Janis Vavere's Journey from Sales to SaaS Founder to $1.5M Pre-seed Round

Welcome to The SaaS CFO Podcast! In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with Janis Vavere, the co-founder of Trace Space. Janis shares his journey from starting as a Sales Development Representative to becoming a sales leader and eventually starting his own company. He discusses Trace Space's mission to empower and support innovators in the field of systems engineering. Janis explains the importance of requirements management in building complex products and how Trace Space aims to provide a purpose-built solution for engineers and innovators. We dive into the industries that Trace Space focuses on, their team size, and their recent pre-seed funding round. Join us as we learn from Janis's experiences and dive deeper into the world of SaaS and engineering solutions. It's an episode you don't want to miss!   Highlights: [00:00:18] Typical background, promoted, managed accounts, scaled company. Empowering innovators at Trace Space. [00:03:32] Managing large accounts for systems engineering products; organizing user conferences; passionate about the founder persona; working with companies building future products to improve efficiency. [00:09:11] Validating need, building team, obtaining practitioner validation. [00:11:31] Early validation, luck, and market analysis key. [00:15:42] LinkedIn is the best place to learn. Links: Saas Fundraising Stories: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/trace-space-raises-1-5-million-in-pre-seed-round Janis Vavere’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/b2bsaas/ Trace Space LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/trace-space/ Trace Space Website: https://trace.space/ Ben’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray/