SaaStr Live with Jason Lemkin: Europa Edition!

Well, good evening, good morning from SasterLive Europe edition. There's Amelia and our good friend Jibo here. Hey Jibo, what time is it in Paris?

Hey Jibo? Paris.

Oh, sorry Jibo. He'll keep on giving us some great editorial content. So we're excited. In France it's 7:02 PM. It's 7:02 PM. Thank you, Jibo. You're really, you're really just terrific. So we're excited for the first ever SASTR Europa. We keep hitting overcapacity. So I get a little confused whether we have 1,500 people or 1,600 people or 1,282 people. I don't know. But Amelia sent out an email this morning. We hit our goals. And I think the venue is at max capacity. So if you want to buy a ticket, get a ticket immediately because they should be closed and we should be sold out. Even more importantly, even if you go to sastreurope.com and it is all sold out, we will save as many tickets as we can for the minute for diversity inclusion. So please apply. We've saved almost 20% of the seats to make this as an inclusive event as we can, and those tickets we will still dribble out whatever is left through the day of the event. So at least, at least check there, and it will be great. And A quick overview: we will be in Paris. I checked into our Google Analytics account yesterday for the first time. Over 1% of SaaStr readers are from France. So I think we picked the absolute perfect location in Europe. But it will be great. We'll have folks from all across the world, and we will have many French leaders from Algolia and Datadog and many others, which we'll chat about. But we will kick things off next Thursday with the pre-party at the Family in Paris. I think we have something like 400 people registered for that already.

Yes, we do.

So I will be there, Amelia will be there, Jibo may be there, the whole team will be there and it will be great. It will be an informal time and then we'll kick things off on Friday the 15th formally the next morning. And just a heads up, it will be jam-packed. We're originally going to be kind of a 1+1 day, but for a variety of reasons we packed all the content into Friday. So now we're starting at 8 in the morning, crack of dawn with 2 kickoff sessions on getting more leads and getting more customers. And then we'll go straight through 2 tracks. Max, something like 20-some-odd sessions. Does it sound about right?

Yeah, that sounds right.

Yeah, all the way through traditional SaaStr content on scaling and doing better that we'll chat about. And then about 4:30, we'll spend an hour and a half time on the VCs pitching you. That's always popular at the SaaStr Annual. And we'll have two stages of that from 4:30 until you can't stand it anymore. So about 6 PM, we'll have David Horvath from August Capital. His first investment was Splunk. So he's been doing enterprise software since the from the beginning, Bill.com, many others. We'll have Christophe Janss from Point Nine. We'll have folks from many of the leaders from Don Capital in London, and I'm missing tons of others, but it'll be great, a great time to turn the tables and have 8 to 10 VCs pitch you back. So that's always fun. And then from 6 until they kick us out of the Hotel Intercontinental, we will have an after-party and it'll be great. And most importantly, forget all the content. The single most important thing we're trying to level up for SASTRA is mentoring. So we added— we've done this in different ways at the annual, but we tried to formalize it this last February with Brain Dates, and we'll have the Brain Date team back and hopefully starting as early as possible. Do you know what time Brain Dates will start?

Um, I think at 9, the Brain Date Lounge will be open.

Okay, so get there. You will get the mobile app goes live something like today. It will have a link And we already have 30 or 40 mentors signed up to do Brain Dates with you to mentor you on whatever you want help with, or mentoring either one-to-one or one small groups. And if you're past a few million in revenue, sign up as a mentor as well and, and share it back. So sign up on Brain Dates and we'll run this mentoring all day long. And, and frankly, even if you never go to a session, you don't hear from our unicorns, you don't hear from anything, but you meet some great new people and get some new mentors and training, it's all, it's all pretty much worth it. So we'll see you next Thursday through the end of Friday in Paris. And roughly speaking, and then I'll see what slides Amelia has come up with, but roughly speaking, there's kind of 3 themes on Friday. We'll have a bunch of morning sessions on unicorns. You know, a few years ago there were no unicorns. Now there's 250 unicorns and there's almost 100 in B2B software. So I guess they're, they're not so rare, but we'll have all different types of unicorns. We'll have the president of Zuora, which just IPO'd this year, one of my favorite about what it's really like to hire 1,000 people, which is a very existential challenging topic. We'll have folks like the CEO of Meltwater, a great product. He's— they've been around forever. They almost bootstrapped their way to unicorn status. We'll have UiPath, which came out of nowhere and raised it a billion something this year, a sort of a Romanian-European-New York unicorn. And we'll have tons of others. So The morning will be about a lot of unicorns, um, and, uh, on one of our two tracks, um, and the other track will be about what you love, which is scaling revenue. So we'll have leaders from folks like Intercom and Pipedrive and Stripe and Automile, uh, and many others, uh, sales leaders, marketing leaders teaching you how to get more revenue, um, as well as folks like Aaron Ross from Predictable Revenue that many of you love. So We'll be running all about how to get more revenue on one side, unicorns on the other. In the afternoon, we have— hello, Jibo— we'll have founder-to-founder sessions, and we'll have great sessions talking from one founder to another how to do it. We'll have folks like the CEO of Algolia, which is the highest rated place to work on Glassdoor, speaking with the CEO of LaunchDarkly about how to really build a culture where there's no churn. We'll have the CEO of Plato talking with unicorn or almost unicorn Datadog about how to do that, how to scale things across multiple continents. We'll have ever-popular Harry Stebbings talking with Ross Mason, the founder of MuleSoft, which was just bought for over $6 billion by Salesforce, talking about how he got this thing started off on Malta. This may be the biggest exit for Malta in SaaS yet. And founder to founder, how to really do that. And those are always great sessions. And I'll be leading the session with 4 great CEOs, all of whom are well past the $10 to $20 million range, and they'll all share their biggest mistakes, biggest anxieties, and biggest dramas. So it'll be— it'll be— there'll be more than you can possibly imagine. It will be crowded, SaaSer style. Hopefully you can get a seat at each session. If it's too crowded and you can't get a seat, do not complain. Do not email us. Do not tweet. We're sorry in advance, but it's better to meet more great people and have more going on than to have crickets at an event. So that's a summary. Um, and Amelia, what else do we have on the slides?

Uh, VC Day, which you've talked about a little bit already. Do you have any favorites here for VC Day?

Uh, I do not play favorites. Do we have a list? What did I miss here from this? Uh, we'll have some great, some great niche topics. Sometimes what we've learned for these topics is the niches are the better. So we'll have Teddy Wardi, who's now at Insight— he was at Atomoco before that— uh, talking about how to acquire a company yourself. One of the most stressful, hard things to do is a private company acquisition, but he's got plenty of examples. One of his portfolio companies, Showpad, just did a $50 million acquisition today, and the CEO of Showpad will actually be on my founder-to-founder session. So, you know, it seems like you could barely even manage your business yourself. How could you acquire another startup? But that'll be a fun, niche topic. We'll have fun ones. We'll have the CEO of UserZoom will join one of the sessions talking about how to kind of go from basically bootstrapping to raising $35 million. $5 million, how to do that transition. We'll have Christophe Janss from Point Nine will update the hottest startups in Paris and France. There really weren't that many in SaaS a few years ago and now there's so many. We're gonna have an eyesore logo chart, so what's going on in Europe? But I don't wanna pick too many favorites. They're all my favorites or they wouldn't be there. Okay, love it.

D&I.

Diversity inclusion goals. Well, the goals are to come. So we're learning, we're not gonna quite hit the bar we hit for the SaaS when we had 60 women and multicultural speakers, but hopefully we'll be over 40% by the time we get to the event, which isn't terrible for SaaS. And we've reserved 20% again of the attendees to help achieve our inclusion goals. So if you are a post-revenue founder or executive at a B2B company, please, and you are from a background that can benefit from our program, please apply tonight, today. Gibo, what time is it in Paris again? Oh, Gibo. Well, whatever time it is in Paris, apply tonight before you go to bed so we don't run out. But we want you there. And we have some crazy goals here for the SAS training next February. And we're at least going to try to hit a local maximum here for Europa. So please come. We need you.

Yeah, I think we actually have about maybe 50 of the D&I tickets left. We maybe will— squeeze in a few more. So we'll be sure to send out the link with this recording of how you can apply. Or if you want to bring a buddy, if you know like a friend and you don't want to go to the conference by yourself and you want to bring somebody from a less represented group, this is the perfect program for them. So again, we'll send that link out and we'd love to have your buddies come.

Yes, that is a very important point. Our new, our new addition today for diversity inclusion, which a number of great leaders told me at event leases, they want to bring a buddy. Like I'm an introvert. I hate going to events by myself. I generally don't go if I can't find a buddy. So this, for this event, that our D&I will include bring a buddy. So bring a friend or, you know, make, make an inclusive friend, bring them with you. And so that, that'll be a new, a new enhancement we're trying out for this event.

Networking.

Networking.

That's a fun one.

Okay, so mobile app goes out today?

The mobile app went out last night.

Last night.

Can you meet a friend on the mobile app? Yes, you can meet a friend on the mobile app. I'm so glad you mentioned that.

How do I meet a friend with the mobile app?

So I have some instructions later for you guys to download if you haven't downloaded it yet. It's actually really easy. You download the Attendify app, search for Saastr, and then once you get logged in and plugged in, which we can go through later how to technically download it, it's really simple. There's like a whole social feed. You can sort people by, you know, titles. So if you wanna find like a demand gen friend for me, or CEO friend for Jason, it's really easy to meet new people. We've already got like 200 people in the app. Everyone's been posting already. That's fast.

I gotta check that out.

Yeah, it's exciting.

Okay, good. Yes, so meet a buddy in the app, do a Brain Date, meet a mentor.

Yes.

Right? And then come to the kickoff party on Thursday night. Yes. It'll be very low-key, it'll be a lot of fun. And that, that hopefully will help a lot to meet more people.

Kickoff Thursday, you can also get your badge there, fun fact, so you can skip the line that will be there Friday. Get your badge at the AppYard.

Yes, so no complaint, there's hopefully there won't be any lines for badges, right?

I don't think so.

But no complaining because you can come through, see the party, and get your badge right there, right? Get some champagne and get a badge.

Yeah.

All right, what do we got next on this?

Um, this is how to do a Brain Date.

Oh yeah, okay, let's dig in on this because this is so great. So how do we do this, Amelia?

So Brain Dates are super fun. Um, if any of you went to the annual, you'll remember these. We have them in, um, our Expo Hall area. It's kind of like a lounge that'll be back for SaaStr Europa. These are really great. So as Jason mentioned, they're either one-on-one or small group mentoring sessions. So If you have a topic that you're so passionate about that you want to share, definitely post that topic up on Braindate and share that wealth of knowledge with the world. You know, help out your fellow SaaS community members. Or on the flip side, if you want to learn something new, you can post what you're curious about. So if you're curious, like, how does SaaStr put on this event? I know for a fact that Elena, our events manager, is on Braindate. You can go on a Braindate with her.

So are these some actual topics that we have, or are these fake screenshots?

Yeah, these are real.

So Building customer success into your product, that could be a good one. Thank you, Jibo. How to build a successful culture, getting a feature out there. We'll see what comes on. These are all good topics, right? So pick some. And are— is there a maximum you're allowed to do?

There is not a max. It's up to you if you want to book your whole day with Braindates. You can do that if you want.

And we'll have a whole dedicated area of this in this right in the middle of the sort of sponsor expo. Is that correct? Correct.

So Braindates will be easy to find. There will be a huge sign, you know, once you sign up for Braindate. We'll also tell you specifically where to go. We'll send you calendar reminders so you don't forget about your Brain Dates. And these should be super fun. And then you can also get to Brain Date Fun Fact from the app, which makes it super easy.

That's good. All right, so do the Brain Dates, folks. Sign up tonight.

Do a Brain Date. All right, Kickoff. We've talked about this.

We did talk about it. 5 to 8 PM. Be there. I will be there at 5 sharp. So don't come— this is not the kind of party to come late to, right? It's one of the ones to come early to.

Come early, for sure.

Right? I may even be there at 4:50. So we will be there. Come on time, bring your bag, have drinks. It should be lots of fun.

Yeah, so if you want your selfie with Jason M. Lemkin, that's probably your chance.

That's probably the place to do it, yes.

The mobile app. Okay, so in case you guys didn't get into your inbox last night, let me know, A, but B, this is how you download the app. So it works on either Google Android or iPhones. So you download this Attendify app, which I've included a helpful screenshot of. Just search for Saastr, and then you'll see this nice splash watercolor logo that we've got there that says Saastr Europa. Um, in the bottom right, you're going to want to hit that blue button that says join, and then all you have to do is create a profile. It does not have to be the email address that you use to buy your ticket. That will not matter. So you can use your personal email here if you would like to, and then create a password.

Got it.

And then once you do that, um, it will just ask you for the password to join the actual app. We did this because we don't want people who aren't attendees creeping on everyone else's profile and trying to mine your information. So we try to keep it secure. So the password to join the app is then Europa 2018.

Okay.

Capital E, it's case sensitive.

Got it.

Yes.

Good. So we're gonna— our goal here is to restrict this just to attendees, to not have spam from folks trying to email you stuff. Any SDRs out there, find some other way to attack this group of 1,500 because the mobile app ain't the way. We want the The goal here is to meet other people.

Yep, it's super fun. Another fun fact about the app is you can actually build your agenda in there. So if you're like, oh my God, you guys have so many amazing sessions and I have my brain dates, like how do I sort of plan out my day? The app will be the way to go because you can build your calendar on there.

Got it.

All right, a few things to remember for when you guys come to Europa. Yes.

Where is this? Where is this hotel?

Where is it?

The Intercontinental.

Intercontinental. It's in the awkward, District, I think. I've never been to France.

What's the Opera District like? Is that a good district?

Um, yes. Hey, Jibo, I'm getting a thumbs up.

What is the Opera District of Paris like?

Sorry.

Oh, Jibo, Jibo doesn't know. Jibo says the Opera District is terrific. We know this is one of the, the most fabulous and largest venues, right? So it looks beautiful. It's got two sort of 19th century amazing stages and sessions. Um, both this— both the stages are basically the same size, so we don't have a bigger, smaller, or like we typically do. They're about the same size. Um, and, uh, and it— hopefully we will all fit.

Yes, I think we all will. Um, we'll also be recording the sessions and then distributing them later on the SAS YouTube channel. So if you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe, um, and then you can see them later so you don't have to worry about trying to bounce between the two sessions that are there.

That's good. What are all these other things?

These are other hotels around here.

Oh, to book a hotel.

Yeah. Okay. So, you know, hotels are running out, so if you haven't done so already, I would say do that right now. Got it. ASAP.

Or as soon as you can. Book a hotel.

Yes, book a hotel. Book a hotel soon. All right, badge pickup, we kind of mentioned this, so the Thursday happy hour will be the best place, I would say, to get your badge. If you can't make it out to the Family, we'll also be at the Intercontinental Hotel lobby on Thursday afternoon.

Oh, that's a good deal. Yes, come by.

So, 2 to 4, look for me actually, I'll be there.

Yes.

I will be giving out your badges, and we've got these cool like Saastr pins you can get. I'll have some Saastr swag if you come early, so good incentive to come early. I'll take a selfie with you if you want. I'm not that famous as Jason M. Lemkin, but still could be fun. And then Thursday, the happy hour, and then Friday is the big day at the Intercontinental. This starts at 7 AM, so if you want to beat the line, get there at 7.

Oh, let's chat about that for a minute. This is obviously our first big event in Europe or Paris, but come early.

Yes, come early.

This is the hack. The content starts at 8, but if you can get in at 7, what I've learned going back to the first Sester Annual of 2015 is some of the best time to meet people, to interact, is before it starts. So if we're letting you in at 7, listen, I'm not a morning person. I don't know about you, Amelia, but try to— if you're here anyway, especially from out of town, come early.

Come early. Breakfast actually starts at 7:30, so you can get your badge and then have breakfast It will be breakfast. Okay, good.

Salesforce is bringing breakfast. Thank you, Salesforce, for breakfast. We appreciate it. Bring a photo ID to get your badge.

Yes, bring a photo ID.

Okay.

Just so we can make sure you are you and that a random you doesn't show up to get your badge.

Okay, good.

Yes. General reminders. Yep, bring your badge, bring business cards. You know, a lot of people in SaaS like to network. You can also bring your phone and your LinkedIn. That works too. I would say download the attendee app beforehand, you know, especially if you're traveling from the States over to Paris. You don't want to use your data while you're overseas. Book a Brain Date or two. Again, these are really fun and informative. A lot of Team Saastr is on there, so this is a great way to chat with us as well. You can add your sessions from the agenda of the mobile app to sort of plan out your day. And I've heard this a lot, and I saw this a lot at 2018 Annual, is get ready to take a lot of notes. So, you know, a lot of people bring like their old school notepads, or if you want to bring an iPad, if that works for you, just come ready to learn and meet a lot of new people.

That's the goal.

That's the goal. And I think we have a couple questions.

Oh, one thing, um, this should be— we've worked pretty hard on this event, it should be great, but do be patient. Uh, none of us are Parisian, uh, and, uh, there will be some bumps. Uh, we put our heart and soul into it, it will be great, but there will be some bumps. Uh, one last, you know, one thing we should have brought in the beginning— I know this sounds silly, but a lot of people have asked me— the event's in English. Yes, I know we should have actually put this on the website, and Mark knew it was a big mistake. I didn't realize how many people— I've been to Paris several times, but I didn't realize how many events often are in French. I do not know if that any— I imagine we will hear a little French at the event, but the event's 100% in English.

Yes, it will be in English. If you have problems getting around, there will be people in Saastr shirts Those will be the best people to ask. They're like bright blue, teal shirts. They say SASTR. Most of those people actually are bilingual and will speak both English and French. So if you have a problem like finding registration or you lost your badge, go and ask one of those kind folks and they will point you in the right direction while you're at the conference.

Yes.

Okay, let's see. I think a few questions.

Is there a session opportunity for speed dating with VCs? No. The afternoon session, the 4-day, 30 to 6:30 will be a chance to get to know VCs, but it's a good reminder. Um, let's, let's push— we meant to do this— let's push the VCs heavily to do Brain Dates.

Yes.

So we're going to ask them to do as many as possible. We've done speed dating in the distant past, and, um, unless it's structured very well, it, it, it hasn't been one of the most successful things we're doing. But doing through Brain Date works well. So good reminder. We will, we will do our best. And, uh, Overall, it should be thick with VCs.

Yeah, I will say I've been on the flip side of this question a bit in the last couple weeks as, you know, excitement has been building for the event. I've had a lot of VCs email me directly and I pointed them to Braindate as well. So there are some VCs already on there and we will get more in the coming week leading up to the event. So definitely go on a Braindate with them and that'll be your best chance of a speed date. Got it.

Is there any way in the mobile app— just bringing this up— to flag if you're raising money?

There is not, but I can look into it.

Yeah, that would be a fun thing to add. We can tell people later they can do a little tag.

Yes.

All the VCs want like us to send them the list so they can email everybody and analyze it. We don't do that, but maybe we could use the mobile app, the Attendify app, to do a little bit of a flag if you're raising. That could be, that could be a hack.

I'll look into it. Dominic says the app is awesome. Thanks. Glad you guys enjoy it. Cannot see BC Brain Dates. Okay, I'll make sure I'll go into the Brain Dates and make sure we've got the BCs in there.

We've got to nudge people. Sometimes they have a little trouble getting reception from the private jets and other things like that, or at Jackson Hole or different things like that. So we will, we will send the email repeatedly, and, and we'll also, we'll also nudge everybody a couple days again before the event that it's mandatory.

Cool. All right, I think that's all our questions. Anything else, Jason?

Uh, I think that's it. I think it's great. We're excited. Thank you, everybody, for coming or thinking about coming. It should be pretty neat and special. Um, and, uh, you know, there are— we've been doing these SaaStr events for a long time. Um, but, but what I have learned is the first time you do a particular event is actually the most fun. Um, not always. They get better. The SaaStr Annual gets better each year, but the first one was probably the most fun, so I guarantee you this one will be fun. If it's not, let me know and I will send you Sastre socks. We'll see you in Paris in how many days?

10?

10 days.

10-ish?

Yeah, 10 days. Okay, goodbye. Hey, Jibo, how do you say goodbye in French?

Au revoir.

Oh, Jibo.

Au revoir.