and you know I started talking about this thing. I was like, oh man, how about we crack this huge problem around user onboarding — and check out this landing page I built and it could be like a real product.”And he said, "The way you light up about that, ‘that's what you're really passionate about.’” He was like, "You should go do that." And I said, “Okay I guess you're right. I just kinda quit on the spot because I was so passionate

Running a business and running a family is no easy task. But Laura Roder manages to do both — and she has some great insights on how to be a full-time parent, an entrepreneur, and continue to have a normal work-life balance. In this episode, the conversation is focused on how to create a business that works on your terms. To work in a way not dominated by due dates and deadlines but one in which meaningful work is done over a period of time. Learn how Laura applies this idea into both her personal life and her business.Show notes:0:00 Introduction 1:32 What is MeetEdgar? 2:55 Building a business on your own terms 8:54 Principles for creating great remote work 20:01 How to be a parent and run a startup 25:19 The story behind launching and growing Meet Edgar 41:10 The Salty SixThis is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune

Eric runs Single Grain, the digital marketing agency running paid traffic, SEO, and content campaigns for many of the biggest names in tech (such as Uber, Salesforce, and Lever!) Eric is also the founder of a SaaS company called Clickflow, which helps businesses grow organic traffic and revenues.In this interview, we have an in-depth discussion on content marketing. We'll learn about SEO strategies, proven formulas, driving traffic, link building, content creation, podcast creation, and paid ads. This episode is full of simple, practical information that you can apply to your startup… today! In this episode you’ll learn:0:00 Introduction3:28 What’s working for SaaS right now5:39 Learn how Eric is driving traffic and getting trials for Clickflow6:20 When is a SaaS company ready to spend money on paid traffic?8:29 SEO? Content? Learn about what you should be doing at every stage of business.9:59 Is there a simple formula forSEO?20:02 Should startups be getting involved in podcasts?30:08 Eric’s growth strategy f

Ian Blair, Co-Founder and CEO of BuildFire, isn’t your average SaaS CEO. Ian is like the Dos Equis man (the most interesting man in the world) of SaaS. Ian’s definition of fun ranges from driving exotic cars to surfing and flying planes the world. Oh, and did I mention he’s only 26 years old?Listen to this episode to get Ian’s unique story about the different channels of growth he focused on while scaling BuildFire into one of the largest app agencies in the country. In this episode, we’ll talk through creating sustainable organic traffic through SEO, how to multiply the effectiveness of your sales team, and Ian’s perspective on fundraising. In this episode you’ll learn:1:08 Ian’s most expensive hobby4:08 The background on BuildFire5:28 How much should you charge for your subscription software?9:17 Fundraising strategies 10114:49 Creating sustainable organic traffic for your business through SEO20:49 Scaling the sales side of your company28:38 The Salty SixThis is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Ge

Ever been overwhelmed while trying to figure out exactly what to test on your site? You’re not alone. Every time you go online to Google “conversion optimization,” you’ll see thousands of sites touting proven strategies that you need to try on your own site. Where do you start? Peep Laja has built CXL by helping provide strategies for companies of all sizes to implement CRO. While conversion optimization might not be as sexy as traffic or funnels — it’s value can’t be diminished.Peep started diving into conversion in 2007 when not a ton of other people were doing it, and he currently sits at the cutting edge of CRO strategies Join us as we learn from Peep’s decade long career pioneering CRO. Show Notes: 1:08 The backstory on how Peep got started in Conversion Optimization 2:53 Common mistakes companies make with CRO 6:03 “99 proven strategies for conversion” — which one works for you? 9:54 The best practices for quality assurance when you’re A/B Testing 17:26 Insights about user testing 37:25 The Salty Six T

Our interview with Chris covers a whole lot: from his relationship with his co-founder (who also happens to be his freshman year college roommate) to the many risks he's taken over the years to grow to nearly 1 million accounts & tens of thousands of paying customers! Along the way, Chris has approached growth in an incredibly interesting way. He's one of the biggest proponents of brand advertising, he takes calculated creative risks other CEOs would avoid, and of recent, he's raised a debt round to buy out his investors. Overall, Chris thinks about business in a really unique way and our conversation provides some great insights about how to build a product with a customer in mind, how to take risks, and ways any business can be slightly more creative! In This Episode You’ll Learn: 1:04 Learn about Wistia’s Business 7:03 Co-Founder Relationship with his roommate from freshman year of college 17:34 What led to Wistia feeling like they had traction in the market 25:10 $111,000 Creative Marketing Risk 34:15

In this week’s episode, I’m subbing in my good friend and co-founder, Chris Hull. While I’ve been focused on leading the Product Team for our Lifecycle Campaigns product, Chris has been helping lead the launch team for our Smart Content product. So often in business, we tend to think about things as controllable or non-controllable. But when you launch a product, it can be overwhelming as you think of all the things that are completely out of your control. At Proof, we have been focusing on what we can control, how we can prepare for launch now, and how we can be flexible when we do finally launch. Our approach during product launch has been to define a controllable outcome and create a process to evaluate that process at regular intervals. Finally, we’ve built a system to get feedback at the end of all this. Come join us in this episode as we try to “win the launch,” before we launch. Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProo

As the growth mind behind Mention, Segment, and Drift, Guillaume Cabane has helped scale some of the most successful B2B brands in the world. In our interview, Guillaume dives into the value of creating new growth strategies rather than just copying what everyone else in the market is doing. We’ll learn about how Guillaume’s network of peers help him evaluate his new ideas and verify different growth strategies before they’re launched to market. Find out why the future of marketing is less about a spray and pray mentality, but more about creating a great experience. Guillaume is a proponent of looking at the customized personal experiences that B2C companies provide and bringing them into the B2B world. You don’t want to miss this one... In This Episode You’ll Learn: 1:24 Learn about Guillaume’s unique philosophy on growth 5:32 What creates customer satisfaction? 10:07 Insider secrets to growth strategies 17:32 Big trends for B2B Marketing over the next 5 to 10 years 22:35 The Salty Six This is an actionable

Founder and sales rep? How does that combo sound? This week I put on my sales hat as we built out a sales process for our 2 new products. I want to share with you the 3 key thoughts I’ve had while building out our sales process: I’m a huge believer that if you want to learn something fast, hire someone that knows it better than you. So I hired a sales coach! Early in our sales process, we are solely focusing on demos and calls. We purposefully avoided building out a pricing structure. In this episode, I’ll explain my rationale for each of these decisions as well an update on our progress getting this two products to market. Come on the journey as I share all of my thoughts from the last week. And as always, reach out to me, dave@useproof.com with what you liked, what you hated, and any questions you have! Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts! We're excited to have you along for Season 1

I’ve had a product development metamorphosis. Our Proof team is in the middle of a 6-week product launch challenge. And this week is all about product feedback! In the episode, I will walk you through the entire process we’ve used to approach product feedback calls. I’m going to share with you everything from how we find interviewees and structure up the calls to the questions we ask and how we handle feedback. Plus, last week I promised to announce the 2 products Proof is launching during this cycle… Drumroll PLEASE! Lifecycle campaigns AI-powered recommended context Tune in to find out more about these products! Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts! We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more episodes at useproof.com/scaleordie and read more stories at blog.use

Mathilde Collin is pioneering the fight for radial transparency among SaaS businesses around the globe. Her shared inbox startup, Front, is reinventing email for the way teams work by introducing collaboration, workflows, accountability, and transparency so that every worker can work more efficiently. In 4 short years, Front has grown to over 4700 paying customers including HubSpot, Shopify, and General Assembly.Find out how transparency has made employees happier at Front (Read Front’s Glassdoor reviews if you don’t believe me), built greater trust within the company, prevented thousands of unnecessary meetings, and created a culture of trust between Front and their customer base.0:00 Introduction1:30 Backstory about Front2:25 Pioneering transparency and building company culture14:48 What have been Front’s big channels for growth22:53Learn about future business plans at Front26:01 The Salty SixThis is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...We're excited to have you along for Se

I’m going to get very vulnerable with you here and share a story of how we missed the mark. We’ve been building a tool to help you create a remarkable website experiences but somewhere along the way we got lost. The product kept swelling, we lost some momentum. And even worse, we lost some morale. A few weeks ago, we sat down and got honest with ourselves. We looked at the plans for our Experiences platform and realized there were about 10 smaller stand-alone products that could provide tremendous value for our customers. We’d been making the product way too complicated — for no reason! Over the next 6 weeks, our company is on a product launch challenge called Operation Kickflip. Before we can build a high-performance race car (our Experiences Platform), we first need to build a skateboard. Then a bike. Then a motorcycle, and finally a car. 2 of these 10 stand-alone products will be in the market in 6 weeks! Every week, in this special minishow version of Founder Friday, I’ll be updating you on the progress o

Doing business with your best friends — does it work? People have strong opinions about never doing business with friends. I disagree. Having a great co-founder relationship has been one of the keys to our success at Proof over the past couple of years. During our time at Y-Combinator, I noticed one of the prime reasons for early startup deaths was a result of co-founders not getting along. Our co-founder relationship isn’t perfect, but I want to share with you what has worked for us in our relationship. And it doesn’t just stop at the office, but it carries over into our personal lives as well! Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts! We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more episodes at useproof.com/scaleordie and read more stories at blog.useproof.com. Follow Dav

Next Monday marks the beginning of Proof Camp — one of my favorite weeks of the year. We host team retreats like this twice per year, and I'm excited to share the full details of how we think about the event. I'll go over why I think retreats are important, how we make Proof Camp epic, how we balance work & play, and the methods we take to make everyone leave better friends. Hope you like this one! Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts! We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more episodes at useproof.com/scaleordie and read more stories at blog.useproof.com. Follow Dave & Proof on Twitter — @DaveRogemoser and @UseProof. We publish episodes every week so be sure to check back often for more interviews with the internet’s best minds in growth!

On the podcast, I've talked a lot about how core values are incredibly important when you're building a business. It's what separates you from competitors, and what attracts people to your mission. Until recently, we had 7 core values and a mission statement I thought were perfect. But as our team grew, I realized we'd made a mistake. We simply had too many values — and our mission statement was, well, boring. I needed to make a change to more align with our current team and the direction our business is heading. In this episode, I'll explain how my cofounders and I approached changing our values and mission statement, why we did it, and what you can take away for your own company. Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts! We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more ep

I've been golfing for years now. And despite hours and hours of practice & time on the course, I had never shot below 80. It's been frustrating. This year, in anticipation of a trip to Scotland to golf the Old Course in Scotland with my old man, I decided to change my mentality. I decided to focus on breaking 80. I applied the same thinking that I apply at work to hit goals product blitz after blitz. By focusing on process rather than outcomes, I hit a 70. In this episode, I'll talk about how to deconstruct a goal & reach outcomes that you couldn't imagine hitting before. Liking Founder Friday? Have an idea for a topic you'd like us to cover? Tweet at Dave — or shoot him an email at Dave@UseProof.com & tell us your thoughts! We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more episodes at useproof.com/scaleordie and read more stories at blog.useproof.com. Follow Dave & Proof on