Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

This is the question facing late-stage software investors today. Value-oriented investors may opt for company 4. Of that $329b, $253b (77%) originated from the wallets of non-traditional investors: hedge funds, crossovers, private equity, sovereign wealth, and mutual funds. Which investment will generate the greatest return?

Investment 257

Investment Pricing Business Model Enterprise 257

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Keep reading to learn qualitative answers from investors and the implications those answers have for founders trying to raise a round in 2023. At the Seed stage, investors also asked how much ARR companies had at the time. Investors have become more picky in this market and tend to wait a bit. One of the takeaways here?

AI 194

AI Underperforming Technical Team Cloud Strategy 194

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 14, 2023

In the ten speeches that constitute the book, Mr. Munger reveals his frameworks for life. In one of the speeches, he chides investors for spending too much time on the macro and not enough on human pyschology & incentives of individuals. The book contains his for investing.

Education 180

Education Branding Engineering Scaling 180

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2023

Any founder you talk to likely remembers every investor who said no to them. Those founders hold a special kind of “not hatred,” says Michael Seibel, Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator, but a special kind of something for those investors and a desire to prove them wrong. Most of the time, the investor isn’t the user.

Payment Methods 213

Payment Methods Startup Payment Solutions Sales Hiring 213

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2023

From day one, it’s critical to drive results to impress your investors, acquire customers, and set your sales team up for success. Marketers must listen in on sales calls, too, because it can reveal whether the brand message really resonates with the customer or if it addresses their interests and pain points. #2

Sales 246

Sales B2B Consulting Investment 246

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

Uniswap distributed 150m UNI tokens - about half went to insiders (investors, employees, etc.). Dune’s analysis reveals that airdrops reach many people but may not drive long-term behavior: About 220k people were eligible for the airdrop. Uniswap gave 400 tokens to each eligible user, worth about $1200 at the time.

Blockchain 196

Blockchain PayPal Startup Pricing 196

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

A clear appreciation and respect of what has come before, and a true understanding of how to succeed in spite of competition, will show your intelligence in the space (or reveal your inadequacies quickly). Also, this saves investors time. Don’t make investors do competitive research. Get it ready to go.

Scale 281

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Headcount 281

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2021

UIPath, leaders in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, filed their S-1 last week , revealing an impressive business. So investors should be indifferent to the revenue mix when considering gross profit. UIPath offers software to build robots, programs that automate repetitive work. The services gross margin is -19%.

Payment Services 359

Payment Services Metrics Payment Solutions Payments 359

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2022

However, when you withhold investment from specific teams, it might reveal a more serious problem with your trust in teams or your product. Mistake # 5: Not Realizing That The CEO’s Voice is Important When Working With Investors and the Board. So Schuck’s advice is to be more aggressive and invest in more ways to accelerate growth.

Sales Hiring 219

Sales Hiring Acquisition Investment Leadership 219

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2016

In ServiceNow’s Q1 Investor presentation are the first semblances of SaaS metrics in public company reporting. ServiceNow hasn’t published metrics on ARR or payback period, which for most public investors are still esoteric terms. A second slide reveals the contract length for each element of the growth trio.

Education 146

Education Metrics Subscription Payment Features 146

Incredo

OCTOBER 23, 2019

Do you admit that your potential SaaS investors are like your potential customers? Not all investors are equal : you should target the right ones who are interested in investing in SaaS and tend to fund in your geography & startup stage. First, angel investor or VC? Angel investors usually get 5-15% of your company equity.

SaaS 154

SaaS Social Media Startup Scale 154

The Angel VC

JANUARY 17, 2014

In response to a tweet by Paul Graham which was highlighted in Danielle Morrill's excellent Mattermark Daily newsletter, the guys at Karlin Ventures revealed the "days since last contact" numbers for their portfolio. Sometimes companies are in a phase in which the best thing an investor can do is to shut up and let the founders do their jobs.

Metrics 165

Metrics Startup Communication Venture Capital 165

Mucker Capital

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Positioning necessitates focus and sacrifice, identifying your niche in the immediate future, and revealing only what strategically aligns with your goals. Research sponsored by Google revealed that B2B brands create stronger emotional bonds than their B2C counterparts. Why is positioning important?

Branding 98

Branding Startup Development Strategy 98

User Pilot

AUGUST 29, 2023

Validating the market for your product reduces the risk of developing a product that’s not profitable, increases investor confidence, and helps teams use scarce resources well. Keyword research and Google Trends analysis can reveal what kinds of problems customers are trying to solve.

Marketing 99

Marketing Scale Market Research Interviewing 99

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

This year’s report revealed surprising insights about the distribution and flows of capital within the public B2B SaaS landscape, what investors are rewarding in company performance, and the prevalence of product-led growth (PLG). “Today, investors are rewarding growth above all else,” said Kyle Poyar , Partner at OpenView.

VP of Engineering 64

VP of Engineering Benchmarks Sales Hiring B2B 64

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 26, 2023

Demonstrate how it makes great use of tension questions to make the report more interesting and reveal the drama in what could be an otherwise dry subject. They are simpler on the control-oriented PE side [4], where it’s not, “I work for one of the many investors,” but instead, “I work for the owners.”

Market Research 85

Market Research Marketing Leadership Compensation 85

OpenView Labs

MAY 20, 2021

A paper by Morgan Stanley shows how a firm’s value drivers—Volume, Pricing, Operating Costs—are all positively impacted by differences, including research revealing greater female representation reduces a variety of risks, which implicitly lowers cost of capital. 60% female provided the best results. Other pressing People priorities.

Scale 84

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Software Review 84

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

Cooley, a top tier startup law firm, reported this trend in their valuation quarterly report , which tracks these figures where they are counsel to either investors or founders. Perhaps investment size is remaining constant but valuations have increased and investors are satisfied with less ownership.

Startup 113

Startup Trends Pricing Data 113

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Investors are not only getting more comfortable with usage models, they now prefer them. There used to be a healthy dose of fear that investors would hate usage-based pricing models because these weren’t as ‘predictable’ as pure subscription models. Our Study Reveals a Growing Trend appeared first on OpenView.

Pricing 73

Pricing Trends Scale Subscription 73

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 1, 2015

Last year and the year before, the institutional seed investor came to the fore. As for 2015, the data indicates seed investors are concentrating their investments in fewer deals, but willing to invest more. Roughly 2-3 years have passed since VCs and newer institutional seed investors have aggressively pursued seed investments.

Investment 100

Investment Marketing Finance Acquisition 100

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Top SaaS CEOs Talk Compensation, Automation, and Investors. Investors Use Customer Success as Most Predictive Indicator of Business Value. Customer Success (as measured by satisfaction) will be the most predictive indicator used by private and public investors to value businesses,” says Abel. What’s Next For Customer Success?

Customer Success 93

Customer Success Technical Review Systems Review Compensation 93

Tom Tunguz

JULY 8, 2015

This data shows which sectors are coming into and out of vogue with investors. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reveal which sectors will generate the best returns, or in which sector the next great startup will be built! The converse is true for analytics companies.

Trends 102

Trends Investment Startup Venture Capital 102

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

But no matter how thick a skin you develop, it’s never fun to be told ‘no,’ especially after you’ve spent significant time with an investor exploring a potential deal. But what about the times when investors are cryptic or laconic about why they really passed? “A Takeaway: Be careful who you introduce your investors to.

Technical Review 73

Technical Review Scale Development Team Review Software Review 73

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

Buoyed by the siren call of premium valuations, investors and operators alike started to take PLG seriously. Financial statements don’t lie, and they can reveal surprising information. According to the company’s most recent investor day presentation : Veeva’s Commercial Cloud customers have adopted an average of 3.72

Scale 98

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Benchmarks 98

Baremetrics

AUGUST 30, 2021

Remember, when you’re seeking financing, you need to show equity to investors and lenders. Outstanding shares The shares of a corporation issued and purchased by investors are known as outstanding shares. Simply put, it’s the amount of money investors paid for shares above their nominal value. Want to Reduce Your Churn?

SaaS 97

SaaS Outsourced Development Payment Services Payments 97

OpenView Labs

OCTOBER 26, 2021

And why should investors bet on you? . What investors want to see from founders early on is someone with a solid hypothesis and who’s capable of recognizing opportunity. Perfect effort is often wasted when all your MVP reveals is that you need to pivot and start over. Phase 1: Idea. Average seed round in 2021: $5.6M.

Sales Hiring 82

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Marketing 82

Kellblog

JANUARY 7, 2022

The number one thing your next-round investors will be looking for is how many people did. Relish these conversations, even if reveal that you built the wrong light bulb. Your founder saw a problem and built a solution to it. But few people, if any, have actually bought it. You don’t know if they will. Why not fail fast ?

Entertainment 123

Entertainment Startup Technology Market Research 123

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2023

Reed and Courtney Dong, Partners at BCG Consulting, sat down to discuss their perspectives on the recent macro shifts in VC investor priorities. Since 2008, investor preference has largely been growth-oriented due to the artificially low cost of capital and stimulus. Shifting focus in a new era.

Consulting 40

Consulting Underperforming Technical Team Management Marketing 40

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 7, 2015

This inquiry reveals the key users, the potential for account growth and negative churn possibility. It shouldn’t be a surprise that potential investors also use them to understand fit. Which teams in the company use the product, and how has that changed over time? How important is this product compared to other software?

Product Marketing 128

Product Marketing Development Team Review Software Review Startup 128

Kellblog

APRIL 25, 2022

Google suggestions reveal that people have plenty of questions about the authenticity of marketing: People Also Ask. Then one day, you do an investor meeting at a public company. The investor works at a large fund that has a $60M position in your employer. They show up with your last three press releases, highlighted.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Advertising Software Review Scale 129

SaaSOptics

FEBRUARY 13, 2022

GAAP financials indicate where the business stands today but reveal very little about the composition (new vs. existing) and reliability (high vs. low churn) of recurring revenue.

Payment Features 105

Payment Features Outsourced Development SaaS Software Review 105

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 12, 2015

While the attitudes may be changing, the effects haven’t yet revealed themselves in the data. Most notably, investors invested $5.3B Dan Primack wrote Fear and Sadness in Silicon Valley , and Danielle Morrill punctuated her post Somewhere Over the Brainbow: The Unicorn Window is Closing images of unicorn cannibalism.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Finance Investment Startup 100

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 9, 2013

One number investors use to benchmark SaaS startups across sectors and industries is sales efficiency. I used revenue x gross margin in these analysis, rather than contribution revenue (revenue - COGS on a unit basis) because the public financials for these businesses don’t reveal unit economics. The raw data is here.

Benchmarks 127

Benchmarks Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 127

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Selfishly, it’s revealing. Sell candidates the same way you sold your first customers and investors. Eventually, investors will fall in love with cash again. But after a few years of asking this question, it’s clear that founders’ concerns have a lot of commonalities and are largely consistent.

Sales Hiring 82

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Startup 82

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

These statistics don’t reveal any information about the difficulty of these follow-on rounds, or the terms of those rounds, or the time required to raise those rounds. But they do show the fund raising market is relatively efficient.

Startup 100

Startup Finance Investment Data 100

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 13, 2015

Christoph Janz , one of the best seed stage SaaS investors, published a great tweetstorm on the state of the SaaS ecosystem yesterday. I’ve copied it below. And as Christoph points out the marketing, sales and customer retention benchmarks have been well analyzed by things like the PacCrest Survey among others.

Sales Hiring 100

Sales Hiring SaaS Benchmarks Startup 100

Baremetrics

AUGUST 6, 2021

The company generates a lot of media buzz, mainly due to the involvement of its big-name investor Elon Musk. If you are technically adept and have a good understanding of data analytics, you can create custom reports that reveal data for charges, refunds, disputes, and others with Stripe Sigma. Try Baremetrics Free.

Payment Services 98

Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments Payment Methods 98