Jeff Roberts
Co-Founder, Outseta. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveoperatorauthor@GeoffTRoberts ↗LinkedIn ↗outseta.com ↗
Geoff Roberts is the co-founder of Outseta, an all-in-one platform integrating billing, authentication, CRM, and email marketing for membership and SaaS businesses. A veteran SaaS marketer, he previously headed marketing at Buildium and Roambi, and authored the book The Tale of Tom.
2shows
2appearances
19statements
4resolved
3supported
0contradicted
75%fully supported
Everything Jeff Roberts said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Jeff Roberts: $500M acquirers routinely ignore a startup's missing global tax compliance
“I talked to a founder Who sold a business for between five hundred million and a billion dollars. So a big acquisition to a publicly traded company. They just disclosed during the acquisition that they had never paid global sales tax, and they didn't know how …”
Jeff Roberts: No good global SaaS sales tax solution exists today
“The conclusion that I've come to after spending so much time thinking about this is there really isn't a good solution to this problem today. So it's kind of a pick your poison scenario.”
Jeff Roberts: SaaS founders should ignore sales tax until $1M ARR
“I think that you really don't need to worry about this, particularly on your way to 10 K in MRR. I think it's much like all other aspects of building a startup. You need to sort of create good problems. And I would turn my attention to this personally, probabl…”
Roberts: Full Global Tax Compliance Is an Unrealistic Goal
“And even the companies that do this full time, like that's what their products are based around. The idea that you would ever be fully in compliant at any point in time is sort of a ridiculous notion in and of itself.”
Jeff Roberts: Flat remittance costs make 10% Merchant of Record fees uneconomical
“The cost of remitting these taxes doesn't scale up dramatically, and that's why I'm uncomfortable saying I'm going to pay seven or 10% or whatever it might be in perpetuity on every single recurring transaction.”
Specialized SaaS point tools are overkill for day-one startups, says Roberts
“Ultimately at the very, very early stage of a SaaS startup, most of those tools are overkill. The actual need is for relatively basic functionality as you're trying to get your business off the ground and validate that you actually have something that's worth …”
Outseta focuses on profitability from day one and will never raise funding
“We're focusing on profitability from day one. As I said, we never want to raise money.”
Startups buy software to solve immediate needs, not for all-in-one platforms
“Startups don't go out there, you know, no one's out there looking for this platform that we offer. Startups are looking to solve their immediate need, whether it's they need to send an email campaign or they need to start charging, you know, a customer or what…”
Roberts: Most SaaS businesses will likely continue using Stripe
“I think most SaaS businesses will probably opt towards continuing to use Stripe.”
Jeff Roberts predicts Stripe will eventually launch a Merchant of Record solution
“And I think it's even telling that Stripe has not prioritized their own merchant of record solution, at least at this point. I suspect they will at some point.”
Roberts: Third-Party MoRs Cause Customer Confusion on Bank Statements
“If a customer looks at their bank statement, And you are buying a product from a company that uses a third party merchant of record. They're not going to see the company's name on their bank statement. They're going to see paddle, or they're going to see gum r…”
Roberts: Stripe Tax solves sales tax tracking better than any competitor
“What I personally think is the best option and what we're going to do in the context of our own business, and also probably the first thing we'll productize for our customers, is I do think Stripe tax has solved this better than anybody else when it comes to t…”
Jeff Roberts: No founders report foreign tax enforcement for unremitted sales tax
“One of my other learnings as I've explored this topic is I was not able to find A single person who had a horror story about a foreign government coming after them for some sort of sales tax that they did not remit.”
Outseta charges a flat $99 monthly fee plus 2.9% payment processing
“So it's 99 dollars per month. That's it. And then we take a 2.9% processing fee on our billing tools, which is the same as Stripe, for example.”
Building anything worthwhile in startups takes 10 years, says Roberts
“It takes 10 years to build anything worthwhile, and I think if you can afford yourself the opportunity to take that time, your chances of success go up dramatically.”
Jeff Roberts: Over 600 US Tax Rate Changes Took Effect in 2021
“So within the United States in 20, 21, there were 600 plus Different tax rate changes that went into effect that year.”
Roberts: Paddle has raised $300M to build Merchant of Record infrastructure
“Paddle's raised three hundred million dollars in funding largely because they need to figure out how to do all this on behalf of their customer base.”
Roberts: Third-party MoRs almost definitely require using their front-end UI
“If we go with one of these third party merchant of records, you almost definitely have to use their own UI on the front end.”
Outseta has 200 startups using the product but only 5-10 paying customers
“So we have coming up on 200 startups using the product right now and just a small number of paying customers. So we have a lot of people basically on that free product that are still sort of integrating the system, kicking the tires getting their businesses se…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Jeff's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Co-Founder, Outseta | 1 | 13 | 75% 3/4 | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |
 TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Co-Founder, Outseta | 1 | 6 | — | full record on Top Founders → |