TechCrunch events always offer a compelling mix of main stage presentations and smaller breakout sessions that allow more time for lots of questions and deeper discussions. Expect nothing less at TC Sessions: SaaS 2021 on October 27.
We want to highlight these sessions we have on tap for you. Remember, TechCrunch partners don’t just cut a check and call it a day. They show up ready to inform, enlighten and take questions in their area of expertise.
A quick reminder from the home office: Buy your pass to TC Sessions: SaaS 2021 right here. Prices go up at the virtual door.
And now, a word from our partners. You’ll find the exact times (and more presentations) listed in the event agenda.
Three Easy Steps to Capture Global Opportunities
Presented by KUDO
As our economy becomes increasingly global, is your business prepared to succeed? KUDO co-founder and CEO Fardad Zabetian shares his insights on how to capture global opportunities.
Data Warehouse — The Foundation of the Modern Data Stack
Presented by RudderStack
The modern data stack is changing rapidly, with new technology emerging every day. Increasingly, though, architectures are being built around the data warehouse. In this panel discussion, Ben Gotfredson, global startup program manager at Snowflake, and Adam Gross, ex-CEO at Heroku, join RudderStack founder and CEO Soumyadeb Mitra to discuss why this new architecture has emerged, what specific technologies are driving the trend and what the data stack of the future looks like.
9 Security Tips For Startups
Presented by Vanta
When startups are in the beginning stages of growth, it becomes harder to balance between taking necessary security measures and bringing the product to market. You don’t want to slow iteration speed, but you also know that there are security steps that need to happen in order to grow the business. How do you balance these competing objectives? Christina Cacioppo, co-founder and CEO of Vanta, shares nine practical tips for building your product with security in mind and how to engage in conversations around security expectations from the start.
Disrupting Product Innovation
Presented by Onshape, a PTC Business
Innovation is a business imperative in today’s global economy. In fact, 84% of executives say innovation is key to their growth strategy, according to a McKinsey report. While companies need to innovate at scale to stay competitive, engineers need the right tools to avoid the many challenges associated with the product development process. In this session, hear Jon Hirschtick’s entrepreneurial journey and how cloud and SaaSification of the industry can accelerate product innovation as well as tips on scaling businesses into multimillion-dollar companies.
Accelerate your growth using agile market research throughout the product lifecycle
Presented by Momentive.ai
Conducting market research at each stage of your product lifecycle is a critical component to a successful product launch and sustained growth in an increasingly competitive market. While traditional market research can be costly and require a specialized team, agile market research software makes it possible for anyone on your team to get the insights you need fast. Join Momentive.ai to learn how to conduct your own market research to identify what kinds of products and features users value most, get insight into the competitive landscape and track your brand’s awareness and shifting perceptions over time.
How do High-growth Companies Use Technology to Inform Strategy and Drive Results?
Presented by SAP
Fast-growing companies are in a constant state of transition, as high performance and growth can lead to ever-changing business priorities and challenges. Hear from a couple of SAP’s hypergrowth customers about how they use technology to inform their strategy and ultimately drive business results. SAP Managing Director, Midmarket and Ecosystem, Greg Petraetis will share how businesses grow from being innovators to disruptors to category leaders and how the technology they choose can impact the future of their business productivity.
Optimizing SaaS Productivity — Why SaaS Sprawl Prohibits Growth?
Presented by LeanIX
SaaS represents an increasing share of the installed software estate — in cloud-born companies, often 100%. If not managed and optimized, an uncontrolled adoption leads to SaaS sprawl, sometimes called “Shadow IT.” Sub-optimized usage of SaaS subscriptions, increased risk and audit exposures will become a headache when scaling a business. André Christ, LeanIX co-founder and CEO, leads this talk illustrating frequent pitfalls and proposes the needed processes, skills and capabilities of the emerging SaaS management discipline for CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.
Things Fall Apart At $10MM ARR: Lessons For Growing Your SaaS Company
Presented by Vista Equity Partners
The strategies that get you to $10 million ARR look very different to those that get you to $50 million or even $100 million. At the $10 million growth inflection point, most software companies need to pivot their approach and often find they are facing new — often seemingly insurmountable — challenges. The team at Vista Equity Partners — one of the largest enterprise software investors in the world with over $81 billion AUM — have worked with many founders and companies to successfully bridge this transition. In this session, Rene Stewart, co-head of Vista’s growth-stage Endeavor Fund, discusses the missteps and misconceptions around software company growth and what you can do to achieve success that scales beyond $10 million ARR.
Taking Your People from Startup to Scale
Presented by SAP
As your business grows, you need to help your people grow with you. And, in a world that is transforming faster than ever, the methods of developing your team don’t cut it. In this session you’ll hear from Max Wessel, chief learning officer at SAP, about how to build a culture and workforce that is flexible, adaptable and fit for a rocket ship.
Future Forward — How Machine Learning and Human-in-the-Loop Approaches Are Expanding the Capabilities of Automation
Presented by AKASA
Digital transformation efforts in a number of industries have driven massive adoption of robotic process automation (RPA) over the past decade. The hard truth is that RPA is a decades-old technology that is brittle, with real limits to its capabilities. It will always have some value in automating work that is simple, discrete and linear. However, the reason automation efforts often fall short of their aspirations is because so much of life is complex and constantly evolving — too much work falls outside of the capabilities of RPA. In this talk, Varun Ganapathi, co-founder and CTO of AKASA, will discuss how exceptions and outliers can actually make automation stronger and how emerging machine-learning-based technology platforms combined with human-in-the-loop approaches are already expanding what it is possible to automate across a number of industries.
Join us — and the global SaaS community — for TC Sessions: SaaS 2021 on October 27.
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