Leaders of Growth

In today's episode, we sat down with Matías Rodsevich, Founder & CEO of PRLab. This award-winning PR agency serves both tech startups and corporates and is one of the top five PR agencies in The Netherlands.Matías is also the author of The PR Paradox, where he shares his insights and learnings on mastering PR as a startup or scaleup. He's also the PRLab community's founder, comprising over 1,300+ PR and marketing professionals.In today's episode, Arthur Nobel from Knight Capital, and Matías, discuss:2:25 The difference between PR for startups and corporates4:20 The PR Paradox5:45 PR myths and a model to succeed in PR7:50 How much time should it take to see results?10:40 How to get PR right15:20 Strategies for getting featured in the media26:00 How to build relationships with journalists29:00 Should I hire a PR agency or have someone in-house?33:00 The most common PR MistakesLike the episode?Subscribe to the Leaders of Growth podcast!

Marija Dzemionaite is the Head Of Brand Communications at NordLayer (Nord Security.)Nord Security is an internet privacy and security provider for individuals and businesses that raised over $100M in funds and reached the unicorn status in April.Marija is an ex-Googler, marketer, and social media expert who led the rebranding of NordLayer. She is also an instructor at Domestika.In this episode, Arthur and Marija discuss:- What is great branding in 2022?- What is branding and rebranding, and why it’s important- Why implement a rebranding strategy and its goals- Do’s and don’ts of rebranding- How to balance demand generation and branding activities- Brand as a competitive advantageLike the episode? Subscribe, and don’t miss out on the next one!Leaders of Growth is brought to you by Knight Capital

Thomas Inhelder is the Co-Founder and CFO of Yokoy; an AI-based spend management platform for medium and large enterprises.Yokoy has raised over $100 M in funding and is at its Series B stage.In this episode, Thomas and Arthur from Knight Capital discuss:2:30 The current state of the market from a CFO perspective4:50 Approach to Cash Burn and Growth6:50 Break even7:40 Cutting costs during a recession9:00 KPIs to monitor11:45 Dos and Don’ts of Scaling14:15 How the company structure evolved15:50 Scaling and productivity20:40 Tool Stack25:40 ProcessesLike the episode? Subscribe, and don’t miss out on the next one!Leaders of Growth is brought to you by Knight Capital

Christopher May is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Finoa, a regulated custodian for crypto-assets, that offers custody and staking services to institutional investors and corporations.After working for over 4 years as a consultant at McKinsey, he founded the company in 2018.Finoa is at the Series A stage and raised over $20M in funding and its team tripled in the last year.In this episode, Arthur from Knight Capital and Christopher touched upon:2:40 Finoa's Story4:40 Scaling Challenges6:40 The Business Model10:00 Learnings of Fast-Scaling15:50 Hiring & Culture19:20 Building Culture Remotely27:00 Hiring For Remote Roles32:00 Evolving as a FounderLike the episode? Subscribe and don’t miss out on the next one!Leaders of Growth is brought to you by Knight Capital

72% of entrepreneurs are directly or indirectly affected by mental health issues according to a study by Dr. Michael Freeman (UC Berkley).There’s no doubt that founders' mental health matters for startups. That’s why in this mental health month, we sat with the author of this research.Dr. Michael Freeman is a psychiatrist, a fourth-generation serial entrepreneur, and an executive coach, who serves on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. He has held CEO and C-level leadership positions in several public and private sector health care organizations, and he is currently the founder of ECcona, a global center for entrepreneur mental wellness.In this episode Arthur Nobel, from Knight Capital and Michael Freeman, sat down to discuss:5:00 The three dimensions of mental health  7:00 The mental differences that entrepreneurs have11:00 The importance of self-awareness and self-efficacy16:20 Medication for mental health conditions19:50 How your environment affects mental health22.45 Resilience strategies to increase mental health31:50 How can companies manage the mental health of their employees Like the episode? Subscribe and don’t miss out on the next one!Leaders of Growth is brought to you by Knight Capital

Henrik Grim is a General Manager of Capchase (Europe). Capchase is a revenue-based financial provider for recurring revenue businesses. Capchase has raised  $549.6M in funding over 7 rounds and achieved unicorn status. In this episode, we delve into revenue-based financing. We explore what is it, how it works, how is the process, and if it’s suitable for your business.5: Do's and don'ts of scaling9:00 scaling to new geographies15: What is revenue-based financing?22:00 entry requirements27:00 how the process worksIf you liked the episode, subscribe, and don't miss out on the next one!

In this episode, our host Arthur Nobel sat down with Steffen Vollert, COO of Volt.io.Volt.io is an open payments gateway that aims to reduce the cost and complexity of point-of-sale transactions. Volt acts as a global Open Banking payments aggregator and technology developer to scale merchant organizations. The company was founded in 2019 and raised over $27.8 M.They touched upon topics such as:5:30 Steffen’s experience in scaling Volt8:53 The challenges in scaling the Engineering organization10:15 How the team is structured12:10 How to decrease interdependence18:00 Extreme ownership and HR challenges24:00 headcount planning30:00 tracing  the performance of the product teamLike the episode? Subscribe and don’t miss out on the next one!

In today’s episode, Arthur discusses M&A with Thomas Smale. Thomas is the CEO of FE International, an award-winning global M&A advisor of SaaS, e-commerce, and content businesses that has completed over 1000 acquisitions. Thomas began building and selling online companies in his early 20s and now has over a decade of experience in the SaaS Space.In this episode of Leaders of Growth, we cover:5:00 The acquisition process11.20 Do's and don'ts of the acquisition process13:40 Strategic acquires vs PE acquisitions20:00 Deal Structures27:00 Drivers in exit valuationsLike the episode? Subscribe and don’t miss out on the next one!

In this episode, Arthur Nobel discusses the role of the CPO with Gijo Mathew, Chief Product Officer at VTS, a real estate CRM software company. VTS has raised over $330M in funding over 9 rounds, and its currently in its Series D.  Gijo has been a Product Leader for over 25 years in companies such as CA Technologies and Web.com.Today, they touch upon topics such as the role of the CPO, differences between a CPO and a VP of Product, the evolution of a CPO from a startup to scaleup phase, how to evaluate the success of a CPO, and how to keep the organization aligned.Like the episode? Subscribe and don't miss out on the next one!Explore more insights on Scaling  SaaS companies at knight.capital

Louis Coulon is the co-founder of CleverConnect, an HR Tech that helps companies attract, convert and assess candidates. The company offers SaaS solutions for resume matching, video interviews, and smart career websites. CleverConnect started bootstrapping and is now at its Series B Stage and raised $35.5 M.Arthur Nobel, Principal at Knight Capital, interviews Louis in this episode. They touch upon topics such as:4:20 The State of the HR Market13:30 The Scaling Challenges of CleverConnect16:30 Key Learnings of Louis in his Journey19:00 Merging with another Company24:00 Things to Consider Before Merging27:00 Changing Roles as a Founder31:00 How Did the Team Develop Over Time

Christian Gabriel is the CEO and founder of Capdesk, an equity management platform for private companies. Capdesk is currently at its Series A stage and raised $15M in funding.In this episode, Christian shares his journey and touches upon topics such as:1:20 How Capdesk was born7:30 Scaling challenges10:00 Recruiting15:00 Trends in startup equity18:50 Giving equity to employees28:00 What you should watch out for in a funding roundLike the episode? Subscribe to Leaders of Growth, and don't miss out on the next one!

Hugo Wernhoff is the CEO and Founder of Kognity, an EdTech from Sweden that allows teachers to make more efficient use of teaching time and empowers students to take ownership of their learning. Kognity raised over $27 million and is currently in the Series B stage. In this episode, we delve into Hugo's role as a CEO and Founder and how self-awareness allowed him to make his job sustainable, build culture and grow his company.Listen out for:3:23 Learnings from Scaling Kognity5:48 Struggles of Being a Founder7:28 How to Overcome Personal Challenges12:00 Dealing with Uncertainty15:00 Personal Development For Founders18:26 How To Become Self-Aware20:18 How To Make The Founder Job Sustainable24:40 How To Assess Your Company Culture27:13 How To Create Culture Consciously32:30 The Importance of DiversityLike the episode? Subscribe to Leaders of Growth, and don't miss out on the next one.

"Life is too short to permit yourself the luxury of living it badly." That's Chris Zadeh's motto.Chris is an entrepreneur turned Angel Investor. He joined the founders of BinckBank in 2000 as employee number six, and in 2003 he became managing director of the Netherlands.After eight years at BickBank, he left the company and traveled the world. He got a vision of cloud-based administration factories for banks on his trip. That was how Ohpen, the world's first cloud-native core banking platform, was born. Ohpen raised over $80M.Chris made his passions part of his routine as an entrepreneur. Being a founder didn't stop him from traveling and doing other activities such as yoga and martial arts. Today, Chris is an angel investor and non-executive board member. He walks his shepherd dogs Yucca and Myza before doing yoga and advises companies on how to scale via his company Whangai.nl. In this episode, Chris shares his story and learnings from scaling Ohpen, his approach to building company culture, and his passion for extreme activities.

The 29th episode of Leaders of Growth features Dave Martin, Co-Founder at RightToLeft, where he leads the Momentum program to help scale SaaS products faster and bigger.Dave brings over two decades of Product leadership experience to his role as an executive coach. He has held C-suite roles including achieving 9 figure SaaS revenues leading to successful exit and worked on products for Google, Tes Global, PepsiCo, Bauer Media, CompareTheMarket, and various startups.Listen out for:2:00 Typical challenges of scaling Product4:45 Developing an ROI mindset in Product14:53 How to assess if Product and Engineering are collaborating effectively to drive ROI19:40 Taking “product impact bets” to drive business value24:00 Launching a new market32:30 How to make the handover of Product: From Founder to CPO/ VP of Product36:40 Key metrics to assess if you have a strong productLike the episode? Subscribe to Leaders of Growth and don’t miss out on the next one

In this episode, we cover a fundamental element for SaaS companies: positioning. Arthur Nobel, Principal at Knight Capital, sat down with Bob Wright, Partner at Firebrick Consulting. Bob has been at the vanguard of innovative positioning and sales enablement strategies for the industry and is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer on these topics.Over his career, Bob has successfully driven category leadership and differentiation strategies for over 300 B2B technology companies including VMware, Microsoft, SAS, Citrix, as well many new category disruptors such as PLEX, Workday, HootSuite and New Relic.This time, we cover how to assess if you're solving a significant pain, how to build and operationalize a positioning strategy, how to monitor your strategy, good and bad examples, and more.Listen out for:5:00 Quantifying the value proposition: is it necessary?6:00 How to assess if you are solving a real pain7:30 Creating urgency11:00 Painkillers vs. Vitamins vs. Candies14:20 How to build and implement a positioning strategy19:40 How to compete in red oceans24:50 Good and bad examples of positioning29:50 How to operationalize positioning34:30 How to monitor your strategy37:40 Positioning to different targets in a company

In today’s episode, we sat down with the B2B SaaS Marketer Edward Ford, Demand Gen Director at Supermetrics. Edward helped double the Marketing team size and quadruple ARR in 2 years.In this episode we cover:3:00 Do’s and don’ts of scaling Marketing7:50 Developing you people and reinventing yourself as the company grows17:00 How to pick the right distribution channels21:00 How Supermetrics added new layers of distribution as they scaled24:00 Building your content strategy30:40 Structuring the Marketing team36:00 How to manage Marketing localization when expanding39:50 Which Marketing metrics Supermetrics use

Today, we sat down with one of the Most Influential Women in Sales (AA-ISP). Sally Duby is the Chief Sales Officer and Partner at The Bridge Group, and in this episode, she brings insightful advice on how to set up Sales for success.Arthur and Sally discuss how SaaS companies can assess if they have a replicable sales model, training and onboarding Sales Frontline Managers, how to set Quotas, how to evaluate the health of your pipeline, and ramp-up times for SDR/AEs. Additionally, she shares 3 common mistakes to avoid when scaling Sales.Listen out for:3:50 Lessons from Sally Duby7:00 The importance of Alignment in the company14:00 Do I have a replicable sales model?16:00 Three Mistakes to Avoid 18:00 Training and Onboarding Frontline Managers27:00 How to Set Quotas32:00 How to evaluate if you have a healthy pipeline42:30 Which is a good ramp-up time for SDR/AEs?Like the episode? Subscribe to the Leaders of Growth podcast so that you don't miss out on the next one!

In the 25th episode of Leaders of Growth, we’re thrilled to have Jonathan Anguelov, Founder & Managing Partner of Aircall. Aircall is a cloud-based call center and phone system. Aircall was founded in 2014 and has raised over $226 million in funding. The company reached unicorn status, becoming the 16th French unicorn.Listen out for:0:43 Background4:00 How to Find a Balance Between Growth and Cash Efficiency? / The Rule of 406:13 Do’s and Don’ts of Scaling10:06 How to Hire your Early Employees15:14 How to Develop as a Founder as the Company Grows25:00 How Aircall got to $50M ARR with Partnerships32:30 How to Align the Different Departments with the Sales Team35:20 Having Side Projects as a Founder

Allan Adler is a Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners and a world-class Ecosystems coach supporting managers, and executives to understand and incorporate partnership best practices. Allan is the creator of the GoToEcosystem Framework that helps companies unlock the potential of Ecosystem Orchestration.Listen out for:1:00 Background4:20 The four-wall syndrome and how digital transformation changed the SaaS industry9:25 What are channel ecosystems; upstream/downstream activities14:10 When to get started with ecosystems?22:40 How to activate an ecosystem partner?26:30 How to get started with Go-to-Ecosystem?

In today's episode, Arthur Nobel discusses how to build and evaluate the Customer Success team with our guest Dave Blake.Dave is the Founder & CEO of ClientSuccess, a Customer Success platform that helps companies drive customer retention. Previously, Dave has been the VP of Global Customer Success at Adobe.In this episode, we dive deep into the common mistakes in Customer Success, metrics to assess a CS team on, what to look for in a VP of Customer Success, compensation structures, and more!Listen out for:5.10 Common mistakes companies make in Customer Success6.30 How to create a culture of Customer Success from day 18.05 How to evaluate the CS team?14:25 Quantifying the value proposition18:20 How to listen to the customer's voice20:00 the golden standard of Customer Success21.30 What to look for in a VP of Customer Success26.35 how to structure the Customer Success organization27.40 Career progression plans in CS29.00 Revenue Driven Organization and Compensation35.20 Compensation StructureLike this episode? Subscribe to the Leaders of Growth podcast so that you don't miss out on any episode!