Kristen Beck, CEO and co-founder of Elly, shares her career path from being Trello’s first revenue hire through leadership roles at Atlassian, Shogun, and Typeform, and explains why she returned to startups to build an AI-native recruiting platform.

Elly focuses on capturing and learning from unstructured conversational data across hiring—from kickoff through interviews and debriefs—to help teams make better decisions, reduce time spent, and reveal patterns in successful hires. Beck outlines Elly’s two main customer segments: high-volume employers (including manufacturing and home healthcare) and fast-growing startups, and describes how AI enables insights beyond basic efficiency gains.

She discusses Elly’s founding timeline, seed fundraising to $8M (Atomic incubation and Sorenson-led round), PLG-led growth via word of mouth, a free ATS with paid AI features using subscription-plus-usage pricing, and key metrics like K-factor and module adoption, with Elly headquartered in New York and a 10-person team.

Show Notes:

00:00 Welcome and Intro

00:08 Kristen Beck Career Path

02:07 What Ellie Does

03:01 Why Build Ellie

04:44 Ideal Customer Profiles

06:08 How AI Changes Recruiting

08:57 Founding Story and MVP

09:41 Seed Round and Investors

10:35 Why Raise vs Bootstrap

11:49 Fundraising Lessons in Crowded Markets

14:20 Go To Market and PLG

18:42 Pricing and Usage Model

20:39 Key Metrics and Virality

22:19 Team and 2026 Priorities

23:56 AI Makes Distribution Matter

25:31 Where to Learn More

Links:

SaaS Fundraising Stories: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/elly-raises-8-million-in-funding

Kristen Habacht’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-habacht-80288780/

Elly’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ellyai/

Elly’s Website: https://www.elly.ai/

To learn more about Ben check out the links below:

Subscribe to Ben’s daily metrics newsletter: https://saasmetricsschool.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Subscribe to Ben’s SaaS newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/df1db6bf8bca/the-saas-cfo-sign-up-landing-page

SaaS Metrics courses here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/

Join Ben’s SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

Welcome back to The SaaS CFO Podcast. In this episode, Ben Murray sits down with Ruth Bosse, founder and CEO of Ark Climate, a Munich-based SaaS company transforming how cities tackle climate action. With a background in politics, mathematics, computer science, and significant experience at McKinsey, Ruth Bosse brings a unique perspective to the intersection of technology, climate, and government.

We'll hear about the inspiration for Ark Climate, how the company rapidly built traction in the German market, the challenges and opportunities of selling SaaS to government entities, and their approach to fundraising and growth. Ruth Bosse also shares key lessons learned from launching a govtech startup, the importance of realistic sales forecasting, and her vision to expand Ark Climate into a broader government operating platform. Whether you’re a SaaS founder, govtech enthusiast, or simply interested in the evolving world of climate solutions, this conversation is packed with candid insights on metrics, go-to-market strategies, and scaling impact-driven technology.

Show Notes:

00:00 Starting a climate-focused company

06:29 Internal and external climate tools

08:04 Bootstrapping and pre-seed funding

12:02 Starting with cold calling

14:16 Why we stopped doing fairs

18:56 Expanding beyond climate tools

20:38 Closing remarks and future goals

Links:

SaaS Fundraising Stories: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/ark-climate-raises-2-1m-pre-seed

Ruth Bosse’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthbosse/

Ark Climate’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ark-climate-technologies/?originalSubdomain=de

Ark Climate’s Website: https://www.ark-climate.de/en/homepage

To learn more about Ben check out the links below:

Subscribe to Ben’s daily metrics newsletter: https://saasmetricsschool.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Subscribe to Ben’s SaaS newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/df1db6bf8bca/the-saas-cfo-sign-up-landing-page

SaaS Metrics courses here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/

Join Ben’s SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

Welcome back to The SaaS CFO Podcast! In this episode, host Ben Murray sits down with Hiren Hasmukh, founder of Teqtivity, an IT asset management platform serving organizations from startups to global enterprises.

Hiren Hasmukh shares his journey from web and graphic design through custom software builds to leading a bootstrapped, profitable SaaS company with a global reach. Tune in as they discuss Teqtivity’s product evolution, the deliberate decision to avoid fundraising, lean operations, go-to-market strategies, and what it takes to retain big-name customers—all while maintaining a laser focus on customer support and product excellence.

If you’re interested in SaaS growth, profitability, and scaling without external capital, this conversation is packed with insights you won't want to miss.

Show Notes:

00:00 Career path to Techtivity

03:20 Origin of the smart locker idea

08:40 Driving growth through word of mouth

11:35 Focusing on retention and value

14:50 Staying flexible with marketing

Links:

Hiren Hasmukh’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiren-teq/

Teqtivity’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/teqtivity/

Teqtivity’s Website: https://www.teqtivity.com/

To learn more about Ben check out the links below:

Subscribe to Ben’s daily metrics newsletter: https://saasmetricsschool.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Subscribe to Ben’s SaaS newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/df1db6bf8bca/the-saas-cfo-sign-up-landing-page

SaaS Metrics courses here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/

Join Ben’s SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout

Follow Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray