SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

” It may seem easy to shrug off or wait to implement a tool to help with compliance and security, but the morale of the story here is you’ll hit a wall fairly fast if you haven’t implemented a compliance tool by the end of Year One. They have a very specific problem that needs solving — fast.

AI 148

AI SMB compliance Sales Hiring 148

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Fast forward to day, being part of a “unicorn” can seem like a great weight on the shoulders. We’ve also seen it in the deep appeal (if limited success stories) of solopreneurs. The pressure can be intense, and even if it’s not intense, it’s just … there. Everyone for a while wanted to sell courses.

Scale 237

Scale Social Media SaaS Trends 237

Trint

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

Content needs to be everywhere, fast We’re consuming content faster than ever before and across a multitude of devices and channels. Repurposing your videos into social media posts, blogs, emails, customer stories and sales decks makes your content more accessible to consumers across multiple platforms and all stages of the buying journey.

Social Media 130

Social Media Scale Branding Investment 130

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2023

So while the media is full of stories of unicorns doing layoffs and massive cutbacks, the story is a bit different with leading public SaaS companies. But when it needed to get free cash flow positive, it did fast. And yes, many have gotten tougher on spending for sure. Wow, night and day. Without really sacrificing growth.

Scale 201

Scale Headcount Point of Sale SaaS 201

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

The Takeaway: People often say you should hire for the person you need four years from now because you’ll be growing fast. Most people aren’t growing as fast as they were a few years ago, so you kind of have to hire for who you need now and in the next year, and hope they grow with you. At Gainsight, they’ve scaled too fast many times.

Scale 241

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 241

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

Fast forward just a few years, and this SaaS startup has closed a half dozen $1m deals this year. You’ve probably heard or seen variants of this story. Or they make want to stay at an ultra-high velocity of $3k-$10k deals, if they close fast. They were great at $20k-$50k deals, and a few big ones. That may sound like you).

Sales 254

Sales Leadership Enterprise Startup 254

Buffer Resources

APRIL 22, 2024

For example, if you create a blog post, flip the same content into a 10-tweet thread covering the biggest takeaways from the article. Link to the post Link to the post Instagram Solopreneurs can use Instagram to tell their stories visually—whether through images, videos, or Stories.

Social Media 98

Social Media Scale Growth Hacking Headcount 98

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2023

So how fast do you have to grow, even with less capital, and a need to be more efficient? The story really only ends well if you sell for 10x or more than you raise. The same happened in the public markets, as everyone suddenly had to march toward profitability faster. But … it’s not a free lunch. But … You Still Gotta Grow.

Startup 255

Startup Scaling Marketing SaaS 255

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2021

MongoDB is one of the most interesting “commercial open source” success stories, taking a disruptive but open source database technology and building into an incredible business approaching $1B in ARR … notwithstanding Amazon and others directly competing. Wow, what an incredible story 13 years in for MongoDB.

Scale 302

Scale Outsourced Development Cloud Scaling 302

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2022

Fast forward to today, the company is the latest SaaS unicorn, fresh off it’s $1.7B in particular: 2018: Our emeritus podcast host and good friend Harry Stebbings then interviewed Mathilde on the story at 2018 Annual: . from France. 2020: In 2020, when things were a bit locked down.

Interviewing 233

Interviewing Scaling SaaS 233

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

A similar story with arguably the #1 public leader in next-generation sales tools. So real impact from headwinds at the Cloud leaders, but they are still growing at jaw-dropping rates, if not as fast as before. So That’s The Real Story: Overall, SaaS and Cloud Are Still Growing at Jaw-Dropping Rates.

AWS 272

AWS Azure Cloud Scale 272

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2021

Thank you @jasonlk for giving me the @saastr stage +4 yrs ago to share both my story & build @pagerduty 's brand … the Sunny Delight, solution to problem fit talk. Fast forward to today, and like every SaaS company, they’re just that much further along. startups [link]. Like clockwork. 5 Interesting Learning: #1.

SMB 319

SMB Enterprise Scaling Startup 319

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2023

There are two specific ingredients that are required for hyper-growth: Velocity : You have to keep moving and move fast. To execute flawlessly in an unrealistic amount of time, you must establish communication methods and mediums that facilitate every employee’s, every team’s, and every department’s success within your fast-paced environment.

Scale 240

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Leadership Communication 240

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2023

Fast forward to today, it’s at $1B in ARR, growing 14%, cash flow positive (24% non-GAAP EBITDA), and worth a so-so $3.4 A story of a sloooow path to $1 Billion in revenues. , and transitioned into SaaS later and through acquisitions, and then into a broad platform for fundraising and educational management. $100

Education 185

Education Scaling Acquisition Pricing 185

Buffer Resources

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Mary shared her success story—features on the Huffington Post, international gigs—all stemming from her consistency as a content creator. Fast forward four years, and I'm still here, more consistent than ever. It could be a story, a trait, or an experience.  What sets you apart?

ChatGPT 125

ChatGPT Social Media Interviewing Content Marketing 125

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2023

Adding new customers does, and ideally growing new customers at least half as fast as revenue. But then it got there fast, like everyone from Monday to PagerDuty to HubSpot. Wow, just an epic product, CEO, business model, and success story. That’s OK, but it doesn’t add real long-term value. 1m+ Customers Up 30%.

Scale 185

Scale cloud efficiency Cloud Business Model 185

User Pilot

APRIL 21, 2024

It’s optimized for mobile users, has a strong headline and CTA, and loads fast. Here’s an example of our MOFU blog post about improving user activation. Userpilot blog post. For example, you run paid ads to drive traffic to your product-led blog posts. Ensure it loads fast. An Ahrefs blog post.

SaaS Payments 84

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 84

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

But revenue multiples might be a different story. I think the leaders in SaaS are just growing too fast to only have the multiples of 3-5+ years ago. Asana, Bill, Monday, HubSpot, etc. are all growing every faster at $200m, $400m, $1B in revenue than they did before! That’s beyond epic, and a reason to be hyper-bullish on SaaS.

Cloud 242

Cloud Trends Revenue SaaS 242

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

UiPath is one of the most amazing not-really-an-overnight success stories in Cloud, SaaS and software. Fast, but revenue grew much faster (65%). This is an important piece of the UiPath story many miss. Even ten years on, in 2015, it still had just 10 full-time employees. Technology partners and SIs are key to growth.

Outsourcing Services 361

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Payment Features Cloud 361

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

Wherever you are in your revenue journey, adopting certain growth strategies can help you keep growing fast. Payrix could call on them as references, and get input on brand strategy and content like blogs, customer stories, podcasts, and whitepapers. This benefited Payrix in several ways.

Payments 190

Payments Payment Methods Embedded Payments Scale 190

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2021

But fast forward today, and it’s worth 60x more. $12 Wow, what a story. It’s old, founded in 2001. It wasn’t a rocketship. In 2014, when I invested in then up-and-comer Talkdesk , it had long since IPO’d and was struggling at a $200m market cap. 12 Billion! And it’s growing a stunning 45% (!)

Systems Review 341

Systems Review Technical Review Software Review Cloud 341

The Marketing & Growth Hacking Publication

MARCH 27, 2019

photo from mockupshots For the solopreneur: create and publish blogs with these blog workflow tips–so it won’t take for-freaking-ever to create content. Blogging regularly is important for businesses of all sizes, but is it always worth it for someone with limited time? You can not blog. Only you can answer that question.

Growth Hacking 40

Growth Hacking Social Media Point of Sale Marketing 40

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2020

Yet … is that really the whole story? You usually don’t know the whole story. Get the real story. Grow as fast as humanly possible. Yet Box needed $250m? Both sell to the Enterprise. So it’s not that. Yes, Veeva has a very high ACV, with prepaid contracts. That helps a ton. The same with Qualtrics vs Medallia.

Scale 333

Scale SaaS Business Model Strategy 333

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2020

5: “Jyoti Bansal and The AppDynamics Story: From Idea to $3.7B” The inside story of Cisco buying AppDynamics for $3.7b, and Jyoti learning to love sales as an engineer. Fast forward just a few years, and now we are in the Age of Decacorns for SaaS and Cloud. #6: We should think more about it.

Scale 246

Scale PayPal Cloud Startup 246

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2023

If you really are one of the Top 5% sales reps in a fast growing, successful startup, especially one of the Top 1-2 … you can potentially make just as much or even a lot more, with less stress, than as a VP. Dear SaaStr: What Percentage of Software Sales Reps Have Earned Over $1m a Year? And there’s a related point above.

Sales Hiring 252

Sales Hiring Sales Startup Leadership 252

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2023

There are many stories of legendary exec hires. Mistake: Not scaling based upon leading indicators We’ve had 3 periods in history where we scaled up way too fast: Early on, when we thought the enterprise opportunity for Gainsight’s Customer Success product was huge after closing *1* enterprise deal! Try to have more gravitas.”

Sales Hiring 267

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Customer Success 267

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2024

They’ll remember the anecdotes and stories. Those travel so fast from venture teams straight to founders, boards, and other VC funds. Those stories spread like wildfire. People aren’t going to remember the attributes of your product or your features. Another consolidated three tools into one.

Startup 187

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team AWS 187

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

And with enough time, the company’s growth rate begins to stall — and when that stall finally comes, it hits both hard and fast. As one might suspect, a successful company always has a success story. Iterating the product: old versus new customers. Jeff Bezos says that customers are always unhappy; they always want more.

Underperforming Technical Team 243

Underperforming Technical Team Company Culture Customer Success Product Marketing 243

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2021

So one of the quieter SaaS success stories in Sprout Social, a leader in social media management. Fast forward to today, Sprout Social is now worth $4.7 Sprout Social IPO’d somewhat quietly at the end of 2019 at about an $815m market cap — small for a SaaS IPO. But they kept at it. Billion (!)

Social Media 282

Social Media SMB Cloud Scale 282

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2021

Fast forward 60 days. Fast forward another few days, and I saw the first CEO at drinks. But let me step back one level, and tell you one more personal story here. The CEO saw it … almost. He hemmed and hawed. And ultimately, he let the gift go. And this VP Sales candidate met with another CEO I know well. That Day.

VP of Engineering 345

VP of Engineering Sales Hiring Scale Engineering 345

Trint

JULY 23, 2020

Un-lost in translation In today’s world, we’re global, connected and fast. Turning raw recordings into stories, blogs or articles is easier and faster than ever before. Share updates as they happen Whether you’re responsible for internal comms or you’re reporting on current affairs, news doesn’t wait. So neither should you.

Software 130

Software Interviewing Technology 130

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

Wix’s overall costs are higher than some SaaS leaders, and its fast-growing Business Solutions segment has only 29% gross margins, due in large part to Wix Payments costs Wix can get away with lower margins in this segment for now given the 80% margins in websites. Quite an incredible SMB success story!

Payment Methods 281

Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments SMB 281

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2021

Fast forward to today, they are growing 29% at $2 Billion in ARR! ServiceNow also has well over 1,000 customers paying $1m+ a year (that story here ). Yes, $3m. In basically one venture round and a bit of angel investing. And that’s with a sales-driven, enterprise model. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scale 287

Scale Cloud Enterprise Scaling 287

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

And that won’t grow fast enough, at least not from a founder’s perspective. It’s not scaling fast enough. Get them talking to each other, sharing stories and best practices. At first, you’ll get 1 or 3 or 5 leads from it. Not enough. But at least some. The model may not work in your head. But trust me.

Branding 290

Branding Scale Innovation Enterprise 290

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

And back in 2014, I co-wrote an article called Grow Fast or Die Slow. The episode was actually titled Grow Fast or Die Slow. There’s all that posts that you want to put up, the blogs you want to make so that SEO takes hold and really takes off. You turn to the world around you and you find other people to tell your story.

B2C 283

B2C Scale Consulting Software Review 283

Totango

JULY 11, 2023

“Most Implementable” in the Enterprise Implementation Index for Customer Success software “Leader” in the Grid® Report for Client Onboarding software “Great Onboarding experience – was really fast and easy.” You can see more about our latest features and customer stories in our recent webinars and on our blog.

Customer Success 82

Customer Success Scale Innovation Forecasting 82

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2020

Here are the top stories of the week if you want to catch up: #1 As Silicon Valley orders everybody to shelter in place, tech execs navigate barking dogs, screaming kids and Zoom calls. #2: 12: Why Square’s Stock Is Sinking Twice As Fast As The Market. #13: The post Top Cloud Stories of The Week appeared first on SaaStr.

Cloud 185

Cloud Investment Marketing Business 185