Tom Tunguz

JULY 9, 2014

See an updated version of this post: Trends in the Startup Acquisition Market in 2015. I was curious how the strength of the IPO market has impacted the acquisition market. In particular, how the number and value of startup acquisitions has changed, and more specifically, whether there are any trends in the sizes of acquisitions.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Trends Startup Marketing 100

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

Where it Went: $1B acquisition by Vista in 2019. Where it Went: IPO’d in 2013, hit $250m ARR by 2016, a cquired for $1.8b Where it Went: Acquired by Oracle in 2013 for $400m. A great outcome, but perhaps not as huge as you might expect given its torrid growth. #72 72 Rocketlawyer. in 2011 GAAP revenue. 78 Marketo.

SaaS 270

SaaS Technical Review Scaling Software Review 270

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 20, 2014

First, venture capitalists invested nearly $1B of capital in the IoT in 2013, more than 3% of all VC investments by dollars. The IoT momentum generated in 2013 will only continue to grow, as the number of connected device startups and products compounds, each looking to satisfy an unmet consumer want or enterprise need.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Innovation Startup Investment 100

Chart Mogul

APRIL 15, 2021

Keeping your pace of growth while going through an acquisition is difficult. Founded in 2013, the company was originally called CakeHR. Acquisition by Sage. We asked Kaspars to tell us the story of how ChartMogul helps his team grow SageHR pre- and post-acquisition. What is Sage HR? The Challenge: Early growth pains.

Acquisition 52

Acquisition Data Scale Banking 52

Sparktoro

MAY 4, 2023

Customer acquisition in 2023 is not like customer acquisition in 2013. This is a guest post by Georgiana Laudi and Claire Suellentrop of SaaS educational and growth consultancy Forget the Funnel. They are the co-authors of Forget the Funnel: A Customer-Led Approach for Predictable, Recurring Revenue.

Consulting 63

Consulting Acquisition Education Revenue 63

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

He’s invested in startups as a VC since 2013 and has 10x his fund. You want every deal to close in the early days, and your job as a founder, if you want to scale and reverse engineer things, is to relentlessly remove friction from your customer acquisition process.

146

146

Casey Accidental

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

Most companies have a primary acquisition loop that drives this scalable growth, and unfortunately, there aren’t that many acquisition loops that really scale. And you start being able to acquire more of them in a scalable way i.e. an acquisition loop. In fact, they complain more, because they like the product enough to care.

Payments 62

Payments Scale Payment Methods Underperforming Technical Team 62

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2020

Before SaaStr and investing, he was CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, then the web’s most popular electronic signature service, from inception through its acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc.

VP of Engineering 125

VP of Engineering Marketplace as a Service Scale SaaS 125

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 23, 2021

In addition to serving as Marketo’s Chief Financial Officer and taking the company public in 2013, Fred served as CFO for a number of private and public technology companies including Webroot Software, BigBand Networks, and Borland Software Corporation.

Scale 118

Scale Leadership Communication Sales Hiring 118

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 9, 2013

The fastest path to that end for incumbents is acquisition of startups like these. Hardware industrial design is no longer a sufficient differentiator for manufacturers. The winners in the next decade will fuse spectacular software design with better but commodity hardware.

Startup 100

Startup Outsourced Development AWS Marketing 100

The SaaS Garage

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Founded in 2013, riskmethods ’ software as a service (SaaS) solution harnesses cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), big data and machine learning to protect its customers’ supply chain networks. The planned acquisition of riskmethods further demonstrates our commitment to helping Sphera expand their operational ESG solutions.”

Artificial Intelligence 98

Artificial Intelligence Software Machine Learning Management 98

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 2, 2023

For those of you who don’t know, my partner Max Altschuler , founded Sales Hacker in 2013 and ran it for 5 years (I joined SH later in the journey) before it was acquired by Outreach where it ran for another 5 years. We re-acquired Sales Hacker and are relaunching it under GTMnow, the media extension of the GTMfund !

Sales Hiring 53

Sales Hiring Sales Acquisition Education 53

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2014

in 2009 revenue to 2013 revenue of $71M - an 88% CAGR. I've estimated $113M in revenue for 2014 by extrapolating their first six months of revenue this year and applying the 2013 growth rate to it. Field 2011 2012 2013. But that incremental revenue costs about 75% more in customer acquisition costs over the same period.

Benchmarks 108

Benchmarks SMB Metrics SaaS 108

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 19, 2014

I’ve analyzed the 2013 data and there are three important trends I observed. If the trend continues, in 2014 the average material startup acquisition will reach $178M and the average startup IPO will raise $146M. Let me explain the phrase material startup acquisition. All in all, the startup exit market is quite healthy.

Trends 100

Trends Startup Venture Capital Marketing 100

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

This led to our first meet-ups in 2013 and 2014, the first SaaStr Annual in 2015 , the industry’s leading podcast in 2016, the first SaaS founder coworking space in 2017, and SaaStr Pro , the first learning management system for SaaS founders in 2018. It was awesome.

Scale 278

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 278

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2023

Later on, when we thought a new acquisition of raw technology was ready to scale (it wasn’t – it is now) In 2022 (like many companies), when we misread the “COVID bump” of 2021 for a secular change in software In each case, the mistake wasn’t being aggressive.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Customer Success 263

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 1, 2015

In addition, VCs have been participating in the seed stage market as well, making 2013 a banner year for seed investment. 2013 1531 1255 820. Given the at least decade high volumes of capital in the seed market, the 2015 seed market should be just as strong as the 2014 and 2013 seed markets. But what of 2014?

Investment 100

Investment Marketing Finance Acquisition 100

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 10, 2014

The chart above compares the competition in the Play store in early 2013 and in mid-2014. In 2013, apps most frequently moved only 1-2 slots, meaning if an app became #1, it was very difficult to displace. In 2013, many apps controlled their rank, and observed rank volatilties of less than five slots.

Mobile 100

Mobile Trends Startup Acquisition 100

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2016

In 2011-2013, about 1450 software companies were founded each year on average. Subverting those incumbents is going to require a meaningfully better product or substantially more effective customer acquisition channel. The rate of new software company formation seems to have declined materially in the past few years.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital SaaS Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 100

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 2, 2014

It’s a remarkable business primarily because the founders and the team have built an incredibly efficient customer acquisition funnel. Zendesk has matched the SaaS median for revenue growth each year, and slightly exceeded it in 2013. The company has achieved a 114% CAGR from 2011 through 2013, an impressive growth rate.

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks Metrics SaaS Scale 100

The SaaS Garage

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Founded in 2013, riskmethods ’ software as a service (SaaS) solution harnesses cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), big data and machine learning to protect its customers’ supply chain networks. The planned acquisition of riskmethods further demonstrates our commitment to helping Sphera expand their operational ESG solutions.”

Artificial Intelligence 52

Artificial Intelligence Software Machine Learning Management 52

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 4, 2023

We’ve been getting a ton of question since we announced the acquisition so this week we’re going to have Max Altschuler break down the whole story. The meetups led to our first-ever, 300-attendee Sales Hacker Conference in San Francisco in September of 2013. Buckle up, it’s a pretty wild journey. Thanks for reading The GTM Newsletter!

Scale 61

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Payments 61

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

(This new way of thinking about R&D spend also requires companies to rethink the relevance of classic SaaS metrics like CAC payback, which only consider Sales and Marketing costs as part of customer acquisition.). PLG is more of an acquisition channel than a company-wide strategy. Atlassian has an R&D:S&M ratio of 2.9:1.

Scale 98

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Benchmarks 98

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 4, 2015

Year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014. Or it could be caused by a delay in the announcement of these acquisitions. Unless there’s a material change in talent or a set of new acquisition strategies employed by the big technology companies, I don’t expect much of a change in 2015. Acquihires 59 64 67 68 61.

Startup 108

Startup Trends Marketing Technical Review 108

The Angel VC

MAY 6, 2014

The x-axis shows the "lifetime month", so the dot at the end of the line at the bottom right, for example, represents the MRR of the January 2013 customer cohort (all customers who converted in January 2013) in their 9th month after converting.

Data 157

Data Metrics Revenue Pricing 157

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 20, 2014

The number of Series As has grown by 31% annually for the past 5 years, reaching more than 831 Series As in 2013, up from 284 in 2009. Before 2013, the Series B market was basically flat. This trend hasn’t abated. In short, no founder should be concerned about the Series A market. Rather, the Series B market is worrisome.

Startup 100

Startup Acquisition Trends Engineering 100

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 26, 2018

Josh: I had the idea in October 2013 and launched it mid-November. An organic approach to customer acquisition. Josh: At the time in 2013, you had some nasty terms like growth hacking and all sorts of sleazy things people did to get new customers. So, I wanted to have paying customer feedback as soon as possible.

Sales Hiring 137

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Startup Finance 137

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

The company went public in 2013 and we’ll use data from their S-1 through 2013 to benchmark the business. But since the company hit its stride, about six years after founding, Tableau has been growing rapidly, recording a 94% CAGR for the last four years, and generating $232M of revenue in 2013.

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks SaaS Payments Metrics Scale 100

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 17, 2014

First, as the chart above shows, the amount of capital LPs are investing into institutional seed investors has grown by more than 3x in 4 years to about $3B in 2013. Second, median institutional seed fund sizes have increased by 66% to about $50M, likely driven by the great acquisition environment.

Trends 100

Trends Marketing Acquisition Investment 100

Sixteen Ventures

JULY 17, 2020

This article was originally written in 2013 and has been updated several times over the years. As I stated in 2013, the answer to “What is a good SaaS Churn rate,” was, “you want a churn rate to be ‘as low as possible.'” The lessons are accurate even in 2020.

Churn 133

Churn SaaS B2C Pricing 133

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 14, 2015

Xero Income Statement 2007 2008 2009 2010 211 2012 2013 2014. Xero’s efficiency is driven by its customer acquisition strategy, winning accountants and encouraging them to migrate all their business from a competitor to Xero. Xero didn’t break out its engineering spending in its financials until 2013.

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks Metrics SMB Outsourced Development 100

Unbounce

OCTOBER 1, 2019

After exploding onto the scene in 2013, Zola quickly became the fastest-growing wedding startup in the United States, trouncing old-school competitors with their headache-free approach to big-day planning. Meet Ari Gayer and Shivanie Barapatre, core members of the customer acquisition crew at Zola.

Scale 111

Scale Marketing Underperforming Technical Team Merchant Services 111

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 28, 2017

The storm was a combination of rapidly accelerating customer acquisition plus the launch of a totally new platform, and it nearly destroyed HubSpot in 2013. If you’re in the early or mid-stage of your growth, this is the right time for you to understand how to scale support so you don’t end up like me in 2013. OK, readers.

Customer Support 79

Customer Support Sales Hiring Scale Acquisition 79

OpenView Labs

MAY 27, 2020

After joining the company in 2013 as the marketing leader for international, Kieran eventually worked on a small team within HubSpot whose mission was to turn a free Chrome extension into a freemium business. “A

B2B 52

B2B Acquisition Metrics Engineering 52

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

I first started trying to meditate around 2013-2014. Simply put, with this strategy, Headspace sacrifices acquisition for usage. This not only helps fuel their acquisition funnel but also sets customer value expectations. Each issue features analysis of a specific packaging case study readable in 5-10 minutes. monthly or $69.99

Acquisition 111

Acquisition Pricing Subscription Payment Features 111

Neil Patel

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

As of 2013, 70% of searchers used the “ click-to-call ” function directly from the search engine result pages (SERPs). After making a series of company acquisitions, Google started its desktop web mapping service in 2005. In 2013, the app was the most used smartphone app in the world.

Payment Methods 126

Payment Methods Branding Payments Merchant Services 126

A Smart Bear

JANUARY 4, 2018

We’ve come a long way from switching this blog to WordPress in 2009, my systematic vetting of the business idea in 2009 (after needing it myself due to the success of this blog crashing my dedicated server every time I got on Hackernews), the “ coming soon ” pre-launch in April 2010, our Series A 3-minute pitch in 2011, our incredible CEO Heather Brunner (..)

Engineering 70

Engineering Investment Revenue Technical Review 70