SaaStr Annual 2016 launched at 9 a.m. with Irish coffees and 1,800 attendees checked in at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco. Jason Lemkin, SaaStr’s Founder and Advisor, took the stage to welcome the group, let us know that 3,200 attendees are still yet to join (representing 47 countries!) and talk about what the next three days will bring.
Then he introduced the conference’s first featured speaker: Jay Simons, President of Atlassian. Jay was invited to SaaStr to give attendees the inside story behind a $5B IPO. Here’s a quick look at a few of the lessons he shared:
7 Quick Perspectives After a $5B IPO (Straight from SaaStr)
- On the importance of brand exposure: “We’re always evolving our target customer base. The amplification of brand is going to help that — help us tackle that bigger opportunity.”
- On the value of going public: “We believe that the best run companies are public companies.”
- On looking at IPOs: “A lot of people confuse an IPO with a terminus event, like it’s the destination. [To us] it’s a mile-marker.”
- On expansion opportunities: “We sell team software, so first of all we enter inside of a team. We want to cement that one valuable landing spot and then expand over time.”
- On communicating pricing: “Publish every single price.”
- On sales and marketing strategy: “We do a lot of experimentation with traditional approaches. You can do it — the challenge is: Does the cost scale?”
- On understanding buyer personas: “So we’re not just profiling the original buyer, but all of the end users of our software.”
Of course, Jay shared much more wisdom throughout his 40 minutes on stage. The full recording will be available after the show, but until then, let’s keep the conversation going on these perspectives. What do you think?
