Clips from SaaStr Annual 2019 in San Jose, where over 12,500 SaaS founders, CEOs, and investors gathered. Attendees describe the conference as a rare space where billionaires and early-stage founders network and share knowledge on scaling companies.
Chapters
I'm here because this is where the cloud meets. This is where the greatest minds in SaaS are this week here in San Jose.
One of the coolest things I think about SaaStr is that it brings in entrepreneurial energy and talent from all over the world.
SaaStr is 25 times bigger than it was the first year, which seemed big. The original mission was just to share. 12,500 people all committed to SaaS under one roof.
I've met about, like, 5 billionaires in the last 3 days. $15, $20, $30 billion companies, it's next level. The impact that Saastr has had on me is just to think much, much bigger. I want to turn my company into a unicorn now.
No matter where you are in enterprise or cloud, there's an area that you're really trying to grow in, and this is the place where you can make all those connections.
No one's gonna get anything without trying. You don't get anything without trying in this world. And if you're trying to do something that has a ridiculous ridiculously low chance of success, you gotta be pretty fucking confident. The topics here, if I wasn't speaking, I would still be here.
We always had the feeling deep inside that we were onto something.
You get there and you realize, like, there's so much more to go. How do I keep growing?
People who give up aren't at SaaStr. They're not investing in the next step.
SESTRA is a startup like, like every other startup. The community keeps us going, and as hard as it is, we're also very privileged to be in this situation. We're privileged to be able to have this organization that can give back.
I've read all the SESTRA material religiously back in the day, but to see the community that it's engendered is so amazing.
SASster is incredibly important to bring the industry together and most importantly, the people.
I went to an early SASster to learn about SAS, and the community was so great to me, and the knowledge sharing was incredible that I jumped at the chance to try and come here and give back to the community.
You spend so much time running your business all year long, and you come to SASTR and you realize there's a whole community of other CEOs or COOs who are having very similar challenges as you, and you can actually sit and talk about what are some strategies to overcome those challenges.
I think it's incredible just to see how much this has grown. I've been coming to SASTR for the past couple years, and this year, just the roster of speakers, the enthusiasm, and the ability for a community to come together and really rally around an incredible amount of resources is just an amazing thing to see. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
