May 2018

Forum

By Atlanta Ventures

May 24^th, 2018

Learn. Connect. Be inspired.

The Simply SaaS Forum is the best way for SaaS professionals in the Southeast to connect and be inspired. Our most recent Forum delivered significant value and insight. This is the second Forum featuring four industry leaders PLUS a Q&A with Scott Voigt, Co-Founder and CEO of FullStory. This fast-paced event was jam-packed with the latest and most relevant SaaS stories, and did not disappoint.

Actionable takeaways and inspirational stories

We heard from five new speakers from different aspects of the SaaS industry. The speakers spoke about sales, marketing, product/engineering, customer success, and the journey of entrepreneurship.

We want to create a event that will connect, inspire, educate, and empower entrepreneurs. We want them to will feel like one day they can come speak at this event and share their own stories.

Five hours, innumerable takeaways

Pete Mansel (Sales)

Pete is the Vice President of Sales at Rigor, a leading provider of Digital Experience Lifecycle Management solutions. As a growth mindset leader with 23+ years of experience driving new revenue for enterprise software companies, he loves building and developing high performing teams.

To have a growth mindset you need to have passion and desire, look squarely at your own mistakes, improve, and grow by soliciting feedback.

Today, Pete’s responsibilities include accelerating Rigor’s growth and sales velocity across all addressable markets globally. Pete is still getting used to the t-shirt and blue jean lifestyle -- which is much different from his, ties, button downs and Dockers days at HP Enterprise, LANDESK, and Computer Associates.

Be focused. Have trust. Communicate.

Kevin O'Malley (Marketing)

Kevin has over 20 years of Marketing experience. Just over 10 years ago, he departed a comforting career in a Fortune 50 company: UPS, and dove headfirst into the now thriving SaaS scene -- not exactly what his then pregnant wife with twins had in mind for him. Today, Kevin is the Vice President of Marketing for one of the fastest (if not fastest) SaaS companies in Atlanta, SalesLoft. Kevin enjoys learning new methods of Marketing that improves the speed and accuracy for creating predictable and scalable growth.

What are you doing to enlighten the hearts and engage the minds of your customers?

Assume goodwill. Our team is operating with good intentions towards shared objectives.

Matthew Swanson (Product/Engineering)

Matthew is the Co-Founder & Chief Software Architect at CINC. He created the software architecture behind Commission INC’s platforms. Today, CINC has over 180 employees and provide softwares for real estate agents who have had over 200,000 closing in the last 12 months.

He also served as a Sr. Software Engineer with CareerBuilder and before then was a consultant with Accenture. There he led development efforts with clients such as Bank of America, AT&T, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Building a solution to solve a problem brings greater returns than building something for a short-term delight.

There are two types of developers: those that love to do technology and those that get things done.

Katie Christian (Customer Success)

Katie Christian, Vice President of Customer Success at SalesLoft, is known for her passion and eye for exceptional customer experiences, driving growth and scaling culture. Katie’s hired over 40+ employees in the areas of support, training and customer success. She’s led her teams through two successful product launches; one a seamless sunset and the other rapidly scaling from $2M to $20M in two years with no signs of stopping.

3 Things For Product Market Fit Hiring

No job is to big or too small

Communication x3

Jacks and Janes of all trade

She’s morphed her time as a executive leading US sales in a 5 Star multinational organization, to driving success within the ever evolving SaaS community.

Revolve your world around the customer and more customers will revolve around you.

– Heather Williams

Scott Voigt (Q&A)

Scott Voigt, Co-Founder & CEO of FullStory, believes everyone deserves a more perfect customer experience. With this in mind, he co-founded FullStory, a radically new type of web analytics company that, after about 10 minutes of implementation, captures every user event (really, all of them), unlocking session playback, real-time search, and a natural way to explore user data.

Don't confuse raising money with success… no one gets excited when they refinance their house.

Today, FullStory has over 80 employees, is growing quickly, and has raised $27.2 Million from some investors we’ve all likely heard including: Google, Salesforce, and Kleiner Perkins.