25 humans. 25 moments. 25 outcomes that left a mark in the world of SaaS.

2. If you don't love
superheroes, this post is not
for you.

3. PS: Just kidding, give it a try
anyway.

4. We've all been thrilled by
webslingers, caped crusaders
and masked marauders for
close to a century now.

5. From Stan Lee’s creative
genius to Alan Moore’s iconic
graphic novels to Silver
screens, we've come a long
way.

6. But behind all the
mind-bending, larger than life
adventures, lies a beginning. An
origin.

7. And every superhero origin is
made up of a life-defining
moment. That moment that
made our heros what they
are today.

8. A moment that vaulted
them from the ordinary, to
the extraordinary, and gave
purpose and meaning to
their amazing abilities.

9. Iron man was born when
Yinsen created a diversion and
ultimately sacrificed his life for
Tony Stark’s freedom.

10. With his dying Uncle in his arms,
Peter Parker learnt a lesson about
responsibility that would be
climacteric in Spider man's
journey.

11. I could go on and on,
but you get the picture.
With his dying Uncle in his arms,
Peter Parker learnt a lesson about
responsibility that would be
climacteric in Spider man's
journey.

12. Contrary to popular
belief, such moments
pervade the stories of real
life heroes as well.

13. Contrary to popular
belief, such moments
pervade the stories of real
life heroes as well.
And the SaaS industry
is no different.

14. So this deck is an attempt to
capture a few key moments that
defined successful SaaS Founders,
aka superheroes, and sparked their
remarkable business journeys.

15. So this deck is an attempt to
capture a few key moments that
defined successful SaaS Founders,
aka superheroes, and sparked their
remarkable business journeys.
Hope you enjoy!

16. Disclaimer: We acknowledge
that the moments recorded are
just a few in an ocean of many
more, but hope they would
inspire and educate you all the
same.

17. An undergraduate student
at the University of Illinois,
notices scientists sharing
their work via the Web built
by Berners-Lee, in the Physics
lab, and goes “Why don’t
they put a graphical
interface on it?”
Cerebro was my
greatest creation.
Through it, my mind
traversed the world.
Marc Andreessen,
Founder of Netscape

18. The youngest VP (and
millionaire) at Oracle,
feels unfulfilled, takes
time off from work, and
goes on a trip to India.
When you look
beyond yourself, the
path becomes clear.
Marc Benioff,
CEO of Salesforce

19. A law graduate joins the
Venture Law Group to “fight
the good fight,” and attains
his first startup-induced
serotonin boost.
I fly to widen my view,
as a symbol, a
call...come together
and build.
Jason Lemkin,
Investor at SaaStr Fund

20. Reed offers the video-rental
giant, Blockbuster a 49%
share of Netflix, to function
as its online arm, but
Blockbuster turns it down.
Sometimes you
don’t let the world
shape you, you
shape it.
Reed Hastings,
CEO of Netflix

21. On time.
On target.
Ben and his team modifies
some “scrap code” from an
earlier e-greetings business
idea that failed to build an
email newsletter app.
Ben Chestnut,
CEO of Mailchimp

22. Will you join
me in the fight
for the future?
Jason writes a post on his
blog Signal vs. Noise,
asking about working with
PHP, and, a Copenhagen
Business School student,
writes a long email to
help him out with it.
Jason Fried & David
Heinemeier Hansson
Basecamp

23. So we rush on,
and remind
ourselves to be
fearless.
The Concur team decides
to make a transition from a
licensed software business
model to the cloud, making
it the first SaaS startup.
Steve Singh,
CEO of Concur Tech

24. I build things, I
can't help it!
Rand’s Beginner’s Guide to
SEO gets Slashdotted.
Rand Fishkin,
Founder of Moz

25. This technology.. We
built something good..
something lasting.
Jeff posts about two
hundred words (“I’ve got to
catch a plane to Silicon
Valley, or I’d write a lot
more.”) to announce their
“low-latency data storage
service,” Amazon S3. Jeff Barr,
Chief Evangelist of AWS

26. Founder of Pyramid Digital
Solutions turns a promise
made to his wife into an
academic undertaking.
Submits a thesis called On
Startups to the Sloan School.
I apologize...my
work does not
allow for doubt.
Dharmesh Shah,
CTO of HubSpot

27. Brian launches
Teaching Sells.
An Apple for
the teacher?
Brian Clark,
Founder of Copyblogger

28. Drew plans to work during his
four-hour bus journey from
Boston to New York, but
realizes (and gets frustrated)
that he has left behind his USB
memory stick, thus leaving him
with no code to work on.
Reality takes many
forms, the sorcerer
supreme deciphers all!
Drew houston,
CEO of Dropbox

29. Phil researches about
building a second brain in
Boston. He runs into a
Russian scientist, Stepan
Pachikov and his company
called "EverNote", who are
already working on a
technology with a similar
vision, in California.
Open your mind,
cast forth your
dreams.
Phil Libin,
CEO of Evernote

30. Amy helps Ze Frank with Color
Wars. “He’s like, ‘Do whatever
you want.’ So that was really
refreshing. I was like this is
what it could feel like to just
do it on your own.”
A new journey
to be started, A
new promise to
be fulfilled.
Amy Hoy,
Co-founder of Freckle
Time Tracking

31. The power to
stretch without
breaking, a
force for good.
Tom runs into a fellow
Rubyist, Chris Wanstrath
and introduces his
half-baked idea of a
website that will help
coders to share their Git
repositories, to which Chris
replies, "I'm in. Let's do it!"
Tom Preston-Werner,
CEO of GitHub

32. Hana nudges her not so
distant past into the
present, and begins to
develop an inbound
strategy for her martial
arts company.
Even with my back
against the wall --
I don't give up!
Hana Abaza,
VP Marketing at Uberflip

33. Patrick “squeezes” Wikipedia
into an iPhone app. Gets a
whiff of what seamlessly
integrated payments can do
for people who sell software
(or ski hats) on the internet.
Size does matter,
especially when it
packs a punch.
Patrick Collison
CEO of Stripe

34. Sometimes
you have to
take a leap of
faith first.
Stewart Butterfield sends his
(rather wacky) resignation letter
to Yahoo’s HR department.
Stewart Butterfield
Founder of Slack

35. What
answers do
you seek
Kemosabe?
Roca, a design-first bathroom company,
hires independent designers David
Okuniev and Robert Muñoz to create
forms to be displayed on iMac screens.
David Okuniev & Robert Muñoz
Typeform

36. Girish tends to his daily
Hacker News ritual, and
comes across scraps of
withered enthusiasm and
opportunity, among them a
comment from a user named
megamark16.
Need a hand?
Girish Mathrubootham
CEO at Freshdesk

37. Joel Spolsky & the Fog
Creek team start a “little
initiative” to produce
product ideas. 8
developers. 4 teams. And
one of these teams ends
up with a tool, unlike
anything they’d ever done,
for civilians.
I am only going
to say this once..
Organize!
Joel Spolsky
Creator of Trello

38. All will be
revealed. Just say
the magic words.
Patrick, an analytical
manager at Google, has
been setting up an app
to schedule in-person
client meetings.
Something dawns on
him, "If I'm going to
work this hard, I might
as well do it for myself!"
Patrick Campbell
CEO at Price
Intelligently

39. Gail delivers a keynote on
how to negotiate the long,
slow, SaaS ramp of death.
Chimichangas
and… wait for
it… Critical
mass.
Gail Goodman
Former CEO at ConstantContact

40. The doctor put his
faith in the little
guy… I'd like to
think it paid off.
An ex-intern at Blue Origin,
Peter Reinhardt thinks that
his startup, Analytics.js, is a
terrible idea.
Peter Reinhardt
CEO at Segment

41. Having shut down her
product Referly, a
depressed Danielle
Morrill writes a post
about the happenings of
the Silicon Valley, every
day, for 30 days. "Maybe
I’d be the next Michael
Arrington," she wondered.
The past can
only drive me, it
cannot stop me.
Danielle Morrill
CEO at Mattermark

42. I hope this collection of
life-defining moments was
inspiring or at least
interesting to you.

43. And I truly hope it sparks
reflection into your own
journey and I wish you luck in
honing your super powers,
whatever they may be.

44. Who knows, one day, when
crisis strikes and the earth
has no hope in sight.

45. You might just save the day!

47. Like the deck?
Tell your friends about it.
Will you? =)

48. Made with <3 by
@preethishreeya & @chargebee

49. Sadhana Balaji & Akash, for inspiration.
Credits
For more stories and observations on
SaaS, head over to Chargebee’s SaaS
Dispatch right away!
www.chargebee.com/blog/

50. Image Credits
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/roblawton/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andertoons-cartoons/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouseth/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page