SaaStr 203: Why Every Startup Should Bootstrap At Some Stage, Why Transparency In Pricing Is Not Always Optimal & Why We Have To Embrace That Service Is An Essential Part of SaaS Today with Krish Subramanian, Founder & CEO @ Chargebee

Krish Subramanian is the Founder & CEO @ Chargebee, the startup that lets you go beyond billing, payments and recurring invoices — to delivering subscription experiences that "wow". To date, Chargebee have “wowed” some of the world’s leading VCs to the tune of $24m including the likes of Insight Venture Partners, Tiger Global and Accel Partners. As for Krish, under Krish’s leadership the team has grown to over 200 people and over 5,000 clients making it one of the next generation in truly global SaaS businesses started in India.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

• How Krish made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found one of India fastest growing SaaS companies in Chargebee?
• Why does Krish believe that every SaaS company should bootstrap at some stage? What are the inherent benefits to these capital constraints? What are the drawbacks to not having the capital reserves? What was the inflection point for Krish in realising he wanted to go big and raise from Insight?  
• Why does Krish believe that it is wrong to think of the word “service” as being negative in SaaS? What are some of the foundational benefits to building out a strong services division? How does Krish think about what makes for good margins in services businesses? How can one prevent themselves from being reliant on service revenue?
• Why does Krish believe that transparency is not always good when it comes to SaaS pricing? What are the cons of transparent pricing? Why does Krish believe if you are going to try freemium, it has to be from the beginning? How does Krish think about reinventing the wheel vs copying when it comes to pricing? How does Krish think about installing usage based pricing without disincentivizing usage? How can one do it?

Krish’s 60 Second SaaStr:

1. What does Krish know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
2. What moment in Krish’s life has served as an inflection point and changed the way he thinks?
3. What does Krish believe that most around him disbelieve?

Read the full transcript on our blog.

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Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Krish Subramanian