SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

Notion is our knowledge-base, and – for a long time – was also where we’d do a lot of task management, and created some rudimentary CRMs for different purposes. It’s still ‘source of truth’ for processes, meeting notes, and such, but we’ve since moved our task and project management to Linear.

Marketing 197

Marketing ChatGPT Mobile Onboarding 197

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2022

With the summer of Defi behind us and a new year for web3, I wondered which categories of web3 startups generate the most revenue. Gaming, Wallets, Infrastructure, Consumer Apps, Insurance and Asset Management chart negligible share. L1 revenue will remain dominant but other categories will wrest share. Exchanges place second.

Payments 363

Payments Revenue Payment Solutions Blockchain 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2024

I think of the apps I rely on in four different categories: reporting, collaboration, analytics, and management. And finally, for my management duties my top three apps are Allocadia , Workday , and Greenhouse , but I’ve recently also been using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Frame.io What’s your core stack of apps today?

Social Media 246

Social Media AI Technology Branding 246

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

The Long and Winding Road to $10M ARR WorkRamp is an LMS (learning management system) company founded in 2015. Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. But sometimes, the road less traveled is the path to success. Sometimes it can take longer.”

Scale 192

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 192

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

Refusal To Manage / Deal With The Burn Rate. I don’t see these producing big category winners, because they can’t keep up on the product side. A company run 100% by non-founders can struggle to really get ahead of change, even if they can manage the current environments pretty well. So far, I’ve always lost my money here.

Startup 207

Startup Scale CTO Pricing 207

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 1, 2023

Startups should focus on AI for Execs (perhaps why legal has been a heavily funded category) & AI for common workstreams (code autocompletion). 1 BDRs are often mapped to AEs at 1:1 ratio & if we assume BDRs account for 25% of sales headcount (the remainder includes AE, sales operations, post-sales, & management).

AI 321

AI Startup Scale Headcount 321

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 5, 2020

If we tally the reductions by category, travel, retail, fitness, real estate, transportation, and recruiting constitute the top 6 categories. Aside from recruiting, these are all consumer discretionary spend categories. In consumer discretionary categories, changes in spending appear immediately at the till.

Sales Recruiting 333

Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount Sales Hiring 333

The Daily Egg

MAY 9, 2021

Sage CRM is a reliable solution for small and medium businesses to handle their customer management processes with speed and precision. As a comprehensive solution that helps small businesses streamline management tasks, it’s a top choice in its category. The post Sage CRM Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Management 307

Management Business Sales 307

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

To manage every nickel of spend on Twilio, to manage every single license of ZoomInfo, etc. Spending on many SaaS categories resumes, but more slowly. Now let’s be clear. Asana and Atlassian, competitors who sell more to tech? A much tougher year. Shopify was up 128%! HubSpot was up 104%! More on that here.

Sales Hiring 250

Sales Hiring Cloud AI Startup 250

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2022

As you scale, you’ll have more stakeholders to manage and unify. Creating a category. Founders know how difficult it can be to create brand differentiation within an existing category since, in mature markets, every market position has already been taken. Creating your own category requires a lot of money to succeed.

Scale 219

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Scaling Company Culture 219

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2023

Join us as we uncover lessons from UiPath’s success in creating a new category within RPA Enterprise Automation – Robotic Process Automation – while navigating the challenges inherent in digital transformation powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. From a marketing perspective, it was a flop.

Scale 196

Scale Artificial Intelligence Technical Review Software Review 196

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2022

As Crunchbase noted just the other day , growth rounds are down at least 40% as well, and their data likely has more lag than AngelList (and is from a few weeks earlier): The bottom line is every category of venture investment has gotten harder since the go-go days of 2021. What does the AngelList data show us at 6/16/22? It is what it is.

Pricing 335

Pricing Investment Data Marketing 335

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Ultimately, you have to pause, find a manager to scale them, listen to them, and train them. Whether you’re just starting out in SaaS or have a successful SaaS startup, founders and startup teams can learn a lot from those who have found success in the industry through its ups and downs. But, back to critical hires for your Saas company.

Outsourcing Services 201

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 201

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

They don’t have the bandwidth to support five sub-partners in their category. Look at the most important categories that surround your category. Mapping Partnerships When you have a relationship like AWS, you have to hire someone who has managed a complicated, matrix-level, nuanced relationship. Otherwise, it falls apart.

AWS 199

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 199

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

I think we can learn the most from the #1 leaders in each category. With Datadog the clear leader in DevOps, it’s a great barometer of where the entire category is. So again, a category leader like Datadog is still growing at a jaw-dropping rate past $1B ARR. pic.twitter.com/a6BKk61LQR. Atlassian: 31% Growth at $3.2

AWS 259

AWS Azure Cloud Scale 259

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 20, 2020

Second, at a tactical level, the founder/CEO has to be super win-win at heart and in practice, to build a team, to manage a team, to drag the squad and the platoon through the war. Here’s how we generally think: If you are #1 in your category and growing nicely, then great, we’ll keep building on that lead. Probably True.

SaaS 336

SaaS Scale Healthcare SMB 336

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

New hires in your GTM team will usually fall within one of four categories: Distribution Revenue Storytelling or messaging Some form of operations Most of the time, it’s distribution or revenue, qualify people as in or out for those two areas. It is often the first point of interaction between potential customers and your company.

Scale 252

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Marketing 252

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 18, 2023

How quickly users switch from one product to another depends on the category of software : the switching costs, the pain associated with a lack of the feature, or the loss in productivity without it. When one customer support bot provides a meaningfully better experience to answer questions, every competitor will match it.

AI 239

AI Artificial Intelligence Strategy Startup 239

BetterCloud

APRIL 16, 2024

A ticket with concise, useful information can be the difference between an instant solution and one that takes hours or days.” – Kurt Nelson , IT manager at FiftyThree Below is an in-depth (and I mean it!) At BetterCloud, we use two category types. The parent category defines where the request is routed.

Scale 98

Scale Data Analysis Technology Scaling 98

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

Many net-new purchases are for data security, compliance, risk management, and AI-powered tools. Oates explains, “Software that supports critical infrastructure will continue to be purchased and renewed, year-over-year.” The bottom Line? Businesses spend big money on tools they believe are indispensable to their operations and success.

VP of Engineering 231

VP of Engineering Trends Cybersecurity Sales Hiring 231

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

Lack of a (at least the Genesis of a) Management Team. You never have a perfect management team until you are at $10m+ ARR, at the earliest, in 98/100 cases. Still, some VCs want to see at least one solid VP on the team, or at least, one solid manager you can scale under. It's not just FTX. The main issue is price.

Scale 338

Scale Sales Recruiting Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 338

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2022

But, it’s gotten a bit harder, in some segments at least: “Sales cycles can get stretched, deals are inspected by higher levels of management and all of this we began to start to see in July,” Benioff said. Salesforce really now plays in all key categories, from commerce to infrastructure, from sales to support, and more.

SMB 227

SMB Scale Cloud Trends 227

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 9, 2022

A decade ago, Gainsight championed the creation of the customer success category. Self-serve small ACV companies have developed the hybrid CSAM role ( customer success account managers). in ACV per year when managing a handful of these accounts. In 2013 and 2015, the discipline’s merits dominated the conversation.

Customer Success 334

Customer Success Outsourced Development Technical Support Startup 334

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2023

A word about category creation: If your startup is creating a new category, your initial objective will be to get the word out and explain to customers why they need your product and what problems it can solve. . #1 You Need to Get Out There And Sell Sometimes, the best way to learn is by doing. Stop getting invited on sales calls.

Sales 246

Sales B2B Consulting Investment 246

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2023

In an AMA at SaaStr APAC 2023, Black Mangroves Founder and Managing Director Arnaud Bonzom, and SaaStr Founder and CEO, Jason Lemkin answered some of the bigger questions about venture investing in 2023. Lemkin recently asked what percent of public SaaS companies are new versions of existing categories. 2021 was a wild time.

Venture Capital 193

Venture Capital Management Business Model Trends 193

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2023

Instead of trying to use a clunky, forms-based search box, you can now have a conversation with Monty to discover the best app, even if you don’t know the best category (there are over 2,000 on G2). People can communicate as humans do, and AI uses those words and matches them to a business problem regardless of category.

AI Search 188

AI Search AI ChatGPT Software Review 188

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Now, founders need to focus on proving their success through growth and responsible capital management. Historically, SaaS investors tended to look for the undisputed top dog competitor in every category, and would pour huge amounts of money into those companies. What Has Changed For VCs?

Venture Capital 185

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Social Media Healthcare 185

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

With the end of the fiscal year approaching for many software companies, management teams are running the numbers for different scenarios. A few notes on this analysis: First, not all software categories will grow 15%. How much should quotas increase next year? Some will grow faster than others; others may contract.

Headcount 195

Headcount Sales Hiring AI Cloud 195

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2021

8 “Lessons Redefining a Really Big Category with Coupa’s CEO Rob Bernshteyn” We just did a 5 Interesting Learnings series on Coupa at $700m ARR and here’s a look back at how they came to dominate their category of enterprise spend management. #9

Scale 269

Scale Cloud Enterprise Startup 269

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2023

$100M ARR doesn’t happen overnight. Founders are responsible for ensuring a startup always has enough money, setting the vision for the company, and driving things forward. After LaunchDarkly got their series A, things took a turn. They hired their first VP of Sales with a wonderful pedigree and experience at some of the hottest startups.

Sales Recruiting 238

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 238

Tom Tunguz

JULY 8, 2021

There are six key categories of players. Asset acquirers - these include brokerages, custodial and non-custodial wallets, banks, asset managers, hedge funds, market makers, and lenders. Protocols - Protocols are invented, created, designed, and managed by organizations and companies. Software spans many categories.

Outsourced Development 267

Outsourced Development Marketplace as a Service Banking Construction 267

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2022

Revisit your organizational culture” Bill Magnuson , Co-Founder and CEO, Braze – “What It Takes to Forge Your Own Category” Get your tickets before prices go up at the end of the month!

Pricing 224

Pricing Scaling SaaS Management 224

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2022

. “Disco” is a leader in next-generation eDiscovery software, i.e. managing documents around lawsuits. Really, it’s a next-generation Cloud player in eDiscovery, one of the oldest and largest categories in legal tech (a $15B category already). And the first to IPO. Billion even with the market correction.

Technical Review 246

Technical Review Software Review Scale Cloud 246

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Any startup in any reasonable category likely has dozens of competitors, and Altman believes the best strategy to compete in 2023 and beyond is multi-product. For Lattice, you maybe onboarded the company, set them up with goals, and do 1-on-1s with a manager to go through a quarter and get feedback. That’s unbelievable!

Scale 222

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 222

Point Nine Land

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Importantly, the map is not true to scale, so if it looks like most of the categories are red and yellow, that’s the wrong takeaway. For categories with an existing SaaS champion, one of the questions is what kind of data the existing player(s) have access to. I’ve already shared some of my thoughts before (e.g.,

Generative AI 122

Generative AI AI Artificial Intelligence Startup 122

User Pilot

APRIL 21, 2024

To make the most out of it and increase user satisfaction, you should add different content types, including: Interactive guides Video tutorials How-to articles FAQs for different features Webinars Also, brands should take advantage of market segmentation to create different user categories and find out which content type they prefer.

Customer Support 95

Customer Support Software Review Systems Review Mobile 95

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

In this era of ever-increasing digital disruption and innovation, category design can be the ultimate business strategy for brands wishing to stand out from the crowd. The book aims to help companies apply category design to open new markets and create new demand. and the Making of IBM , and The Two-Second Advantage.

Technical Review 205

Technical Review Sales Hiring Innovation Systems Review 205