Founder Coffee - Intimate SaaS Chats

For this thirteenth episode, I talked to Guilherme Lopes, Co-Founder of RD Station, South America's leading marketing automation software. Guilherme and his 4 co-founders have been building apps since 2005, operating from a city in the south of Brazil. In 2011 they saw a gap in the South American market and started building RD Station. A product manager by background, Guilherme quickly assumed the customer success role within the company and is now leading a team of over 200 people. We have an interesting talk about personas, how to do good customer success and how to build great teams and structure. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/guilherme-lopes-rd-station

For this twelfth episode, I talked to Emeric Ernoult, Founder & CEO of Agorapulse, one of the leading social media management platforms. As a young French lawyer, Emeric moved to Washington DC to practice law. After he decided this was not for him, he started a French pre-Facebook social network and a B2B community software company, while juggling other jobs on the side. We talk about his backstory, why he hasn't raised any VC funding, and how he builds his product, brand, content and company... all from Paris. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/emeric-ernoult-of-agorapulse-197aa9287f1b

For this eleventh episode, I talked to David Henzel, Co-Founder of MaxCDN and now TaskDrive. In his previous life he was delivering content faster to web visitors, now he's helping companies to find the right leads. David is German and used to live in the US, but is now living on a warm Turkish beach. He's very much into mission driven businesses and managing happiness, and maintains a blog and podcast about the topic. We chat about how he manages his own happiness, how he builds companies with a mission and vision behind them, and why the right mindset is the most important thing you can have. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/david-henzel-of-maxcdn-e2d4011e3f70

For this tenth episode, I talked to David Darmanin, Co-Founder of Hotjar. His company helps tens of thousands of app and site owners to see how visitors are really using their software and collect more and better user feedback. David runs Hotjar’s remote team from Malta, a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. He previously used to build websites, was a VP of Design, and is now spending most of his time working on people and culture at his famous scale-up company. We chat about why he got started, how they defined their values, why he’s not taking VC funding and how he practically manages his international remote team. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/david-darmanin-hotjar-5b489a00dc28

For this ninth episode, I had a chat with Patrick Campbell, Co-Founder of ProfitWell, the company that helps you with analyzing and boosting your subscription revenues. Before founding ProfitWell, Patrick had quite the well-rounded career. He was a coffee master at Starbucks, a strategist at Google and an intelligence analyst for the US Defense Department. We chat about his animal cracker hustle, US politics, optionality and about solving the world's problems. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/patrick-campbell-of-profitwell-3de69de544b6

For this eighth episode, I had a chat with Hannah Chaplin, Co-Founder of Receptive, the software that streamlines your product management. Hannah started working as a receptionist at a software company, then founded a development agency, and has had several SaaS and eCommerce companies ever since. We chat about brilliant SaaS companies, the importance of user feedback and learning, the virtues of GDPR, and about how we ended up where we are now. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/hannah-chaplin-of-receptive-4b67942aca10

For this seventh episode, I had a chat with Russ Heddleston, Co-Founder of DocSend, the leading document tracking company. After growing up in South Dakota, and prior to starting DocSend, Russ had quite the track record. He worked at Microsoft, Dropbox, and Conversant. And he sold a company to Facebook. I first heard about Russ and DocSend when he was featured on TechCrunch. During our chat, we talk about what TechCrunch meant for him, building a great product, how to hire a VP of sales, and how he refused to join the Bachelorette when starting off with DocSend. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/russ-heddleston-of-docsend-b7a4c0cb2b8b

For this sixth episode, I had a chat with Des Traynor, co-founder of Intercom, the unicorn messaging company. Over the years Des has been building marketing and product at Intercom. He is an important driving force behind many of their innovations and an inspiration to many fellow startup founders. Des and I talk about how to build great products (much more on that in our Iconic Products series), his plans with Intercom, personal passions, and what he'd change if he did it all over again. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/des-traynor-of-intercom-3cb4fa74c98b

For this fifth episode, I talked to Louis Jonckheere of Showpad. He leads a 260+ person scale-up that equips sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 companies with the tools to organize and track the delivery of sales content to their prospects. Louis is a born entrepreneur, hustling since he was young. And he's also one of these guys who can recognize and double down on a good opportunity when he sees one. We talk about his passions, how to build a great team and culture, and the power of optionality. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/louis-jonckheere-of-showpad-54837a6ac1f3

For this fourth episode, I talked to Sujan Patel of Mailshake, Pick, ContentMarketer, Narrow, Linktexting, Quuu, Ramp Ventures, Web Profits, … does this list even end? Sujan is a serial, but even more so a parallel entrepreneur, who likes to keep pushing his own limits to the extreme. He knows all about building startups and is a great guy to have a coffee with. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/sujan-patel-of-mailshake-d0facff292e3

For this third episode, I talked with Aaron Ross. Aaron became world famous as the guy who set up the sales organization of Salesforce. He wrote a book the subject and since runs a consulting company that helps companies with their sales; both called "Predictable Revenue". Aaron has 9 kids, 3 dogs, and more than 40 employees. We talk about how he manages his busy life, about having an ID forging business, and - obviously - about how to organize sales more effectively. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/aaron-ross-of-predictable-revenue-88efc730a672

For this second episode, I talked with Hubert Palan of Productboard. I met Hubert about a year and a half ago at TechCrunch Disrupt at San Francisco, and I’ve been considering using Productboard to professionalize product management at Salesflare ever since. Hubert is a product guy and a thinker at heart. His vision: more excellent products through better product management. We mainly talk about what motivates him, how he manages Productboard, and where he looks for inspiration. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/hubert-palan-productboard-1a8e72f3b339

For this first pilot episode, I was lucky to talk with Adam Hempy of Better Proposals. Since last year when Salesflare and Better Proposals were on AppSumo at the same time, we talk with each other on a regular basis and you could say we have become founder friends. Adam is one of the most honest, authentic, and driven startup founders I know. He will never shy away from saying what’s on his mind, which makes him the perfect first guest for this series of personal founder talks. Read the transcript here: https://blog.salesflare.com/adam-hempy-of-better-proposals-a3c7f2c76283