Thanks to the First 10 Sponsors for 2018 SaaStr Annual!

Before the badges are printed and the espresso machines start humming at the
SaaStr Annual, something else has to happen first: sponsors need to raise their
hands and say, “Yep, we’re in.” The 2018 SaaStr Annual in San Francisco was no
exception. Long before thousands of SaaS founders and executives packed the
venue, a first wave of sponsors stepped up to help turn the event from an idea
on a planning board into a three-day reality.

Those early partners were more than logos on a banner. They were fast-growing
SaaS companies betting that being in the same space as 10,000+ cloud leaders,
investors, and buyers would be good for business. SaaStr Annual has become one
of the largest SaaS events in the world, with thousands of attendees, hundreds
of speakers, and a deep bench of sponsors helping power the experience.

In this article, we’ll celebrate those first 2018 sponsors, unpack what made
them such a good fit for SaaStr’s audience, and look at what their example can
teach any SaaS company thinking about sponsoring a major B2B event. We’ll also
share practical lessons from brands that have sponsored SaaStr-style conferences
and what it actually feels like to be the company behind that busy booth in the
expo hall.

Why Sponsors Matter So Much at SaaStr Annual

SaaStr Annual isn’t a small hotel-ballroom meetup. It’s a multi-day festival
for cloud companies, with content tracks for sales, customer success, product,
marketing, and founders, plus structured networking, mentoring sessions, and VC
meetings. That kind of experience takes serious resources.

Sponsors help make that scale possible. Their investment supports stages,
production, content capture, expo experiences, and all the little things
attendees take for grantedstrong Wi-Fi, coffee that doesn’t taste like battery
acid, and signage that gets you to the right room on time. In return, sponsors
get what every B2B SaaS marketer dreams of: a concentrated group of
ICP-perfect prospects who actually want to talk about software.

Event sponsorship experts consistently point out that the best B2B sponsors
care less about raw foot traffic and more about relevance and control:
qualified exposure to the right roles, plus guaranteed ways to connect with
themsessions, VIP events, branding at high-traffic areas, and strong
follow-up opportunities.

Meet the First Sponsors of the 2018 SaaStr Annual

When SaaStr first announced the early sponsor lineup for the 2018 event, it
wasn’t a random grab bag of tech logos. It was a snapshot of the SaaS ecosystem
itself: tools for data, billing, analytics, QA, recruiting, customer success,
and communicationall aimed at the same kind of growth-obsessed companies that
show up at SaaStr.

Algolia: Search That Keeps Up With Your Growth

Algolia had already embedded itself into the tech stack of many high-growth
SaaS companies by 2017. Their hosted search and discovery APIs help apps return
results in milliseconds, with relevance tuning built in, instead of forcing
teams to cobble together open-source solutions. At SaaStr Annual, a sponsor
like Algolia doesn’t have to explain why lightning-fast search mattershalf the
founders in the room have already argued about search relevance in a product
meeting.

For Algolia, sponsoring a SaaStr event is classic ecosystem marketing: be where
product leaders, engineers, and founders are already looking for better
infrastructure and UX improvements.

Fusebill: Subscription Billing Without the Spreadsheet Gymnastics

Fusebill (now part of the billing-automation wave that powers recurring
revenue) offers a flexible subscription billing and management platform for
fast-growing companies. If you’ve ever tried to manage upgrades, downgrades,
proration, and tax handling in a spreadsheet, you know why a product like this
resonates in a room full of SaaS operators.

Event-wise, Fusebill gets to show its product to exactly the people who feel
the pain most: finance leaders, RevOps teams, and founders scaling from “nice
little MRR” to “real enterprise deals.”

Klipfolio: Dashboards for Data-Hungry Teams

Over 7,000 companies used Klipfolio dashboards to monitor business performance
around that time. Their promise“know the status of every department”is
basically the SaaStr crowd’s love language. This is an audience that speaks in
CAC, LTV, ARR, NRR, and cohort curves.

As a sponsor, Klipfolio gets a live lab of data-obsessed teams. Every
conversation at the booth is a chance to show how quickly a founder or VP can
go from scattered spreadsheets to a clean, real-time dashboard for investors or
the board.

LinkedIn: The Enterprise-Grade Network in the Room

Having LinkedIn as a first-time sponsor signaled how central SaaStr had become
to the SaaS ecosystem. For LinkedIn, it’s a straight line: the people building
cloud companies are also the ones who pay for LinkedIn Sales Navigator,
Recruiter, and premium talent solutions.

Sponsoring a conference that’s wall-to-wall with hiring managers, sales
leaders, and founders is an easy way for LinkedIn to deepen its brand as the
default professional network for SaaS careers and GTM teams.

Pendo: Product-Led Growth, in Hot Pink

If you were at the SaaStr Annual when Pendo sponsored, you probably remember
itthe branding was loud, pink, and impossible to miss. Pendo focuses on
product analytics, in-app guidance, and feedback collection, giving product
teams a clearer picture of how users behave and where they struggle.

In an event packed with product-led growth advocates, Pendo’s presence is more
than a logo. It’s a visual reminder that understanding in-product behavior is
now core to scaling SaaS, not a luxury add-on.

Rainforest QA: “QA at the Speed of Development”

Rainforest QA offers a cloud-based platform for functional QA that can keep up
with modern release cycles. With a combination of automation and a large
on-demand tester community, they help teams catch issues before code hits
production.

For attendees who ship code weekly (or daily), a sponsor like Rainforest QA
speaks to an immediate, painful reality: shipping fast doesn’t matter if you’re
also shipping bugs. Being on-site lets Rainforest connect with product and
engineering leaders who are ready to level up their QA strategy.

SaaSOptics: Bringing Order to SaaS Finance

SaaSOptics focuses on subscription metrics, revenue recognition, and
subscription management for B2B SaaS companies. At SaaStr, those topics are
basically dinner-table conversation: “How exactly are you recognizing that
multi-year deal?” is a very normal hallway question.

As an early sponsor, SaaSOptics positioned itself as the grown-up finance layer
for companies that have outgrown basic accounting tools but aren’t yet at the
IPO stage.

Sellsy: Sales, CRM, and Marketing in One

Sellsy offers an integrated sales and marketing platform, from lead capture to
email automation and pipeline management. A sponsor like Sellsy speaks directly
to founders and heads of sales who want fewer disconnected tools and more
unified workflows.

In the expo hall, Sellsy can show how an “all-in-one” approach compares to the
“glue together 14 point solutions and pray” stack that many early-stage teams
live with.

Teamable and UserIQ: People and Customers at the Center

Teamable built a recruiting solution that taps into employees’ networks to
source talent more effectivelyperfect for startups competing with Big Tech for
engineers and sales talent. UserIQ, meanwhile, focuses on customer engagement
and growth, helping companies understand how customers actually use the
product.

Together, they highlight two truths every SaaStr attendee knows: you win by
hiring great people and by keeping customers successful. Sponsoring an event
where those topics are central is a natural extension of each brand’s
positioning.

Zoom: From Breakout Session to Category Icon

When Zoom appeared among the early sponsors, it had already rocketed past $100
million in ARR and was earning unusually high Net Promoter Scores from its
users. CEO Eric Yuan’s session at the 2017 Annual was one of the
highest-rated talks. Sponsoring the event cemented Zoom’s role in the SaaS
ecosystem long before it became a household name.

Zoom is a textbook example of a company using event sponsorship to reinforce an
already strong word-of-mouth reputation. When your product is how people hold
their weekly standups, sponsoring a conference those same teams attend is an
easy “yes.”

What These Sponsors Have in Common

Look at that early sponsor list, and a pattern emerges:

• They sell to the same types of customers who attend SaaStr: B2B SaaS and
  cloud companies.
• They are mostly mid-stage or fast-growing startups with a clear value
  proposition and some brand recognition already in place.
• They solve specific operational problems: billing, dashboards, QA,
  recruiting, customer engagement, or communication.
• They understand that sponsoring a targeted SaaS conference beats a generic
  trade show with a random audience.

In other words, they’re not sponsoring for vanity. They’re sponsoring because
SaaStr is effectively an in-person version of their ideal outbound list.

How SaaStr Thinks About Sponsors: NPS, Renewals, and Feedback

In the original thank-you post, SaaStr shared a fascinating detail: sponsor NPS
was 53strong by B2B standardsand yet sponsors also gave some of the most
direct and intense feedback of any stakeholder group. That’s the thing about
SaaS vendors: they’re professional optimizers; they’ll tell you exactly how to
iterate.

SaaStr also set an internal goal to renew roughly 80% of sponsors at 100% of
the net revenue from the prior year. That’s a helpful benchmark for any event
organizer: if sponsors keep coming back and spending at similar or higher
levels, you’re doing something right.

For sponsors, this mindset matters. It means SaaStr doesn’t see them as a
one-off revenue line item; it treats them as long-term partners whose success
is part of the event’s success story.

Why Smart SaaS Brands Sponsor Events Like SaaStr

Across the broader B2B event world, sponsorship case studies echo the same key
benefits:

• Qualified exposure: Sponsors want audiences that match their
  buyer personas, not just big headcounts.
• Owned touchpoints: Good sponsorship packages include things
  like speaking slots, workshops, VIP dinners, or dedicated meeting areas that
  sponsors can control.
• Pipeline and partnerships: Sponsors use events to fill
  pipeline, uncover integrations, and meet investors and potential acquirers.
• Brand halo: Being listed alongside respected SaaS brands
  instantly boosts a growing company’s credibility.

Post-event write-ups from sponsors at SaaStr-style conferences consistently
mention booth traffic, meaningful product demos, and long-tail deals that
closed months after the event wrapped.

Lessons for SaaS Companies Considering Sponsorship

If you’re a SaaS founder or marketing leader weighing whether to sponsor
something like SaaStr Annual, the first 2018 sponsors offer a few practical
lessons:

1. Choose Events Where the Audience Is Already Pre-Qualified

Every sponsor on that early list sells primarily to SaaS companies. Instead of
betting on generic tech expos, they invested in an event where almost every
badge belonged to a potential customer, partner, or investor.

2. Treat Sponsorship as a Campaign, Not a Logo Purchase

The most effective sponsors treat events as full campaigns: pre-booking
meetings, running targeted outreach, planning demos, and coordinating
post-event follow-ups. Industry guides for event-led GTM repeatedly stress
that pre-booking meetings and follow-up sequences are what separate “nice booth
traffic” from real pipeline.

3. Bring a Team That Actually Likes Talking to People

You don’t need to bring half the company, but you do need the right mix:
product-savvy reps who can demo, outbound-oriented sellers who can book
follow-ups, and customer-facing leaders who can meet strategic accounts. Many
SaaStr sponsors highlight that sending founders or senior leaders pays off
because high-value prospects are more likely to stop and talk.

4. Measure More Than Badge Scans

Modern event-marketing playbooks emphasize tracking meetings held, opportunities
created, influenced deals, and even product feedback gatherednot just how many
people snagged your socks. If you’re going to sponsor like a
SaaStr 2018 early partner, you should also report like one.

What It’s Like to Be a SaaStr Annual Sponsor: Real-World Experience

So what does it actually feel like to be one of those early sponsors, watching
your logo roll across the SaaStr site months before the event and then finally
stepping into the expo hall?

The Run-Up: From Contract to Crate Shipping

First comes the paperwork and prospectus. Once you sign, the reality sets in:
now you need a booth concept, messaging, on-site demo environment, and a travel
plan. Many SaaStr-style sponsors start outreach 4–6 weeks before the event,
emailing customers and prospects: “We’ll be at SaaStrwant to book time with
our team?”

The early 2018 sponsors likely had similar timelines. Zoom, Pendo, and others
didn’t just hope attendees would wander by; they scheduled customer meetings,
lined up analysts or investors, and coordinated product announcements around
the event dates.

Day One: The Floodgates Open

When the doors open at SaaStr Annual, the sponsor hall comes alive quickly.
Teams like Agile CRM and Smartlook, which have written about their experiences
sponsoring SaaStr-related events, describe steady streams of visitors from the
moment the expo floors open: existing users dropping by to say hello, curious
founders wanting to see a live demo, and investors casually asking, “So what
does your churn look like?”

For the first 2018 sponsors, that meant dozens of back-to-back conversations.
A strong day one usually includes:

• Validating your positioning (“Yes, people immediately get what we do”).
• Hearing language your buyers actually usegold for marketing and product
  teams.
• Spotting patterns about which segments get most excited and which are
  lukewarm.

Day Two and Three: Deeper Dives and Serendipity

As the event continues, the quality of conversations often deepens. Prospects
who did a quick fly-by on day one come back with their teammates. Investors
loop in a partner. Potential integration partners swing by after seeing you on
a session slide.

Sponsors who plan well treat these days as structured discovery. They’ll ask:
“What tools are you using today? Where do they fall short? What would make
this a no-brainer for you?” That real-time feedback rivals weeks of customer
interviews.

There’s also the serendipity factor. Maybe someone from a major platform
company swings by your booth because they liked your founder’s session. Maybe
a future acquirer or strategic investor first hears about you at the event.
Those stories show up again and again in SaaS conference post-mortems.

After the Event: Where the Real ROI Shows Up

Once everyone goes home and the booth is back in its crate, the sponsor work
isn’t overit’s just changing shape. High-performing teams start sorting leads
into:

• Immediate opportunities (ready to demo, timeline and budget
  in place).
• Mid-term nurture (interested, but not ready to buy yet).
• Strategic contacts (partners, investors, big-logo brands
  worth long-term relationship-building).

Case studies from SaaStr-adjacent sponsors report that serious deals often
close months after the eventafter a string of demos, trials, and internal
approvals. The event itself is the spark; the pipeline is where
the real fire shows up.

For those first 2018 sponsorsAlgolia, Fusebill, Klipfolio, LinkedIn, Pendo,
Rainforest QA, SaaSOptics, Sellsy, Teamable, UserIQ, and Zoomthe SaaStr
Annual wasn’t just a three-day marketing line item. It was a strategic bet that
being part of the SaaStr community, early and visibly, would pay compound
returns as the ecosystem grew.

Conclusion: A Thank-You That Still Matters

SaaStr’s public thank-you to its first 2018 sponsors was more than polite
housekeeping. It highlighted a fundamental truth of the SaaS world: big
community events only exist because a set of brave companies decide to go
first.

Those early sponsors helped shape the experience for thousands of founders and
executives, and in return they gained unmatched access to their ideal
customers, partners, and investors. If you’re a SaaS company wondering whether
to sponsor your next big event, the 2018 SaaStr lineup offers a clear playbook:
choose the right room, show up early, and treat sponsorship like a serious GTM
motionnot just a logo on a lanyard.