SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto
Hosted by Gusto
This podcast features in-depth conversations with top business leaders, including technical leaders and developers, product managers, and C-level executives who are looking for new ways to grow profitability.
56 episodes · publishes fortnightly · latest 2025-10-07
Rank
#173
Substance
68.3
/ 100
Scored 2026-06
Updated monthly
Across the index
#173 of 911
Substance
Top 19%
outscores 81% of the index
Why it scores where it does
SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto ranks #173 on The B2B Podcast Index with a substance score of 68.3 out of 100, scored across 3 recent episodes. It scores highest on guest caliber and specificity & evidence. Eric Remer is a legitimate multi-time operator who built PaySimple, executed 53 acquisitions, and runs a public vertical SaaS platform with 700,000 SMB customers - genuine practitioner credibility - but the interview doesn't press him into his deepest operational knowledge, leaving meaningful experience on the table.
The five-dimension breakdown
Averaged across 3 recently scored episodes, with cited evidence.
Insight Density
13.0 / 20There are a handful of genuinely useful data points - payments driving 3x ARPU and 3x retention, 85% PLG, the SMB churn-as-business-failure framing - but a large chunk of the runtime is consumed by origin stories, podcast promotion, and generic capital-formation advice that adds little for a working operator.
“a customer that takes payments is three times less likely to attract, uh, they're actually generating also three times the arpu”
“churn on the SMB world less so that they're shopping the product more so they go out of business. They didn't use it as effectively, they didn't need it as they thought they needed it”
Originality
11.7 / 20The SMB churn reframe (attrition is mortality, not switching) and the observation that enterprise firms 'dumb down' products rather than rebuild for SMB are genuinely non-obvious, but the PE-vs-VC section rehashes widely circulated founder advice and the AI/SMB future section is generic boosterism.
“the enterprise business that thinks they can just simplify their product and sell it to the SMB”
“capital is energy and what energy you're going to bring into your business is incredibly important”
Guest Caliber
17.7 / 20Eric Remer is a legitimate multi-time operator who built PaySimple, executed 53 acquisitions, and runs a public vertical SaaS platform with 700,000 SMB customers - genuine practitioner credibility - but the interview doesn't press him into his deepest operational knowledge, leaving meaningful experience on the table.
“we've acquired 53 companies”
“we have over 700,000 small business customers”
Specificity & Evidence
14.3 / 20The episode offers several concrete figures (3x ARPU/retention lift from payments, 85% PLG, 53 acquisitions, 700K customers, illustrative $10M raise at $40M valuation on $4M revenue) that are genuinely useful, but many claims - particularly around AI integration and upsell effectiveness for non-payment products - are asserted without supporting data.
“a customer that takes payments is three times less likely to attract, uh, they're actually generating also three times the arpu”
“They raised $10 million at a 40 million valuation and they're doing 4 million of revenue and growing at 30%. And they were probably worth, I don't know, 15, 20 million bucks at the time”
Conversational Craft
11.7 / 20The host lands a few genuinely useful follow-ups - notably pushing on whether PLG mechanics extend to payment adoption - but defaults to summarising and validating Eric's answers rather than probing contradictions or pressing for harder evidence, and closes with a softball podcast-promotion segment.
“Does that 85% product led apply to something like payments?”
“I love just, you said it a couple times. But to restate that idea of, hey, valuation on the margin versus finding the right partner”
Standout episodes
Rank over time
First period on the Index - history builds from here.
Episodes
3 scored on substance · 56 tracked in total.
- 67 / 100
Expanding access to financial tools that simplify critical business operations with Andrew Kanzer
2025-10-07 · 24 min
- 65 / 100
Helping entrepreneurs conquer fear and launch with confidence with Ross Buhrdorf
2025-04-22 · 33 min
- 73 / 100
Unlocking growth in vertical SaaS and integrated payments with Eric Remer
2025-04-08 · 32 min
Frequently asked
- What is SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto's substance score?
- SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto scores 68.3 out of 100 for substance and ranks #173 on The B2B Podcast Index. That puts it ahead of 81% of the B2B podcasts we rank and #13 of 54 in SaaS. The score reflects insight density, originality, guest caliber, specificity and conversational craft across recent episodes - not downloads.
- Is SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto worth listening to?
- Yes - SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto outscores 81% of the B2B saas podcasts and shows we rank on substance, so a saas operator is likely to come away with something useful.
- Who hosts SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto?
- SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto is hosted by Gusto.
- How often does SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto publish?
- SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto publishes fortnightly, has 56 episodes, released its most recent episode on 2025-10-07.
- Which SMB Tech Innovators, powered by Gusto episode should I start with?
- Our highest-scoring recent episode is "Unlocking growth in vertical SaaS and integrated payments with Eric Remer" (73/100) - a good place to start.
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