As you probably already know, New Relic is all in on Software-as-a-Service, so it should be no surprise that our founder and CEO Lew Cirne was a featured speaker at last week’s SaaStr Annual 2016 conference in San Francisco for startups and small businesses.
The SaaStr Annual conference is designed to unite the global SaaS community, both online and offline, bringing together some 5,000 participants. For us, of course, Lew’s fireside chat with Jason Lemkin about Scaling Even Faster the Second Time was the highlight. Lew shared his story of pioneering the application performance management (APM) software category when he co-founded Wiley Technologies, which was acquired in 2006, and then getting the chance to do it all over again, even better, when he founded New Relic.
Lew talked about a variety of key issues, from fundraising (sometimes smart thinking is more important than capital) to choosing the right market (New Relic first targeted the tight-knit Ruby market) to focusing on the product—including the importance of remaining a coding CEO. That means not just working on today’s products, but also extending existing products into fast-growing markets and exploring the potential of brand new markets.
“Whether we’re reaching developers, IT Ops, digital leaders,” Lew said, “it starts with an amazing product that people tell their friends about… When you build it better than what the customer wanted… that’s when the magic happens.”
Watch the entire conversation below:
Lew’s talk wasn’t the only New Relic participation in the event. Our EVP of Enterprise and Commercial Sales Erica Schultz participated in the panel on Building a World-Class Sales Organization with Bill Binch, SVP Global SMB Sales at Marketo, and David Berman, President of Zoom, moderated by Jason Green. There were great insights shared in this discussion, with Erica underlining tips on how to scale for the enterprise. In talking about our approach at New Relic, Erica said, “Enterprise sales is a team sport. Inclusion is key. With big deals, we bring in [and celebrate] everyone from engineers to legal and finance. Never underestimate the power of attaching a person’s name to a deal.”
Watch Erica’s entire panel here: http://livestream.com/SaaStr/Conference2016/videos/111933183
Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.