What We Learned at SaaStr and Why SaaS Founders Should Attend in 2023

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Hey,

This is Mauricio, cofounder and CEO at DailyBot. Last week we visited SaaStr in San Francisco and we wanted to share our experience and why we see this event as one of the most valuable out there for founders.

Initially, we were not sure about attending the event, I’m personally not really into investing in such type of activities as it takes some time, money, and most times you do not capitalize.

What questions we had before attending?

• What are we going to get out of this event?
• What is the type of audience that comes/joins this event?
• Is the format going to be good for networking, or is it just a bunch of talks that we can watch online anyway?
• Is this worthwhile at all?

We talked with a dozen founders and salespeople who have attended before and we got mixed feedback, however, it seemed worth exploring and experiencing for ourselves. In the end, every person sees and takes advantage of these events in different ways.

As we are a remote team and currently not based in SF, it seemed the perfect opportunity to connect with the local ecosystem, build relationships and gain more insights. So we decided to go.

How we ended up assisting?

The dots connected here in an interesting way. We were already planning to be in SF around this time to assist some YC meetups and the timing was perfect: SaaStr was just a week before, then we learned that Insight Assurance was assisting and setting up a booth at the event — they are the SOC2 auditing firm that together with Vanta helped us achieve our SOC2 Type II compliance, — and Insight was kind to offer us a special invite to attend.

So, was this worth it?

It definitely was! I’m going to summarize what we noticed at this event and why we think this is worth it for many SaaS founders around the world.

• A bunch of SaaS nerds are here: every connection you make is going to be a brilliant person with lots of insights – and international, you meet founders from everywhere.
• The outdoor event format is awesome: in the past, this event used to be indoors, now it is fully outdoors, with music, coffee spots, food trucks, and some networking events and happy hours in between — it has a festival vibe.
• The talks are top quality: SaaStr is doing a great job selecting the talks for the event, you have different stages, a full agenda, and talks that can adapt to your business — some talks are great for early-stage companies, others for hyper-growth companies, etc. You pick your battles here.
• The mood is great: everyone here is super open to connecting and helping in any way. I met speakers, VPs at Stripe, executives from Zendesk, and more. Everyone is super nice and willing to share knowledge with you.
• A must-visit to build a network in SF: if you want to build, or continue to build your network in SF regardless of where you are based of, this event is for you. Thousands of people are here from thousands of companies. Something I loved is that I was able to meet teams at companies we’ve been working with for years… ClickUp, Paddle, Vanta, Stripe, Notion, OpenPhone, Insight, and many more.

We highly appreciate the invite to this event, and we’ll plan to assist again in the future. Now, wanna check some photos? (Just scroll down.)

Thanks,
Mauricio

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