Welcome to the tenth edition of QuEST, which
presents valuation and investment trends for SaaS companies during Q2 2017. QuEST utilizes data from
both private companies and publicly traded companies referred to as the “SaaS Index.” The SaaS Index
represents the weighted-average movement of the market capitalization for over 50 publicly traded
SaaS companies.
A
CONVERSATION WITH QUICK BASE AND GOLUB CAPITAL
For
this edition, Golub Capital’s Peter Fair
interviewed
Rick Willett, Chief Executive Officer of Quick Base
Peter: How do you maintain a leading edge in the Platform as a Service (PaaS) business?
Rick: Quick Base was an early innovator in the PaaS space as a cloud-based solution that enables the people closest to the work to solve almost any automation problem. We have been on the leading edge of this market for a very long time—more than 19 years. The key to our long-term market leadership is simple: we have a relentless focus on customers’ success. If our customers are successful, we are successful.
Peter: What are the biggest challenges your industry faces?
Rick: The no-code and low-code industry is about disrupting the status quo of app development. Historically, the IT development cycle was all based on ‘waterfall.’ You would develop a spec, build it out, test it and release the spec—all before getting user feedback. This approach was extremely expensive and painfully slow. More recently, the concept of agile development improved the development cycle for software apps, but there’s still more to be done to reduce the cost and time of app development. We are investing heavily in no-code to further accelerate the development process. We also help users quickly and inexpensively update and change apps as their needs evolve.
Peter: How do you drive increased adoption?
Rick: We focus on ensuring every app is successful so that our users become champions for Quick Base within their organizations. Once you have that first great app, expansion can happen. We also find that the organizations with the greatest success overall are the ones that encourage users to become builders. Eighty percent of new Quick Base builders were users first. Our goal is to make that evolution easier for them.
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Peter: Say you were talking to a group of midsized and small software company CEOs. Where would you tell them to focus?
Rick: First, you must have a relentless focus on ensuring customers are successful with your product. To drive recurring revenue and renewals, you must make sure customers never want to downgrade and never want to cancel. Second, you must achieve efficiency. Far too many midsized and small software companies can’t figure out how to become profitable. You must learn to operate efficiently and also to grow efficiently.
Peter: Where do you see Quick Base in ten years?
Rick: At a high level, our vision is to continue to lead the revolution of agility through business automation. We will continue to ensure the folks closest to the work are empowered to solve their automation problems and improve their business processes. We believe this empowerment helps make their companies more successful. Our experience suggests that Quick Base clients grow faster and earn better returns for shareholders than the average U.S. business. We want our continued growth and success to power our clients’ continued growth and success. Additionally, we see ourselves serving an even broader market. Right now, 90 percent of our clients are in the U.S. In ten years, we will be international, so we can help even more people solve more business problems with Quick Base every day. 
