SaaStr 2020 Session Preview: Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention!

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Reunited with old friend Tracy Eiler on the speaker page

The SaaStr Annual conference was delayed this year, but Jason & crew know that the show must go on.  So this year’s event has been rechristened SaaStr Annual @ Home and is being held in virtual, online format on September 2nd and 3rd.  The team at SaaStr have assembled a strong, diverse line-up of speakers to provide what should be another simply amazing program.

The purpose of this post is to provide a teaser to entice you to attend my session, Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention Rate, bright and early on Wednesday, September 2nd at 8:00 AM.

“I eat SaaS metrics for breakfast,” he thinks.  Or at least, “with.”

In this session, we’ll cover:

  • Separating a SaaS business into its two component parts
  • What makes SaaS companies so interesting for PE buyers
  • The SaaS leaky bucket of ARR
  • SaaS unit economics 101:  CAC, LTV, LTV/CAC, and CAC payback period
  • The three, fairly lethal problems with churn rates
  • Why “ARR is a fact and churn is an opinion”
  • Cohort analysis basics and survivor bias
  • Net dollar retention (NDR) rate definition and benchmarks
  • Explanatory power of NDR vs. ARR growth and the Rule of 40 in determining valuation multiples
  • The NDR implications of Goodhart’s Law
  • Applying Goodhart’s Law to NDR
  • The next frontier:  remaining performance obligation (RPO)

While the topic might seem a little dry, the content is critically important to any SaaS executive, and I can assure you the presentation will be fast-paced, fun, and anything but dry.

I hope you can attend and I look forward to seeing you there.

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