StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Eric Rea

Co-founder & CEO, Podium · 0 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveengineer@ericwilliamrea ↗LinkedIn ↗podium.com ↗

Eric Rea co-founded Podium in 2014, taking the business messaging platform through Y Combinator and scaling it into a multi-billion-dollar SaaS company. He previously worked as a software engineer for the International Atomic Energy Agency before launching Podium to help local businesses manage customer reviews.

13statements → 6claims → 0claims resolved → —average certainty → —average debate potential → 4said about them ↓

2 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

6 assertions · 2 opinions · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Eric argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Podium scaled from $0 to $60M ARR in four years
“In the past five years, my co-founder Dennis and I have built a SaaS company outside of Silicon Valley from zero to sixty million dollars of ARR in four years.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 0:58 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community

Everything Eric Rea said on the Official SaaStr Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Founders with PMF must demand VC partner meetings over analyst calls
“Once you have a vision, and once you have the product market fit, you need to, you will only get what out of your business what you expect of it. So if you expect only to ever talk to analysts at these firms, guess what? That's all you'll talk to. But if you d…”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 19:54 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Opinion
Non-Valley founders face a higher risk of quitting due to disbelief
“And so outside of Silicon Valley, I think that all of us here are at far more risk of quitting because people just won't believe in what we're doing.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 10:40 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Opinion
To VCs, building in Utah is no different than Bucharest, Romania
“If you're in Lehigh, Utah, you may as well be in Bucharest, Romania when it comes to investors. Like, it doesn't matter. Once you're outside of the Bay Area, you're just outside, and there's nothing really matters.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 24:08 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
What-if
A $1M seed check in Podium would be worth over $200M
“The irony of that story is if that firm would have invested a million dollars into Podium at that time, today it would be worth over two hundred million dollars.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 5:07 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Insight
Startups outside the Bay Area must fight harder for credibility networks
“Because we're not in the Bay Area, we are going to have to fight even harder to build a credibility network, and you just need it. You need to have people, you need to have investors, and you need, I think the first 25 hires that we made at Podium were, ah, re…”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 16:30 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Insight
Non-technical founders must hire engineers before building a sales team
“And I think it's really important to hire an engineer first if you're not, if you don't already have engineering power because if you don't have a great product, you're kind of screwed even if you're great at sales.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 28:31 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Assertion Supported
Podium scaled from $0 to $60M ARR in four years
“In the past five years, my co-founder Dennis and I have built a SaaS company outside of Silicon Valley from zero to sixty million dollars of ARR in four years.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 0:58 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Podium grew from $1M to $10M ARR in just over one year
“That took about a year, a little longer than a year, but we went from one to ten million of ARR, and the whole theme of that year for us was building our credibility network.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 11:12 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Podium scaled from under 10 to over 100 employees in 2015
“And that year for us, in the year of 2015, we went from one, we went from less than 10 employees to over a hundred, and because of the advice that Andrew Mason gave us, we focused on our values, we started hiring based on our values, and we decided to make a r…”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 15:33 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Assertion Supported
Podium tripled its ARR from $10M to $30M in 2017
“Now, next, the next year, in 2017, we went from just over ten million of ARR to 30.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 16:53 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Assertion Supported
Podium doubled its ARR from $30M to $60M in 2018
“Now, the next year, ah, we went from 30 to 60, and that was another big year, not quite as big of a jump as 10 to 30, but in that year, we basically pulled away from the pack.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 20:21 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Assertion Supported
Podium hit 550 employees and $92M in funding in four years
“Four years ago, it was me and my co-founder Dennis in the spare bedroom of my apartment. Today, we have 550 employees. Ninety-two million dollars of funding”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 23:52 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community
Disclosure
Podium pre-sold 10 businesses before the founders invested $750 each
“So, once we got about 10 businesses to sign up, then we invested our 750 dollars each, we built the MVP, and we just, and we launched it.”
Eric Rea Sep 18, 2019 ▶ 25:46 Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community

The other half of the tape: Eric Rea's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 1 episode on the Official SaaStr Podcast. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Jason Lemkin 4

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0021412026episodesmentions
0112026episodes it came up in
0020.5412026episodesmentions per episode
2026 4 mentions in 1 episode

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Eric Rea was played rather than Eric taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
Going from $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years with Podium CEO Eric Rea | SaaStr Software Community Sep 18, 2019 26m aired address
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 400 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more