In this episode of SaaS Fuel, Thanos Diacakis shares battle-tested advice for scaling SaaS teams, streamlining delivery, and maximizing developer happiness. Drawing on his experiences at startups and tech giants like Uber, Thanos reveals counterintuitive strategies for improving software output, optimizing technical debt, rethinking backlogs, and harnessing new mental models.

He breaks down the importance of incremental value, cross-functional collaboration, and avoiding the traps of over-planning. Whether you lead a small startup or an enterprise-scale engineering team, this conversation will challenge the way you think about speed, quality, backlog management, and long-term success.

00:00 "Checklists vs Software Complexity"

03:19 Bug Fixing: Intuition vs Strategy

08:24 Buckets: Features, Bugs, Investments, Risks

09:47 Optimizing Feature vs. Platform Focus

14:39 "Minimize Work in Progress"

19:20 "Bug Backlogs: Input vs Output"

20:39 Kanban Team Structure Guidelines

26:38 "Rapid Progress in Coding Tools"

28:21 "Minimal Planning, Bias for Action"

31:48 "Delivering Incremental Customer Value"

36:23 Collaborative Workflow Over Silos

39:35 "Building Products That Inspire Use"

42:53 "Accelerate: Building Effective Teams"

44:11 Team Workflow Optimization Framework

47:50 "Explore Mental Models Online"

Why Slowing Down Software Releases Might Backfire: One of the things that would happen is if you slow down, how you ship to production is you'll have bigger batches and bigger batches, which means you might ship more bugs all at once and have to find them in a bigger QA cycle. — Thanos Diacakis

"I also think we sometimes convince ourselves that we know more than we actually do and that we can plan a really long way out." — Thanos Diacakis

Viral Product Development Mindset: "If you engage engineers and product in these creative discussions, you might find out, oh, I scoped out these 10 things, but turns out the customer gets 80% of the value from this one thing." — Thanos Diacakis

Bureaucratic Bottlenecks in Big Companies: "They try to optimize locally for one particular function rather than optimize globally for shipping things out the door." — Thanos Diacakis

Viral Topic: "Why Every Team Should Read Accelerate": So I think if I give anyone advices, if you haven't read Accelerate, then go read that book. Because it's basically lays out in terms of, and this is in terms of like core technical and procedural sort of infrastructural things that teams ought to have to be productive. — Thanos Diacakis

Bias Towards Action Over Perfection

Avoid waiting for perfect plans, especially with innovative projects; instead, learn by doing and iterating.

Increase System Visibility

Make work in progress and team capabilities visible; this surfaces bottlenecks and areas for investment.

Balance Short-Term and Long-Term Goals

Strategic investment in tooling, tech debt, and risk mitigation ensures sustainable delivery and value realization.

Prioritize Collaboration Across Functions

Breaking down silos between product, engineering, and design dramatically accelerates delivery and reduces defects.

Ship Small, Ship Often

Frequent, incremental releases drive faster customer learning, boost agility, and reduce risk.

Cultivate a Shared Language for Outcomes

Use terms like investments and risk (not just features and bugs) to align business and technical priorities and drive meaningful...

In this action-packed SaaS Fuel episode, host Jeff Mains welcomes AI entrepreneur Alberto Rizzoli, co-founder and CEO of V7. They dive into the transformative power of AI in automating repetitive and complex knowledge work, discuss the accelerating pace of AI innovation, and unpack how both large enterprises and smaller teams can prioritize, implement, and benefit from next-generation “agentic” AI.

Alberto Rizzoli candidly shares insights on the future of SaaS, practical applications in B2B, go-to-market challenges, the evolving demands on leadership and hiring, and what it takes to stand out in a world where technology is no longer a lasting moat.

00:00 AI Revolution: Transforming Technology

04:00 AI Reducing Administrative Costs

06:21 "Measuring AI's Impact on Knowledge"

09:41 "AI as Workforce Revolution"

15:53 "Startups Compete on Quality"

18:27 "Tech Giants Dominate AI Future"

22:27 "AI Implementation Leadership Needed"

25:55 "Evaluating AI Tools Effectively"

29:31 AI Adoption Requires Trust

31:46 "Shift in GTM Strategies"

35:48 "AI Automation Careers in Demand"

37:20 "V7Labs: AI Workflow Automation"

Viral Topic: The Real Value of AI in Knowledge Work: "Even if you had the money to ask a lawyer and that were not an issue, you would still first ask ChatGPT because you get an instantaneous answer and there is no friction towards that." — Alberto Rizzoli

AI & the Future of Work: "Keeping a human away from their family and children for five hours to do some work that AI can do in five minutes by consuming a lot less relative energy will actually be kind of the best of both worlds." — Alberto Rizzoli

Quote: "There is still an enormous amount of unrealized value from AI. There is still close to no AI usage at the world's largest companies." — Alberto Rizzoli

AI's Impact on Infrastructure Investment: "We've never seen so much investment in power generation since World War II. So it really is a paradigm shift that's happening." — Alberto Rizzoli

Balancing Creativity and Responsibility: "the creative side is something that we enjoy, but there's so many things that are jobs that things that we have to do, things that always." — Jeff Mains

Viral Simplicity in User Interfaces: "instead of having to figure out, you know, how the watch was built, we're just asking what time it is." — Jeff Mains

The Cycle of Innovation and Investment: It almost becomes self fulfilling because there's so much money pouring into it. And that drives innovation, which brings more money, which drives more innovation. And I think it does become self fulfilling to some degree. — Jeff Mains

1. Prioritize Deep Automation: Leaders should focus AI efforts on well-documented, high-frequency processes, not just shiny new initiatives.
2. Embrace the Player-Coach Model: Middle management is evolving. Future leaders need to be hands-on contributors who coach, not just oversee.
3. Build for Scalability: The best AI tools get you 80% of the way—allocating resources to push to 100% is critical for lasting impact.
4. Hire for Tech Fluency: Hiring should emphasize technical problem-solvers across all departments, especially those who can identify and implement automation.
5. Champion Change Management: Assign a dedicated AI implementation owner to drive adoption—this role will multiply team productivity.
6. Invest in Quality, Not Hype: In a fast-copying landscape, the long-term winners are those who create the best user...

In this episode of SaaS Fuel, Jeff Mains sits down with Michelle Griffin, founder of Griffin Resources, to unpack actionable strategies for building strong, flexible, and founder-friendly teams in scalable SaaS businesses.

Michelle draws on her six years of hands-on experience supporting startups and scaling organizations with fractional HR, recruiting, sales ops, and operational support. Listeners will get insights into modern hiring practices, maintaining workplace culture in remote teams, succession planning, supporting diverse career paths, and practical tips for retention and performance—all tailored for founders ready to lead organizations, not just teams.

00:00 "Leadership, Growth & Employee Choices"

04:38 HR Consulting Business Story

08:44 Defining Culture Through Feedback

11:42 "Work Culture and Reputation"

14:33 Remote Work Flexibility Enhances Life

18:39 Structured Hiring on a Budget

20:02 "Effective Hiring Practices Overview"

24:11 Cognitive Skills in Hiring

29:01 Promoting Without Management Skills

31:54 Leadership Through People Skills

33:30 Golden Handcuffs and Workplace Happiness

37:56 Mentorship and Career Growth Pathways

41:48 Fair Hiring Practices Matter

43:58 AI Innovation & Leadership Insights

Viral Topic Title: Company Culture Is Everyone’s Responsibility

Quote: "Maintaining a culture is intentional and the face of the company is the, you know, pretty much the day to day workers. It's everybody. And it's not something that is kind of reserved for leadership and management and especially how your reputation is seen." — Michelle Griffin

Work-Life Balance After COVID: "That was something that we noticed was a huge priority coming out of COVID is people really reprioritized family." — Michelle Griffin

Quote: "You can do something called a structured interview, which is basically just having your set of questions that you're going to ask every single candidate." — Michelle Griffin

Viral Topic: The Pitfall of Promoting Top Performers Without Management Training: "They often will hire or promote people into a role that were good at their jobs but aren't taught or know how to manage people." — Michelle Griffin

Quote: "if someone is really good at just doing their job and they don't want to move up, that you respect that and keep them in, in a role that they're happy in and, you know, you find other ways to keep them engaged and motivated." — Michelle Griffin

1. Listen Before You Build: Startups succeed when they listen intently to client needs and co-develop solutions, rather than forcing a market-fit from the top down.
2. Define and Defend Culture: Invest in discovering your team’s values. Protect culture by hiring for fit and embedding it into every policy, not just the handbook.
3. Flexibility Drives Retention: Recognizing life priorities and offering flexible, remote, or personalized schedules dramatically reduces turnover and builds loyalty.
4. Structure Beats Gut Instinct: Use structured interviews and neutral assessments to mitigate bias and improve hiring outcomes—especially when scaling quickly.
5. Prepare for Leadership—Don’t Assume It: Promotion must come with training, support, and encouragement to develop people skills, not just technical expertise.
6. Respect Alternative