SaaStr Insider Webinar: Announcing SaaStr Money 2024!

Welcome back to another Saster Insider. If you're new here or if you're watching on the live stream, thanks for joining us there. I know so many people have been watching on the live streams lately. So good to see you all back this Thursday. Yeah, we want to spend a little bit of time today just talking about the next digital event that we're going to 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 Saster 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 saster.com we had such a phenomenal response to Saster AI Day that we decided we would do another digital mega event before Sastri Ropa. So we're going to do Saster Money. So very exciting. Saster Money is coming back to the saster universe in 2024. We're going to do it next month. So that's before Saster London and Saster Europa. We're going to do it on Wednesday, May 22. If you missed the first one, we actually did do Sas to running 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, on the back stuff after I day, like what would they want to see in a digital event And a lot of folks told us to bring back Saster money so we're doing it. So Wednesday, May 22, Sasser 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. Um, this website is live so you can go to saskarmoney.com, which I think is a great URL. If you go to it and scroll down. I'm just going to scroll slowly because 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, Metro Miles, Treasury Prime, Sage, Plaid ad, yet stripe. You know, obviously these are great names in fintech and finance, some venture, some VCs and investors, right. Like Homebrew and Omares, some banks, Marketa. So yeah, this is 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, it's ask for money. You can watch our previous sessions here. They are actually still really great sessions. Obviously some of this has changed a little bit in the marketplace of just the content they talk about because it's I think it's a couple years old now. But yeah, this will give you like a really good sense of what we chatted about at Saster Money previously. Yeah, Saster Money was a really fun, really great event and basically the onus of the theme and the inspiration behind it and I'll just re share at the top here was it's everything from 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 Saster 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 venture. It will be a completely free digital mega event in the same way that Saster AI Day was. You'll get to sign up and take 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 sast Disaster Money event or if you like the AI Day so much and you're like disaster 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 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 left, 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 and SaaS and everyone's focused on, you know, on getting either more efficient or, or trying to figure out how to raise a round of funding. What is still working and also like what just what's going on more specifically within SAS 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, Wayland, I know you've got a few folks you have been chatting with about faster money. Yeah. Just what is like kind of your, your take and your sense on it of like, you know, I, other than what I just mentioned. But yeah, what's your kind of take on, on why we're doing money and maybe how it's helpful to folks?

Sorry, I just had an issue with my mouse there. Um, so I think one of the things you really said that really resonate 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, 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, we have that audience, it's Astor. 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 waiting growth two 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, that we're going to be able to dive into here that are super important right now.

Yeah, it's, 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 about signing up. I know a lot of folks that already signed up for Saster Europa. Really? Or 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 playoff 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 intercepts 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 riz 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 of 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 the, it was just the end of Q1 for a lot of folks but for the bigger companies they're kind of doing H1, H2 and they're starting to look at 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 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, Sasser 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, 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 live stream. So we're pretty excited about Faster Money. Yeah, I was just kind of laughing at myself about the Mario Coin theme. But yeah, so we're fairly excited about Faster Money. It'll be a completely live digital event. Signups are going to 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 going to have founder 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 with that I do know we already have like a couple sponsors we have been chatting with 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 tend just sign up. It's free, right? Just totally free to attend. Use faster money.com Sign up for our newsletter. We'll let you know when all the sections go live. 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 are funding, or if you're a VC that wants to get in front of more of the Saster community, then Saster 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, Saster 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 potential 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 number 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. 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 to 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 semester. Money Day. Totally expect a similar audience this year for Money Day this year that we're doing next month. Wayland, 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 are some of the other.

Yeah, so I think I'll use AI Day as an example. So 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 7, 800 leads. Beyond that there was just huge impact from a brand perspective where you know, I had two 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 front of in front of at a, at an in person event. So I think one, you get in front of a huge audience too. It's a very high level audience. Like all the content really is focused for executives, you know and that's just Saster in general. Everything is. If you're not on an exec team you might want Saster content because you want to understand what your execs 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 those are the people who have the ability to sign checks and close deals with you. So as a sponsor it's just the most senior level audience really that you're going to be able to get in front of.

Yeah, 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 Saster, our global faster 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 cfo' 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 wh and I have been talking to this week all compete with one another. 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, I would say in particular if you, if you do have a product that maybe is, 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 faster money day. Right. So it's not just for you Know, obviously there's a strong focus on, 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 about 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 they're what, what trip 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, disaster at our. If we get constantly asked us at like how many snippets now are like coming disaster. How many are now in like the database. Right. Is this top of mind for folks and we get it. We've obviously seen ourselves that, you know, buying committees have only gotten bigger and you do typically need CFO buy off for. And maybe the trend that's changed. I know Jason talked about 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. Of what CFOs are seeing. But anyways it's a, it's a great point there on the, on the CFO audience. Yeah. The other thing I'll say is as mentioned, right. How we do this very similar to how we just did AI Day or any of our previous, you know, SAS for Money Day previously or any of our digital mega events is like during the registration process people and attendees, you know, choose their Texas Again, it's a free event. We do have a high quality and a large network of folks from the global sector community that come to these and so it's really important that if you are, you are thinking about sponsoring something like a Monday, you know, reach out to Wayland. 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 three themes we just mentioned of finance, fintech and funding and how they interact with SAS. It's you know, I think it's like 15 minute session is like 10 minutes of content, you know, five minutes roughly for Q and A. Super punchy, super hard hitting. And when folks sign up for your session, we get you the leads. So as we 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 over delivered I would say on the last digital event we just did in AI Day. So yeah, I think that's the, that's the pitch. Right. Like if you want to 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, 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 anyway this is open to you know, anybody who wants to sponsor, let us know. We, we are doing like kind of first round of refusal for folks that are already sponsoring like a Saster annual or a Saster Europa event because we only have a certain number of slots. It's kind of how we did for AI Day AI Days pull out of its slots. Right. So I know we literally have to tell a few folks out at the end. So yeah, if you are interested in money today, get in touch. Waylon. Any, any last things to add on Saster money before we get folks, you know how to, 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 this is all finance related topics, there are people outside those finance Persona. You are going to see rev ops. You are going to see revenue leaders. As a revenue leader, you want to understand one what do I need to do to effectively sell into CFOs? Because CFOs are basically involved in every deal now.

Yep.

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 that for money, right? It will. You'll notice it's on a Wednesday, so it's just we didn't want to compete with ourselves. 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 Saster workshops and you'll have plenty of workshops within. Faster money to pick from. Yeah. If you want to sign up again, sign up for a newsletter. We'll tell you once the full age 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 speakers 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're committed to money. If folks want more info, Waylon, how can they get in touch with you?

Yeah, you can reach me@waylonasterink.com that's W A Y L O N@saster inc.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.com. it's just my initials. And yeah, we will see you back here. Well, we'll see you back on Wednesday actually for Theoda, 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 Saster Insider. Thanks to everyone watching on the live stream. Good to see you back here and get excited for faster money. We will see you there.

Bye, everyone.