OpenView

Many SaaS startups are launched out of services companies. Yaw was running an agency building apps, and kept seeing a consistent pain point in his ecommerce clients’ workflows. So he built a SaaS product to address the need, and boom💥, his startup Malomo was born. This is a common founding story, but it’s often underappreciated as an entrepreneurial path. Hear Yaw’s story, and what other services founders can learn from his journey. Key Takeaways:[3:56] Best practices for building products that Yaw has learned as an agency founder and a SaaS founder[11:36] Yaw's path from building products for others to building something of his own[17:25] Validating a solution before building[20:36] A walled garden between Malomo's product and services teams[25:18] The role of services in a SaaS company Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/yawaning/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Yaw Aning, Cofounder and CEO of Malomo</a><a href="https://gomalomo.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Malomo</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.&nbsp;Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Yaw is the cofounder & CEO of Malomo, a shipment tracking app for ecommerce retailers. Malomo helps retailers track millions of shipments around the world. Yaw has been featured as a commerce and customer experience expert in publications like TechCrunch, Business Insider, Forbes, Yahoo, Pitchbook, and others. 

Yaw is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pocket Tales. Previously, Yaw was an Orr Fellow and an analyst for investment bank City Securities. He also served with the TechPoint Foundation, whose aim is to increase literacy rates by infusing technology in youth education.

Yaw Aning

Cofounder and CEO of Malomo

Many SaaS startups are launched out of services companies. Yaw was running an agency building apps, and kept seeing a consistent pain point in his ecommerce clients’ workflows. So he built a SaaS product to address the need, and boom💥, his startup Malomo was born. This is a common founding story, but it’s often underappreciated as an entrepreneurial path. Hear Yaw’s story, and what other services founders can learn from his journey.


Yaw Aning (Malomo): Services Founder vs. SaaS Founder

Many SaaS startups are launched out of services companies. Yaw was running an agency building apps, and kept seeing a consistent pain point in his ecommerce clients’ workflows. So he built a SaaS product to address the need, and boom, his startup Malomo was born. This is a common founding story, but it’s often underappreciated as an entrepreneurial path. Hear Yaw’s story, and what other services founders can learn from his journey.


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It takes 3 ingredients to build a software startup in today’s wild market: people, product and growth. Easier said than done. BUILD is here to help by featuring conversations between venture capitalist Blake Bartlett and the smartest folks in software. OpenView is a VC firm that invests in amazing companies like Datadog, Expensify and Calendly. Visit ov.vc for more details.

Alex MacCaw is the founder of Clearbit and Reflect, and his journey with each company has been wildly different. Clearbit took more of a “classic” startup approach and now he’s building his new company Reflect in with a totally different way—building a fully remote &amp; asynchronous “lifestyle” company that decidedly eschews VC money and the other common hallmarks of a tech startup.&nbsp;Alex shares everything he’s learned as a founder and why he believes building startups should not be one-size-fits-all.