#250 - Greg Blazewicz, CEO SALESmanago, on bootstrapping a SaaS business to +€22 million

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that gives B2C brands around the world the power to maximize eCommerce revenue the lean way. My guest is Greg Blazewicz, CEO of SALESmanago.Greg has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing. He holds two MA degrees: one in British Literature and Linguistics second in Business Management. His career started in marketing agencies in New York and London. For 6 years, held the position of Marketing Director at Comarch – one of the largest European IT solutions providers. In 2006, he was nominated as CEO of Interia, one of the largest horizontal internet portals in Europe listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, employing over 250 people.Greg is the author of the widely popular book “Marketing Automation Revolution”. He is also a lecturer at Universities, helping other technology startups.In 2008, he started as an entrepreneur creating software for marketing teams which led to founding SALESmanago Marketing Automation in 2011. Their mission: To enable every eCommerce team to be lean yet pragmatic and powerful and become the CEO's trusted revenue partner.This inspired me, and hence I invited Greg to my podcast. We explore how Greg took his business to €22 million ARR in a completely bootstrapped way. He shares his big lessons learned to build a business with staying power, how to find your own way of doing it, and why you shouldn't blindly follow the advice and rules of people outside your company.Here's a quote from him:The early kind of growth was really about having complete freedom to experiment. And I think a team that is actually really open for change for experimentation for failures is not an obvious thing. People that were committing their lives. When you see a startup, you would have two, three, or at max five founders who work like crazy. I'd say, today we are almost 400 people in the business, and 30% of them work like founders.During this interview, you will learn four things:Why the essence of your SaaS product is not its features but the transformation it lets your users makeHow going into countries no one considers can build you an interesting competitive positionHow to create an organization where +30% of your employees showcase the determination of a founderHow to arrive at a position where you can start funding from a position of strength (not desperation)For more information about the guest from this week:Greg BlazewiczWebsite SALESmanago