- Get Practical Lessons From Leaders Who Have Scaled Software Through Real Challenges
- TL;DR: Key Takeaways on Top SaaS Influencers
- Why Follow B2B SaaS Influencers
- 1. Jason Lemkin
- 2. Elena Verna
- 3. April Dunford
- 4. Kyle Poyar
- 5. Jason Cohen
- 6. David Skok
- 7. Rob Walling
- 8. Hiten Shah
- 9. Des Traynor
- 10. Jason Fried
- 11. Dharmesh Shah
- 12. Nick Mehta
- 13. Wes Bush
- 14. Georgiana Laudi
- 15. Claire Suellentrop
- 16. Dave Kellogg
- 17. Tomasz Tunguz
- 18. Christoph Janz
- 19. Mark Roberge
- 20. Aaron Ross
- 21. Steli Efti
- 22. Patrick Campbell
- 23. Nathan Barry
- 24. Joel Gascoigne
- 25. Dan Martell
- How to Choose B2B SaaS Influencers Who Fit the Brand
- Build Buyer Confidence With Trusted SaaS Voices
Get Practical Lessons From Leaders Who Have Scaled Software Through Real Challenges
Get Practical Lessons From Leaders Who Have Scaled Software Through Real Challenges
SaaS growth advice is easy to find. The hard part is knowing what applies to your business and when. Early-stage founders closing their first deals need different answers than teams focused on retention at scale. The best B2B SaaS voices don’t just share tactics. They explain the trade-offs behind pricing, product, hiring, and sales decisions that actually move revenue.
Jason Lemkin brings the founder and investor lens from years of building and backing SaaS companies. Elena Verna zeroes in on the moments between signup and repeat usage. The value is in their specificity. For B2B leaders, these experts help you cut through generic advice and focus on what matters to your buyers.
TL;DR: Key Takeaways on Top SaaS Influencers
TL;DR: Key Takeaways on Top SaaS Influencers
- The top five B2B SaaS influencers on this list are Jason Lemkin, Elena Verna, April Dunford, Kyle Poyar, and Jason Cohen.
- Their expertise covers the full SaaS business: positioning, product adoption, sales execution, retention, and profitable growth.
- Match advice to your company stage and business model. Bootstrapped and venture-backed teams often need different answers to the same growth question.
- Do not focus only on acquisition. Pricing, onboarding, and customer expansion directly affect recurring revenue. Several experts here show how those decisions play out in practice.
- When evaluating brand partnerships, prioritize proven expertise and relevance to your buying group. Audience size alone does not guarantee commercial fit.
- Plan distribution and measurement from the start. Expert content needs a clear path to relevant accounts and a way to track engagement, qualified demand, and pipeline contribution.
Why Follow B2B SaaS Influencers
Why Follow B2B SaaS Influencers
Operators worth following break down decisions by outcome, cost, and failure points. Their transparency gives leadership teams the clarity to challenge assumptions before spending or shifting strategy. This is the difference between actionable expertise and recycled playbooks.
Recognize Which Growth Problem Comes First
Chasing pipeline does not solve adoption issues. Changing pricing falls flat if buyers cannot articulate value. SaaS specialists help you diagnose what is actually blocking growth and where to focus resources. Their perspective matters most when teams disagree on the root cause and leadership needs to prioritize.
Pressure-Test the Economics Behind the Plan
Revenue targets are built on assumptions about acquisition, conversion, retention, and expansion. Seasoned founders and investors expose those assumptions and pressure-test the numbers. Their analysis helps teams rethink hiring, quantify churn’s real cost, and decide if the sales motion fits the deal size.
Understand What Earns Practitioner Trust
Credible experts do not gloss over the trade-offs buyers face post-sale. That level of honesty is critical when evaluating B2B influencer partnerships. Watch how someone handles pushback, qualifies their advice, and responds to technical scrutiny. These habits signal real credibility, not just a polished profile.
See How Expertise Travels Across Channels
A strong point of view travels. The best creators turn a detailed essay into a podcast, a webinar, or a social series. For SaaS brands, the opportunity is to share expertise that earns distribution and gives buyers multiple ways to engage.
This list is curated for operating experience, substance, and relevance to B2B SaaS decisions. Order is not based on follower count. Brand-fit notes highlight topical relevance and do not imply endorsement, verified audience, or paid partnership availability.
1. Jason Lemkin
1. Jason Lemkin
The operating questions behind the next stage of SaaS growth
Jason Lemkin founded SaaStr after building EchoSign, which Adobe acquired. Through SaaStr’s articles and interviews, he examines the decisions founders encounter as a software business grows beyond its earliest customers. His work combines lessons from running a company with the perspective of a B2B software investor. Sales leadership, customer success, fundraising, and executive hiring are recurring subjects.
Lemkin is useful for founders and revenue leaders trying to understand what changes at the next stage. He spends considerable time on practical questions, including when to hire a sales leader and what founders should expect from that hire. Readers get a candid view of the management work behind growth, with enough specificity to challenge assumptions in their own operating plans.
Known for: Lemkin explains the leadership, sales, and organizational decisions involved in scaling recurring-revenue software businesses.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, SaaStr articles, podcasts, and conference sessions.
Best fit for brands: Software and services addressing SaaS founders, executive hiring, sales leadership, and growth-stage operations.
2. Elena Verna
2. Elena Verna
A rigorous view of what makes product-led growth work
Elena Verna leads growth at Lovable and has built a public body of work around B2B growth models. Her writing and interviews examine how acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization work together. She is best known for product-led growth and the relationship between self-service adoption and sales. Her growth writing gives readers a vocabulary for diagnosing those systems.
Her perspective helps product leaders, growth teams, and executives understand what happens after demand reaches the product. Verna challenges the idea that a free tier or a larger experiment backlog constitutes a growth strategy. Follow her when the question is whether customers reach value, return, and create opportunities for expansion. Her work encourages teams to examine behavior before declaring a channel or campaign successful.
Known for: Verna specializes in B2B growth models that use product adoption, retention, and monetization to support durable revenue.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, her growth newsletter, and podcast interviews.
Best fit for brands: Product analytics, experimentation, onboarding, and software serving product and growth teams.
3. April Dunford
3. April Dunford
Positioning that gives buyers a reason to choose
April Dunford is a positioning expert and author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch. Her work helps B2B technology companies explain where their products fit and why the differences matter. She draws on a career in technology marketing to make positioning a concrete business exercise. Her approach centers on competitive alternatives, differentiated capabilities, and the customers who value those capabilities.
Dunford’s content is valuable when a software company has a capable product but can’t explain it convincingly. She helps founders, product marketers, and sales leaders examine the context buyers use to evaluate a purchase. Readers can apply that thinking to category choices, competitive messaging, and sales conversations. Her work also helps teams recognize when changing website copy requires deeper agreement about the market.
Known for: Dunford develops practical methods for B2B product positioning and sales narratives built around differentiated value.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, her books, newsletter, and conference talks.
Best fit for brands: Software companies addressing product marketing, competitive intelligence, sales enablement, and market differentiation.
4. Kyle Poyar
4. Kyle Poyar
Pricing and growth analysis with the assumptions exposed
Kyle Poyar writes Growth Unhinged, a publication focused on software growth, marketing, and monetization. He previously worked as an operating partner at OpenView and a director at pricing consultancy Simon-Kucher. That background informs his coverage of packaging, product-led growth, and the commercial choices facing software teams. His publication combines company examples, research, and practitioner contributions.
Poyar is a strong follow for leaders considering how to sell and charge for a product. His work examines how customer behavior, pricing structure, and the sales process relate. Recent coverage also considers how AI changes monetization and go-to-market execution. The practical value is in comparing approaches and identifying the assumptions a team should test before adopting a fashionable model.
Known for: Poyar analyzes software pricing, packaging, and growth models through operator examples and original research.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn and Growth Unhinged.
Best fit for brands: Billing, monetization, product analytics, and software supporting growth and revenue operations.
5. Jason Cohen
5. Jason Cohen
Clear thinking about the mathematics and judgment of building software
Jason Cohen founded WP Engine and previously built Smart Bear and IT WatchDogs. His essays at A Smart Bear explore product-market fit, pricing, growth, and the decisions founders face as their companies mature. He has experience with both bootstrapped and funded businesses. That range gives his work useful context when the same startup question has several defensible answers.
Cohen writes for readers willing to work through an argument. He often uses models and examples to explain why an attractive idea may break under real operating conditions. His essays are particularly useful for founders and product leaders assessing market demand, prioritization, or a revenue plateau. The benefit is a more disciplined way to reason about the business before committing to a solution.
Known for: Cohen uses detailed reasoning and operating experience to examine SaaS growth, product strategy, and founder decisions.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, A Smart Bear essays, and Smart Bear Live.
Best fit for brands: Developer tools, software infrastructure, product management, and founder-focused business platforms.
6. David Skok
6. David Skok
The economics that determine whether growth can continue
David Skok is a serial entrepreneur and software investor whose For Entrepreneurs publication focuses on recurring-revenue businesses. His work includes extensive explanations of SaaS metrics and the steps toward a repeatable business model. He connects operating decisions with customer acquisition costs, retention, and the cash demands of growth. The publication remains a substantial reference library for SaaS leadership teams.
Skok is particularly useful when a team needs to understand how its metrics relate. His explanations help readers assess why strong bookings can coexist with cash pressure or why retention changes acquisition economics. Founders and executives can use the material to improve planning discussions and interrogate a growth model. Treat older benchmarks as historical context while using the underlying reasoning to examine current company data.
Known for: Skok explains SaaS unit economics and the conditions required for repeatable, scalable growth.
Main platform(s): For Entrepreneurs, LinkedIn, and recorded SaaS presentations.
Best fit for brands: SaaS analytics, planning, subscription management, and operational tools for software leadership teams.
7. Rob Walling
7. Rob Walling
A practical route to SaaS growth without a venture timetable
Rob Walling is a software founder, investor, and co-founder of TinySeed and MicroConf. He previously built and sold Drip and publishes extensively for founders building sustainable software companies. His Startups for the Rest of Us podcast covers the practical work of choosing markets, finding customers, and operating a business. His experience is especially relevant to bootstrapped B2B SaaS.
Walling’s material takes a smaller company’s constraints seriously. He explains how founders can prioritize channels, make hiring decisions, and grow without assuming they have a large funding round available. Readers also get candid conversations about the emotional and operational demands of ownership. Follow him for guidance that keeps profitability, founder goals, and business durability in the same discussion.
Known for: Walling teaches founders how to build and grow bootstrapped SaaS companies with sustainable economics.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, Startups for the Rest of Us, YouTube, and MicroConf.
Best fit for brands: Tools and services for independent software founders, small SaaS teams, and profitable growth.
8. Hiten Shah
8. Hiten Shah
Product judgment built through repeated company building
Hiten Shah co-founded software businesses including Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and Nira. His published essays and interviews cover customer understanding, product decisions, and the process of building a company. He brings the perspective of someone who has worked across different software categories rather than one isolated growth story.
Shah is worth following for the questions he asks about customers and the problems a product should solve. His content is relevant to founders and product teams trying to separate genuine demand from internal enthusiasm. It can also help marketers think more carefully about what their acquisition messaging promises. The recurring lesson is to better understand the problem before adding another feature or tactic.
Known for: Shah examines customer needs, product-market fit, and the operating decisions involved in building SaaS businesses.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, his essays, and startup podcast interviews.
Best fit for brands: Customer research, product discovery, analytics, and tools supporting software founders.
9. Des Traynor
9. Des Traynor
Product strategy at the intersection of software and AI
Des Traynor is co-founder and chief strategy officer of Fin, formerly Intercom. He has led product, marketing, customer support, and content across the company’s development. He writes and speaks about product strategy and the challenges of building a software business. His experience connects product design with how the company explains and sells it.
Traynor gives product and executive teams a detailed perspective on how software businesses respond to major technological changes. His discussions of AI are grounded in a customer-service company where product performance has direct consequences for users. Follow him for arguments about what to build, how customer expectations change, and how an established software company can rethink its product without losing sight of the problem it serves.
Known for: Traynor analyzes software product strategy and how AI changes customer service products and business models.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, his personal writing, company editorial content, and conference talks.
Best fit for brands: Customer service technology, AI software, and products serving software development and product leaders.
10. Jason Fried
10. Jason Fried
Profitable software and deliberate limits on complexity
Jason Fried is co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp and HEY. His public writing examines how a software company can stay profitable while making deliberate choices about its size and how it works. Through the 37signals editorial archive, interviews, and social posts, he discusses product scope, management, and the costs of organizational complexity.
Fried is useful for SaaS leaders deciding which expectations of growth they actually want to accept. He regularly questions the assumption that more people, more meetings, or more features will improve a business. His perspective encourages founders to consider the operating consequences of their ambitions. Readers do not have to agree with every position to benefit from a clearer argument about what the company should become.
Known for: Fried advocates for focused software products, profitable operations, and simpler ways to run a company.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, 37signals writing, and The REWORK Podcast.
Best fit for brands: Collaboration software, remote-work tools, and services for founder-led software companies.
11. Dharmesh Shah
11. Dharmesh Shah
The product and culture choices behind a lasting software company
Dharmesh Shah is HubSpot’s co-founder and CTO. Before HubSpot, he founded Pyramid Digital Solutions, which SunGard acquired. His OnStartups writing and public presentations draw on that background in software entrepreneurship. Company culture, product building, and the relationship between technology and business growth are recurring subjects.
Shah’s perspective is relevant to founders and technical leaders who need to think beyond shipping the next release. His work connects the product with the organization required to keep improving it. He also comments on AI and the opportunities it creates for builders. Readers can follow him for a founder’s view of how technical choices, customer experience, and company principles shape a software business’s direction.
Known for: Shah shares lessons on software entrepreneurship, product innovation, and building a company culture that supports growth.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, OnStartups, and conference presentations.
Best fit for brands: Developer platforms, AI tools, startup infrastructure, and products for technical founders.
12. Nick Mehta
12. Nick Mehta
Retention as a responsibility across the business
Nick Mehta led Gainsight for 13 years before moving into a board and advisory role in 2025. He co-authored Customer Success and helped shape the public conversation around retention and customer outcomes. His experience spans software leadership and the operational requirements of a recurring-revenue business.
Mehta’s work is valuable for executives who need customer success to influence decisions beyond its own department. He discusses how adoption, customer value, and commercial outcomes connect. For SaaS leaders, that perspective helps frame retention as something shaped by product, sales, onboarding, and leadership. Follow him to learn what companies must do to give customers a credible reason to renew and expand.
Known for: Mehta explains how customer success and customer outcomes support retention and recurring-revenue growth.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, books, and appearances at customer success conferences and on podcasts.
Best fit for brands: Customer success platforms, adoption tools, customer education, and retention-focused software.
13. Wes Bush
13. Wes Bush
Making the product easier to experience and buy
Wes Bush founded ProductLed and is the author of Product-Led Growth and The Product-Led Playbook. His educational work focuses on helping SaaS companies use the product as an important part of acquisition and conversion. He discusses self-service experiences, free trials, freemium models, and the steps users take before becoming paying customers. His public work is particularly relevant to teams evaluating a product-led motion.
Bush helps founders and growth leaders think through what must change operationally when buyers are expected to experience value before speaking to sales. That includes onboarding, packaging, and the friction involved in getting started. Follow him when a team needs to move beyond enthusiasm for product-led growth and examine whether its product experience supports the model. His LinkedIn writing provides a regular entry point into those questions.
Known for: Bush teaches SaaS teams how to use product experience and self-service adoption to support growth.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, ProductLed educational content, books, and talks.
Best fit for brands: Onboarding, product analytics, self-service conversion, and tools serving product-led SaaS teams.
14. Georgiana Laudi
14. Georgiana Laudi
Growth priorities built around the customer’s experience
Georgiana “Gia” Laudi leads Customer-Led and co-authored Forget the Funnel with Claire Suellentrop. She has led marketing at Unbounce and advised B2B SaaS businesses. She co-developed the Customer-Led Growth framework to help teams translate customer understanding into operating decisions. Her Forget the Funnel resources show companies how to identify and improve the experiences that matter to customers.
Laudi’s work is especially useful when teams have plenty of funnel data but disagree on what it means. She focuses on milestones that show customers are making progress and getting value. That gives product, marketing, and customer success a more useful basis for collaboration. Follow her for a disciplined way to decide which changes deserve attention before launching another disconnected growth experiment.
Known for: Laudi translates customer value and experience milestones into SaaS growth priorities and measurement.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, Forget the Funnel articles and podcast, and conference presentations.
Best fit for brands: Customer intelligence, onboarding, lifecycle software, and platforms supporting cross-functional growth teams.
15. Claire Suellentrop
15. Claire Suellentrop
Customer research that changes the growth decision
Claire Suellentrop was an early Calendly employee, co-founded Forget the Funnel, and co-authored its book. She is Head of go-to-market at Attune. Her public work draws on customer research and customer insights in SaaS marketing. Her Business of Software talks show how jobs-to-be-done research can inform messaging and growth decisions.
Suellentrop helps teams examine why customers begin looking for a solution, what they are trying to accomplish, and what complicates the decision. That perspective is valuable when product messaging reflects internal terminology more than a customer’s actual situation. Follow her for concrete ways to use interviews and qualitative evidence. Her work gives marketers and product teams a stronger basis for deciding which promises to make and which experiences to improve.
Known for: Suellentrop applies customer research and jobs-to-be-done insights to SaaS messaging, adoption, and growth.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, published interviews, and recorded conference talks.
Best fit for brands: Research platforms, customer feedback tools, product marketing software, and customer experience technology.
16. Dave Kellogg
16. Dave Kellogg
An executive’s scrutiny of the SaaS operating plan
Dave Kellogg is a software executive, advisor, and author of Kellblog. He has led software companies, and his writing reflects the questions that arise in executive and board discussions. He covers SaaS metrics, sales management, market strategy, and the difficulty of interpreting operating performance. His work is especially useful for readers who want more precision than a quick growth tip can offer.
Kellogg examines what a metric means, how it can mislead, and how management should use it. His analysis helps revenue leaders and CEOs investigate problems that dashboards can describe but not explain. Readers can use his writing to improve forecast discussions, assess market segments, and challenge inconsistent definitions. Expect a clear point of view and close attention to the details that change a business decision.
Known for: Kellogg scrutinizes SaaS metrics, sales execution, and executive decision-making with an operator’s attention to detail.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, Kellblog, and The Metrics Brothers podcast.
Best fit for brands: Revenue intelligence, forecasting, SaaS analytics, and tools serving software executive teams.
17. Tomasz Tunguz
17. Tomasz Tunguz
Data-driven questions about where software is heading
Tomasz Tunguz is a general partner at Theory Ventures and previously invested at Redpoint Ventures. His regular essays examine software markets, SaaS metrics, and the implications of AI for business models. His earlier product management experience at Google adds an operating perspective to his investment analysis. He often uses data to frame a specific question about how technology companies grow.
Tunguz is relevant to founders and executives who want to understand how broader market changes may affect their own plans. His writing considers the mechanics of monetization, productivity, and software distribution. Readers can use it to identify questions worth testing against their own customers and economics. The value lies in a concise analytical starting point, with room to challenge whether the conclusion fits a particular market.
Known for: Tunguz analyzes software markets and business models through data, operating metrics, and investment research.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, his blog, and his newsletter.
Best fit for brands: Data infrastructure, AI platforms, developer tools, and software analytics businesses.
18. Christoph Janz
18. Christoph Janz
Matching the business model to the customers it needs
Christoph Janz is a partner and co-founder of Point Nine, with a long focus on early-stage software businesses. He writes publicly about frameworks for understanding how SaaS companies can reach substantial revenue through different customer models. In Point Nine’s editorial publication, he examines the commercial choices behind building and funding software companies. His perspective is grounded in years of working with SaaS founders.
Janz is useful when a founder needs to assess whether the target customer, price point, and acquisition approach belong together. His work encourages readers to consider how many customers a company needs and what it can afford to spend winning them. That makes the content relevant well before a fundraising conversation. Follow him for a clearer way to think about SaaS business structure and its potential path to scale.
Known for: Janz develops frameworks linking SaaS customer segments, pricing, and growth models.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, Point Nine’s editorial writing, and software-founder interviews.
Best fit for brands: Early-stage SaaS tools, revenue planning, customer segmentation, and founder-focused platforms.
19. Mark Roberge
19. Mark Roberge
Evidence for when the sales organization is ready to scale
Mark Roberge is a co-founder of Stage 2 Capital and was HubSpot’s founding sales leader. He has also taught entrepreneurial sales at Harvard Business School. His work examines how companies can build a repeatable revenue process and decide when to expand it. He shares these ideas through books, public interviews, and educational content.
Roberge is particularly valuable for founders approaching the transition from early sales traction to a larger commercial team. He emphasizes the evidence behind scaling decisions, including whether customers receive value and whether the selling process is repeatable. That perspective helps leaders question headcount plans built primarily around a revenue target. Follow him for a more disciplined approach to sales hiring, coaching, and growth readiness.
Known for: Roberge applies an analytical approach to building sales organizations and determining when a business is ready to scale revenue.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, books, interviews, and Stage 2 Capital educational content.
Best fit for brands: Sales enablement, revenue intelligence, coaching, and software supporting growing revenue teams.
20. Aaron Ross
20. Aaron Ross
The sales process behind repeatable software revenue
Aaron Ross co-authored Predictable Revenue and From Impossible to Inevitable, drawing on his experience developing outbound sales at Salesforce and working with growing companies. His writing helped establish a widely used way of thinking about sales development and specialization.
Ross is relevant to SaaS founders and sales leaders assessing where their pipeline should come from and how the team should operate. His work gives readers a basis for examining responsibilities, targeting, and the relationship between prospecting and closing. Use the underlying process questions alongside current market evidence. The useful takeaway is to identify what makes a sales motion repeatable before increasing its volume.
Known for: Ross explains sales development, specialization, and the systems behind predictable B2B revenue.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, books, and appearances on sales and SaaS podcasts
Best fit for brands: Sales engagement, prospecting, revenue operations, and enablement platforms serving SaaS teams.
21. Steli Efti
21. Steli Efti
Founder-led sales with the uncomfortable parts included
Steli Efti is co-founder and CEO of Close, a CRM company. His public work combines experience building a software business with practical sales instruction. Through Close’s editorial content and startup interviews, he discusses prospecting, qualification, follow-up, and the challenges founders encounter when they need to sell. He also speaks openly about the personal demands of running a company.
Efti is a useful follow for technical founders and early sales leaders who need a more direct approach to customer conversations. His content often addresses the behavior behind execution, including avoiding difficult questions or giving up on follow-ups too early. Readers get practical ideas they can test in live conversations. His company-building perspective also keeps those tactics grounded in the realities of running a software business.
Known for: Efti teaches practical startup sales and shares lessons from building a bootstrapped CRM company.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, Close articles and videos, and startup podcasts.
Best fit for brands: Sales software, communications tools, and services supporting founder-led and small-team selling.
22. Patrick Campbell
22. Patrick Campbell
Monetization beyond another price increase
Patrick Campbell founded ProfitWell, which Paddle acquired in 2022. His work has focused on the economics of subscription businesses, particularly pricing and retention. In interviews about building ProfitWell, he discusses the operating experience behind that focus. His public perspective draws on building products that helped software companies understand and improve recurring revenue.
Campbell is useful when a SaaS team treats pricing as a periodic negotiation instead of an ongoing discipline. His commentary encourages a closer look at what customers value, how packages differ, and where revenue is lost. For growth and executive teams, that is a reason to look beyond acquisition when diagnosing a missed target. Follow him for questions that make monetization and retention part of the same business discussion.
Known for: Campbell examines subscription pricing, customer retention, and how SaaS companies improve revenue.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn and software-founder and subscription-business interviews.
Best fit for brands: Subscription billing, revenue analytics, pricing research, and retention technology.
23. Nathan Barry
23. Nathan Barry
Building software around a clearly defined customer
Nathan Barry founded Kit, formerly ConvertKit, and writes about building the business alongside his work with creators. His essays and podcast cover audience development, company building, and the economics of serving a specific customer group. Kit provides a concrete operating context for his advice about focus and distribution. His experience is particularly relevant to founders building software for smaller businesses and independent professionals.
Barry shows how a founder’s market understanding can shape the product and how it reaches customers. His writing is useful for SaaS leaders considering specialization, partnerships, and the role of educational content in demand creation. Readers also get a view into the management choices behind a bootstrapped software company. Follow him when the challenge is to grow within a defined market without losing the clarity that attracted customers in the first place.
Known for: Barry shares lessons on bootstrapped SaaS, audience development, and building a product for a specific professional market.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, his website and newsletter, and The Nathan Barry Show.
Best fit for brands: Software for creators and small businesses, email platforms, and audience-development tools.
24. Joel Gascoigne
24. Joel Gascoigne
A candid record of the choices behind a software company
Joel Gascoigne is co-founder and CEO of Buffer. His writing and public talks cover company building, remote work, and the decisions that shape a software business over time. He has shared the reasoning behind organizational choices and the challenges of changing course. That openness gives readers a fuller view than a growth story told only after the outcome is clear.
Gascoigne is relevant to founders and leaders weighing how company principles should affect operating decisions. His work explores the consequences of choices about teams, ownership, and the product. Readers can use those reflections to think through their own trade-offs rather than copy a set of policies. Follow him for a grounded perspective on maintaining a software company through periods that demand patience and reassessment.
Known for: Gascoigne shares transparent lessons about SaaS leadership, remote operations, and long-term company building.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, his personal blog, and conference interviews.
Best fit for brands: Remote-work software, collaboration platforms, people operations tools, and small-business technology.
25. Dan Martell
25. Dan Martell
Helping the founder stop being the constraint
Dan Martell is a software entrepreneur, investor, and founder of SaaS Academy who now builds AI ventures through Martell Ventures. His public work addresses delegation, leadership, and the systems founders need as their businesses grow. He wrote Buy Back Your Time and publishes extensively in video formats. His software background provides context for advice that also reaches a broader business audience.
Martell is most relevant here for the operational side of scaling a founder-led company. He discusses how leaders allocate time, build teams, and reduce dependence on their own daily involvement. For SaaS executives, these questions matter when decisions pile up behind the founder. Follow his LinkedIn content for practical prompts about responsibilities, hiring, and the work a leader must hand over for the business to grow.
Known for: Martell teaches founder delegation, operating systems, and leadership practices informed by building software businesses.
Main platform(s): LinkedIn, YouTube, books, and podcast appearances.
Best fit for brands: Founder productivity, workflow automation, management software, and tools for scaling software teams.
How to Choose B2B SaaS Influencers Who Fit the Brand
How to Choose the Right B2B SaaS Influencers for a Partnership
Start with the problem customers need help understanding. A pricing expert could be a strong partner for a billing platform, while a former software operator may bring more credibility to a conversation about scaling a team. That connection gives the partnership a useful starting point and helps narrow the list before comparing audience size or fees.
Look for an Audience That Reflects Your Customers
Ask potential partners for audience information to assess fit, including job functions, company sizes, and locations. Then spend time reading the discussions around their content. Are people asking questions your sales team hears? Do they describe problems the product solves? Those conversations can reveal whether an audience breakdown translates into relevant interest.
Consider the people who influence a purchase as well as those who approve it. A product leader may introduce a tool that finance ultimately signs off on. An influencer with credibility among those users can still be valuable, provided the content helps them evaluate the product and make a case internally.
Give Their Experience a Useful Role in the Content
Review how a potential partner explains topics closely related to the product. Look for examples from their own work, thoughtful answers to audience questions, and recommendations that account for different business conditions. Someone who understands the category should be able to contribute more than a familiar name to a campaign.
Bring them into the planning process before writing the brief. Share the customer problem, offer product access, and ask what they think would be useful to their audience. A walkthrough, a practical workshop, or an informed discussion of a common implementation challenge may give buyers a stronger reason to engage than a scripted endorsement.
Build a Program Around the Partnership
Choose the format based on what needs explaining. A workflow may be best demonstrated in a video, while a purchasing decision with several tradeoffs could support a webinar discussion. Plan how buyers will access useful material afterward through social content, sales follow-up, or paid distribution. Agree on usage rights and promotion responsibilities before production so the team can make full use of the work.
Set reporting expectations around the campaign’s objective. If the goal is consideration among target accounts, look at who engaged, what they asked, and whether sales can use the content in active conversations. For lead generation, assess fit and progression after the initial response. Use trackable links and CRM reporting where possible, along with buyer feedback, to understand what the partnership contributes and whether it warrants further investment.
Build Buyer Confidence With Trusted SaaS Voices
Build Buyer Confidence With Trusted SaaS Voices
Our B2B Influencer services connect SaaS brands with the partners who matter and develop content around the decisions their customers face. Our Communications team plans how that content can support PR, organic social, and paid social, giving buyers more opportunities to hear from people who understand the category. DiscoverabilityOS™ guides how that work supports brand preference and demand, with measurement focused on audience fit, engagement, and pipeline contribution.
Explore a partnership with our Influencer team to find credible voices who can help buyers understand the value of your software.
Build Buyer Confidence With Trusted SaaS Voices
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Graysen Christopher
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