SaaStr Annual
A couple of weeks ago I made the trip to San Francisco along with three of my coworkers to volunteer and attend SaaStr Annual. SaaStr is a gathering of the world’s SaaS founders and employees, with 10,000 attendees from 47 countries. It was a huge production. I was so impressed with the level of organization and thought that went into the whole thing.
Volunteering at the event proved to be an awesome way to attend the conference. In return for volunteering, we each received a ticket to the conference, valued at roughly $1,4o0 per person. It also provided us with the opportunity to network with sponsors and event organizers before and after the event.
In terms of the conference itself the speakers were world class. Many of the speakers were founders of my role model companies like Intercom, Slack, Trello, and Twilio. To hear from panels of successful founders sharing stories about their journey from 0–50 million dollars in annual recurring revenue was fascinating.
By the end of the conference, my brain felt like it was going to explode with information. I couldn’t wait to get back to Canada to share the learnings with the rest of my team. My two areas of interest are marketing and customer success, and the conference offered a ton of valuable talks about strategies and best practices in these areas.
Dustin Moskovitz, CEO of Asana, in a talk called Fast Growth, Mindful Business, said that the good you give in the world, just like money, has a compounding effect. Therefore you should give when you have the opportunity because the earlier you do it, the greater the impact it can have. I had never looked at giving through this lens, but I’m glad I do now. Dustin follows his own advice as he has personally donated hundreds of millions of dollars through his foundation, Good Ventures.
Eoghan McCabe, CEO of Intercom stressed that in a culture of innovation and play you need room to fail, and that faillure should be celebrated because just like success, it is discovery. One of his last points was that any time you get to talk to a customer, its an opportunity. Intercom’s employees have obviously adopted this belief as well, because they invited us into their San Francisco office for an office hours session which proved to be extremely valuable for us.
A favorite quote of mine came from Peter Gassner, CEO and founder of Veeva Systems when he spoke about the early days of the company, when people doubted his team and his idea. He said that you “should never follow the herd. When you’re early everyone thinks your wrong, and that’s when you know you’re on to something”.
Former CEO of Trello, JD Peterson, said something that also resonated with me. He said that for the most part, everyone has the same playbook, and its all about how you execute that makes the difference. During the same panel, Menaka Shroff, head of Marketing at Betterworks said that contrary to what many people believe, “Demand and lead generation isn’t a vending machine, where you put money in and something comes out”.
The conference also offered breakfast, coffee breaks, lunches, happy hours, and after parties that were excellent networking opportunities. Its also an awesome team building event if you choose to go with coworkers, and a great excuse to visit the Bay Area to get a feel for the tech scene. SaaStr is a conference that anyone can find value in. Whether you’re looking for a job, looking to hire, looking to network, or looking to learn, SaaStr Annual should be on your agenda for 2018.
