SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2023

The stickier and more convenient your product is to use along with the ecosystem, the more likely you will be to set up long-term retention. Seeding long-term competitive moats and future areas of focus. SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays are LIVE every Wednesday. Sign up for free. How it Works: So how do strategic funds work?

Investment 199

Investment Startup Branding Acquisition 199

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 25, 2022

We are building for the long term – that means ensuring reliability by default, and the ability to accommodate massive scale as we grow. . Intercom has been growing, and will only continue to do so – many of our longest standing customers have evolved with us over the years. We’re growing alongside our customers. Can Intercom do that?

Scaling 252

Scaling AWS Software Review Technical Review 252

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2022

We were able to dive into this a bit when co-founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah joined us at 2022 SaaStr Annual. But its expanding into Sales, Service, CMS and Ops that has fueled the second wave of growth at almost $2B in ARR. Sales was a long term investing, starting Free and limited. in ARR growing 30% — not bad.

Scale 268

Scale SMB Scaling B2B 268

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2023

The Strategic Retreat actually usually works really well in the short term. I see SaaS companies quickly get to cash-flow positive by really only servicing in-bound customers with high intent. So for at least 60%-80% of us, times are at least tougher than a year ago. Not for all of us, but most. So what do you do?

Scale 265

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Marketing 265

Totango

APRIL 9, 2024

This signifies that fostering an exceptional partnership between CS and sales teams — vital for long-term revenue growth, begins with understanding which customers can derive the highest value from your products and services over time. Is 2024 the year of customer success or sales?

Scale 106

Scale Sales Compensation Customer Success 106

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 17, 2021

From time to time, I chart the fastest growing categories of startup investment in the US for seed through Series C. I analyzed Crunchbase data and looked for the startup categories that grew fastest in terms of funding rounds year-over-year, provided there were at least 10 rounds in that category.

Startup 362

Startup Software Engineering Finance Engineering 362

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 23, 2024

At a16z’s recent Connect/Fintech event, a16z Partner Alex Immerman sat down for a broad conversation with Immad Akhund , co-founder and CEO of banking startup Mercury , and René Lacerte, founder and CEO of financial services company BILL. Here’s an edited excerpt from their conversation. We have to create our own GenAI for the customer.

Payments 105

Payments Forecasting Payment Services Payment Solutions 105

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2023

Capchase Co-Founder & CEO Miquel Fernandez and 01 Advisors VP Kristen Clifford use data to show us what differentiates the best SaaS companies from the rest. Very few or no services at all. Services generally have a lower gross margin. So if they actually offer services, these come at a huge premium.

SaaS Payments 197

SaaS Payments Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 197

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

The low point was in 2021, with $100k of revenue per employee for all of these unicorns, and we were only 10% as efficient as we used to be. To the OG software people who read SaaStr, Jason is “the guy,” Sam says. So, what does it take to get to a $100M outcome? Certain business models have economies of scale, and some don’t.

Engineering 236

Engineering Business Model Pricing Scaling 236

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

But back in 2017, CEO and co-founder Peter Gassner joined us after Veeva had recently IPO’d with a market cap less than a tenth of that size. But back in 2017, CEO and co-founder Peter Gassner joined us after Veeva had recently IPO’d with a market cap less than a tenth of that size. Tell us your version of the history.

Sales Hiring 333

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 333

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2023

Personally, I’ve seen it sort of work a few times — and that’s why I added “sort” as an option, and 26% of you also said it had sort of worked: We used an experienced outsourced team at SaaS itself to bring in new sponsors, and they added about 8% of new revenue. Especially folks that provide these services.

Outsourcing Services 230

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Development Team Review Sales Hiring 230

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2021

So ServiceNow for many of us is a SaaS company we’ve sort of heard of, but don’t know that much about. So you probably don’t use ServiceNow yourself to track your IT and other assets. Only 5% of its revenues from professional services. It’s interesting to see contract terms presented this way.

Enterprise 342

Enterprise Revenue Scaling Retention 342

FastSpring

AUGUST 2, 2023

We do less than 1% of our business in Croatia, so it’s not really a big market for us,” added TestDome’s head of customer success and sales Igor Novosel. The Croatia-based company was started around the time Croatia joined the European Union, but the country also wouldn’t start using the euro until 2023. Here’s why. Paddle offers it.

Payment Solutions 136

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Merchant Services AI Search 136

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2021

We understand their use cases in more detail and help customers with their broader problem (outside of what our product can already solve)” — Harshit Jain, Founder, Kaizen Fox. While I don’t really recommend doing services for free forever, it’s often a huge differentiator in the early days. If not, start ASAP.

Churn 315

Churn Sales Hiring Headcount Technical Review 315

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 1, 2023

People get tired of us and they're moving on to things that are now new and interesting, namely preparing for enabling AI and ML technologies.” Looking at the mid to long term, we feel very optimistic about the outlook for strong AWS growth. This year, there was tons of experimentation. Time will tell if they can execute!

AWS 293

AWS Cloud AI Search Cost optimization & reporting 293

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. Revenues are only revenues captured by tokens, not dollar revenues for software sales or token payments for services/software. Exchanges place second. Right behind, NFT exchanges rank third.

Payments 363

Payments Revenue Payment Solutions Blockchain 363

Subscription Flow

APRIL 23, 2024

Despite countries like China and the US imposing protectionist economic policies, the world is increasingly becoming globalized and these days all countries are looking for their Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and Amazon. Doing this ensures the data-driven reduction of churn. All of this can be done with Paddle in a matter of clicks.

Payment Solutions 93

Payment Solutions Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments 93

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

Of course, we were excited by the opportunity those larger customers represented, but it scared us a bit, too. Small businesses and mid-size businesses have different needs, and often require a different approach in terms of product design, customer service, sales, marketing, and more. There was a lot we didn’t know.

Scale 258

Scale Business Finance compliance 258

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. 398: Rob Gonzalez is the Co-Founder & CMO @ Salsify, empowering brand manufacturers to deliver the product experiences consumers demand at every point in their buying journey. Harry Stebbings. Rob Gonzalez.

SaaS Payments 248

SaaS Payments Scale Payment Services Payment Solutions 248

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2021

At Databricks, it was really important for us to focus on the community around Open Source projects from the very start. We weren’t focused on revenue, we were focused on winning developers one-by-one, and that was the key to success for us. For us, the SaaS model Amazon Web Services (AWS) offered was an amazing one to look at.

AI 230

AI Enterprise SaaS AWS 230

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2022

Recovery from COVID has taught us that adapting and learning how to thrive in new ways in the face of change, whether good or bad, can lead to exponential growth. . Ariel Cohen, CEO of TripActions, helps us remove the fear of navigating a crisis by breaking down foundational mindset shifts that leaders should adopt.

Travel 194

Travel Revenue Underperforming Technical Team Scale 194

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 26, 2024

That means that spending will grow another $1 trillion in only 2 years, accelerating from the decade plus it took for us to get to $5 trillion. For the first time in a decade, IT services will become bigger than communication services in 2024. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions. trillion by 2027.

Cloud 161

Cloud Marketplace as a Service AI Subscription 161

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

And for most of us, larger checks are one of the easiest ways to grow faster and hit our goals. A great logo will come in … but they’ll talk about maybe deploying at the end of the year. You’ll feel like any customer you can’t close this month, or at least this quarter, is tantamount to a forever. My #1 bit of advice?

Scale 341

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Pricing 341

SaaStr

AUGUST 22, 2022

So if this is going to be the persistent impression of us and what [everyone] evaluates us on, how do I feel about it over time?”. Review how your product is used, and ensure that your terms of service prevent people from using it to commit morally questionable actions.

Social Media 200

Social Media Software Review Leadership Acquisition 200

SaaStr

MAY 14, 2023

Six months ago, Tiago was the only US employee. Algolia went from zero to seven figures in revenue in 12 months, and the launch of their search as a service product, and grew pricing from $19 a month to $100,000, which sounds amazing. How did they do? All of them! I’m Jason Lemkin. Look a little different. I’m Nick Mehta.

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Payment Methods 226

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2023

And David Sacks was kind enough to join us and compare and contrast the Yammer experience to Slack! Back at the first SaaStr Annual, in February 2015, we kicked off the day with Aaron Levie from Box — who had just IPO’d a week or so before. From PLG innovator at $30m ARR t o a top SLG+PLG leader at $1B in ARR.

Scale 336

Scale Sales Hiring PayPal Development Team Review 336

Stax

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

A 2022 survey by the Pew Research Centre found that 41% of consumers don’t use cash for weekly purchases like gas, meals, and groceries. This figure used to be 24% in 2015 which makes it evidently clear that card usage is on the rise. It’s one of the many ways that businesses can reduce the cost of processing card payments.

Payment Services 88

Payment Services Merchant Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 88

Stax

APRIL 25, 2024

Most modern consumers are used to purchasing products and services across multiple channels (i.e., As Stax Sales Engineer Tulio Troncoso puts it, “For the cardholder, there’s the obvious convenience of paying with the card they used the last time. brick-and-mortar, ecommerce, mobile, etc.).

Payment Methods 88

Payment Methods Merchant Services Stax Payment Services 88

Stax

MARCH 6, 2024

For businesses offering subscriptions, memberships, retainers, and other recurring services, recurring billing is a powerful solution to streamline processes and ultimately enhance revenue generation. Almost everyone — 98% of consumers —has a streaming service subscription. 98% of consumers have a streaming service subscription.

Merchant Services 88

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Methods Payment Features 88

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

Asana is one of those companies all of us know in one form or another. Either we use it now, or we’ve used it in the past. Asana is able to service customers of all sizes while still going more upmarket. For most of us in tech, it’s time to stop blaming Covid for elevated churn.

SMB 332

SMB Enterprise Cloud Churn 332

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

With valuations of as-a-service companies and all-time highs or close to it, and more and more startups leveraging this model to serve an ever-larger number of consumers, I wondered how much more business is there to capture? We do have enough data to get a sense of total as a service penetration. Let’s try to estimate.

SaaS 226

SaaS Market Research Software Startup 226

Subscription Flow

APRIL 18, 2024

Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, especially in wealthier countries like the US and France, have reached this point where they have become so popular among their potential users that they are now really struggling to find new users. It is measured using various metrics. The sections are as follows: 1.

Engagement 94

Engagement Customer Lifetime Value Revenue Subscription 94

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 5, 2024

service members. service members. Is that, I realize it’s still early days in terms of what happened, but counter-UAS, counter-drone systems have been a big topic. First of all, I think it’s about our 165th attack on us using those sorts of techniques, largely UAS, but a variety of techniques.

Acquisition 84

Acquisition Innovation Generative AI Artificial Intelligence 84

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 5, 2023

Liquidity Liquidity drives markets, and is a term we’ve all heard many times over the last few years. These goals often include: keeping inflation sustainable (ie prices stable), maintaining sustainable levels of employment (ie low unemployment), and moderating long term interest rates. Very open to feedback! In the U.S.,

Payment Services 169

Payment Services Cloud Government Banking 169

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2020

How does Kurt feel about services revenue? How can content be used to efficiently scale change management practices? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin. Where do many go wrong with their first steps? How can one assist them in the right way?

Outsourced Development 280

Outsourced Development Sales Hiring Scale Technical Advisors 280

Stax

MARCH 11, 2024

The leasing agreement is often between the merchant service provider. Drawbacks of the leasing-to-own While leasing equipment can be one of the best short-term options for your business, compare the cumulative lease costs to the direct purchase expenses. Owning a business can take quite the investment.

Merchant Services 88

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Solutions Payment Methods 88

Payrix

APRIL 2, 2024

A comprehensive Embedded Payments strategy isn’t complete without value added services. But, as a software platform, what value added services should you be considering? What are value added services and how do they benefit the payments experience?

Payments 124

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services Payment Services 124