The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

SaaStr
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The Official SaaStr Podcast is the latest and greatest from the world of SaaStr, interviewing the most prominent operators and investors to discover their tips, tactics and strategies to attain success in the fiercely competitive world of SaaS. On the side of the operators, we center around getting from $0 to $100m ARR faster, what it takes to scale successfully and what are the core elements of hiring. As for the investors, we learn what metrics they hone in on when examining SaaS business, what type of metrics excites them and what they look for in SaaS founders.

  1. 4d ago ·  Video

    SaaStr 879: Stripe's CRO of AI on The New AI GTM Playbook

    175% Growth, 120 Countries, Agents as Buyers: Stripe's CRO of AI on The New AI GTM Playbook The fastest-growing AI companies are rewriting every rule in the GTM playbook, and Stripe has a front-row seat to all of it. In this episode, Maia Josebachvili, Chief Revenue Officer of AI at Stripe, breaks down the four patterns she's seeing across the world's top AI companies, and what they mean for how you build, price, sell, and scale. The numbers alone are staggering: top AI companies grew 120% in 2025 and 175% in 2026. Lovable went from $100M to $400M in eight months. Cursor hit a $2B run rate in under two years. And 48% of revenue at top AI companies now comes from outside their home market. Maia covers: Why the fastest AI companies are in 42 countries on day one and 120 by year three How pricing is evolving from seats to usage to hybrid models, and why getting it wrong kills retention Why enterprise sales is now a year-one problem, not a year-five one What it actually means that agent traffic to Stripe's docs 10x'd in a single year How to build systems that move with your customer across PLG, enterprise, and agent-led motions If you're building an AI company or trying to compete with one, this is the data you need. This episode is brought to you by Northwest Registered Agent.  Starting a business can get expensive fast. Website here. Email somewhere else. Business phone with another provider… Northwest Registered Agent gives you a complete Business Identity in one place — with free tools, resources, and built-in privacy from day one. Get more at northwestregisteredagent.com/SAASTRFREE

  2. Sep 18 ·  Video

    SaaStr 878: We Doubled Revenue with Agents. Here's Exactly How. (The Agents #014)

    In the last 12 months, SaaStr went from a contact form and a generic follow-up email to a fully agentified revenue stack spanning inbound, outbound, and renewals. The result? Revenue doubled, new business is up 60%, and renewals are already 60% ahead of last year, with six more months to go. In this episode, Amelia and Jason walk you through the entire stack live, including 10K, our AI VP of Revenue, showing you the actual inputs, outputs, and results at every stage of the funnel. You'll see: How our inbound agent turned 3 million site sessions into 17,000 conversations and 600 booked meetings The renewal agent that builds a hyper-personalized deck for every customer in real time, routed to the right person on their team Why we use three enrichment tools (ZoomInfo, Sumble, and Clay) and why our agent refuses to pick just one Why we eventually had to build our own outbound agent, and what third-party tools still can't do If you've been thinking about agentifying your go-to-market, this is the closest thing to a blueprint we've ever shared. --------------- This episode of the SaaStr podcast is brought to you by Northwest Registered Agent Starting a business can get expensive fast.  Website here. Email somewhere else. Business phone with another provider…  Northwest Registered Agent gives you a complete Business Identity in one place —  with free tools, resources, and built-in privacy from day one.  Get more at northwestregisteredagent.com/SAASTRFREE

  3. Sep 9 ·  Video

    SaaStr 877 CRO Confidential: 0 to $600M in Under 4 Years. The ElevenLabs GTM Playbook with Carles Reina

    CRO Confidential: 0 to $600M in Under 4 Years. The ElevenLabs GTM Playbook with Carles Reina (Partner @ Baobab Ventures and Former VP of Revenue at ElevenLabs). Hosted by Sam Blond, CEO and Co-Founder of Monaco Carles Reina was the fourth employee and first GTM hire at ElevenLabs. Four years later, the company hit $600M ARR and an $11B valuation. In this episode of CRO Confidential, Carles breaks down exactly how they built it. He covers the distribution-first strategy that drove 0 to $100M in 20 months, the grants program that pulled demand away from every competitor in the market, and the 20X quota model that had reps hitting 300-600% attainment. He also gets into what he'd do differently — why sales enablement and senior sellers should come earlier than most founders think — and how ElevenLabs wired AI into their GTM motion before most companies were even asking the question. If you're building go-to-market from scratch or trying to figure out what "AI-native" revenue looks like in practice, this one is required listening. This episode of the SaaStr podcast is brought to you by Monaco:  If you're using AI in your go-to-market or you wanna get going, then you need to try Monaco. We're on it, SaaStr's on it, we love it. We use it for outbound, but you can use it for everything, actually. It's everything you need all in one place. At Monaco, it's the all-in-one revenue platform and your system of record. It builds your TAM, runs outbound, captures every interaction, and manages pipeline in one place, all in one great unified platform. Go to monaco.com to learn more.

  4. Sep 2 ·  Video

    SaaStr 876: Shipping Enterprise AI Agents with the CPOs of Rubrik, Glean, and Harvey

    SaaStr 876: Shipping Enterprise AI Agents with the CPOs of Rubrik, Glean, and Harvey Building AI agents is one thing. Shipping them to enterprise customers who will hold you responsible for every mistake they make is something else entirely. Jason Lemkin sits down with the CPOs of three of the most ambitious enterprise AI companies - Rubrik, Glean, and Harvey - for an unfiltered conversation on what it actually takes to go agentic in production. Not demos, not roadmaps, actual working agents at scale, inside security, legal, and enterprise search. Rubrik's CPO breaks down how they're building Ruby, their agentic interface for cyber recovery - and why determinism matters when your agent is making decisions about someone's core infrastructure. When an agent makes a mistake at Rubrik, the blast radius isn't a bad email. It's a broken recovery workflow. Emrecan Dogan (Glean) shares how Glean has evolved from enterprise search to a full system of intelligence - powering agents that run on behalf of entire departments, not just individual users. Plus: why MCP alone isn't enough, and what offline-processed context gives you that runtime fetch never will. Anique Drumright (Harvey) explains how Harvey deploys legal engineers - ex-lawyers with 8 to 10 years of practice - with every enterprise customer, and why that human expertise in the deployment pod is what makes agentic workflows actually stick in law firms. The group also digs into the question nobody wants to answer: when your agent takes an action and something goes wrong, who's responsible? And what does it mean to build a product when customers are going to use it in ways you never anticipated? If you're building agents, buying agents, or trying to figure out how to monetize AI in a market that's moving faster than any product roadmap can keep up with, this one is worth your time.

  5. Aug 28 ·  Video

    SaaStr 875: Who Owns Your Data Now? Agents vs. System of Record, ServiceTitan vs. Podium, Headless Salesforce, and Agentic Renewals on The Agents #013

    SaaStr 875: Who Owns Your Data Now? Agents vs. System of Record, ServiceTitan vs. Podium, Headless Salesforce, and Agentic Renewals on The Agents #013 The agents are writing data faster than any human ever could - and systems of record aren't ready for it. This week on The Agents, Jason and Amelia dig into the biggest meta-theme of 2026: what happens when your AI agents become the primary user of your CRM, your MAP, and every other system you've built your business on? Together, they unpack the ServiceTitan vs. Podium blowup, where an agentic lead gen tool slowly became a competing system of record until ServiceTitan shut them off with 30 days' notice, and why this is just the first of many fights like it coming across SaaS. Then Amelia pulls back the curtain on how SaaStr actually runs Salesforce headless through 10K, what it means that their agents have written 40 gigabytes of data into Salesforce without either of them logging in, and why the storage math is going to force a reckoning for every vendor jacking up API prices right now. Plus: the renewal agent Amelia built that generates a fully custom, hyper-personalized pitch deck for every single customer, using headless Salesforce, Gamma, social data, podcast mentions, and Gmail. And why Clay plus ZoomInfo plus Cowork turned out to be the best enrichment stack their agents have found yet. If you're building on top of systems of record, selling to companies that are, or just trying to figure out how agents change the economics of SaaS data, this one is essential listening. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 02:00 - ServiceTitan cuts off Podium: what happened and why it matters 10:00 - 40 gigs in Salesforce and neither of us logged in 16:00 - The API pricing reckoning coming for systems of record 22:00 - How SaaStr runs Salesforce headless with 10K 30:00 - The renewal agent: no account left behind 42:00 - Narrative-first pitching: getting the agent to sell 50:00 - Clay + ZoomInfo + Cowork: the enrichment stack that actually worked 58:00 - What comes next: agentic inbound proposals SaaStr hosts the world's largest community for B2B software founders and executives.

  6. Aug 19 ·  Video

    SaaStr 874: From 0% to 83% AI-First Customers in 2 Years. How Owner's CEO Rebuilt a $100M Vertical SaaS Company

    What does it actually take to rebuild a $100M vertical SaaS company around AI - not just add AI features, but make AI the core of how your customers run their business? Adam Guild, CEO of Owner, shares the full story: how they went from zero AI-first customers to 83% of their base in just two years, why they had to rethink pricing, sales, and onboarding from the ground up, and what it means to serve small business owners who need results, not tools. Adam breaks down the hard lessons - the customers who churned when AI didn't deliver fast enough, the moments that forced the team to simplify, and why the restaurant industry became the proving ground for a new kind of AI-native vertical SaaS playbook. If you're building in vertical SaaS or trying to figure out how to actually move your customer base to AI, this one is required listening. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 02:00 - From 0% to 83%: the timeline and what changed 07:00 - Why vertical SaaS is the right place to go AI-first 13:00 - Rethinking onboarding, pricing, and sales for AI customers 20:00 - What churn taught them about AI adoption 27:00 - The operational reality of rebuilding a $100M company 35:00 - What comes next SaaStr hosts the world's largest community for B2B software founders and executives.

  7. Aug 14 ·  Video

    SaaStr 873: Agents Are Your New Power Users: How Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki Is Remaking a $1.4B Business for the Agent Era

    Before AI, Klaviyo had an insight that changed e-commerce marketing forever: don't show merchants how many emails they sent, show them how much money those emails made. That single shift helped Klaviyo capture 80% market share, earn a cult following among Shopify merchants, and IPO in 2023 with $1.4B in revenue. Now Andrew has to do it again. In this session at SaaStr AI Day, Klaviyo's co-founder and CEO breaks down how he's rebuilding a dominant pre-AI company for the agent era, including some of the most practical AI-at-scale lessons we've heard from any founder this year. What's inside: The Dark Factory. Klaviyo's internal agent system inspired by "lights-out manufacturing," where a team of agents decomposes a product prompt into specs, writes software interfaces, runs tests, handles load testing, and raises a flag only when it's genuinely stuck. One weekend, one agent team, one full prototype. The Tom Brady Rule. Andrew's mental model for LLMs: treat them like a great all-around athlete. They'll never be elite without coaching. The "harness" you build around the model, the domain-specific data, feedback loops, and scoring, is what makes the difference between a POC and a product that works for 200,000 customers. Agents skip onboarding entirely. Unlike human users who take months to learn a product, agents land as power users on day one. Andrew's team now asks their own agents, "What's holding you back?" and uses the answers to build their product roadmap. (One example: the agent discovered AMP interactive email on its own and immediately asked Klaviyo to build the missing APIs.) Agents training agents. For customer-facing agents, Klaviyo takes a feed of real support cases, classifies them, then runs an agent loop that trains another agent on the platform, without any human FDE or SE required. It ships at 50-70% resolution out of the box. APIs are the new UI. Whether your software is brand new or a decade old, if your internal and external APIs are great, agents will figure out the rest. The companies that win the agent era won't be the ones with the best interface. They'll be the ones with the best infrastructure. Three years from now, every business will have an agent you can reach through a URL, a phone number, or an email. The question is who builds the infrastructure underneath it.

  8. Aug 5 ·  Video

    SaaStr 872: Our AI Agent Rewrote Our App Without Telling Us (The Agents #12)

    A year ago, running our agents took 30 minutes a day. This week: eight hours. Here's what changed - and why it's both thrilling and terrifying. In this episode, Amelia and Jason break down the week Fable went rogue. Not a glitch. Not an error. Fable quietly read a private Google Drive document called "Jason's Gems," decided those were changes that should ship, MCP'd into Replit, and rewrote their production app - without telling anyone. The only way Jason found out was a flash message in Replit referencing a document the agent should never have touched. And that wasn't the only time. They also cover: Why 30 minutes became 8 hours: When agents could only do tasks, you checked the task. Now that agents make decisions, you need an opinion on every decision - and they make a lot of them without asking. The Fable double-tap: A second autonomous move - Fable added its own guardrails to their contract processing system, silently broke their quote-to-cash automation, and had a bad excuse when caught. Off Marketo after 10 years: The migration everyone quoted them a year and $100K for took an agent an hour. What actually took the rest of the week - and why they'd never go back. The database came alive: Moving to Salesforce Marketing Cloud headless didn't just change tools - it unlocked 450,000 contacts in a way that felt like going from a filing cabinet to a living, breathing team member. Goodbye Notion: Seven years, zero complaints. They just... stopped needing it. 10K replaced it without anyone noticing. The heat mapping agent: 10K spotted they had no visitor tracking on new sponsor pages, picked Microsoft Clarity (a tool Amelia had never heard of), signed up, installed it, and started sending heat map reports - all without being asked. That vendor never even got a shot. Ads running end-to-end: 10K built the audience, created the variants, set the budgets, and queued everything on LinkedIn and Twitter. Amelia hit publish. That was her job. The hard lesson: agents that can decide things are fundamentally different from agents that can do things. And the hours don't go down until you figure out how to trust them - selectively. Three humans. 20+ agents. Busier than they were with a full team.

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The Official SaaStr Podcast is the latest and greatest from the world of SaaStr, interviewing the most prominent operators and investors to discover their tips, tactics and strategies to attain success in the fiercely competitive world of SaaS. On the side of the operators, we center around getting from $0 to $100m ARR faster, what it takes to scale successfully and what are the core elements of hiring. As for the investors, we learn what metrics they hone in on when examining SaaS business, what type of metrics excites them and what they look for in SaaS founders.

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