Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Down from 89% in 2007, the.com designation adorns the addresses of 64% of startups founded in 2020. ” As a SaaS investor, these businesses aren’t in my bailiwick, but since.gg In fact, it has changed significantly as the chart above shows. Click to enlarge the image. syllepsis). gg is for gaming companies.

Startup 323

Startup Business AI Trends 323

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

It blends AI and SaaS and can speed up the outbound Go-To-Market process. Back in 2007 / 2008, when Sam joined a company as an SDR, he used Salesforce and over time, they bolted on different systems, depending on the needs of the business and what existed in the marketplace.

AI Search 269

AI Search Sales Hiring AI Systems Review 269

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2022

Ok times are tough in the public markets for SaaS and Cloud. So Zscaler is the quiet SaaS and Cloud leader that just … delivers. Ok this is an epic example of the compounding nature of SaaS. Zscaler was founded in 2007, and took a decade to cross $100m in revenues — as it does for most of us, even the best of us.

Scale 293

Scale Cloud Scaling Revenue 293

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2019

I’m not aware of any huge successes in SaaS that were active side projects while the founders worked at different companies. Mailchimp is perhaps the most interesting one to me because they took their time until 2007 to go all-in. There are many start-ups born out of agenies and consultancies. Hootsuite was also a web-agency spin-off.

Startup 236

Startup Consulting SaaS 236

SaaStr

MARCH 2, 2023

We’ll see 2,500+ of the best SaaS founders, execs, and VCs June 6-7 at 2022 SaaStr Europa ! Embed white-labeled dashboards in your SaaS application or portal. Zendesk started the customer experience revolution in 2007 by enabling any business around the world to take their customer service online. Grab tickets here.

Scale 258

Scale Technical Review Software Review Machine Learning 258

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

While it can be frightening to think differently, doing so has helped him make Veeva the biggest vertical SaaS success story of all time. Jason : You came up with the crazy idea to start Veeva in 2007, just before the worst two years that we’ve experienced in the industry, ’08 and ’09. Peter : Yeah. Peter : Cheers.

Sales Hiring 337

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 337

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2019

it wasn’t until later on in 2007 that we had enough revenue to create a large enough group of customers to go on a 10 Year Journey with. This is the one thing you can really bank on in SaaS and with recurring revenue. SaaS: Maybe Plan for 30+ Years as a Founder. My mistake. Forever Customers build Forever Companies.

Scale 352

Scale Churn Construction SMB 352

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2018

Founded in 2007, Dropbox epitomizes the freemium go-to-market. Despite the enormous infrastructure overhead, Dropbox’s gross margin is rapidly approaching the public SaaS median of 71%. Most SaaS companies operate their businesses in this range. Dropbox has grown from 0 to 500 million users over that time period.

Scale 214

Scale Acquisition Cloud Revenue 214

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2022

So UserTesting is a case study on how great SaaS can be (innovating and creating a market leader, and driving it to $160m+ ARR) … and also hard SaaS can be. It’s not that easy out there in SaaS land these days, folks. These are still great times in SaaS. I love the company and the product, and the value add.

Scale 189

Scale SMB Enterprise Pricing 189

SaaStock

JANUARY 30, 2019

As we showed you in the list of SaaS companies coming out of Latin America, the region has no shortage of SaaS superstars. It was SaaS that they were looking at. SaaS Investments: Pipefy, HeyDoctor. SaaS Investments: Gupy, idwall, meetime, Qulture rocks, Social Miner, and Teravoz. How did this come about, though?

Venture Capital 155

Venture Capital SaaS Healthcare Finance 155

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 28, 2018

Too many startups focus on the first S in SaaS, but they forget all about the second one. When I moved to Silicon Valley in 2007, self-serve software was all the rage. To really succeed in the SaaS world, you have to build a product that solves your customers’ needs, not just your own. The downside to self-serve SaaS.

Scale 184

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Sales 184

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

Talk to any experienced SaaS sales leader in a competitive space. But still, that takes time in SaaS. 2007: Salesforce integration. Recently there was a lot of discussion around if there are truly “10x engineers” or not. It’s a complicated topic. She’ll agree. What’s a 10x Feature?

Scale 246

Scale Mobile Branding Engineering 246

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

According to a SaaS business adage, you need to spend a lot of money to make money. Specifically, it illustrates the need for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies to spend money - lots of it - on customer acquisition. Visibility and credibility : Its high marketing spend has established Workday as a leader among SaaS ERM providers.

Acquisition 140

Acquisition Enterprise Revenue SaaS 140

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2024

In today’s dynamic SaaS landscape of hyperfuncational SaaS, the journey of building a product that customers adore, while simultaneously scaling revenue to nearly $1B, is still quite a feat. This is more normal in consumer land, but in the B2B / SaaS world, we forget that using software should be fun, not a grind.

Revenue 300

Revenue Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring 300

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2019

Talk to any experienced SaaS sales leader in a competitive space. But still, that takes time in SaaS. 2007: Salesforce integration. Recently there was a lot of discussion around if there are truly “10x engineers” or not. It’s a complicated topic. She’ll agree. What’s a 10x Feature?

Scale 218

Scale Mobile Branding Engineering 218

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 30, 2016

More than 15% of all software revenue is now generated by software as a service companies, and there are more than 50 publicly traded SaaS companies today. After more than a decade of reinvention, I was curious how healthy the IPO market is for SaaS companies. The chart above plots the number of SaaS IPOs. billion then to $1.1

Marketing 113

Marketing SaaS Software Delivery Scale 113

The Angel VC

JANUARY 15, 2015

Yesterday I shot off a Tweetstorm about some important developments that I'm observing in the SaaS world as we're entering 2015. The point that I made was that most of the tactics which smart SaaS entrepreneurs developed around 2007-2009 – inbound marketing, conversion optimization, lifecycle marketing, etc. –

Growth Hacking 113

Growth Hacking Scale SaaS Content Marketing 113

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 6, 2016

I wrote a post on January 10, 2016 called The Downward Pressure of Public Markets on Startup Valuations that depicted the slow decline of SaaS multiples in the public markets. The chart above shows the forward revenue to enterprise value multiple of all public SaaS companies. Since then, multiples have compressed markedly.

SaaS 113

SaaS Startup Mobile Pricing 113

The Angel VC

MAY 4, 2018

The mighty king of Freemium Like Zendesk, Yammer, and a few other SaaS companies that were all founded around 2007-2008, Dropbox was one of the early champions of the "consumerization of the enterprise" movement. Dropbox was the fastest SaaS company ever to hit $1B in ARR. And what an almighty King it is!

Underperforming Technical Team 143

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Systems Review Software Review 143

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 7, 2015

Second to Salesforce, LinkedIn is the second largest SaaS company in the world. Unlike most SaaS companies which are B2B, LinkedIn is a B2C2B company. Unlike most SaaS companies who offer a single product, LinkedIn offers three: Talent Solutions, Premium Subscriptions and Marketing Tools.

Sales Recruiting 100

Sales Recruiting Benchmarks Metrics SaaS 100

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2014

One of the best ways I’ve found to understand SaaS companies is to pore through their public filings. HubSpot’s revenue trajectory is effectively identical to the median publicly traded SaaS company. CTCT 2007 9 31. HubSpot is the second fastest SMB SaaS company to IPO yet, achieving the mark within 8 years.

Benchmarks 113

Benchmarks SMB Metrics SaaS 113

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2019

Mikkel later founded Zendesk in 2007 while living in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company boasts over 10,000 organizations and 350,000 paid users on it’s SaaS incident response platform for IT. If running a major SaaS company isn’t enough, she also sits on the boards of Puppet Labs and Estee Lauder Companies.

Sales Recruiting 171

Sales Recruiting Software Review Technical Review PayPal 171

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 5, 2019

? ?. Over a few decades, SaaS has evolved from a lofty concept to an integral part of the modern business landscape. In many respects, it’s now almost impossible to envisage a work environment that doesn’t rely on a SaaS product in some shape or form. Building successful SaaS companies in a rapidly evolving market.

Scale 118

Scale Scaling Artificial Intelligence Business 118

Hitenism

JANUARY 6, 2017

I was founding a SaaS business, KISSmetrics. SaaS Marketing Step 1: Who is your target customer? SaaS Marketing Step 2: Where do they hang out? SaaS Marketing Step 3: How do you engage with them? The first Twitter hashtag was used by Chris Messina in 2007. — Chris Messina (@chrismessina) August 23, 2007.

Startup 182

Startup Marketing Engagement Content Marketing 182

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2019

How did David make his way into the world of SaaS? 2: Tien Tzuo, Founder & CEO @ Zuora Shares the $100m Question All SaaS Founders Must Ask. #2: 2: Tien Tzuo, Founder & CEO @ Zuora Shares the $100m Question All SaaS Founders Must Ask. What changes as a SaaS business scales? Why are metrics so important?

Technical Review 201

Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review Scale 201

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Pretty crazy to think about - growth adjusted multiples are near pre-covid all time highs (excluding 2020-2021 period) even though rates are as high as they’ve been since 2007 (and double what they were on average from 2010-2020). The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years.

Cloud 190

Cloud Government Banking Software Review 190

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 14, 2015

This post is part of a continuing series evaluating the S-1s of publicly traded SaaS companies in order to better understand the core business and build a library of benchmarks that might be useful to founders. First, Xero is a glowing example of a successful SMB SaaS company. The median SaaS company charts 0.81

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks Metrics SMB Outsourced Development 100

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

This post is part of a continuing series evaluating the S-1s of publicly traded SaaS companies in order to better understand the core business and build a library of benchmarks that might be useful to founders. Founded in 2007, MobileIron is a leader in the Mobile Device Management sector. just two years before.

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks Metrics SaaS Scale 100

FastSpring

APRIL 3, 2025

Practical ways SaaS leaders can uncover and express their unique identity. In terms of the name, Brand ID was launched in 2007, late 2007, and it was really so hard to come up with a name for your company. And so fast forward, that was late 90s, like I said, and I launched Brand ID in 2007. Yeah, that’s great.

Branding 99

Branding Social Media AI Search Outsourcing Services 99

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

In SaaS, the stand-out example may be Mailchimp. Then in 2007, when it hit 10,000 users, the two decided to commit full-time”: The New Atlanta Billionaires Behind An Unlikely Tech Unicorn. Then in 2007, when it hit 10,000 users, the two decided to commit full-time”: The New Atlanta Billionaires Behind An Unlikely Tech Unicorn.

SaaS 100

SaaS 100

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

In case you missed it, our recent 2023 SaaS and Software Holiday Spend Report highlights how, whether your business focuses on B2C, B2B, or both , SaaS and software Q4 sales bumps are significant around the globe. a financial software company founded in 2007 and based in Southern California. Moneyspire Inc. “We

Payment Solutions 89

Payment Solutions Software Review Payment Methods SaaS Payments 89

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

Product-market fit is “ the only thing that matters ” early on in the startup journey, wrote Marc Andreessen in June 2007. Conventionally, product-market fit comes down to early signals that the market has voted your product as the best …

Product Marketing 94

Product Marketing Marketing Startup Enterprise 94

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

She joined the company in 2007 back when it was just 30 people and has been instrumental in helping the company scale both its team and its market share over the years. In the age of SaaS when customers aren’t guaranteed to stick around month-to-month, you need to ensure strong customer retention to drive long-term growth.

VP of Engineering 108

VP of Engineering Customer Success Churn Scale 108

Totango

MAY 27, 2022

Product-led growth (PLG) has emerged as one of the best strategies for selling SaaS software. SaaS businesses adopt product-led marketing to lower customer acquisition costs while improving customer retention and accelerating revenue growth. Why Are SaaS Businesses Opting for Product-led Growth Strategies? billion in revenue.

Acquisition 126

Acquisition Retention Technology Strategy 126

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

In this session, hear from three women who founded, funded and are leading WebPT, one of the nation’s fastest-growing SaaS companies in the specialty electronic medical record sector. Learn what it takes to create your own category, achieve scale in a niche SaaS vertical and how it requires more than just discovering an unmet need.

Scale 185

Scale SMB VP of Engineering Leadership 185

The Angel VC

MARCH 4, 2009

The first company I’ve made an investment in is Copenhagen-based Zendesk , founded in 2007 by a rock-star team around CEO Mikkel Asger Svane. This is no new news since it was announced last June and covered by Om Malik and others but I still wanted to blog about it here.

Systems Review 100

Systems Review Investment Business SaaS 100

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

I’m excited to be here today to share a few stories from the SaaS world. So Pardot, SalesLoft and Calendly, you’re thinking, “How is this random guy from Atlanta 2000 miles away at the starting floor, at the ground floor of three pretty interesting SaaS companies?” We started the business in 2007.

Sales Recruiting 198

Sales Recruiting Scale Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring 198