OpenView

AJ never meant to start a company. He was building websites as a freelancer, but was frustrated with the popular website platforms. They were far too complex, so AJ built Carrd as the easiest way to make one-page websites. It launched on Product Hunt and took off faster than AJ had ever expected. Now with 800k users, it’s much more than a side project. And AJ has become much more than a freelancer. He’s a founder, even if it happened by accident. Tune in to hear AJ’s advice on what to do when your side project takes off with users and takes on a life of its own.

Accidental founder of Carrd. Learn more at carrd.co

Founder of Carrd

AJ (Carrd): The Accidental Founder

Blog

Join Blake this season on BUILD for a behind the scenes look at the brilliant minds scaling Slack, Notion, Atlassian and more to discover what it takes to build awesome product and achieve hyper growth across every stage of maturity - from seed to IPO and beyond.
If you’re ready, let’s build this together.

OV | BUILD

On this season of BUILD, we’re asking our SaaS all-star guests 5 questions – and giving them only 5 minutes to answer. In this Minicast episode we hear from Intercom Chief Revenue Officer, Leandra Fishman. When we chatted with Leandra, she was VP of Commercial Sales at Twilio. Listen to what she has to say.

Leandra is a highly motivated and accomplished executive with over 25+ years experience in both direct and indirect selling models for Hardware, Software and Services companies. Her strong understanding of Enterprise and Consumer markets has allowed her to deliver outstanding results in both domestic and international markets.

As a SVP Go-To-Market leader, her responsibilities span sales, customer success, professional services and revenue operations teams. Leandra has a proven track record leading field and inside sales organizations through rapid growth, turnaround performance and acquisition integration.

As an executive consultant, her projects have ranged from developing sales and marketing strategies for several start up companies to creating business plans and being in an advisory role for venture capitalist firms and board members.

Leandra is passionate about coaching, mentoring and leading global revenue organizations with revenue execution of over $500Mil annual revenue and 200+ quota carrying account executives. 


Leandra Fishman

Chief Revenue Officer at Intercom

BUILD Minicast: Leandra Fishman (Twilio & Intercom)

Sales models are not one size fits all. There are key differences between traditional enterprise sales, high-volume inside sales, and product-led sales. In her 30 years of experience, Leandra Fishman has led teams in all of these environments. In this episode of BUILD, we unpack these different models and how to apply best practices of the past to a modern product-led sales model.

Leandra Fishman (Twilio & Intercom): Enterprise vs. Product-Led Sales

On this season of BUILD, we’re asking our SaaS all-star guests 5 questions – and giving them only 5 minutes to answer. In this Minicast episode we hear from Kyle Poyar (VP, Growth) and Sean Fanning (Senior Director, Investment & Portfolio Analytics) from OpenView. Listen and hear what they have to say.

Kyle helps OpenView’s portfolio companies accelerate top-line growth through deep insights into their market landscape and customers. He leads segmentation, positioning, channel/partner strategy, new market entry and packaging/pricing initiatives, partnering closely with portfolio leadership teams. He also covers OpenView’s SaaS metrics and benchmarking research.

Before joining OpenView, Kyle was a Director at Simon-Kucher & Partners, the global marketing and strategy consulting firm known as the world leader in pricing. Over the course of six years he led consulting teams on strategy engagements with market leaders in enterprise software, business information/data services, digital media, online marketplaces and telecommunications. He completed more than two dozen projects, which commonly drove ARR improvements of 10-20%.

Kyle Poyar

VP, Growth at OpenView

Sean supports corporate development for OpenView, helping our portfolio establish strategic relationships with potential alliance partners and acquirers, advising on and executing M&A and capital raise transactions, supporting portfolio exit planning activities, and communicating trends across M&A, PE, and public markets. He also supports various projects for OpenView’s Go-To-Market team.

Prior to joining OpenView, Sean was Finance & Strategy Lead at Dispatch Technologies where he led strategic growth initiatives, aided in financial and board reporting and assisted with business development and fundraising activities. Sean began his career as an investment banker with Aeris Partners, focusing on sell-side M&A and capital raise advisory for high-growth software companies.

Sean Fanning

Senior Director, Investment and Portfolio Analytics at OpenView

BUILD Minicast: Kyle Poyar & Sean Fanning (OpenView)

2020 was a big year for SaaS. From IPOs to record-breaking quarters to huge M&A deals, there was no shortage of activity. But how did the average SaaS company fare in 2020? Was the breakneck growth experienced by Zoom, Shopify, and Snowflake common to the rest of the industry? Or did COVID have a bigger impact on software than the standard press headline would suggest? 

OpenView surveyed 1,200 software companies for our annual SaaS Benchmarks study. This year’s survey revealed the impact of COVID-19 on software companies, and some of the results may surprise you. In this episode of BUILD, we hear from the masterminds behind the report, OpenView’s own Kyle Poyar and Sean Fanning.

Director of Corporate Development at OpenView

VP of Growth at OpenView

2020 was a big year for SaaS. From IPOs to record-breaking quarters to huge M&A deals, there was no shortage of activity. But how did the average SaaS company fare in 2020? Was the breakneck growth experienced by Zoom, Shopify, and Snowflake common to the rest of the industry? Or did COVID have a bigger impact on software than the standard press headline would suggest?

OpenView surveyed 1,200 software companies for our annual SaaS Benchmarks study. This year’s survey revealed the impact of COVID-19 on software companies, and some of the results may surprise you. In this episode of BUILD, we hear from the masterminds behind the report, OpenView’s own Kyle Poyar and Sean Fanning.

2020: A Wild Year for SaaS Metrics

On this season of BUILD, we’re asking our SaaS all-star guests 5 questions – and giving them only 5 minutes to answer. In this Minicast episode we hear from Francesca Krihely, Senior Director of Developer Experience at Snyk. Listen and hear what she has to say.

Startup Advisor, Marketing Expert, Open source advocate and speaker. 

Francesca Krihely

Senior Director of Developer Experience at Snyk

BUILD Minicast: Francesca Krihely (Snyk & MongoDB)

Francesca Krihely knows developers. Many VCs and startup pundits suggest that the key to success is simply winning the “hearts and minds” of developers in the community. One problem: developers are notoriously allergic to traditional marketing. So, what’s the secret? Francesca wrote the developer experience playbook at companies like MongoDB and Snyk, and now she is sharing her best practices with the BUILD community.

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ABOUT THE SHOW

Blake Bartlett

Partner, OpenView