SaaStr Insider Webinar: Announcing SaaStr Money 2024!

Welcome back to another Zapster Insider. If you're new here or if you're watching on the livestream, thanks for joining us there. I know so many people have been watching on the livestreams lately. So good to see you all back this Thursday. Yeah, we wanted to spend a little bit of time today just talking about a, the next digital event that we're gonna do. So many of you probably saw AI Day that we did at the end of March just last month. So just about a month ago. We did SaaStr AI Day. If you missed it, you can still watch those recaps on YouTube, on Twitter, or on X, or a lot of it's been going up on saastr.com. We had such a phenomenal response to SaaStr AI Day that we decided we would do another digital mega event before SaaStr Europa. So we're going to do SaaStr Money. So very exciting. SaaStr Money is coming to, coming back to the SaaStr universe. In 2024. We're going to do it next month. So that's before SaaStr London and SaaStr Europa. We're going to do it on Wednesday, May 22nd. If you missed the first one, we actually did do SaaStr Bunny a couple of years ago as a digital event. So it was a hit. We just haven't had like— we haven't done it in a while, I think because we've been so focused on our in-person events and some of our other themes like, you know, adding AI Day, a lot of other themes. Have been popping up that you guys have been wanting to see. But yeah, we were kind of asking folks on the backs of SaaStr IDE, like, what would they want to see in a digital event? And a lot of folks told us to bring back SaaStr Money. So we're doing it. So Wednesday, May 22nd, SaaStr Money will be back as a completely digital mega event. It was a completely digital mega event the first time. So yeah, really exciting. If you missed it the first time, This website is live, so you can go to sastermoney.com, which I think is a great URL. If you go to it and scroll down, so I'm just gonna scroll slowly 'cause I know sometimes I scroll too fast on screen share, but if you scroll down, you'll see kind of our, some of our previous speakers, which I'll touch on. So, you know, we had Chime, Square, VentureMiles, Treasury Prime, Sage, Plaid, Adyen, Stripe. You know, obviously these are great names in fintech and finance. Some venture, some VCs and investors, right? Like Homebrew and Omare's, some banks, Marketta. So yeah, those kind of like the mix of speakers we had last time. If you missed any of these sessions and you kind of want to get a flair flavor for what's going to be going down this year at Ask for Money, you can watch our previous sessions here. They are actually still really great sessions. Obviously, some, some of this has changed a little bit in the marketplace. Of just the, the content they talk about because it's, uh, I think it's a couple years old now. But, um, yeah, this will give you like a really good sense of what we chatted about at Saastr Money previously. Um, yeah, Saastr Money was a really fun, really great event. And basically the, the onus of the theme, um, and the inspiration behind it— and I'll just reshare at the top here— um, was it's, it's everything from, you know, finance, fintech, and funding. So it's kind of like the bridge of all three of those things. And where they intersect in SaaS. So yeah, that's kind of the theme and the topic du jour, if you will, for SaaStr Money. We're going to have two tracks during the day similar to how we did AI Day. So you can kind of pick your own adventure. It will be a completely free digital mega event in the same way that SaaStr AI Day was. You'll get to sign up and pick your sessions here fairly soon. But yeah, fairly exciting. If you have not been, if you didn't get to go and watch the last Faster Money event. Well, if you like Day I Day so much and you're like, is SaaStr doing another one of these digital events soon? The answer is yes. So, Faster Money, again, it will focus on everything from, you know, trying to maximize like that next round of funding to the latest money-making trends. I know efficiency, obviously Jason's been talking a lot about efficiency, just talked about it on yesterday's Workshop Wednesday. A lot of really good hot takes there that will probably continue into Faster Money. We'll have VCs, you know, we'll have CFOs, we'll have CEOs chat. And so yeah, I can't think of somebody who doesn't want to know these tips right now, given the state of the market in SaaS and everyone's focused on, you know, on getting either more efficient or trying to figure out how to raise a round of funding, what is still working, and also like what's just what's going on more specifically within SaaS in, you know, finance and fintech. I know Stripe is having their event this week that we went to. Lots of big announcements coming out of that. Lots going on, right, in the market right now. So yeah, Whelan, I know you've got a few folks you have been chatting with about FasterMoney. Yeah, just what is like kind of your take and your sense on it of like, you know, other than what I just mentioned, but yeah, what's your kind of take on why we're doing Money and maybe how it's helpful to folks?

Sorry, I just had an issue with my mouse there. So I think one of the things you really said that really resonates is just there's so many changes happening from, you know, a financial perspective when it comes to SaaS companies. Obviously that like comes down from the public markets, but it's a huge shift that's going on. And I think that it's top of mind for everyone. The CFO has kind of become, you know, easily the second most important person in any SaaS company pretty much when it comes to decision making. So I think event, this event, the great thing about it is one, it's going to have a senior level finance audience. So, you know, if you're someone who's looking to get in front of that audience, you know, we have that audience at SaaStr, but this is going to be really niching down on that audience. But I think there's just so many questions right now, like fundraising, what, you know, efficiency versus revenue growth. I know Jason was talking about yesterday in our Workshop Wednesday, for example, that, you know, VCs are still weighting growth 2 times more than profitability. So I think there's there's a lot of misunderstanding out there about what really is a priority from like a fundraising perspective. So I just think there's lots of really interesting topics that we're gonna be able to dive into here that are super important right now.

Yeah, it's also something too where like, you know, if you are coming to one of our in-person events or you are one of those folks that's on the fence about signing up, I know a lot of folks that already signed up for SaaStr Europe are really are how can we, you know, get in front of investors? It's a question we get all the time. I think especially at Europa, oddly even more so than we do the annual. I think they just assume because we're in the Bay Area for the annual that like all the VCs will be there, which they are, but they are, they're all also at Europa. So yeah, some of this was a play off of that. Like we've had a lot of folks ask us about like what we're doing with investors and finance and fintech and, and again, where they all kind of intersect pre for Europa, because obviously some of that will be from a global or an EMEA perspective. Not all of it, right? But some of it will be just because of the nature of being in London. And so yeah, this kind of arose out of that kind of need. And I, I agree with a lot of what you said and added color, you know, commentary on for, for Money Day. I think it's a great thing to do because so many folks right now are— and I think it's a, it's a weird time right now in the markets, right? Of like, you know, it's, it's the end of it was just the end of Q1 for a lot of folks, but for, you know, the bigger companies, you know, they're kind of doing H1, H2, and they're starting to look at, you know, in the next couple months, they'll kind of flip to 2025 calendar planning. So yeah, it's an interesting time, I think. And a lot of the questions we've got on the Workshop Wednesdays has been around, you know, finance, fintech, funding. It's something we've seen a lot as a theme, maybe right there neck and neck with AI Day. And so it felt like a really good natural kind of next digital event for us. Obviously if you guys didn't know this already, SaaS does have a fairly big investor and VC community as well as finance and fintech. So it's a good combination, I think of a, you know, kind of a Venn diagram of the, of the three within SaaS, right? So yeah, the last one we did was again, super successful, super hit. A lot of, a lot of folks once again watched on the livestream. So we're pretty excited about SaaS for Money. Yeah, I was just kind of laughing to myself about the Mario coin theme, but yeah, so we're very excited about Faster Money. It'll be a completely live digital event. Signups are gonna be again coming soon, but you can come to the website now and kind of like save your spot for when the sessions go live. You know, we're gonna have founders speaking, investors, CFOs, operators, so the people down in the weeds who, you know, know the answers to all of your money questions and top questions. So, um, with that, I do know we already have like a couple sponsors we have been chatting with, um, that are coming in for Money Day. There is a sponsor component similar to how we did one for AI Day, which we'll walk you guys through. Again, if you want to attend, just sign up. It's free, right? Just totally free to attend. Use fastformoney.com, sign up for our newsletters. We'll let you know when all the sections go live. Uh, but if you do want to get involved in more of the sponsorship side because you have something or you have a product that touches on finance, fintech, or SaaS, or a little bit of all of those, or funding, or if you're a VC that wants to get in front of more of the SaaS community, then Saastr Money is a great way to do that. It's a great way to— I know some folks have been asking us for another digital event because they missed out on AI Day. So yeah, Saastr Money is a great way to do that. Who will attend, right? So I think that's the, that's maybe the number one question we get from folks who are potentially interested in partnering or sponsoring something like a Money Day or something like an AI Day. We do have a global audience, right, of CEOs and founders, most of which are VP level and above. That's globally. But more specific to Money Day, we looked at the numbers from who attended the last Faster Money Day, and it was a high percentage of revenue leaders, which is no surprise, a lot of investors, right? So a lot of funds coming, bringing their folks. So again, good way if you're participating here to get in front of investors, a lot of CEOs, and a lot of, you know, again, so no surprise for Money Day, a lot of CFOs as well. So a lot of, again, a lot of revenue finance leaders, CROs, investors. That's the demographics even more so of who attended the last SaaStr Money Day. Totally expect a similar audience this year for Money Day this year that we're doing next month. Waylon, you're probably better at this. Portion of it than I am. Why should folks maybe think about sponsoring Faster Money Day other than, you know, getting in front of this wonderful audience that I just laid out? But what's some of the other—

Yeah, so I think, um, I'll use AI Day as an example. So, um, the audience that people were able to get in front of, like, it was, it was much bigger than what we promised, right? Like, we were much bigger getting advice that, you know, people could expect anywhere from 75 to 300 leads. I was looking at the numbers yesterday. I don't think anyone received less than 500 leads, and that was someone who was a late entry that, you know, they signed up with just a week before the event. So they weren't, they didn't even go out in most of our marketing materials. And we had lots of people in around 700-800 leads. Beyond that, there was just huge impact from a brand perspective where, you know, I had 2 sponsors in it. Within 48 hours, both of them had over 10,000 streams total. Between the live stream and post-event stream. So it was actually like, when you think about it, that's like a, you know, that's like a medium-sized arena full of people. Like, that's really tough to get in front of. So, and basically impossible to get in front of at an in-person event. So I think one, you get in front of a huge audience. Two, it's a very high-level audience. Like, all the content really is focused for executives, you know, and that's just SaaS in general. Everything is, if you're not on an exec team, you might want SaaS or content because you want to understand what your exec team is thinking and what what sort of the, the pressures they might be under. But at the end of the day, that's who the content's for. And, and those are the people who have the ability to sign checks and close deals with you. So as a sponsor, it's, it's just the most senior level audience really that you're going to be able to get in front of.

Yeah, I would say, yeah, yeah, pretty low lift. Yeah. So I'll walk you guys through some of that. That's a great transition. I will say I was just double down on that point about like, you know, our, our SaaS, our global SaaS community is so great to get in front of, whether it's digital media or in person. I'd say specifically for Money Day, if you are selling into CFOs or if you're trying to get in front of investors, you're trying to get into the fintech or you're competitive within that fintech space, like literally the people Will and I have been talking to this week all compete with one another. So they're all, they're all, you know, competition. There is, there is a lot of competition in the, in the finance in the finance and SaaS space right now in that Venn diagram overlap. But yeah, I would say in particular, if you do have a product that maybe is maybe not as focused on finance itself, but you sell to the CFO or you need the buy-off of the CFO, really great way to get in front of them is at FasterMoney Day, right? So it's not just for, you know, obviously there's a strong focus on finance and fintech and investors, But, you know, anyway, if you're selling to CFOs, the content that we do and that we do via our sponsorships is all thought leadership, right? So anything you do that is like speaking to that audience would be good content for Money Day. It doesn't mean, yeah, that you yourself have to be, you know, at a finance-driven company. If you are selling it to this audience and you know what their, what, what, like, you know, what motivates them and what's keeping them up at night constantly, that could be really great content, right? So. Great way to get in front of CFOs. I can't think of any of our sponsors who has not told us that they don't want more CFOs. You know, SaaS, or if we get constantly asked us that, like, how many CFOs now are like coming to SaaS, or how many are now in like the database, right? It is top of mind for folks, and we get it. We've obviously seen ourselves, you know, buying committees have only gotten bigger, and you do typically need CFO buy-off for And maybe the trend that's changed, and I know Jason talked about it a little bit yesterday on Workshop Wednesday, like the trend there is like, you know, maybe back in the day there was like a certain threshold for where your CFO used to be involved. And I think for a lot of folks that threshold was lowered, right? So we'll talk about that at Money Day as well, right, of what CFOs are seeing. But anyways, it's a great point there on the CFO audience. Yeah, the other thing I'll say is, yeah, as Waylon mentioned, right, how we do this, very similar to how we just did AI Day or any of our previous, you know, SASPer Money Day previously or any of our digital media events is like during the registration process, people and attendees, you know, choose their sessions. Again, it's a free event. We do have a high quality and a large network of folks from the global SASPer community that come to these. And so it's really important that if you are, you are thinking about sponsoring something like a Money Day, you know, reach out to Waylon. It's fairly turnkey. It's a session. It's a logo. Really, the content is the, it's the piece to nail, but we have a dedicated speaker team that will work with you on this. And so they'll walk you through the entire process. They're very good at streamlining this because they do this year round. And yeah, really, you know, it should be something thought leadership around, you know, the 3 themes we've just mentioned of finance, fintech, and funding and how they interact with SaaS. It's, you know, I think it's like a 15-minute session. It's like 10 minutes of content, you know, 5 minutes roughly for Q&A. Super punchy, super hard-hitting. And when folks sign up for your session, we get you the leads. So as Willa mentioned, kind of like, you know, our posted number and range of how many leads we can get you depending on when you sign up to sponsor is, yeah, it's, it's, we typically promise between 75 to 300, but the folks from AI Day saw a lot more than that. So doesn't mean that you'll get, you know, you could be at the top end of that range as well. Again, depends on your content and how many folks overall sign up. So that's what we kind of promise, but we've, we've overdelivered, I would say, on the last, on the last event we just did in AI Day. So yeah, I think that's the, that's the pitch, right? Like if you wanna get in front of this audience in particular and you kind of play amongst these themes that we have for Money Day, if you want some quick lead gen, this is a really great turnkey way to do it, right? The content is the piece that we work with you on the most. And then yeah, you literally get your leads the next day. So pretty easy there. And then, you know, then you do have to follow up those leads. So the content and following up with the leads is like the hardest part. But everything else in the middle, we make super easy. So, and yeah, this is open to, you know, anybody who wants to sponsor, let us know. We are doing like kind of first right of refusal for folks that are already sponsoring like a SaaS or annual. Or a Saastr Europa event because we only have a certain number of slots. It's kind of how we did for AI Day. AI Day sold out of its slots, right? So I know we literally had to tell a few folks no at the end. So yeah, if you are interested in Money Day, get in touch. Waylon, any last things to add on Saastr Money before we get folks, you know, how to get in touch with you? Anything else on just like our overall kind of like digital events?

Yeah, I would just say like the last thing You know, as you said, the audience, although it, this is all finance related topics, there are people outside of those finance persona. You are gonna see RevOps, you are gonna see revenue leaders. As a revenue leader, you wanna understand one, what do I need to do to effectively sell into CFOs? Because CFOs are basically involved in every deal now. And so I think even if your product is not a pure finance product, it's not purely for finance professionals, you know, if there's a big ROI component to what you're doing, you know, thought leadership on how to speak to CFOs, all these things, I think there's a lot of options. So you don't have to necessarily be a niche fintech in order for this to make sense.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great call out there. Lots of really good things here. So yeah, hopefully we will see you guys at FasterMoney, right? It will— you'll notice it's on a Wednesday. So it's just we didn't want to compete with ourselves. So there's no Workshop Wednesday that week, kind of similar to how we did AI Day. We're doing a digital event instead. It's kind of an upgrade of SaaS-er workshops, and you'll have plenty of workshops within SaaS-er Money to pick from. Yeah, if you want to sign up again, sign up for our newsletter. We'll tell you once the full agenda and content goes live in the next week or so. And yeah, for folks who are maybe thinking about partnering with us, again, the sooner the better. I know it feels like maybe a quick turnaround time before May, but again, the biggest thing is getting your logo up and working with our speaker team who is really efficient at getting this done. Yeah, for folks who might be interested in money, and again, this is like, you don't have to— just because you email Waylon doesn't mean, you know, you're committed to your money. But if folks want more info, Waylon, how can they get in touch with you?

Yeah, you can reach me at waylon@sasterinc.com. That's W-A-Y-L-O-N@sasterinc.com. And then you could also reach me, Waylon McGill, on LinkedIn.

Where everyone's at, right? And yeah, any other overall questions, you guys can feel free to email me. I'm just ai@safetraining.com. It's just my initials. And yeah, we will see you back here. Well, we'll see you back on Wednesday actually for the next Dakota. I know a lot of people go to workshop Wednesday. So we'll see you back on Wednesday for Workshop Wednesday, and then we'll see you on Thursday for the next SAFTRA Insider. Thanks to everyone watching on the livestream. Good to see you back here, and, uh, get excited for Faster Money. We will see you there.

Bye everyone.