Updated on by Daniel Twigg
At SaaStock we had the chance to sit down and chat with Werner Schmidt, the Co-Founder and CEO of Lative. We wanted to discuss how Lative started, any challenges they faced and any advice he has for fellow SaaS founders.
Lative and Werner Schmidt
Hi, I’m Werner Schmidt, the CEO and Co-Founder of Lative.
Lative is a real-time revenue efficiency and planning platform. It empowers revenue organisations to make better decisions with precision and purpose and increase sales operating margins by optimizing investment decisions.
What inspired you to start your business?
After 20 years of being in RevOp, Enablement and doing everything in spreadsheets to measure sales efficiency and build accurate revenue plans, I thought there must be a better way to automate the calculations. This would allow us to measure sales efficiency in real time. As a result, opens the door to real-time capacity planning instead of doing it annually each year.
What is your most memorable moment in building your business?
Being in London locked up in an apartment for four days with my co-founder, Laura, and our CTO, Xavi, as we created the first wireframes of what the product could look like. Then realising we were actually going to build this SaaS.
What part of scaling your business have you felt the most difficult?
We have found the most difficult part of scaling Lative is after the initial conversation. The first conversation goes well but as soon as we go down a level within the organisation and meet wider teams it has been difficult to schedule second meetings to inform them about the product’s potential. So, it’s been really challenging to have those second calls.
What solutions do you recommend to be part of your Tech Stack?
As a Startup, we already have a number of solutions in our tech stack. We have a number of solutions even being a start-up. We started with Office365, DocuSign and Zoom. Then on the marketing side, we are running Hubspot with Hotjar and Google Analytics.
As for our sales, we use LinkedIn Navigator, Wiza and ZoomInfo for prospecting and have Salesforce as our CRM with SalesLoft for engagement. Finally, for development, we use GitLab, Docker, Figma, Visual Studio and our cloud provider is AWS.
Which other SaaS Brands Inspire you?
I have always been inspired by Citrix and GoTo as I was part of the journey when we grew the SaaS business from $400M to $800M ARR in four years. More recently, companies like Sage, SalesLoft, Clari, BoostUp and SalesHood
What is your main focus for the year ahead?
Sales are now our main focus and how we can convert customers from trials to revenue generating. As well as continuing to enhance the product and build out the new modules.
What one piece of advice would you give to other SaaS Founders?
Don’t try to do it on your own because there is a lot of free advice out there. So, listen to people, take advice and be open to it.
It’s also crucial to be laser-focused and prioritise what’s important. I sometimes get caught up in the day-to-day activities and have to pull myself back and make sure I’m focused on the items that are going to make a difference today so we are in a better place tomorrow.
Read our other SaaS Founder Interview with OpinionX
