By Mark Stelzner

Kevin is the founder of Montclair Advisors, a leading strategic advisory firms exclusively focused on assisting software companies with the business side of Software-as-a-Service. For the last 20 years Kevin has held executive positions with public and private software firms with operational responsibility for sales, marketing, business development, product and corporate strategy.

He is an Oracle alumni who started his technology career working for industry icons like Marc Benioff, Craig Conway, Terry Garnett, and Chris Greendale inside of various marketing functions including managing Oracle’s lead generation group that lead’s for Tom Siebel’s inside sales team.

Kevin has focused his career on how to use enterprise application software as a catalyst for transformational business change inside of all sizes of organizations. Some of his big ideas include launching the largest shared services financial application platform which IBM benchmarked at over 150,000 concurrent users, rolling out the first self-service human resources platform to the market, creating the largest employee portal for GM and DaimlerChrysler and launching the market’s first SaaS-based talent management suite platform and transitioning several software firms to SaaS.

One area of Kevin’s long-term interests has been delivering easy-to-use business applications over the Internet for all types of end users. Kevin has transitioned several firms to a SaaS business model, and based on his unique perspectives of the software market, it became clear that there was an interesting market opportunity. Although there was not only a need for a technology perspective when delivering SaaS, but there is an equally important aspect which are the best practices on how to run a successful SaaS business, which led Kevin to form Montclair Advisors.

Prior to Montclair Advisors, Kevin was SVP at Workstream, one of the early providers of SaaS-based Talent Management software. Kevin was responsible for company’s product strategy that included the development and launching of the industry’s first SaaS-based Talent Managements suite - TalentCenter™. Kevin also oversaw and integrated a number of Workstream’s acquisitions including Bravanta, HRSoft, ProAct Technologies and Exxceed.

Prior to Workstream, Kevin held senior management positions in the marketing, business development and product marketing at Kadiri, Workscape, Edify, Walker Interactive and Oracle Corporation.

Kevin is an active member of the SaaS and HCM communities, having spoken at many industry conferences, events, user groups, forums and seminars. Kevin has been cited in dozens of publications and is the primary author of the popular Smart SaaS blog, drawing thousands of readers per month covering leading firms such as Taleo, SuccessFactors and Workday as well as sector analysis of SMB financial services and office productivity tools.

Kevin is a graduate of the University of Oregon and resides in Oakland, California with his wife and three sons. Kevin can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Mark Stelzner is Founder and Managing Partner at Inflexion Advisors and Founder of JobAngels.org.

Contributions

• Montclair Advisors Public SaaS Index
  This index tracks the publicly traded Software-as-a-Service companies that are on both the NASDAQ and NYSE. Using the PSI you can look across the spectrum of firms, see today's stock prices, market caps and other business metrics.
  
  
• Article: Glossary of Terms for SaaS and Cloud Computing - March 2010
  The Managing Director at Montclair Advisors, Kevin Dobbs, shares a set of definitions for basic terms and concepts around Software-as-a-Service and Cloud Computing.
  
  
• Article: Part 2: How Much Does it Take to Start a SaaS Company? - February 2010
  It definitely takes a commitment to build a true SaaS company, especially when you consider some facts about companies that have gone public. Hear is an overview of those facts and what they mean for start-ups.
  
  
• Article: How Much Investment Does it Take to Start a SaaS Co? - January 2010
  Here is a list of Public SaaS companies and the initial investments they required to get started. Entrepreneurs and investors may need a good deal of money to get going, but for those that reach critical mass and go public, there is a tremendous payback.
  
  
• Profiles: Montclair Advisors: SaaS Business Profiles
  Kevin Dobbs of Montclair Advisors profiles SaaS companies and talks to key members of their executive staffs.
  
  

  Clarizen January 12, 2010	Boomi December 22, 2009	Cast Iron Systems November 12, 2009	i365 November 3, 2009
  Responsys October 22, 2009	Genius.com October 6, 2009	NetDocuments September 29, 2009	SpringCM September 8, 2009
  OpSource September 1, 2009	Lithium Technologies August 25, 2009	Daptiv August 18, 2009	CyberShift August 11, 2009
  Jive Software August 4, 2009	iCIMS July 21, 2009	Kenexa July 14, 2009	Xactly Corp July 7, 2009
  InsideView June 15, 2009	Enwisen June 2, 2009	MarketBright May 26, 2009	Sonoa Systems May 12, 2009
  M-Factor May 5, 2009	RightNow April 13, 2009	SuccessFactors April 7, 2009	Mint.com March 31, 2009
  QuickArrow March 24, 2009	Workday March 17, 2009	Bill.com March 10, 2009	Taleo March 3, 2009
  Host Analytics February 24, 2009	eQuest February 17, 2009	MrTed February 10, 2009	Zuora February 2, 2009

  
  
  
• Article: Will Oracle Really Take Over the SaaS Market? - June 2009
  Kevin Dobbs gives an overview of the past, present, and future of Oracles achievements. After working at Oracle for almost five years he says that when Ellison sets his mind to something he usually gets it.
  
  
• Article: SaaS Sector Reports
  A new set of SaaS providers has emerged with products designed specifically for the small business owner. Many of these new software services are very low cost and some were even free, and because of this, the adoption of these products has been rapid. These Sector Reports cover the incumbent software providers and the promising new SaaS suppliers.
  SMB Office Productivity Software - March 2009
  SMB Financial Productivity Software - March 2009
  
  
• Article: Doing Everything to Lower Customer Acquisition Costs - April 2009
  Kevin discusses a conversation he had with Bill Soward, CEO, and Greg Schneider, VP of Marketing at Adaptive Planning. He talks about the company's approach to building a SaaS sales pipeline in tough economic times.
  
  
• Article: Comparing Darwin’s Evolution and HCM SaaS Software - April 2009
  Based on what has been happening with the economy, the Human Capital Management software world is going to be forced to do a quick evolution.
  
  
• Article: Is Open-Source CRM Right for Your Company? - InsideCRM, March 2009
  You can save funds and boost functionality — but only if you’re technologically ready.
  As the economic downturn lingers, businesses are looking for ways to move forward without making huge investments. One idea is to use open-source CRM software to save the cost of a license fee. But just because you save the money on that part of the application doesn't necessarily mean that it's cost-free.
  
  
• Article: What are Venture Capitalists Saying About SaaS? - March 2009
  Kevin discusses what Venture Capital firms including Intel Capital, Emergence Capital Partners, ClossLink Capital, Hummer Winblad and Merrill Lynch are saying about the Software-as-a-Service market.
  
  
• Article: What Does Force.com Mean for Your Business? - InsideCRM, February 2009
  If you already use Salesforce.com, you may be a good candidate for the cloud Force.com is a cloud-based development environment for building and hosting online applications. For companies looking to build on top of the Salesforce.com platform, this could be an enticing opportunity to extend Salesforce to meet their needs or to develop whole new applications.
  
  
• Article: SaaS Consolidation Starts in 2009 - January 2009
  As the economy continues to struggle, it also presents some interesting opportunities for stronger SaaS companies to pick up marketshares and eliminate competitors.
  
  
• Article: IDC Predicts SaaS Market to Grow by 42% in 2009! - January 2009
  
  
• Article: Hybrids, Cross-Overs and TaaS, Oh My! - January 2009
  Kevin explains three types of new business models, Hybrids, Cross-Overs and TaaS.
  
  
• Article: Subscription for Success in 2009 - January 2009
  According to reports by Verizon and Gartner Software-as-a-Service will be one of the top spending market segments in 2009. The reason for this is that these types of technology investments can lower the total cost of running a business.
  
  
• Article: TCO is a SaaS Company’s Best Friend - December 2008
  Even Software-as-a-Service sales professionals are skilled at ROI selling but now ROI is out and TCO or Total Cost of Ownership is back in. The reason is that buyers are not concerned with investments or benefits but with reducing and managing costs.
  
  
• Article: SaaS by the Numbers - December 2008
  The overall SaaS business model is about monitoring and measuring metrics, ratios and statistics.
  
  
• Article: Give Away Software! Are You Crazy? - December 2008
  With the economy in such tough shape, with customers on the sidelines with no budget to buy software, maybe now is the time to embrace a Freemium software strategy.
  
  
• White Paper: Comparing Darwin’s Evolution to HCM SaaS Software - Montclair Advisors, November 2008
  An Overview of the important considerations related to the longer term investment in Human Capital Management software during the recession. This Paper highlights key considerations when debating your HCM software options, especially when evaluating Software-as-a-Service based options.
  
  
• Article: Hard to be SaaS and Public - November 2008
  Kevin talks about how tough it is for publicly traded SaaS companies in an economic slow down.
  
  
• Article: Moving Over to SaaS - November 2008
  Kevin covers the steps required to transform a traditional software business into a Software-as-a-Service model.
  
  
• Article: Top 10 SaaS Survial Tips - October 2008
  Kevin provides a few tips for Software-as-a-Service firms to weather the economic downturn.
  
  
• Podcast: Finally, A Smart, Simple, IT-free, Mid-market Talent Management Suite - Workstream, 2007
  Kevin Dobbs discusses Workstream’s on-demand mid-market solution an enterprise-level Talent Management solution.
  
  
• Presentation: TalentCenterONE - On-Demand Enterprise Workforce Management Solutions for Only $1 Per Employee Per Month - Workstream, 2005
  
  

Blog: Smart SaaS