Saastr 015: Nicolas Dessaigne @ Algolia on Prioritising Company Culture and Empowering Your Team To Be Owners

Welcome to Episode 15 of The Official Saastr Podcast. Joining me today, I am delighted to welcome, Nicolas Dessaigne. Nicolas is the CEO and Co-Founder of Algolia, Algolia are a brilliant case study for the successful pivot, having started off life as an offline search engine for mobiles but really took off by helping companies deliver an intuitive search-as-you-type experience on their websites and mobile apps. They participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2014 batch and raised $18.3M in May 2015 from the likes of Accel Partners, Point Nine Capital, Storm Ventures and many more incredible investors. and in today's show with Nicolas we discuss:

• Why is company culture so important and was it fundamental for Nicolas and Julien to have this outlined from the beginning?
• How did Nicolas implement the vision for the company future when founding the Algolia?
• How does Nicolas look to balance the scaling of the business with maintenance of company culture?
• What were Nicolas' biggest takeaways from his time at YC? 
• How can SaaS startups optimise the fundraising process to also be a source of business development?

In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:

1. Hiring Your First VP of Sales: When and What Questions To Ask?
2. Nicolas' favourite SaaS resource?
3. What would Nicolas do differently if he were to start the journey again?

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
• Nicolas Dessaigne