Tom Tunguz

MARCH 27, 2025

With the target ARR required to achieve an IPO growing from $80m in 2008 to approximately $250m today, secondaries will become a permanent fixture in venture capital markets. It’s not just a temporary anomaly, but a structural evolution in how venture capital will function and ultimately evolve to look a bit more like private equity.

Venture Capital 252

Venture Capital Sales Marketing 252

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

GitHub, founded in 2008, is a leading platform for software development and version control that has made waves since 2018 with its AI Copilot.

Scale 261

Scale AI Scaling Marketing 261

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 11, 2023

In 2008, after the iPhone app store launched, we asked each other, is there an app for that? Millions of people want to try new products, all at once, to answer the question : how could AI help me with my email, my homework, my music creation, my graphic design, my data analysis, my plumbing business? Platform shifts arouse curiosity.

ChatGPT 360

ChatGPT AI Search Blockchain Data Analysis 360

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2025

Enterprise AI Adoption Is Moving 5-10X Faster Than Cloud The contrast with cloud adoption is striking, according to Levie: Cloud in 2008-2009 : “Try pitching the cloud to a bank. .” This generational shift will accelerate transformation far beyond what we saw with cloud adoption. That was a non-starter.

AI 193

AI Technology ChatGPT Cloud 193

The Daily Egg

DECEMBER 30, 2020

He’s a hedge fund manager who had foreseen the shocking 2007-2008 housing collapse. Have you heard of Michael Burry? Having betted against subprime-mortgage bonds ahead of the meltdown, he made about $750 million in profits for his investors and $100 million personally. But how was he able to predict something like that?

Data Analysis 320

Data Analysis Software Review Software Data 320

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2025

” Drew Houston has been CEO since Day 1 in 2008 and we’re super excited to have him speaking at 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay ! Phase 3 of Dropbox: “We are evolving from traditional file sync and share to AI-powered universal search and content intelligence.”

AI Search 157

AI Search Scale AI B2B 157

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2022

I like it because it models out two scenarios — one if the current downturn is like 2008, another if it’s like 2000. Redpoint looks at What If this downturn is like 2008, or even 2000. The bounceback was quicker and less severe in 2008, but both took … a long time. Yes, interest rates, inflation etc.

SaaS 284

SaaS Cloud Revenue Marketing 284

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 28, 2025

Any disruption of service at this facility could harm our business… We currently intend to add a second data center facility in 2008, the primary purpose of which is to add capacity. If we look at the NetSuite S-1 (filed in 2007) they said this: “We use a single data center to deliver our services.

Cloud 299

Cloud AI Scale Scaling 299

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 12, 2021

Also, 2014 to 2016 saw a 57% reduction in multiples and of course after 2008. Since 2016, public software has witnessed four corrections. Today, we’re in the midst of the fifth. But let’s look at the most recent five years.

SaaS 361

SaaS Cloud Enterprise Software 361

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 15, 2020

My hunch originates from this analysis of the 2008 crisis. I expect the venture market to slow round counts for a quarter, but then resume. As growth rates fall, valuations should move similarly. But it’s too early to say for sure. Here’s a basic model you can download and play with the inputs.

Sales Hiring 338

Sales Hiring Churn Development Software 338

SaaStr

JANUARY 1, 2023

Change at a pace we haven’t seen since 2008, when the world of SaaS was just so, so much smaller. But they do bounce back fast. — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) December 30, 2022. So this last year was one of so much change. Just 12 months ago, Bitcoin was at near-highs, as were many SaaS stocks, and multiples. And then … crash.

Trends 317

Trends Enterprise SaaS Software 317

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 21, 2020

In particular, narratives stoked three depressions and recessions in the US in 1920, 1929, and 2008. Robert Shiller wrote Narrative Economics , in which he explores how stories impact the economy. Shiller, a respected and lauded professor at Yale, models the spread of narratives in these periods using epidemiology.

Sales Recruiting 347

Sales Recruiting Banking Engineering Customer Support 347

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 14, 2022

During the dotcom crash in 2001, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and the SaaS corrections in 2014, 2016, and 2018, Lee was either COO/CFO or CFO at Twilio, SAY Media, and Ofoto. Lee Kirkpatrick is no stranger to downturns.

Management 275

Management Finance Payment Features Subscription 275

Tom Tunguz

MAY 24, 2023

Ten years ago, Nvidia’s market cap hovered around $4b, down from its previous high of $13b in 2008. Today, Nvidia is the fifth most valuable technology company in the US, worth nearly $1t - just 20% less valuable than Amazon. In a decade, the business increased in value about 250x, compounding at about 74%.

Artificial Intelligence 298

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning B2C AI 298

Tom Tunguz

MAY 5, 2020

In March, I published analysis of the fundraising market in 2008. It showed that the later rounds, the series B and series C were the most impacted. The early data from March 2020 shows a different pattern. Seed and Series A rounds are first to bear the compression in the market. Later rounds are unblemished.

Marketing 298

Marketing Trends Startup Investment 298

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2020

Adapt, Plan Deliver: Founder/CEO Lessons from 2000 & 2008 Applied to 2020 With Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Bessemer Venture Partner’s Byron Deeter. This should be an incredible deep-dive on the opportunities and challenges to selling into the enterprise right now.

Enterprise 284

Enterprise Sales Strategy 284

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

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. It blends AI and SaaS and can speed up the outbound Go-To-Market process.

AI Search 273

AI Search Sales Hiring AI Systems Review 273

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2023

Even the 2008-2009 downturn, while truly brutal, didn’t hit SaaS as hard as the rest of the economy. Not easy, but easier and easier: There was a bump in 2016, a Flash Crash in SaaS, when budgets were slashed, but it didn’t last long enough to really impact renewal cycles. SaaS markets had fully recovered later that year.

SaaS 312

SaaS Churn Sales Software 312

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2023

I sold a sales tool in 2008-2009 when the global economy was in total meltdown, and I’ll tell you, we sure didn’t stop selling. We had a great conversation on how much harder it is now with Gong’s incredible CRO here: But is that an excuse to sort of quiet quit? To give up a bit? I say No. In fact, I always say No.

Sales Hiring 272

Sales Hiring Sales Startup Investment 272

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2023

Public multiples often were around 4x-5x in 2008, and then the global meltdown came, and public multiples fell to as less than 2x revenue for a while. Then, well, right after we sold EchoSign to Adobe way back in 2011, things picked up, with a slow with material and steady increase in public multiples from 2012 to 2015.

SaaS 291

SaaS Trends Enterprise Revenue 291

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2020

9: Founder/CEO Lessons from 2000 & 2008 Applied to 2020 with Jeff Lawson, Twilio and Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners. #10: . #7: Twilio: The Inside Story With Jeff Lawson (A SaaStr Classic). #8: 8: 12 Key Levers of SaaS Success with David Skok of Matrix Partners (another SaaStr Classic). #9:

Benchmarks 256

Benchmarks Trends SaaS Revenue 256

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 18, 2022

Since 2008, the US experienced an unabated 12 year bull market fueled by four waves of money printing which increased US money supply by 30%+. The slides are embedded above & linked here. My brief narrative of the slides follows. The current state of affairs arose as a result of the Global Financial Crisis.

Pricing 270

Pricing Startup Investment Technology 270

Tom Tunguz

JULY 19, 2019

The previously fixed financial products that existed in 2008 of a $4-6M Series A and a $10-12M Series B are gone. And this means that the financial product that we call the Series Seed or Series A is meaningless; it’s just the header on the fundraising documents.

Finance 270

Finance Innovation Startup Investment 270

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 1, 2019

The era after 2006 and through the 2008 financial crisis was a different time to raise capital. If we look at the ROIC across IPOs across the last 12 years or so, we see that same initial dynamic of incredibly efficient companies in the 2010 and 2014 IPO cohorts. But the efficiency is declining, markedly. There are a few reasons for this.

Startup 279

Startup Software Review SaaS Acquisition 279

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2023

Billion way back in 2008. So Domo is an interesting case study on SaaS entrepreneurship. Founder Josh James had one of the earliest $1B+ exits in SaaS when Adobe bought his first start-up, Omniture, for $1.8 Omniture is still big and it dominated web analytics especially for bigger companies in the earlier days of the internet.

Entrepreneurship 299

Entrepreneurship Enterprise Pricing Churn 299

SaaStr

APRIL 23, 2020

Just as the economic downturn of 2008 led to the cloud-based SaaS boom that became the new norm for digitally modern businesses, remote work will become ingrained in the core of the new “business as usual” following this pandemic. Let me reassure you: Remote selling is not a temporary trend.

Software Review 286

Software Review Technical Review SaaS Market Research 286

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

Started Twilio in January 2008, just as the last downturn happened. He joined StubHub as CTO, but didn’t get nearly as much equity as the other CTO — because he “wasn’t committed enough.” ” A good reminder to us all. For months, they couldn’t raise any money at all.

CTO Hire 355

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 355

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2024

It was founded in 2008 but took a while to get going, hitting $1m in revenue in 2011 selling to Utah schools — and then scaled from there. Instructure is one of the leading learning management systems for education with its Canvas product. Your kids may well use it. You may have in college, too.

Scale 288

Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments 288

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 5, 2022

In February 2008, the ARS market seized. In the mid-2000s, many startups invested their excess cash reserves in instruments called Auction Rate Securities. ARS produced a steady stream of interest payments, like savings accounts, with a higher return. Startups seeking to sell their ARSs to fund burn were out of luck : no one would buy them.

Venture Capital 231

Venture Capital Banking Startup Investment 231

SaaStr

OCTOBER 22, 2021

Expensify: Founded in 2008 … 13 years ago. A long, tenacious path to $100m ARR, and then … Boom!! * 60% growth in Year 13 at $140m+ ARR!! * 119% NRR from SMBs!! Super Profitable (35% EBITDA!!) golong pic.twitter.com/4RJMDVQPMC. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) October 18, 2021.

Scale 326

Scale SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 326

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2020

Founder/CEO Lessons From 2000, 2008 and 2020 with Jeff Lawson and Byron Deeter , CEO of Twilio and GP at Bessemer Venture Partners. Funding in the Time of Coronavirus, Mark Suster , Upfront Ventures. Marking Trade-Offs in Marketing: What to Do, What to Pause with CMO of Tripactions , Meagan Eisenberg.

Enterprise 214

Enterprise Strategy Sales Management 214

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 7, 2019

In 2008, there was a $5M series A product and a $10M series B product. Startups are able to raise larger early rounds because of the financial environment. One way of thinking about the early-stage fundraising market is as a collection of financial products. Those were the most popular.

Marketing 247

Marketing Benchmarks Trends Startup 247

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 21, 2020

In particular, narratives stoked three depressions and recessions in the US in 1920, 1929, and 2008. Robert Shiller wrote Narrative Economics , in which he explores how stories impact the economy. Shiller, a respected and lauded professor at Yale, models the spread of narratives in these periods using epidemiology.

Sales Recruiting 252

Sales Recruiting Banking Engineering Customer Support 252

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2022

14 years ago, in 2008, at the onset of the last global recession, Google pulled their full-time offers for all their summer interns, which included my co-founder at Cloudflare, Michelle Zatlyn. Recessions have always been hard, but they’re also formative moments to focus and ultimately improve.

Scale 301

Scale Cloud Revenue Scaling 301

Tom Tunguz

MAY 10, 2022

Each Basel Accord was authored in response to a crisis Basel I - the crash of 1989; Basel II - the dotcom crash, and Basel III - the GFC of 2008. The first three Basel Accords set the minimum amount of capital a bank must hold.

Banking 262

Banking Government Construction Startup 262

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

I remember joining in 2008, a green product manager out of Google who had just landed his dream job. Many of the greatest companies have been founded during difficult market conditions. This era will be no exception. I’m deeply grateful to the Redpoint team.

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Innovation 221

SaaStr

OCTOBER 19, 2022

It was founded way back in 2008, and had a slowish start and a smallish IPO (as did most of us, back in the day). But founder-CEO Chad Richison has kept at it for 14 years, building it into an incredible engine, growing 31% at $1.2 40% EBDITA. They've got the combo of pretty high growth AND profits pic.twitter.com/OaOEEwN2Yn.

Scale 293

Scale SMB Engineering Cloud 293