SaaShimi Aznaur Midov

Craig Powell discusses the stages SaaS companies go through on their way to $150M in revenue.

BIO

Craig Powell serves as the CEO of Autura, the leading SaaS solution focused on vehicle management, traffic flow, and law enforcement productivity. He is the former CEO of Motus, a PE-backed SaaS company focused on mobile workforce solutions. At Motus, Craig drove revenue from $7 million to $150 million and executed several acquisitions, including the nine-month integration of $62 million of revenue into the Motus platform.

Additionally, Craig was the Founder and CEO of ConnectEDU, market leader in providing technology solutions for students seeking educational and career-oriented opportunities.

TIMESTAMPS

01:20 Craig Powell

03:30 Growing Motus from $7M to $150M

06:30 Why do founders get stuck?

10:00 Founders thinking

16:40 Phases of Growth: 10-25MM Revenue

21:40 $25MM+ 20:50 Selling software is not a mystery

27:30 Autura

31:40 Metrics

34:20 Team structure

37:20 KPIs

38:10 Joining as CEO

Matt discusses M&A the environment, SaaS valuation and its drivers, and what buyers and sellers of software companies need to know.

BIO

Matt Lynch is a Managing Director of District Capital Partners and Sundance Partners. Prior to founding DCP, Matt led Corporate Development at Blackboard, where he managed the successful completion and integration of 9 acquisitions, as well as Blackboard's sale process and $1.7 billion take-private transaction in 2011.

Matt began his career at Salomon Smith Barney (now Citi), advising on M&A transactions in the technology sector, with a specific focus on software. Over the course of his 11 years at Citi, Matt advised on over $300 billion of M&A transactions.

TIMESTAMPS

01:30 Matt Lynch

05:50 Market Environment

08:20 Valuations in 2021

11:40 Main Drivers of Valuation

14:10 Rule Of X

16:50 Customer Success and Gross Margin

20:20 Shift to Platforms

22:20 Consolidating verticals

26:20 Preferred verticals

29:35 Working with Sellers

31:20 Size of Companies that hire Investment banks

34:10 Most common issues with Bootstrapped companies

36:00 Strategic vs Sponsor

Dave discusses Squire’s product, the history of the company, how Squire successfully navigated through the early days of COVID, and the role institutional and celebrity angel investors play in the Company.

BIO

Dave Salvant is a Co-Founder and President of Squire Technologies, a provider of an all-in-one barbershop management platform. Prior to Suire, Dave was a sales associate at AXA and private banking at JP Morgan. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University at Albany (SUNY) and MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

TIMESTAMPS

00:50 Dave and Squire

03:40 Go-To-Market

07:32 Marketing in Squire

08:16 Company size / Global Remote-first company

08:57 Quick product release help barbers navigate COVID (incredible response to COVID)

11:00 Creating new products

12:15 First Investors

14:45 Celebrity Investors

16:11 Involvement of investors

16:44 Vision for Squire Technologies

Barb discussed Sapia’s unique product, the role of artificial intelligence in unbiased hiring, the Sapia data set based on a billion words and 2 million candidate profiles, the initial dataset that Sapia utilized, its first client, go-to-market strategy, and many other things.

TIMESTAMPS

01:00 Barb and Sapia

04:20 Five questions to select a candidate

07:50 Artificial Intelligence vs. Machine Learning

10:25 Getting the initial data set

13:25 When your first client is Enterprise…

17:30 Pricing model

24:00 Sapia’s Go-To-Market strategy

29:30 Hiring on values

33:30 KPIs

35:00 Raising capital

37:50 On biases

Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.

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Sean discussed the financial diligence process of SaaS companies, common mistakes in ARR, Gross Profit, and EBITDA calculations, the effects capitalized software and capitalized commissions have on cash EBITDA, and many other things.

Francois shared his experience of bringing the Norway-based Cognite to the US market, discussed the most significant challenges he has faced along the way,  and compared corporate cultures in the US and Europe. 

BIO
Dr. Francois Laborie is the President of Cognite North America, overseeing Cognite’s expansion and operations in the US, Canada, and Latin America. He has had an extensive career in the technology industry, serving in both research and executive roles. Francois has been at the heart of the transformation of the media industry through technology. He spent 11 years as COO and CCO of Vizrt, where he focused on disrupting journalism by empowering media content creators with visual storytelling tools. Before that, Francois managed research projects on collective decision-making and human-computer interfaces at the Airbus Group Corporate Research Center. 
TIMESTAMPS
01:00 Francois and Cognite
06:15 Competition with internally built systems
08:40 Go-To-Market Strategy
11:40 Reception of Cognite by US and EU clients
15:35 Selecting sales personnel
19:30 Comparing corporate cultures in the US and Europe
20:20 Involvements of investors
23:30 Long-term vision for Cognite

Season B is Sponsored by CELIGO, IPaaS for Mid-Market companies.
SIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.