9 Best Podcasts for SaaS Founders

9 Best Podcasts for SaaS Founders

01/04/2021 • SaaS • 13 MINUTES READ

Global interest in podcasts has absolutely skyrocketed over the last year, which inevitably means that there’s also been astronomical growth in the number of podcasts.

In total, there’s an estimated 1.5 million podcasts with 34 million individual episodes. With the average episode lasting about 43 minutes, that adds up to more than 24 million hours of content. It would take you about 2,750 years to listen to all that.

With so much content out there, finding the best and most insightful podcasts feels like searching for a needle in a haystack.

So if you’re looking for advice and insight that can help you out as a SaaS founder, it’s useful to know where to start. That’s why I’ve compiled this list of my favorite podcasts and episodes.

1. Acquired

The reason I love the Acquired podcast so much is that you get to hear the full, end-to-end stories behind a wide range of companies. How the initial idea was conceived and how they got started, right through to when the founder(s) exited, or launched an IPO, or they went bust.

Acquired doesn’t only focus on SaaS companies, and the guests aren’t just from the US. That means you get a really diverse range of stories and opinions.

I feel like every time I listen to an episode, I learn about a different business model or pick up some new insight. And I think that really helps level up your own game when you’re a founder-entrepreneur.

Standout Episodes

2. SaaS Growth Stacking – With Dan Martell

Dan Martell, the guy behind the SaaS Growth Stacking podcast, is super connected. 

He’s very, very sharp. He loves playbooks and processes, and he offers a ton of practical information.

But it’s not just about Dan’s own insights. He also talks to folks who’ve been there and done that at all levels of business.

You’ll find a gold nugget or two in every episode – mostly stuff around process and structure, rather than specific tactics.

Standout Episodes

3. The CX Broadcast

The folks at Zonka Feedback, a leading Customer & Product Experience Platform, host The CX Broadcast – a podcast series where they talk to leading experience managers and experts on all things customer experience.What you will get — stories from different heads from Fintech, SaaS, Healthtech and more on how to navigate and win with customers, along with some amazing insights on what really goes behind keeping customers happy.

Standout Episodes:

4. The Growth TLDR Podcast

Growth TLDR is pretty much what you’d expect: a ton of advice and insight about growing a business, with none of the noise or unnecessary detail.

It’s hosted by two folks who work at HubSpot who have a big marketing focus and really know what they’re talking about.

If you want to think about growth, I’d strongly recommend going back to episode one and listening from there! There are like 170 episodes in total, and you should probably just listen to them all.

Whenever I have a question – like, “How do I do freemium?” – I’ll just go to Growth TLDR and search “freemium.” I pretty much use it for finding out things I didn’t know and that I want to dig into, just like you use Google.

Standout Episodes

5. SaaStr Podcast

As far as I’m concerned, Jason Lemkin and the whole SaaStr community have must-listen-to status.

Now, the SaaStr podcast isn’t as tactical as some of the others on this list. I don’t know that I walk away from listening like, “Boom, I have to go do this thing right now.”

But it’s amazing for broadening your understanding of SaaS, keeping up to date with the industry, and learning about the cool things different people are doing. 

For me as a bootstrap founder, it’s not necessarily as relevant to my business because all these people are funded. But to know what folks that chose different routes are doing is very helpful.

Standout Episodes

6. The SaaS Revolution Show

Whereas the SaaStr team typically talk a lot more about sales and revenue, the SaaS Revolution Show has a bit more of a deep focus.

They don’t necessarily speak to as many “sexy” startups. They’re based in England, and a lot of their guests are from European startups.

But as a marketer, as a founder, and as a growth person, your job is to understand everything you can about SaaS, not just listen to advice from all the same people. So it’s a really good show for broadening your horizons.

Standout Episodes

7. David Skok

Okay, so this one’s a bit of an anomaly, because David Skok doesn’t actually have a podcast. But he’s so awesome that he definitely should!

David’s a venture capitalist, and his framework is just fantastic. You should definitely go read everything on For Entrepreneurs – it’ll basically give you practical guidance on how not to do a horrible job at stuff.

I think his unique value lies in his understanding of the business model of SaaS and the metrics and key pieces behind it, and then his ability to distill all of that information into ways that are easier to understand.

8. The Startup Chat

I like to think of The Startup Chat as the home of philosophical SaaS learnings.

What do I mean by that?

Well, both the guys behind the podcast are really sharp practitioners who know a lot about dealing with things like stress, and emotion, and failure, and how to communicate with your team.

So I guess it’s a little more “soft and fuzzy” than some of the more revenue, growth-oriented podcasts on this list. But it’s pretty damn good!

Standout Episodes

9. The Top

In The Top, author and podcaster Nathan Latka interviews all sorts of founders – but typically those who don’t have millions in VC funding behind them. 

That means he gets to hear the stories behind different companies that don’t normally attract a ton of attention or written about in industry publications.

That makes it really interesting for a couple reasons. One, these aren’t the stories you’d usually hear about. And two, the people he speaks to are often more prepared to open up and give genuine answers than the real big hitters.

Also, Nathan is a real gunner. He’s so fantastic at getting fascinating information from people.

Standout Episodes

Honorable Mentions

Like I said, there are a lot of podcasts out there! 

If those I’ve listed above aren’t quite doing it for you (or you’ve somehow managed to listen to every episode of each), here are a few others to check out:

How Do I Find Podcasts?

There’s a ton of podcast recommendations in this article.

But as well as checking out all of the above, I’d also really, strongly advise you to get out there and track down your own favorite SaaS podcasts, because your needs and the things you want to learn might be very different to mind.

So how do you find helpful podcasts?

Well, I always start by thinking of any fast-growing company, then Googling their name + “founder podcast interview.”

Go listen to it, waste like a whole day, and learn everything you can about the fastest-growing SaaS companies on the planet. What you end up getting from listening to these folks – basically by stalking the crap out of them – is all the advice they’d give you if they were your mentor.

Of course, not all of them are 100% transparent and honest. What people say in public is the nice stuff that makes them look good.

But the interesting thing is, when you listen to enough of these podcasts, and you’ve heard the same people interviewed four different times, you can start to form your own opinion about who really knows their stuff, or how things really played out.

From listening to probably hundreds of hours of podcasts, I’ve got a pretty clear idea on who’s amazing and who’s full of it, but you can figure it out yourself!

What are your favorite SaaS podcasts and why? Let me know in the comments below:

Entrepreneur & Digital Marketing Strategist

I build and grow SaaS companies.

“When it comes to marketing, Sujan is the best. I’ve never met someone with such creative tactics and deep domain knowledge not just in one channel, but in every flavor of marketing. From content, to scrappy guerrilla tactics, to PR, Sujan always blows my mind with what he comes up with.”

RYAN FARLEY Co-Founder of Lawn Starter

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