Aug 31, 2022 · 22m · top-founders
Largest SaaS Founder Event in Europe Will do $3m+ This Year, Starts Oct 17th!
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Host Nathan Latka interviews SaaStock founder Alex Theuma to dissect the financial mechanics, sponsorship strategies, and operational scaling behind building Europe's premier B2B SaaS conference from a grassroots community into a multi-million-pound enterprise.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 23.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Theuma firmly counters Latka's assumption that ticket revenue kept pace with sponsorship revenue, explaining why large conferences naturally skew toward sponsorships.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 10:20 Steering the guest toward specific media pack tacticsLatka cuts in as Theuma generalizes about learning sponsor value propositions, demanding concrete details about what sponsors actually valued in media kits.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:45 Dissecting event attendee math and partner ticket allotmentsTheuma dismantles Latka's estimate of 4,000 paid retail tickets by explaining how partner packages, tiered startup programs, and media passes build the 5,000 total.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 17:14 Contrasting Dublin venue pricing with New York costsLatka demonstrates his own event-production knowledge by probing RDS venue pricing and comparing European venue cost efficiencies against expensive New York venues.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Alex Theuma and SaaStock Dublin | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Latka opens cordially, drawing on his own background running SaaS founder events to connect with Theuma. Theuma explains the origins of SaaStock and his early naive venue booking in Dublin. | |
| Early Sponsorship Sales, Costly Booth Mistakes, and 2016 Revenue | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Latka drills into first-year financials and unit economics. Theuma shares his costly initial mistake of pricing sponsor packages before understanding physical booth production expenses. | |
| Turning Down a Major Sponsorship Deal with Workable | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Latka interrupts and refocuses Theuma on specific sponsor dynamics. Theuma schools the audience and host on how enterprise sponsors discard bulk ticket bundles in favor of speaking slots. | |
| Managing High Production Expenses and Early Profitability | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Latka estimates Theuma's 2017 expense margins. Theuma admits they over-invested in stage production and premium vendor options during early years, barely breaking even. | |
| Returning from COVID Hiatus to 5,000 Attendees in 2022 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Latka assumes the revenue mix remained a 50/50 split between tickets and sponsors, but Theuma corrects him, explaining how revenue shifts to 70/30 toward sponsorships as scale increases. | |
| 2022 Attendee Economics, Partner Tiers, and Ticket Distribution | 4 | 6 | 2 | 3 | When Latka assumes 4,000 out of 5,000 attendees are paid retail tickets, Theuma corrects the math by explaining partner allocations, startup tiers, and comp distribution. |
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