If you don't love

superheroes, this post is not

for you.

PS: Just kidding, give it a try anyway.

We've all been thrilled by

webslingers, caped crusaders

and masked marauders for

close to a century now.

From Stan Lee’s creative genius to Alan Moore’s iconic graphic novels to Silver screens, we've come a long way.

But behind all the mind-bending, larger than life adventures, lies a beginning. An origin.

And every superhero origin is made up of a life-defining moment. That moment that made our heros what they are today.

A moment that vaulted them from the ordinary, to the extraordinary, and gave purpose and meaning to their amazing abilities.

Iron man was born when Yinsen created a diversion and ultimately sacrificed his life for Tony Stark’s freedom.

With his dying Uncle in his arms, Peter Parker learnt a lesson about responsibility that would be climacteric in Spider man's journey.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

With his dying Uncle in his arms, Peter Parker learnt a lesson about responsibility that would be climacteric in Spider man's journey.

Contrary to popular belief, such moments pervade the stories of real life heroes as well.

Contrary to popular belief, such moments pervade the stories of real life heroes as well.

And the SaaS industry is no different.

So this deck is an attempt to capture a few key moments that defined successful SaaS Founders, aka superheroes, and sparked their remarkable business journeys.

So this deck is an attempt to capture a few key moments that defined successful SaaS Founders, aka superheroes, and sparked their remarkable business journeys.

Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: We acknowledge that the moments recorded are just a few in an ocean of many more, but hope they would inspire and educate you all the same.

An undergraduate student at the University of Illinois, notices scientists sharing their work via the Web built by Berners-Lee, in the Physics lab, and goes “Why don’t they put a graphical interface on it?”

Cerebro was my greatest creation. Through it, my mind traversed the world.

Marc Andreessen, Founder of Netscape

The youngest VP (and millionaire) at Oracle, feels unfulfilled, takes time off from work, and goes on a trip to India.

When you look beyond yourself, the path becomes clear.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce

A law graduate joins the Venture Law Group to “fight the good fight,” and attains his first startup-induced serotonin boost.

I fly to widen my view, as a symbol, a call...come together and build.

Jason Lemkin, Investor at SaaStr Fund

Reed offers the video-rental giant, Blockbuster a 49% share of Netflix, to function as its online arm, but Blockbuster turns it down.

Sometimes you don’t let the world shape you, you shape it.

Reed Hastings,CEO of Netflix

On time. On target.

Ben and his team modifies some “scrap code” from an earlier e-greetings business idea that failed to build an email newsletter app.

Ben Chestnut, CEO of Mailchimp

Will you join me in the fight for the future?

Jason writes a post on his blog Signal vs. Noise, asking about working with PHP, and, a Copenhagen Business School student, writes a long email to help him out with it.

Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

Basecamp

So we rush on, and remind ourselves to be fearless.

The Concur team decides to make a transition from a licensed software business model to the cloud, making it the first SaaS startup.

Steve Singh, CEO of Concur Tech

I build things, I can't help it!

Rand’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO gets Slashdotted.

Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz

This technology.. We built something good.. something lasting.

Jeff posts about two hundred words (“I’ve got to catch a plane to Silicon Valley, or I’d write a lot more.”) to announce their “low-latency data storage service,” Amazon S3. Jeff Barr,

Chief Evangelist of AWS

Founder of Pyramid Digital Solutions turns a promise made to his wife into an academic undertaking. Submits a thesis called On Startups to the Sloan School.

I apologize...my work does not allow for doubt.

Dharmesh Shah, CTO of HubSpot

Brian launches Teaching Sells.

An Apple for the teacher?

Brian Clark, Founder of Copyblogger

Drew plans to work during his four-hour bus journey from Boston to New York, but realizes (and gets frustrated) that he has left behind his USB memory stick, thus leaving him with no code to work on.

Reality takes many forms, the sorcerersupreme deciphers all!

Drew houston, CEO of Dropbox

Phil researches about building a second brain in Boston. He runs into a Russian scientist, Stepan Pachikov and his company called "EverNote", who are already working on a technology with a similar vision, in California.

Open your mind, cast forth your dreams.

Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote

Amy helps Ze Frank with Color Wars. “He’s like, ‘Do whatever you want.’ So that was really refreshing. I was like this is what it could feel like to just do it on your own.”

A new journey to be started, A new promise to be fulfilled.

Amy Hoy, Co-founder of Freckle

Time Tracking

The power to stretch without breaking, a force for good.

Tom runs into a fellow Rubyist, Chris Wanstrath and introduces his half-baked idea of a website that will help coders to share their Git repositories, to which Chris replies, "I'm in. Let's do it!"

Tom Preston-Werner, CEO of GitHub

Hana nudges her not so distant past into the present, and begins to develop an inbound strategy for her martial arts company.

Even with my back against the wall -- I don't give up!

Hana Abaza, VP Marketing at Uberflip

Patrick “squeezes” Wikipedia into an iPhone app. Gets a whiff of what seamlessly integrated payments can do for people who sell software (or ski hats) on the internet.

Size does matter, especially when it packs a punch.

Patrick Collison CEO of Stripe

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first.

Stewart Butterfield sends his (rather wacky) resignation letter to Yahoo’s HR department.

Stewart Butterfield Founder of Slack

What answers do you seek Kemosabe?

Roca, a design-first bathroom company, hires independent designers David Okuniev and Robert Muñoz to create forms to be displayed on iMac screens.

David Okuniev & Robert Muñoz Typeform

Girish tends to his daily Hacker News ritual, and comes across scraps of withered enthusiasm and opportunity, among them a comment from a user named megamark16.

Need a hand?

Girish Mathrubootham CEO at Freshdesk

Joel Spolsky & the Fog Creek team start a “little initiative” to produce product ideas. 8 developers. 4 teams. And one of these teams ends up with a tool, unlike anything they’d ever done, for civilians.

I am only going to say this once.. Organize!

Joel SpolskyCreator of Trello

All will be revealed. Just say the magic words.

Patrick, an analytical manager at Google, has been setting up an app to schedule in-person client meetings. Something dawns on him, "If I'm going to work this hard, I might as well do it for myself!"

Patrick CampbellCEO at Price Intelligently

Gail delivers a keynote on how to negotiate the long, slow, SaaS ramp of death.

Chimichangas and… wait for it… Critical mass.

Gail GoodmanFormer CEO at ConstantContact

The doctor put his faith in the little guy… I'd like to think it paid off.

An ex-intern at Blue Origin, Peter Reinhardt thinks that his startup, Analytics.js, is a terrible idea.

Peter ReinhardtCEO at Segment

Having shut down her product Referly, a depressed Danielle Morrill writes a post about the happenings of the Silicon Valley, every day, for 30 days. "Maybe I’d be the next Michael Arrington," she wondered.

The past can only drive me, it cannot stop me.

Danielle Morrill CEO at Mattermark

I hope this collection of life-defining moments was inspiring or at least interesting to you.

And I truly hope it sparks reflection into your own journey and I wish you luck in honing your super powers, whatever they may be.

Who knows, one day, when crisis strikes and the earth has no hope in sight.

You might just save the day!

Like the deck? Tell your friends about it. Will you? =)

Made with <3 by

@preethishreeya & @chargebee

Sadhana Balaji & Akash, for inspiration.

Credits

For more stories and observations on SaaS, head over to Chargebee’s SaaS Dispatch right away!

www.chargebee.com/blog/

Image Credits

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/https://www.flickr.com/photos/roblawton/https://www.flickr.com/photos/andertoons-cartoons/https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/https://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouseth/https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page