SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

Young Me, 2011 : $100m ARR seems so very far from our $10m ARR today. Young Me, 2011 : But what if we can’t IPO? Young Me, 2011 : I don’t really want to do another VC round. Young Me 2011 : The competition just raised $50m+. Young Me 2011 : But a lot of my team is tired. Very far from today. — Jason ?BeKind?

Sales Recruiting 328

Sales Recruiting Cloud Retention Revenue 328

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

Let’s take a look back at where HubSpot, Upwork, and others were in 2011 GAAP revenue — and where they are today. Learnings for this year, for 2011 GAAP revenue (Inc. in 2011 GAAP revenue. in 2011 GAAP revenue. in 2011 GAAP revenue. in 2011 GAAP revenue. in 2011 GAAP revenue. 78 Marketo.

SaaS 284

SaaS Technical Review Software Review Scaling 284

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2024

content since 2011 … I’ll say … “Yes But” Yes But What do I mean? At a high level, as big a gift in 2024 as 2011. Which is that we have literally 100x more quality content than 2011-2014. Does SEO still work? As someone who has written relatively highly cited, highly linked, highly read, etc.

Data 301

Data Social Media Content Marketing Engineering 301

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024

It was bootstrapped for the first 6 years, and then acquired by Citrix in 2011 for an undisclosed amount, so likely $100-$150m or less. Fast forward to today, they’ve sold for a stunning $875 million. But it’s not quite that simple.

SaaS 308

SaaS Acquisition Pricing Startup 308

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Big Bet #2: Find Tomorrow’s Great Anglers — Hire Talent With A Learning Mindset In 2010 and 2011, San Francisco was the place for SaaS talent. Freshdesk was launched in 2011 as its first product, and its second product was released in 2014, with faster growth than the first. It helped them get funding in the first round. The lesson?

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Scale SMB SaaS 284

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

2011: Collaboration. In 2011, we built something about 5+ years ahead of the market: full on-line and off-line redlining and contract negotiation. That was crazy early in 2011. We’re your vendor! We closed 4 of the 6 leading insurances companies because of this.

Scale 246

Scale Mobile Branding Engineering 246

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 6, 2023

In the first two quarters of 2011, Cornerstone OnDemand waded into the IPO market in 2011, followed by LinkedIn at $4.2b, Homeaway at $2.1b, Fusion.io In Q4 2009, Amazon acquired Zappos for $1b. Then GreenDot’s IPO in Q2 2010 at $1.4b suggested the IPO market wasn’t icy.

Venture Capital 231

Venture Capital Acquisition Investment Marketing 231

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

They were founded in 2011 and IPO’d ten years later in 2021 at $150,000,000 in ARR, growing 57%, and have rocketed to a $7B+ valuation. Amplitude is a quiet Cloud leader that you might not have heard of — unless you are building software. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scale 307

Scale CTO Hire New CTO CTO 307

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

Braze was founded in 2011 when the most exciting mobile apps were a compass, a flashlight, and a game where you could feed fish. Blaze was founded in 2011. From 2011 to 2015, the only part of the mobile market that was making money was mobile gaming, but tricking children into buying fish food wasn’t a sustainable business.

Scale 245

Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 245

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2022

Bill Magnuson, Co-founder and CEO of Braze, remembers his company’s founding in 2011 in an office with bare concrete floors—an austerity that he opines as “probably an ingredient for category creation.” This remarkable growth took four years to come true after Braze’s start in 2011. Stick to your convictions. Impressive, right?

Mobile 274

Mobile Technology Investment Innovation 274

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

Building Braze from $2M to $20M ARR It was 2011 in NYC, and Spencer became the second employee at Braze. 2011 focused on the mobile ecosystem, as the iPhone had been released four years prior and the app store two years after that. Let’s fast forward and look at the history of Braze.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 291

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

Things started changing in 2011. In 2011, Hootsuite raised $3m in venture debt before raising another $50m in debt from CIBC in 2018. . Cheaper capital was simply not available because SaaS was still in the early adopters phase of Geoffrey Moore’s chasm model. . As SaaS Metrics Become Standardized, Banks Want In On The Action.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Scale 297

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2023

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. 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.

SaaS 292

SaaS Trends Enterprise Revenue 292

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2022

Miro was founded in 2011 and has iterated on its product and expanded its audience widely over the years. Currently, Miro is one of the fastest-growing companies at scale, but it didn’t take off immediately at the same velocity in 2011. User Experience and Building a Durable Business. So why did it take so long to grow so explosively?

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Scale Company Culture B2C 246

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2022

Bill Magnuson, Co-founder and CEO of Braze, remembers his company’s founding in 2011 in an office with bare concrete floors—an austerity that he opines as “probably an ingredient for category creation.” This remarkable growth took four years to come true after Braze’s start in 2011. Stick to your convictions. Impressive, right?

Mobile 259

Mobile Technology Investment Innovation 259

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

We aren’t the knowledge workers we were from 2011-2019, either. I hope perhaps we get back there. But it doesn’t seem like it. The function isn’t just changed — we all are. On to the Next Era of Customer Success. I’m a bit worried, but I’m facing east.

Customer Success 300

Customer Success Pricing AI Enterprise 300

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Only Founded in 2011. Most Enterprises Buy More Than 60 Endpoint Security Products So there is room for many winners here. #8. 64% of Large Customers Sourced From Partners They are AWS’s largest cybersecurity partner. What’s your channel / partner strategy? #9. Even in a time of odd uncertainty in Cloud and SaaS.

Cybersecurity 293

Cybersecurity AWS Benchmarks Cloud 293

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 26, 2024

In 2011, at the age of 41, Yuan left his secure position at Cisco to found Zoom. He proposed a new smartphone-friendly video conferencing system to Cisco’s management, but his idea wasn’t accepted. This rejection, combined with his vision for better technology, led him to make a life-changing decision.

VP of Engineering 261

VP of Engineering Software Engineering Company Culture Engineering 261

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2019

2011: Collaboration. In 2011, we build something about 5+ years ahead of the market: full on-line and off-line redlining and contract negotiation. That was crazy early in 2011. We’re your vendor! We closed 4 of the 6 leading insurances companies because of this.

Scale 220

Scale Mobile Branding Engineering 220

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2020

A Good Day: Dec 31, 2009; Dec 31, 2010; Dec 31, 2011; Dec 31, 2012. A Bad Day: When I Had No Salary And Didn’t Get My Requested $10k Bonus Even Though I Brought In an Extra $300k All-Cash Upfront Deal. And again, Dec 31, 2018 and Dec 31, 2019. When we killed it every year on the last day of the year. New Years was spent in the office.

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring SaaS Revenue Churn 357

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 23, 2022

Twilio’s 2011 customers are worth 10x more today a decade later. One recent acquisitiion (ZipWhip) has brought them down a bit, but gross margins remain above 50%. Still, 60% is the ideal target for being considered a “software” company. #9. Probably more. A hero company in Cloud and SaaS for us all to look up!

Scale 279

Scale Cloud Scaling Acquisition 279

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Launched in 2011, today, OnBoard serves as the board intelligence platform for more than 2,000 organizations and their 12,000 boards and committees in 32 countries worldwide. At OnBoard , we believe board meetings should be informed, effective, and uncomplicated.

Merchant Services 240

Merchant Services Payment Solutions Onboarding Payments 240

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2018

If we compare this acquisition on other dimensions, we see that Mulesoft is the second fastest growing at the time of acquisition, next to SuccessFactors in 2011. Enterprise Value. EV/TTM Rev. Salesforce/Mulesoft. SAP/Concur. SAP/SuccessFactors. Salesforce/Demandware. Oracle/Eloqua. SAP/Callidus. IBM/Kenexa.

Acquisition 189

Acquisition Marketing Enterprise Revenue 189

SaaStock

JANUARY 25, 2019

Founded : 2011. Founded : 2011. Founded : 2011. Founded : 2011. Its focus is on helping companies handle financial routine and streamlining processes related to accounting, banks, stock, and electronic invoicing, among others. ContaAzul was acquired by the collaborative software platform Wabbi Software S.A. RD Station.

SaaS Payments 257

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payments 257

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. And then hit $600m ARR in 2024.

Scale 299

Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments 299

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2021

When it launched in 2011, Treasure Data’s positioning was a Hadoop-based big data warehouse in the cloud. Kazuki Ohta, CEO & Founder at Treasure Data, shares his company’s story of how pivoting at the right time saved their business and accelerated their growth to $100 million ARR. The Platform: $0 – $5 Million ARR.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Data AWS Leadership 307

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

Previously, he was the CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, which was acquired by Adobe in 2011. Jason Lemkin is the CEO of SaaStr, the world’s largest community of SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs.

Scale 293

Scale Cloud Interviewing Scaling 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Since leads still came in, and the internet still grew, and SaaS still had true ROI, everyone was sort of unprepared for when the economy got even a little better in 2011. Folks still continued to search for us in increasing volume, even in the darkest days: No one had enough sales reps once the market came back even a little.

SaaS Payments 280

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale SMB 280

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2020

May 5, 2011 to Oct 12, 2020 — 9 years, 5 months to build a $3.2B But if you want to start a SaaS company — you have to be willing to do the time. 24 months often to really get to a minimum sellable product and $1m in ARR. Often 5 years just to get to Initial Scale, and say $10m in ARR. And 7-10 years to get to something Big.

SaaS 236

SaaS Scaling Revenue Leadership 236

SaaStock

FEBRUARY 13, 2019

Founded : 2011. Founded : 2011. Founded : 2011. Founded : 2011. It is based on blockchain and allows businesses to take care of their finances on a number of platforms and in multiple currencies. Tienpay enables merchant payments, person-to-person transfers, and vouchers, among other functionalities. . Southern China.

SaaS Payments 225

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Payment Methods 225

SaaStr

JULY 22, 2023

.” — Brian Halligan, co-founder and chairman of HubSpot “Secondary” liquidity for SaaS founders has been part of the VC toolkit for funding later stage SaaS founders since at least 2010-2011 or so. I got a significant offer as we approached $10m ARR back in the day at Adobe Sign / EchoSign — and I should have taken it.

Scale 245

Scale Pricing Acquisition Scaling 245

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 25, 2021

Sensing an opportunity, they switched their focus and Intercom was born – the app was released in private beta in July and the company was founded in August, 2011. It’s hard to recall now, but before Intercom released the world’s first in-app messenger in 2011, the chat bubble was not a ubiquitous feature of apps or websites.

Scale 220

Scale Sales Hiring Branding Engagement 220

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2022

At its inception in 2011, the goal was to have a place for developers to gather and collaborate together. Everyone likes the freedom of choice and to feel like they’re part of something, and that’s exactly what Gitlab sets out to do. What it’s turned into is an active community with an “open-source mindset.”.

Marketing 261

Marketing Innovation Investment Engagement 261

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

The internet economy is expected to double from 2019 to 2023—and that’s after the cost of software tools to run your business has collapsed, from $4M in 2011 to a paltry $4000 today. Despite all these growing pains, it’s still never been a better time for online businesses.

Payment Features 259

Payment Features Payment Services Outsourcing Services Payment Solutions 259

SaaStr

APRIL 22, 2022

In 2011, when Meraki started to experience very high growth, around 100 million devices were in use, thanks to smart devices like phones and tablets. . Before starting Samsara, Sekar worked with the same founding team at Meraki, which focused on wireless device connectivity.

Innovation 274

Innovation Wireless Scale Marketing 274

Andreessen Horowitz

MAY 15, 2020

The first peaked in 2011, the second in … The post The Crypto Price-Innovation Cycle appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz. People who’ve been in crypto for a long time view the space as evolving in cycles, alternating between periods of high activity and “crypto winters.” There have been three cycles so far.

Innovation 145

Innovation Pricing Blockchain 145

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

Microsoft launched Azure in 2010, and Google launched GCP to the public in 2011 (they launched a preview of Google App Engine in 2008, but made it publicly available in 2011).

Cloud 176

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS Azure 176