Phew. Ok well we went a bit over capacity, but we’ll have 1,850 SaaS founders, CEOs, execs and entrepreneurs at the (first?) SaaStr Annual this Thursday in San Francisco at The Regency Ballroom.
A few things to know, if your coming, and if you’re not:
> If you’re coming to the day sessions, come early for breakfast. We’ll have a special extra session at 8:00am-ish on how to use debt financing (vs. just selling stock) to grow faster. It’s 100% tailored to founders and sponsored by SVB. And yes, there will be breakfast and coffee.
> If you’re coming to the day sessions, DON’T come to all of them 
I know it’s an amazing line-up, but it’s too much. We don’t want you sitting in a big room all day. The downstairs, the big room you enter when you check-in, will be full of space to hang out and meet other founders and SaaStrs. The sponsors will be there, the coffee will be there, the cocktails and WiFi will be there, and we’ll have couches, lounges, and other great stuff to help you meet new SaaS friends. My suggestion is come to 60% of the sessions. Hang out on the ground floor 40% of the time. We’ll be packed to the gills anyway. Half the point really is “The Lobby”, not the speakers (hat tip to David Hornik) — meeting your fellow founders, SaaS enthusiasts, and execs. So hang out there
> You can come to the party early — and please do. We’ll open the party up as early as 5:30, so if you’re coming to the party and want to get socializin’ early, come around 5:30. The bar and Portlandia-grade organic food will be open, and everyone from the day sessions will already be there.
> Yes, we’ll record as many sessions as we can. We’ll try our best here. But streaming is a little too aggressive to pull off this year.
> We’ll have free valet parking from Zirx, but you gotta get the app first. So download Zirx if you want to valet park. We’ll all try it together.
> We’ll have a mobile attendee app from our friends at Attendify – let’s try it. Download it from AppStore or GooglePlay, search for SaaStr. It should have the up-to-the-minute schedule as well as real-time commenting on everything happening.
> It’s all a big experiment. I’m not sure there’s been an event of this scale that wasn’t a vendor or industry event, at least in enterprise and SaaS. So bear with us. The sessions may not run perfectly. The drinks may be too strong. The DJ may be too hip for some of us. So be a little patient and tolerant But it will be great.
> Out-of-towners informal get-together for the night before. We have nothing official planned (too much going on), but we’ll have an unofficial, unstructured Wednesday night get together for out-of-towners (or in-towners for that matter) at Redford on Geary around 6pm.
Thank you for coming, if you are, and in any event, for being part of this amazing community. And pre-thank you both to our sponsors, and to Max and Leah of SalesHacker.com for putting on this event with and for us all.
(Cross-posted @ SaaStr)
CloudAve is sponsored by FinancialForce.com, Salesforce.com and Workday.
