SaaStr

MAY 15, 2023

So if the current month looks good, maybe let it do some of the talking with the VCs you are talking to or plan to talk to. The smidge better deal does help, especially if the VC feels like they are overpaying or paying the high end of market. Get them a great update for the month ASAP. Maybe even on the 31st.

Investment 287

Investment Pricing Revenue Data 287

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Do VCs Want To Talk To Senior Execs That Quit a Portfolio Company? But if you disagree with management, maybe, let it go. If management isn’t doing something wrong per se, but you don’t agree with the direction or decisions, maybe let it go. then I definitely need and want to have the meeting. Find a better place.

Startup 204

Startup Management Company Culture 204

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Let me explain my specific challenges and explain to me how you specifically solve my problems. Way too many SDRs and even AEs don’t understand the product well enough to tell me how the product can solve a big problem for me. How exactly will you solve it, for real? Can I try before I buy? How do I know I’m not getting ripped off?

Business 257

Business Pricing SaaS Sales 257

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

It’s been a while since I listened to or talked to struggling customers. But Don’t Let Them Become Angry Ex-Customers. So lately I’ve listened to a few calls from churned customers from portfolio companies. On the one hand, arguably, their feedback is not fully representative of your customer base if you’re growing.

Churn 191

Churn Market Segmentation AI Cloud 191

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

Let them go. Once you have a great VP of Sales, you can let her own the whole number and figure it out. Prospects and customers love to talk to the CEO. They don’t solve bigger problems, but they usually work — and work quickly. Concentrate leads in those who can close. Leads are too precious. That math here.

Scale 212

Scale Sales Hiring Sales AWS 212

FastSpring

APRIL 4, 2024

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about how you can use PLG product lead growth, and sales lead growth together to drive exponential results for your business. I support the digital product community as part of my role here at FastSpring. And I love to bring the best of the community to you here on the Growth Stage podcast.

Scale 122

Scale Sales Payment Methods Merchant Services 122

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2023

Jason Lemkin : A lot of stuff, a lot of fun and mostly we want to talk about tactical stuff here. We can talk a little bit about that. We don’t have to spend hours today talking about Zenefits, but it is very interesting. I’m like, “Where can I talk to a sales rep?” That’s a huge difference.

Scale 336

Scale Sales Hiring PayPal Development Team Review 336

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2021

If you could not attend SaaStr Annual 2021 – to avoid missing out in the future, sign-up up for our SaaStr newsletter – here are just five of the customer success talks from the conference. . Video: Since this was an intimate mentorship session, we did not record a video of You Mon’s talk. Presented By: .

VP of Engineering 323

VP of Engineering Customer Success Engineering Retention 323

SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2023

Other than your own, what app would you never let anyone take away from you no matter what: Looking through previous answers, everyone correctly points to their data / analytics systems as being irreplaceable. He’s an avid runner, a proud corgi owner, and is always looking to talk shop & trade best practices.

ChatGPT 220

ChatGPT Scale AI B2B 220

SaaStr

MAY 14, 2023

We’ll talk more about that in a second. What we’ve talked about is 20 percent, and companies growing 20 percent. Let’s start with Daniel. Would love to talk more about the pricing, come back to you in a little bit. We’ll keep talking about that in a little bit. Go talk to some folks there.

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Payment Methods 226

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2023

Let me simplify it all to 4 simple pieces of advice: For most U.S. companies: Start marketing, supporting and talking to European customers as a distinct segment once you have 10 of them. It’s OK to let the first 10 find you, though. Dear SaaStr: What does a US-Based SaaS company Need to Know Before Expanding into Europe?

Sales Hiring 229

Sales Hiring SaaS B2B Revenue 229

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2023

Forcing me to talk to an SDR first. I lose patience here and move to a vendor I can just deploy without being forced to talk to an SDR that just wants to force me to get on the phone and screen me but doesn’t get me going now. Let the buyer buy the way they want. And let especially SMBs out if you don’t deliver for them.

Sales Hiring 188

Sales Hiring Scale Sales SMB 188

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2023

There’s a lot we could talk about there on Andy and Shen’s 19+ year journey to a big exit (including their decade as a services company), but we’ll save that for a podcast and a deep dive soon.

Acquisition 210

Acquisition Scaling Startup SaaS 210

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

But with that out of the way, let’s talk just enough about financial accounting to explain why Big Tech Companies both acquire smaller ones — and do corporate VC investment. Let’s take Salesforce as an example. What do I mean?

Acquisition 228

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 228

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2023

Do you just let them building their teams? But I let them hire who they want. But however much you’re involved, I’ve realized there is sort of a golden run when you hire a new VP: You have to let them hire their right hand woman / man. Third, if you’re not aligned on that right hand person, talk it through.

Scale 227

Scale Interviewing Scaling 227

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2024

But then growth flatlined for a couple of years, and it was time to talk about selling. Once you sign an LOI, you aren’t engaging in acquisition talks with anyone else, which means they have all the leverage. You’re about to enter a position where you can’t talk to anyone else about M&A. He always said no.

Underperforming Technical Team 164

Underperforming Technical Team Data Development Team Review Technical Review 164

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

We talked about 10+ reasons deals fall apart the other day. Three, let it go. As founders, we have to let a lot of stuff go. But let it all go. Rarely in an auto accident is one party truly 100% at fault. Are you sure you didn’t hide something, even inadvertently? You’re likely at least 1% to blame. Perhaps not.

Scale 242

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 242

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2022

A funny thing happened along the way to Sand Hill Road in the last decade : startups stopped talking about how much runway a Series A would buy them. Let me explain : Era. In the 2000s, when capital was scarcer, founders & VCs would derive round size by debating the quantum of money required to achieve Series B milestones.

Headcount 321

Headcount Venture Capital Finance Startup 321

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

My Top 10 take-aways from talk with @benchestnut this morning: 1/ Yes, bootstrapping can take 3-4 years longer. Maybe let them go if they aren't happy. Talk to more customers. We’ve talked about and written about this many times before, but Ben vigorously agreed. Maybe let them go if they aren’t happy.

Branding 351

Branding Software Scale Business Model 351

Tom Tunguz

MAY 17, 2022

With all the talk of recession, changing market dynamics, and the importance of efficient growth, many teams will be looking to boost their sales efficiency. Let’s start with the formula for sales efficiency. Let me show you the difference with a chart. How can the company drive more sales with less expense?

Sales 292

Sales Startup Acquisition Pricing 292

Payrix

APRIL 2, 2024

So, we talked about payments attachment in one of our previous podcasts , you want to make sure you drive the attachment of payments, that’s the hub of the wheel, you know, you think of hubs and spokes, the hub is driving payments attachment. Andy, last time we talked, we covered payment attachment to the core payment product.

Payments 124

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services Payment Services 124

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

There’s a lot of talk about whether we’re headed to a deeper recession (hard landing) or a soft landing (light or no recession). And more recently there’s even talk about “no landing.” The Fed keeps talking this up as a possibility. No Landing: This is a newer possibility folks are talking about.

Cloud 268

Cloud Software Review Technical Review Systems Review 268

Payrix

MARCH 12, 2024

We knew just the person to talk to — Andy Meadows, Head of Partner Success at Payrix. Ian Hillis welcomed Andy back to the PayFAQ: Embedded Payments podcast to tap into his expertise and talk through how to create the ideal Embedded Payments experience. You go sell your software, and you talk about my software does XYZ and payments.

Payments 100

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services SaaS Payments 100

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

It helps a bit, but in the first few rounds, you rarely raise enough to let you hire everyone you want, do every campaign you want, etc. So many unicorns had to talk to 100 VCs to raise their seed round. So they have time to talk, meet, etc. Q: What are some common misconceptions about funding a startup? It doesn’t. More here.

Startup 265

Startup Investment Pricing Branding 265

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Talk to them. But let me suggest that once you hit $1-$2m in ARR at least — that that is a mistake. In fact, I recently talked with a veteran VP of CS who took a new role and said he wasn’t going to visit any customers in person his first 90 days. At least, to maximize the deal size and odds of closing.

Customer Success 277

Customer Success Compensation Churn Enterprise 277

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2023

Any founder you talk to likely remembers every investor who said no to them. Let’s use Airbnb as an example. Two sentence description of what Airbnb does: They let any home or apartment owner rent out their place online. Let’s go back to Airbnb. Talk about the team instead. That’s it. I worked on the Mars Rover.

Payment Methods 213

Payment Methods Startup Payment Solutions Sales Hiring 213

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

While this talk really shows his love of thinking about the bigger picture – this is the Strategy stage after all – Peter actually spends 90% of his time on execution. Jason Lemkin : All right, let’s welcome Peter Gassner from Veeva Systems. Let’s go back for a minute. We talked before.

Sales Hiring 333

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 333

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

But with that out of the way, let’s talk just enough about financial accounting to explain why Big Tech Companies both acquire smaller ones — and do corporate VC investment. Let’s take Salesforce as an example. What do I mean?

Acquisition 195

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 195

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2021

Let’s dig right in: #1. “Growing & Scaling SaaS Businesses from $1M to $500M in ARR with Intercom CEO Karen Peacock” Karen will be back at 2021 SaaStr Annual Sep 27-29 to update this classic talk! . Square’s Global Head of Sales shares lessons on how to make them all successful at the same time: #2.

Scale 269

Scale Cloud Enterprise Startup 269

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

” — Casey Hill, Sr Growth Manager, ActiveCampaign “Be highly over prepared, sign up for demos of their products, talk to sales, look at the org chart, connect with other team members, board members, look at their culture on YouTube, Twitter, research competitors, read analyst reports. That question can be revealing.

Interviewing 216

Interviewing Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Consulting 216

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2024

At SaaStr’s AI Day, George Kreitler, Global IBM Embeddable AI Sales Leader, talks about the paradox of AI, three equations that relate to the world productivity and AI, a little math to help guide the next decade, top use cases, and the importance of responsible AI. Today, agents may be dealing with monotonous tasks daily.

AI 215

AI Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Government 215

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2021

Don’t let the good ones go. Let them run. Let them do it their way. Don’t let the good ones go. Don’t let the good ones go. Someone you can talk to about the 2–3 decisions a quarter, or really even a year, that really matter? A related post here. But often they don’t. Often they will stay. Promote them.

Interviewing 288

Interviewing Business 288

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

In this week’s Workshop Wednesday , Simone Bartlett, the CEO & Co-founder of Hugo, talks about tactical tips for landing enterprise clients as an early-stage company. How do the people inside talk about the company, their pain points, solutions they’re after, issues they have with current vendors, etc.?

Enterprise 139

Enterprise Technical Review Sales Recruiting Scale 139

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

When it happens, and it will happen, let me just provide some basic thoughts. Talk about how to do better this quarter. OK, now let’s talk about a Hard Miss. First, let’s talk about what to do: Acknowledge it was a Hard Miss, and Identify the Genuine Root Cause. The difference is super important.

Scale 338

Scale Forecasting Revenue Consulting 338

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

Education 247

Education Investment 247

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2022

We talked about 10+ reasons deals fall apart the other day. Three, let it go. As founders, we have to let a lot of stuff go. But let it all go. Rarely in an auto accident is one party truly 100% at fault. Are you sure you didn’t hide something, even inadvertently? You’re likely at least 1% to blame.

Business 204

Business Leadership 204

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2021

We’ve talked about it in many presentations. Do not hire someone that Talks the Talk because you think you “don’t know how to sell” and they do. Let them figure it out. We’ve written this point before, embedded in other posts. One of the best there is in SaaS. I’ll tell you the trick. But you know.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 264