SaaStr Annual 2018: The bar is rising
Last week we have been at the SaaStr Annual 2018 in San Francisco and to sum it up, it was awesome with lots of learnings. In terms of location the event moved to the Hilton Union Square this year to make room for even more people and it was right in the center of the city. As this was now my second SaaStr (here you can find my last years summary), it was great to see how much the SaaS ecosystem developed during 2017. Overall the general tone shifted more from a challenge-based view to providing solutions for these. I will go through some of the things that stumbled upon me.
Founders grow up and get more professional
Compared to last year the depth of the talks was even higher and so it was great to listen to so many experienced founders on the key topics that come across my mind every day when thinking about how to build up quintly as a company. This goes from growing marketing and sales, to building up a product and creating an amazing customer success atmosphere. I really had the feeling that the SaaS ecosystem and its founders are growing up and are becoming a key part of our society.
It’s the best time to be a SaaS founder
I think I heard this sentence in at least 10 different talks this year and I couldn’t agree more to this. With all the opportunities around there is basically no boundary and great possibilities to which a SaaS company can be developed. Also many of the VCs mentioned that the availability of capital is back in a top spot compared to the slight reduction in 2016 where everyone thought SaaS wouldn’t be living up to its hype.
Be yourself
One thing I noticed especially this year is that all the founders are unique personalities. Although a lot of best practices were shared, I got the impression that a lot of the success is depending on the individual founders characteristics and that there is not a way to success by just following a playbook. The founder stories were very inspiring and there were a lot of cases where I could really find myself in the same challenges.
Product, Product, Product
In multiple talks it became clear that the product is more than ever at the center of the companies. The quality of the product it terms of solving a problem and UI/UX is nowadays expected and there is no excuse to build a mediocre product anymore. Where in the past often the main focus was on marketing and sales, now the product itself becomes the most important marketing channel. It also shows how important it is to see the whole company as one big machine that needs to work together smoothly in order to be successful.
San Francisco, the best ecosystem around
And then there is this one last thing that makes the event great, although it hasn’t much to do with the event itself, the city of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. I don’t know what it is exactly, but the region always gives us a great amount of inspiration and motivation for the future with lots of plans and tasks in our pocket when we come back. From visiting clients, other SaaS founders or friends in general, the amount of conversations just pays off in the end. The funny thing is that we even met up with lots of German people although we have no real excuse to not meet up in Germany. Maybe it’s just the nice weather all year round that creates an open mind.
Overall it was a great event and we will definitely be back next year. I’m also looking forward to the one day Europe edition that is happening in Paris in June.
