SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

They take it one step before stalking. How do you scale a product organization quickly? VP of Product at Drata Brian Elmi and Director of Product Management Dana Mauger share five not-so-secret secrets of product velocity at SaaStr Annual this year. Let’s see how Drata does it — a relatively young company of only 2.5 1: Ship Fast.

Scale 229

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Construction 229

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 17, 2024

These work, but take time. Vector computers improve LLM accuracy by helping to surface the right data for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). They allow faster optimization of LLMs by including many kinds of data that can be updated quickly. Other techniques for LLM optimization require retraining or fine-tuning.

Artificial Intelligence 239

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning AI Engineering 239

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

We can take higher risks in a less regulated industry than a peer in an investment bank or healthcare business. It Takes Time to Change a Culture It takes customers time to change their culture. But the real value is surfacing deep context that helps humans to do incredible things at a much faster rate.

Generative AI 238

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 238

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2023

Take a look at the latest Pitchbook data here. Generally speaking, there is no sane reason not to take the first, good exit. You can take care of your family. You have to take it. Anyone logically would tell you to take it. Spock would tell you to take it. Just when you are about to really take off.

Banking 351

Banking Travel Acquisition Startup 351

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2024

If you don’t understand how the next few employees are accretive, take a pause. Mediocre hires drain all the cash, often in just a few months. Hiring reasonably quickly … but where the hires, at least as a group, pay for themselves over the next 12 months or less … burns nothing net. You always know for the first 5, 10, 15, 20.

Sales Hiring 198

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Venture Capital 198

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2023

I know it’s especially annoying when you let a VC do customer diligence, take up a lot of favors with your customers … and nothing ends up happening. A simple rule: f a prospect (VC) won’t take another meeting you try to schedule … doesn’t re-engage … and you’ve asked nicely 2–3 times … you have to just move on. The Yes’s are fast.

Investment 226

Investment Venture Capital Startup Engagement 226

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2023

But I thought with so much change in the world, so many folks looking to stretch their runway, and with so many SaaS companies needing to fundraise in the next 9-12 month in a much changed and far more challenging fundraising environment … I thought I’d put together a quick Basic Guide to Building Trust With Your Investors.

Construction 227

Construction Investment Engagement Revenue 227

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2024

It just means, it’s OK to take a few extra days. VCs are wired to take bad news along with good. Interests truly are aligned, at least 90% of the time. But there are frictions. Many are natural. Some frictions are natural: Some founders are way too wasteful and spend too much, too quickly. Sadly, this became commonplace in 2020-2022.

Sales 236

Sales 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2023

And most importantly, the competition takes those other deals. So this isn’t the most profound post, but I want to at least provide 2 takeaways: First, don’t take too much solace in your improved burn rate if you implement a Strategic Retreat. The Strategic Retreat actually usually works really well in the short term.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Marketing 278

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2023

Other than your own, what app would you never let anyone take away from you no matter what: Navan is essential for me. #4. What’s your top “undiscovered gem” — an app you love but others may not have heard of?

Innovation 240

Innovation Technology Enterprise Data 240

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Take them on a journey through their day with your products. Taking it to market will be unique because every company, product, and competitive landscape is unique. The logistics of a multi-product company take a lot of thought, experimentation, and effort. What to do instead? What else exists chronologically in their day?

Scale 235

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 235

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2023

You can take a look at just how frozen growth stage is here: Now, there’s just one point I think it’s important for founders to understand in 2023, and it’s both important and non-obvious: -> Yes, there is tons of “dry powder” in venture today. It generally calls that money from LPs over a decade.

Investment 276

Investment Scaling SaaS Marketing 276

The Daily Egg

AUGUST 4, 2021

Holiday parties can be fun and valuable events for employees, but getting them right takes effort. Our guide will cover why holiday parties are important, quick tips on how to improve them, and some long-term strategies to take them to the next level.

Strategy 294

Strategy 294

SaaStr

APRIL 11, 2023

Well, some investors are anti-debt, and they don’t want portfolio companies to take debt. Take a breath. Sometimes quality over quickly is the better decision, especially in these types of situations where you need to figure out what you want to say before you say something you can’t take back. Don’t respond immediately.

Banking 212

Banking Sales Hiring Venture Capital Communication 212

SaaStr

JANUARY 1, 2023

Charge a super cheap price early to take friction out of sales, and to get to 100, 200, 500+ customers fast. Charge less than you want to, and probably, a smidge less than the more low-end competition, or at least not more. You’re learning very quickly here if you are enterprise or mass-market. So go in high. And overdeliver when you win in.

Enterprise 234

Enterprise Pricing Revenue Sales 234

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

but man … it’s gonna take a loooong time to get to $10m ARR. First, it’s hard(er) to fail slowly. It definitely happens all the time, but true failure more often happens quickly. You never get out of WeWork. The angel money is gone, and you have no customers. This usually happens in the first year, or the second. But with less true burnout.

Revenue 261

Revenue SaaS Management Leadership 261

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

So ever since I started in SaaS, I’ve been trying to answer a basic question: how quickly do the best take off and get to $10m ARR? The Top Quartile takes just under 4 years to get to $10m ARR. It took us about 5.5 years back in the day, but SaaS was much smaller then. Let’s call it Just Under 3 Years.

SaaS 235

SaaS Benchmarks Startup Investment 235

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2023

It usually takes 3-4 years longer for bootstrapped founders to reach this point compared to venture-backed companies. So the short answer is: Get to $8M-$10M and know it will take 3-4 years longer. Lemkin says almost all CEOs fail to calculate the amount of human capital it will take to hit these numbers.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success SaaS 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2022

Take a real vacation. It doesn’t matter if the acquirer “leaves you alone” for a while or does a quick integration. We are used to taking risk. Unless there is a huge earn-out or retention payment tied to performance, the pressure is partially off. Not all of it. But the insane founder-CEO pressure you had … is off.

Payment Solutions 344

Payment Solutions Payments New CTO Payment Services 344

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

— Don’t have a boring pitch: if you have to take a deep breath in before you answer the initial “what do you guys do?” If you’re taking notes after a conversation, turn around so people passing don’t see you on it. And be quick. then you’re doing it wrong. Keep it light and short for that initial answer. What else would you add?

Travel 232

Travel compliance Communication Branding 232

USIO

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

This service takes care of the complexities involved in underwriting, risk management, and compliance, allowing businesses to focus on their core operations. Advantages of Payfac-as-a-Service: Quick Onboarding: Payfac-as-a-Service simplifies the onboarding process for businesses wanting to offer payment processing to their users.

Merchant Services 130

Merchant Services PayFac as a Service Payment Services Marketplace as a Service 130

User Pilot

APRIL 30, 2024

Quick product adoption hinges on user experience , effective promotion, strategic pricing , and strong customer support , each shaping user acceptance and satisfaction. Try Userpilot and Take Your Product Growth to the Next Level Get a Demo 14 Day Trial No Credit Card Required What is adoption rate? Book a demo now to find out more.

Payments 83

Payments Payment Solutions AI Search Payment Services 83

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2020

A “bad” CTO isn’t agile enough, and can’t push out quick releases and features to save big deals, fix terrible bugs, etc. Or a “bad” CTO is a bit too unmotivated / whatever to do what it takes to keep up. A “bad” CTO sometimes wants to do this, but just isn’t good enough. A “bad” CTO doesn’t care about growing very, very quickly.

Part-Time VPE 355

Part-Time VPE CTO Engineering Scaling 355

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

If you take nothing else away from this A+ post, take away this: The CEO only needs to speak for the first 30 minutes. So I thought I’d make a quick list of other tweaks you can do, right now, to run your company better if you aren’t doing them yet: #1. Take your time to process bad news, and give it context.

Engineering 315

Engineering SaaS Startup Customer Success 315

SaaStr

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Customer/self-funding almost always takes longer. But assuming you have all 3 options, the choices are fairly simple: VC capital is usually the fastest, simplest way to raise a significant amount of money — if and when you can get it. VC funds, depending on their size, can write checks of $250k-$25m in 30 days, sometimes faster.

Venture Capital 238

Venture Capital Startup Investment Pricing 238

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2023

If you’re standing at the precipice of Series A, it takes more than having a great idea or being an awesome founder to make it. Sometimes you just need a check, but when you can choose the check, take the time to vet investors properly. and then try to take it to SE Asia, it’ll likely flop. Have they done it before?

Development Team Review 224

Development Team Review Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team SMB 224

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2022

A “bad” CTO isn’t agile enough , and can’t push out quick releases and features to save big deals, fix terrible bugs, etc. Or a “bad” CTO is a bit too unmotivated / whatever to do what it takes to keep up. They can take over the routine stuff. A “bad” CTO sometimes wants to do this, but just isn’t good enough.

CTO Hire 236

CTO Hire CTO Part-Time VPE Engineering 236

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2022

It will feel impactful to also raise prices on the base because you’ll get a quick bump to your MRR. Take care of them, and make sure any price increases are material in the long run. Raise prices on existing customers, Doesn’t help if you are growing quickly. Just makes them unhappy. Often makes everyone more happy. 1m in Year 2. $3m

Pricing 239

Pricing SaaS Revenue Customer Success 239

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2021

Charge a super cheap price early to take friction out of sales, and to get to 100, 200, 500+ customers fast. Undercharge if the customer is small by revenue. You need to learn quickly if you are going to do fewer big deals, or tons of smaller deals. If your product and business is a volume game, get the volume going. So go in high.

SMB 265

SMB Enterprise Pricing Revenue 265

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

I didn’t have to try so hard so quickly to take it up another notch. Even if there were no great economic reasons to do so. The moment I realized I would be half decent at investing I should have just chilled. Didn’t really help. So it’s tough for founders to slow down once they commit to something. I’m not saying don’t do that, per se.

Venture Capital 249

Venture Capital Startup Investment Leadership 249

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 18, 2023

I wanted to do a quick review of results so far to see what the data is showing us. Before some Q2 data, some quick market analysis. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 5.7x

Cloud 243

Cloud Software Review Subscription Payment Features 243

SaaStr

AUGUST 1, 2023

And layoffs usually takes a few rounds. The first 5% or so to cut always takes just a few minutes. Take a look at the very latest from ZoomInfo here, perhaps the public SaaS company the most like a lot of us. So what the heck happened in 2022 and into 1H’23, when SaaS unicorns could go from 100%+ growth to 0% in 12 months?

Headcount 215

Headcount Finance Cloud Startup 215

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

There are few acquirers for $400m-$500m for most of them, let alone the $2B-$3B it would take for a clean 2x-3x return for the last round investors. Even if you are growing 100% annually, you probably aren’t worth $1 Billion. That means most SaaS unicorns are unfundable. Most will now just have to make do with whatever capital they have now.

Startup 307

Startup SaaS Scaling 307

Predictable Revenue

MAY 17, 2021

Let's take a quick look at some of the ways AI can be leveraged to maximize sales and lead generation for pharmaceutical businesses. The post Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Maximum Sales Leads in Pharmaceutical Business appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Artificial Intelligence 265

Artificial Intelligence Business Sales AI 265

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Overcoming challenges by optimizing for success In the early stages of setting up your SaaS business, it’s always a good idea to invest time thinking about the direction you want to take. You may have a one-person representative in each continent who does the job of an SDR, closes deals, takes care of partnerships, marketing, and more.

Sales Hiring 233

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 233

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Take a look at our documentation for more information about ACH. To that end, we’ve implemented new updates for users who are active in our free trial and want to quickly go from sign-up to launching their FastSpring store. We’ve also opened up avenues to connect with FastSpring teams at any time.

Payment Methods 150

Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments User Experience 150