All About SaaStr

Built by SaaS enthusiasts for SaaS enthusiasts.

What is SaaStr and how did it begin?

SaaStr is the world’s largest community of SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs.

Our goal is to help everyone get from $0 to $100m ARR with less stress and more success.  We do that with a combination of industry-leading content and community connections.

The SaaStr Annual is the largest non-vendor event in the industry, with 12,000+ attendees from all across the world coming together each February in the SF Bay Area.  And SaaStr Europa brings 2,500+ SaaS execs, founders and VCs together to Paris every June.

SaaStr began in 2012 as a simple WordPress blog and a few answers on Quora sharing Jason Lemkin’s learnings of going from $0 to $100m ARR at EchoSign.  This led to our first meet-ups in 2013 and 2014, the first SaaStr Annual in 2015, the industry’s leading podcast in 2016, the first SaaS founder coworking space in 2017, and SaaStr Pro, the first learning management system for SaaS founders, 2018.  We also have an affiliated $90m venture fund.

SaaStr has been named one of the Top 100 Blogs for Entrepreneurs by Forbes and one of the 50 Best Websites for Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine, and a Top Writer on Quora six times.  Jason has been named by Business Insider to the 32 Most Powerful People in Business Technology.

"SaaStr is the largest community of people who like enterprise software on the planet. It’s a great community of people trying to build companies and learn from one another. It’s pretty amazing to see."

Aaron LevieCEO and Co-Founder of Box

"If you really want to be good at building up your company, read SaaStr."

Eric YuanCEO & Co-Founder of Zoom

"SaaStr is the undisputed thought leader in how to build SaaS businesses. Jason is legendary."

Lew CirneCEO of NewRelic

"SaaStr is the undisputed thought leader in how to build SaaS businesses. Jason is legendary."

Lew CirneCEO of NewRelic

"SaaStr has pulled the entire SaaS community together in a powerful way."

Scott DorseyCEO of ExactTarget

"SaaStr is definitely the largest collection of people who like enterprise software — on the planet."

Aaron LevieCEO and Co-Founder of Box

"SaaStr’s all about helping the younger founders be successful."

Phil FernandezCEO & Co-Founder of Marketo

"SaaStr is my peeps."

Dharmesh ShahCTO of Hubspot

The Team

The people that make it happen.

Jason M. Lemkin

Jason M. Lemkin

Champion for SaaS Founders

Jason M. Lemkin is a 3x founder, 1x VC, and constant SaaS enthusiast. He was named by BusinessInsider to “The 32 Most Powerful People in Business Technology.”

He has made the first or very early investments in many leading SaaS start-ups through the $90m SaaStr Fund, including Algolia, Talkdesk, Teamable, Mixmax, Gorgias, RainforestQA, Salesloft, PlatoHQ, Logikcull, AutomilePipedrive, and more.

Before SaaStr and investing, he was CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, then the web’s most popular electronic signature service, from inception through its acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc.  He then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where he oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document Services to $50,000,000 in ARR in 2012 and $100,000,000+ ARR in 2013.

Prior to EchoSign and Adobe, he co-founded one of the only successes in nanotechnology, NanoGram Devices, which was acquired for $50m just 13 months after founding. The technology, built into implantable power cells, has gone on to help extend the lives of thousands.

He has no known hobbies.

Faith Storey

Faith Storey

Senior Growth Marketing Manager

Faith’s the go-to for all things growth marketing-related at SaaStr. She oversees SaaStr social media (tweet at us – @saastr!), ads and video content. Faith has a varied marketing background in both SaaS and agencies making her a “full stack” growth marketer. On the weekends you can catch her with her two dogs (one is named Arya Stark for any Game of Thrones fans out there). 
 
Tyler Hogge

Tyler Hogge

Manager, SaaStr Pro

Tyler is the manager and magician behind SaaStrPro.com, our paid learning system that teaches your team how to put SaaStr learnings into practice.  He serves as a senior product leader at Wealthfront, and previously at Andreesen Horowitz.

Birgit Haag

Birgit Haag

Controller

Birgit heads up the company’s finances and collaborates to ensure daily operations run smoothly. She is a seasoned finance and operations professional with over 15 years of experience in the SaaS industry. Prior to SaaStr Birgit worked at several start-ups helping them get organized and scale. Birgit is originally from Austria and loves spending her free time doing any type of sport, traveling, checking out new restaurants, or taking a Harley for a ride.

Deborah Findling

Deborah Findling

Head of Content

Deborah brings a decade of innovation in media and content to SaaStr.  Prior to joining SaaStr Deborah was a producer on “Squawk on the Street” and “Squawk Alley” as well as a frequent contributor to CNBC.com. She co-created Squawk Alley and collaborated with hundreds of leading speakers and create thousands of hours of award-winning content. While Deborah is a born and raised Parisian, she and her husband have settled down in the San Francisco Bay Area. She loves to travel and drink large amounts of coffee while poring over her morning newspaper.

Jessi Sanfilippo

Jessi Sanfilippo

Senior Event Marketing Manager

Jess leads SaaStr’s event marketing initiatives and works closely with the event logistics, marketing, and sales teams to ensure the experiential offerings for everyone who commits to being a part of SaaStr events, far exceed industry standards for the SaaS community. By a lot.
 
With 15+ years leading Sales and Marketing teams in the entertainment and web technologies industries, she brings a unique hybrid of product knowledge and personality to her role. In her past radio life, she planned and produced one of the largest, multi-day music festivals in Phoenix, converting a historically walk-up-town to a pre-sale-sellout town. It’s how she knows that everything can be rock-and-roll! As a hobby, Jess speaks at events designed for digital community building, offering mentorship to those in the digital marketing, influence, and advertising spaces across B2B and B2C. Whether she’s on the clock or ‘not’, Jess is always striving to leverage and elevate community. If the idea that the birthplace of “The Village” is online is true, then Jess certainly subscribes to that RSS feed.
 
Amelia Ibarra

Amelia Ibarra

VP of Marketing

Amelia runs SaaStr’s community and events initiatives.  She is a data-driven marketer with 9+ years of experience helping leading B2B and B2C businesses execute innovative marketing campaigns. Prior to joining SaaStr, Amelia led demand gen at BrightFunnel and was the social media manager for EverString. One of her favorite marketing campaigns ever was creating a proprietary social media tool for Arbonne International, which is still being used to this day. Amelia is originally from Los Angeles andwhen she’s not running marketing campaigns, enjoys spending time with her husband and their rescue pup, Nova, a formosan mountain dog.

Mallun Yen

Mallun Yen

COO Emeritus

Mallun is a repeat founder who has launched and scaled businesses, transformed markets by disrupting industry conventions, and created vibrant worldwide communities.

While Cisco’s VP of global intellectual property, Mallun and fellow innovators launched RPX to counter the spread of so-called patent trolls using a novel data-driven, market-based approach. As RPX’s chief business and product officer, she guided the venture-backed startup to IPO in 2011 (less than 3 years from inception) and over $300 million in annual revenue. 

Mallun is also a board director of KQED, Northern California’s public media organization, and ChIPsNetwork.org, a global community for women in tech, law and policy she co-founded in 2005 with its own 1,000 person annual summit and free institute to inspire teen girls to become advocates, leaders and innovators.

Kyle Baldinger

Kyle Baldinger

Creative Brand Manager

Kyle leads and develops the SaaStr brand, its creative elements, assets, and visual strategy across all events with a creative eye and passion for solution based designs. Prior to joining SaaStr Kyle was a Digital Strategist and Marketing Consultant with a demonstrated history in the marketing and advertising industry. Kyle’s interests include photography and looking at his reflection.
Harry Stebbings

Harry Stebbings

SVP, Worldwide Podcasting

Harry is the voice behind both the 200+ episodes of the SaaStr podcast (#1 in the industry), as well as the wildly popular 20 Minute VC.  He’s a key part of the SaaStr team as well as a general partner in his own VC fund, Stride.VC.  He’s also host to Drinks with Harry each year at the SaaStr Annual.

Jason M. Lemkin

Jason M. Lemkin

Founder & CEO

Jason M. Lemkin is a 3x founder, 1x VC, and constant SaaS enthusiast. He was named by BusinessInsider to “The 32 Most Powerful People in Business Technology.”

He led or sourced the first VC investments in many leading enterprise/SaaS start-ups,Algolia, Talkdesk, Teamable, Parklet.co, Mixmax, RainforestQA, Salesloft, PlatoHQ, Logikcull, Automile, Guidespark, Greenhouse.io, Pipedrive, and more. Collectively, these start-ups are worth almost two billion dollars. He is also an advisor or smaller investor in Showpad, FrontApp, Greenhouse and other SaaS leaders.

Jason has co-founded two successful start-ups selling to the enterprise. Before SaaStr and VC investing, he was CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, the web’s most popular electronic signature service, from inception through its acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc.

He then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where he oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document Services to $50,000,000 in ARR in 2012 and $100,000,000+ ARR in 2013.

Prior to EchoSign and Adobe, he co-founded one of the only successes in nanotechnology, NanoGram Devices, which was acquired for $50m just 13 months after founding. The technology, built into implantable power cells, has gone on to help extend the lives of thousands.

He has no known hobbies.  Head shots here.

Mallun Yen

Mallun Yen

COO & Co-Founder

Mallun is a repeat founder who has launched and scaled businesses, transformed markets by disrupting industry conventions, and created vibrant worldwide communities.

While Cisco’s VP of global intellectual property, Mallun and fellow innovators launched RPX to counter the spread of so-called patent trolls using a novel data-driven, market-based approach. As RPX’s chief business and product officer, she guided the venture-backed startup to IPO in 2011 (less than 3 years from inception) and over $300 million in annual revenue. She served on the board of directors until its acquisition.

Mallun is also a board director of KQED, Northern California’s public media organization, and ChIPsNetwork.org, a global community for women in tech, law and policy she co-founded in 2005 with its own 1,000 person annual summit and free institute to inspire teen girls to become advocates, leaders and innovators.

She also serves as operating partner for SaaStr Fund, advises multiple fast-growing startups, including Logikcull and Textio, and has taught at Stanford. Many thousands have read and shared her articles, and her SaaStr sessions are among the most popular.

Amelia Ibarra

Amelia Ibarra

VP of Marketing

Amelia is a data-driven marketer with 8 years of experience helping leading B2B and B2C businesses execute innovative marketing campaigns. Prior to joining SaaStr, Amelia led demand gen at BrightFunnel and was the social media manager for EverString. One of her favorite marketing campaigns ever was creating a proprietary social media tool for Arbonne International, which is still being used to this day. Amelia is originally from Los Angeles andwhen she’s not running marketing campaigns, enjoys spending time with her husband and their rescue pup, Nova, a formosan mountain dog.

Deborah Findling

Deborah Findling

Head of Content

Deborah brings a decade of innovation in media and content to SaaStr.  As part of the CNBC production team, she co-created Squak Alley and collaborated with hundreds of leading speakers and create thousands of hours of award-winning content.

Spencer Christeck

Spencer Christeck

Account Executive - Global Sales

Helping SaaStr scale faster, with less stress and more success.

Birgit Haag

Birgit Haag

Controller

Birgit heads up the company’s finances and collaborates to ensure daily operations run smoothly. She is a seasoned finance and operations professional with over 15 years of experience in the SaaS industry. Prior to SaaStr Birgit worked at several start-ups helping them get organized and scale. Birgit is originally from Austria and loves spending her free time doing any type of sport, traveling, checking out new restaurants, or taking a Harley for a ride.

Tyler Hogge

Tyler Hogge

Manager, SaaStr Pro

Tyler is the manager and magician behind SaaStrPro.com, our paid learning system that teaches your team how to put SaaStr learnings into practice.  He serves as a senior product leader at Wealthfront, and previously at Andreesen Horowitz.

Harry Stebbings

Harry Stebbings

SVP, Worldwide Podcasting

Harry is the voice behind both the 200+ episodes of the SaaStr podcast (#1 in the industry), as well as the wildly popular 20 Minute VC.  He’s a key part of the SaaStr team as well as a general partner in his own VC fund, Stride.VC.  He’s also host to Drinks with Harry each year at the SaaStr Annual.


Dharmesh Shah

“SaaStr is my peeps.”

Dharmesh Shah, CTO & Co-Founder, Hubspot

Dharmesh Shah

“SaaStr is my peeps.”

Dharmesh Shah, CTO & Co-Founder, Hubspot


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