Impressions from the 5th annual PNC SaaS Founder Meetup (AKA PNC SaaS Camp)

We have a tradition here at Point Nine that once a year, we organize a meetup for the founders of our SaaS portfolio companies. The first meetup took place in SF back in 2012 and gave the founders in our (at that time still rather small) portfolio a unique opportunity to learn about what works and what doesn't work in SaaS, compare notes and share war stories.

About two months ago, the 5th annual PNC SaaS Founder Meetup took place in a small lake town a little bit outside of Berlin. To celebrate the 5th anniversary, we turned the meetup into a 48-hour long "camp" and invited about 150 founders and key people from our SaaS portfolio companies, along with a handful of external SaaS experts, to a nice resort close to Potsdam.

Here's a short video that we recorded at the meetup:

Spending two full days and two full nights together not only allowed us to put together an amazing agenda with more than 60 presentations and workshops; it also led to countless great conversations, connections, and friendships. We're truly thankful to all the amazing speakers and attendees who made this possible.

PNC SaaS Founder Meetup, Edition #4

Jack Newton, co-founder & CEO of Clio, at
the 1st PNC SaaS Founder Meetup in 2012

About three years ago we thought that it would be nice to organize a little meetup for the founders of our still quite young but growing SaaS portfolio. The idea was that by putting all of the SaaS founders in one room for a day, we'd give them an opportunity to compare notes, share war stories and learn from each other. The result has been nothing short of amazing. After the meetup, many of the attendees told us that they've never attended an event which was nearly as useful as this one, and everyone left the meetup energized and eager to implement all the new learnings.

The success of the first meetup, which took place in San Francisco at the end of 2012, encouraged us to do another, bigger event in 2013 in Berlin and an even bigger one in 2014, again in San Francisco. By now it has become a tradition, and last week the 4th annual PNC SaaS Founder Meetup took place in Berlin. Thanks to all the great people from our portfolio and our guest speakers it has once again been fantastic. Here are some (visual) impressions.

One of the reasons why the event is so effective is that it gives early-stage SaaS founders an opportunity to learn from later-stage SaaS founders and other SaaS experts who have already been through many of the challenges faced by the early-stage guys. Especially for founders from Europe and other places outside of the Bay area, this is a pretty unique opportunity to learn from some of the best people who've done it before. Therefore we're incredibly grateful to people like Mikkel Svane (co-founder & CEO of Zendesk), Jack Newton (co-founder & CEO of Clio), Paolo Negri (co-founder & CTO of Contentful), Olly Headey (co-founder & CTO of FreeAgent) and many others who participated in the first meetup in 2012 and keep coming to the PNC SaaS Founder Meetups ever since. Thanks guys, the startup world is a better place with you in it. :-)

PS: If you're a co-investor or friend of Point Nine and wondered why you didn't get an invitation this year: It's nothing personal, we've made it a portfolio-only event this time.

Impressions from the SaaS nirvana (a.k.a. as the 3rd annual PNC SaaS Founder Meetup)

Last week, we've held our third annual SaaS Founder Meetup in San Francisco. Following the first PNC SaaS Founder Meetup in San Francisco in 2012 and the second one in 2013 in Berlin, this has become a tradition for us: Once a year we're bringing together the founders of our SaaS portfolio companies, co-investors and leading experts for a full day of intensive knowledge sharing. To be precise, it was one day in 2012 and 2013. This year we've extended it to two full days.

It's hard to describe in a few words how awesome it was and how much we and our portfolio founders have been able to learn thanks to all the amazing speakers who were willing to share their insights at the event. I'll try to follow-up with some additional notes later, but for now here are some visual impressions from the meetup:

Impressions from the PNC SaaS Founder Meetup 2014 from Point Nine Capital

Huge thanks to all attendees and a special thanks to all of our incredible speakers and panelists:

Aaron Ross (Author of "Predictable Revenue"; former Director of Corporate Sales, Salesforce.com)
Albert Wenger (GP, Union Square Ventures)
Bill Macaitis (Former CMO, Zendesk; former SVP Online Marketing, Salesforce.com)
Boris Wertz (GP, Version One Ventures)
Colin Bramm (Founder & CEO, Showbie)
David Bizer (Founder, Talent Fountain; former Staffing Manager, Google)
David Hassell (Founder & CEO, 15Five)
Donna Wells (President & CEO, Mindflash; former CMO, Mint)
Doug Camplejohn (Founder & CEO, Fliptop)
Everett Oliven (National VP Sales, SAP)
Gil Penchina (serial entrepreneur & angel investor)
Heiko Schwarz (Founder & MD, riskmethods)
Hiten Shah (Founder & CEO, KISSmetrics)
Jason M. Lemkin (Managing Director, Storm Ventures; former Founder & CEO, EchoSign)
Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo (Chief Revenue Officer, Vend)
Joel York (Founder & CEO, Markodojo; former CMO, Meltwater Group)
Julien Lemoine (Founder & CTO, Algolia)
Lars Dalgaard (GP, Andreessen Horowitz; former Founder & CEO of SuccessFactors)
Lincoln Murphy (Customer Success Evangelist, Gainsight)
Mark MacLeod (CFO, FreshBooks; former GP, Real Ventures)
Matthew Romaine (Founder & CTO, Gengo)
Nick Franklin (former MD Asia, Zendesk)
Nick Mehta (CEO, Gainsight)
Nicolas Dessaigne (Founder & CEO, Algolia)
Nikos Moraitakis (Founder & CEO, Workable)
Omer Gotlieb (Founder & Chief Customer Officer, Totango)
Paul Joyce (Founder & CEO, Geckoboard)
Rian Gauvreau (Founder & COO, Clio)
Ryan Engley (Director of Customer Success, Unbounce)
Ryan Fyfe (Founder & CEO, ShiftPlanning/Humanity)
Sean Ellis (Founder & CEO, Qualaroo)
Sean Jacobsohn (Principal, Norwest Venture Partners)
Sharad Mohan (Chief Customer Officer, Vend)
Steven Silberbach (VP Global Sales, Clio; former Area VP Sales, Salesforce.com)
Todd Varland (Solutions Architect)
Tomasz Tunguz (Partner, Redpoint Ventures)
Zvi Band (Founder & CEO, Contactually)

Impressions from the PNC SaaS Founder Meetup 2013

A little more than a week ago we did the second PNC SaaS Founder Meetup. Around the same time a year ago we organized our first SaaS Founder Meetup in San Francisco, this time we did it in Berlin.

Thanks to the incredible speakers and guests who came to the event it's been a truly amazing day, and I think all of the SaaS founders returned with a number of actionable insights which they can't wait to implement.

I was going to write a longer post about the event but decided to create some slides instead which hopefully capture a little bit of the great spirit of the meetup. Here you go:



If you want to view the presentation on SlideShare, here's the link.