Scaling a SaaS Company in a Competitive Space: Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta (Part 1)

Nick Mehta is the CEO of Gainsight, a B2B company that offers customer success management for SaaS companies with a goal of reducing churn. Prior to Gainsight, Nick was the CEO of leading SaaS e-discovery provider LiveOffice through its acquisition by Symantec. Prior to that was a vice president at VERITAS Software and Symantec Corporation. He has been an entrepreneur-in-residence at Trinity Ventures and an executive-in-residence at Accel Partners. He is a graduate of Harvard, from which he has a bachelor’s in biochemistry and a master’s in computer science.

Sramana: Nick, let’s start this story by getting your personal story. Where do you come from? What is the genesis of your entrepreneurial career?

Nick Mehta: I was born in Massachusetts but spent most of my childhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I went to school at Harvard and came out to California after college. I have been living in the Bay Area for around 15 years now. >>>

Featured Videos

Equity Financing from Customers: Modernizing Medicine CEO Daniel Cane, Boca Raton, Florida (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Daniel is president and CEO of south Florida–based Modernizing Medicine, Inc., a healthcare company that aims to change the way medical information is created, consumed, and used to increase efficiency, lower costs, and improve outcomes. Daniel has a BS from Cornell University where, as an undergraduate, he co-founded Blackboard Inc. Daniel serves as the vice-chairman of the board at the South Florida Science Museum and is a member of the Foundation Board at Florida Atlantic University. He is an active member of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, the Boca Chamber of Commerce, and several local advisory boards.

Sramana: Daniel, let’s start with your personal background in order to set the context for your entrepreneurial journey. Where are you from?

Daniel Cane: I grew up in south Florida. I had an entrepreneurial youth with the usual sets of lemonade stands and other endeavors to make a few bucks here and there. The beginning of my modern entrepreneurial experience happened during my sophomore year at Cornell University. I founded a company called CourseInfo with a very simple premise. >>>

Roundtable Recap: April 19 – Tyranny Of The TAM

During today’s roundtable, I found myself discussing Total Available Market (TAM) issues with three of the five presenters. So let me start off by providing some guidance on the topic for all of them as well as others who are facing similar challenges.

Folks, there can be no financing without a thorough articulation of market sizing. And market sizing, in our book, means a well-formulated Bottom-up TAM analysis with clear business model and pricing model assumptions. If you do not have this analysis, please put it together.

Once you have it, you need it to determine your fundability. Thumb rule: A small TAM means you CANNOT and SHOULD NOT raise financing. A large TAM means you may be able to raise money, provided the other requirements of fundability are met.
>>>

Video FAQs

Roundtable Recap: February 9 – Are You Fundable?

Today’s roundtable had a couple of interesting businesses, but before I get to them, I want to underscore that entrepreneurs MUST gauge fundability before assuming that they can build their businesses by raising money. We’re getting this question constantly: Can 1M/1M help us raise money? This short video addresses that question:

Now, let’s get to the entrepreneur pitches.
>>>

109th Roundtable Recap: December 22 – Free Apps, Ad-Supported Business Models => Dangerous!

At today’s roundtable, the last for 2011, we had four different countries represented and an intense set of discussions on five very interesting businesses – a fabulous event to end the year with.

BootstrapToday
Anand Agarwal from Pune, India, pitched BootStrapToday, an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) SaaS solution from his company Sensible Softwares. Anand already has 100 beta customers and fifteen of them are paying Rs. 1000-2000 (~$20-$40) per month to access advanced workflow logistics and intelligence in the area of software testing and productivity improvement.
>>>

Roundtable Recap: October 13 – FREE Is Not A Business Model

At today’s roundtable, we had a chance to discuss a topic that continues to bother me endlessly – the Internet’s obsession with FREE.

MyStream
Richard Zelson, from New York, New York, discussed MyStream, a music streaming app that allows multiple people to listen to the playlist of one individual, serving, roughly speaking, the function of a headphone splitter. Richard is currently offering the app for free but will begin charging $1.99 for it in November. He currently has 30,000 customers. He asked if waiting until November to start charging was a good idea. I think he should start charging now. Giving stuff for free is a dangerous game, and it is difficult to sustain operations that have large numbers of free users. You then become dependent on outside financing, and that is a slippery slope. It is much better to grow organically with revenue. So Richard, please move forward with your plan to charge money for the value you offer.
>>>

October 6 100th Roundtable Recording

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

Roundtable Recap: September 15 – Do Your Homework First

At today’s roundtable, we had entrepreneurs presenting from Brazil, Israel and India. In fact, I was pleased to even see an entrepreneur from Kolkata, India, the city in which I was born and raised.

Estate Lister
First up, Siddhesh Joglekar from Mumbai, India, pitched Estate Lister, a real estate portal along the lines of Zillow, targeted to the Indian market. Siddhesh has already validated his business and is catering to home buyers, sellers, and brokers, generating revenues from advertising and sponsorships as well as brokerage revenue sharing.
>>>