Mastering Monetization with Aubrey Rhodes, Founder of TopView Labs

In this episode, join host Jay Nathan (COO of Churnkey), with Aubrey Rhodes, an experienced SaaS engineering leader specializing in monetization and product-led growth. They explore his career journey from MailChimp, Stitch Fix, and Calendly to founding TopView Labs, a consulting firm for SaaS monetization.

About Aubrey Rhodes:

Aubrey Rhodes is an experienced SaaS engineering leader with a track record of driving growth at companies like Blue Bottle Coffee, Intuit Mailchimp, Brightwell, Stitch Fix, Calendly, and Workful. While at Calendly, he spearheaded a major billing system transformation, creating essential infrastructure such as entitlements, a unified product catalog, and metering to enable both product-led and sales-driven growth. Now, as the founder of TopView Labs, he helps SaaS businesses build scalable monetization solutions and optimize their payment platforms.

Here is what we cover:

Career Highlights:
• Aubrey's growth from developer to engineering leader.
• Experience in scaling SaaS companies with a focus on monetization.
• Founding TopView Labs for consulting on SaaS best practices.

Monetization Engineering:
• Managing billing, subscriptions, and integrations.
• Addressing challenges like compliance, refunds, and tax calculations.
• Building scalable, flexible billing systems.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:
• Example: Calendly's migration from Stripe to ChargeBee.
• Collaboration between product, engineering, finance, and support teams.
• Using third-party tools to streamline processes.

Data Management & SaaS Growth:
• Evolving data management practices from early ETL processes to cloud services.
• Building API and monetization teams for scalability.
• Leveraging data-driven experimentation for product growth.

Buy vs. Build Decisions:
• Using third-party tools for monetization.
• Balancing technical debt, compliance, and operational efficiency.

The conversation highlights the critical role of monetization engineering, data management, and team collaboration in driving SaaS success.