The fundamentals of repeatable SaaS success with John Thompson

Today we bring you the first of our extended podcast episodes, where Alex gets to ask the nitty-gritty details he usually doesn’t have time for. These hour-long episodes offer a well-rounded insight into the workings of some of the most successful SaaS founders and their companies.

The guest this week is John Thompson, a Co-Founder and a CEO who has taken 2 businesses from zero ARR through seed and A rounds. His first company Commerce Decisions was an early SaaS exit back in 2008. Today he is the Chairman of Wax and ProspectSoft - two later stage PE-backed SaaS companies. He also works closely with Forward Partners, a London-based seed stage VC fund advising their B2B SaaS portfolio companies on sales and growth. As he told me in the interview - he has 8-9 SaaS CEOs in his life every week.

Listen on to learn:

• The fundamentals of building a strong SaaS company, and the most important elements for success,


• What has made John a successful CEO


• What was the wake-up call for him to start taking care of his mental and physical health and how he goes about it.

Some of his beliefs may be seen as controversial but he steadfastly believes in them because they all stem from his own experience, in which with each good year, 3 or 4 bad ones came.

John has been at every SaaStock flagship conference to date and will be joining us a fourth time this October in Dublin. Sign up for the Insider Sale and be the first one to find out when we release our 2-for-1 tickets in April. SaaStock is always better with a Co-Founder or a colleague, so you can cover more ground and learn at multiple tracks and bootcamps.

Let us know if you like this longer format by leaving a review and a rating on Apple iTunes or wherever you get your podcast, or by reaching out on twitter @SaaStock.

If you want to get in touch with John, you can email him [email protected]

Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move their business forward: 

🇮🇪 SaaStock Europe: 14-15 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland
Book tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/tickets/

🇺🇸 SaaStock USA 2025: April 2026 | Austin, Texas
Book tickets: https://saastock-usa.com/

🤝 SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)

🌎 SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world, bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)