Auth0

SaaStr 725: Mastering High-Volume, Low-CAC Marketing: Strategies from Gorgias, Vercel, and Hypergrowth Partners In today's world, there's a clear shift in what founders, boards, and investors are all after — scalable, low-CAC (customer-acquisition cost) growth strategies. In a panel, Guillaume Cabane (G) and Martin Gontovnikas (Gonto), co-founders of HyperGrowth Partners, Axelle Heems, Senior Director of Growth Operations at Gorgias, and Morgane Palomares, VP of Marketing at Vercel, share real-life examples of how demand generation, growth, and marketing strategies have been executed to scale beyond 2x ARR each year, even on a low budget. Let's deep dive into how combining innovative demand gen strategies with a modern tech stack and specific team setup can provide a winning formula for scaling B2B growth, even with low budgets of greater than a 2x burn multiple. In this episode we'll share: Automated outbound at-scale strategies. Sales-assisted, product-led growth strategies that close Enterprise leads. How to use community as a driver of product-led growth. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Guillaume Cabane

Growth Advisor

RampHypergrowth Partners

Martin Gontovnikas

Co-Founder & GP

Hypergrowth PartnersAuth0

Axelle Heems

Senior Director of Growth Operations

Gorgias

Morgane Palomares

VP of Marketing

Vercel

Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart who moved to the "dark side" to focus on Marketing. With this career transition, he found a way to combine his 2 passions by applying his "engineering thinking" model to Marketing. He is now a B2B SaaS Advisor to Vercel and Airbyte among others and Co-Founder & GP of Hypergrowth Partners. Previously, he was SVP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0. In Today's Episode with Martin Gontovnikas (Gonto) We Discuss: 1. From No Idea to Growth Leader: How Gonto made his way into the world of growth when it was not a thing? What does Gonto know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of growth? Why does Gonto believe product and marketing is more important than sales and marketing? 2. Growth: What, When and Who: What is growth? What is it not? What do people misunderstand most with growth? When is the right time to hire your first growth person? What is the right profile for the right first growth hire? Junior? Senior? 3. Mastering PLG and Enterprise: What are the single biggest mistakes startups make when scaling into enterprise? Why does Gonto believe that all PLG companies should start with 6-8 design partners? Is it possible to do enterprise and PLG at the same time? How does one provide enough value in a PLG motion to convert enterprise buyers? 4. Data vs Intuition: Art vs Science: Is growth more art or science? Why does Gonto believe qualitative data is more important than quantitative? How does Gonto think about psychology when selling and marketing? What do so few startups? understand about the psychology of their customers? How does Gonto approach messaging and what is truly great product marketing?

Martin Gontovnikas

Co-Founder & GP

Hypergrowth PartnersAuth0

The VP of Product is a critical hire to drive the product strategy, road-mapping, and execution across the organization. Shiven Ramji, the Chief Product Officer at Auth0, has dedicated years to being a VP, Product himself and has hired and mentored others into this role. In this session, he will share tips on what to look for and expect out of a great VP+ of Product. Full video: https://youtu.be/9sT5wp_HUvo Episode notes: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-454-and-video-what-to-expect-from-a-great-vp-of-product/

Shiven Ramji

Chief Product Officer

Auth0

Dave Wilner joined Auth0 in November of 2014, and has played an instrumental role in growing the company to $1 billion in valuation. In this episode of Go to Market, Joubin and Dave discuss Dave’s unique career journey, including his background as a former lawyer. They also discuss the pressures and expectations of succeeding in a high profile sales role and how Dave has managed to be so successful. In this episode of Go to Market Grit, we cover: How and why Dave made the transition from law partner to sales rep at an eight person startup. Why top sales performers tend to have a broad range of experiences, and how it’s helped Dave succeed.  The role that perspective plays in driving sales. The importance of picking the right companies to acquire — and what Dave tends to look for during the vetting process. Dave’s strategy for vetting private companies when he has limited data available.  How Dave has thrived in his role, despite the fact that most first time sales leaders don’t last very long. Dave opens up about how he’s working to buck the trend. The evolution of sales, marketing and the customer experience — and why they’re starting to blend together.  How Dave defines grit. Links:  Connect with Dave WilnerLinkedIn Email: first.last@auth0.com Connect with JoubinTwitter LinkedIn Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Dave Wilner

CRO

Auth0

In this episode, we talk auth, with Sam Julien, developer advocate engineer at Auth0. Sam talks about how he got out a rut and into development with a little help from his friends, what auth is, and what are the things you really need to know about it Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Auth Auth0 Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Codecademy Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Treehouse JavaScript SQL C# jQuery OAuth OpenID Connect React Angular Vue.js Application programming interface (API) Authorization server Multi-factor authentication Developer Advocate DEV Twitch Sam Julien Sam Julien is an Angular GDE and Collaborator, a Sr. Developer Advocate Engineer at Auth0, and the creator of UpgradingAngularJS.com and GetAJobIn.Tech. He's also an author for Thinkster.io and egghead. His favorite thing in the world is sitting outside drinking good scotch next to a fire he built himself.

Sam Julien

Developer Advocate Engineer

Auth0

Eugenio Pace is the Founder & CEO @ Auth0, the startup that allows you to rapidly integrate authentication and authorization for web, mobile, and legacy applications so you can focus on your core business. To date, Eugenio has raised over $213m with Auth0 from some of the best in the business including Meritech, Sapphire, Manu Kumar @ K9, Bessemer and Trinity. Prior to founding Auth0, Eugenio spent an incredible 12 years at Microsoft leading the Program Management team in the patterns & practices group at Microsoft. In Today's Episode We Discuss: How Eugenio made his way into the world of startups with the founding of Auth0? What were his biggest takeaways from 12 years watching the hyper-growth of Microsoft first hand? How does being a developer-first product fundamentally change the go-to-market? Who has done this best over the last few years? What have they done that has allowed them to scale faster than others? What has been Eugenio's takeaways in what works when building developer communities and early developer adoption? How does Eugenio respond to the common thinking that "devs don't have the budget"? Does this limit your ability to expand into large ACVs once in an organisation? How does Eugenio approach the issue of agency when selling to CIOs but having devs use the product? What have been Eugenio's biggest lessons in what it takes to make a freemium product successful? How does one know how much of the secret sauce to giveaway? How does Eugenio approach pricing today through 4 different variables? How does Eugenio adopt a variable pricing mechanism that does not discourage usage? Eugenio's 60 Second SaaStr: Quality or quantity of logos in the early days? What does Eugenio know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time at Auth0? What is the hardest element of his role today as CEO? What is he doing to really upscale there? Read the transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Eugenio Pace

Eugenio Pace

Founder & CEO

Auth0

Martin Gontovnikas started coding at 12, built his career as a software engineer, then switched to "the dark side" - marketing. At Auth0, he applied a 6-step inbound marketing SaaS framework that grew the company from $200,000 to eight figures in less than five years. In this episode, Gonto walks through each step, shares a case study where two experiments failed before the third unlocked growth, and explains why 85% of Auth0's revenue comes from inbound marketing SaaS strategy driven by developer content. The six steps are: decompose the problem, formulate a hypothesis, define a metric, run the experiment, verify the data, and iterate. Auth0's first SaaS content marketing experiment attracted existing users instead of new ones. The second got great conversion but low traffic. The third - greenfield content distributed through Hacker News and developer newsletters - finally drove organic growth SaaS founders can replicate. Martin Gontovnikas is the VP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0, a platform that makes it easier for developers to implement authentication and authorization for web and mobile products. 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 Decompose big inbound marketing SaaS problems into testable pieces: Auth0 was flat on signups. By interviewing developers about their habits, Gonto broke the problem into specific, testable experiments rather than guessing at solutions. 🔄 Treat content marketing SaaS failures as data for the next experiment: Auth0's first two experiments failed, but each revealed critical insights. The third iteration combined both learnings into a scalable acquisition engine. 🚀 Write greenfield content that solves problems without mentioning your product: Auth0's breakthrough came from writing about authentication in Angular without leading with Auth0. A small aside converted at much higher rates than product-focused content. 📉 Inbound marketing SaaS without distribution is invisible: Auth0's second experiment had excellent conversion but almost no traffic because SEO alone was not enough. Adding distribution through Hacker News and developer newsletters multiplied page views. 🧠 Scale by spinning up dedicated teams for proven channels: When developer content worked, Auth0 hired 10 technical writers as their first marketing team. The experimentation squad moved on to test new channels. Chapters Introduction Favorite quote - be yourself, everyone else is taken What Auth0 does and its developer-focused platform Martin's role as VP of Marketing and Growth Transition from software engineer to marketer What is developer evangelism How Martin joined Auth0 through serendipity The rise of the CTMO and engineering approach to inbound marketing SaaS Step 1 - Decompose the problem into smaller pieces Step 2 - Formulate a hypothesis The first experiment that failed Steps 3-6 - Define, Run, Verify, Iterate Deep dive into qualitative and quantitative decomposition Formulating hypotheses with problem statements Setting time frames and statistical significance Verifying data - segmenting metrics to find hidden insights Getting traditional marketers to embrace experimentation Auth0's growth - from $200K to eight figures Lightning round Where to find Martin and Auth0 Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/188 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email

Martin Gontovnikas

Co-Founder & GP

Hypergrowth PartnersAuth0