SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

To the OG software people who read SaaStr, Jason is “the guy,” Sam says. He’s the person that the founders of Hubspot and companies that make tens of millions of dollars want to learn about software from. He’s invested in startups as a VC since 2013 and has 10x his fund. Let’s step back into the older days of software.

Engineering 229

Engineering Business Model Pricing Scaling 229

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2024

But they often have much lower gross margins than pure software. A brand that previously held a premium aesthetic raised a growth round in 2013 from Irving Capital (7 For All Mankind, Aeropostale, Stuart Weitzman), but ultimately wasn’t able to sustain its growth. Be even more careful if your gross margins are <70% or so.

Churn 219

Churn Startup SaaS Payments Venture Capital 219

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Three Valuation Lows in SaaS: 2013, 2016, and 2022 5 Interesting Learnings from Doximity at $450,000,000 in ARR Is Cold Calling Dead? Top Obstacles to Making Software Decisions with G2’s VP – Asia Pacific, Chris Perrine    4.

Scale 199

Scale Enterprise Churn Startup 199

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: About 70% of SaaS Public Companies Are New Versions of Existing Categories of Software (Updated) Growth Slowed Down About 33% On Average For Everyone in Q1 The Top 20 SaaStr Tips to Getting a SaaS Start-Up Going When Should You Add a Second Product?

CTO Hire 195

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Scaling 195

The SaaS Garage

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Chicago & Munich, September 13, 2022 ( businesswire ) — Sphera, a leading global provider of ESG performance and risk management software, data and consulting services, today. announces it has entered into an agreement to acquire riskmethods, an award-winning software company specializing in supply chain risk management (SCRM).

Artificial Intelligence 98

Artificial Intelligence Software Machine Learning Management 98

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

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. 1272 Bronto Software. in 2011 GAAP revenue. Where it Went: $233m+ in growth financing (at implicit valuation of $1B+) in 2021. #78 78 Marketo. in 2011 GAAP revenue. 99 SugarSync. 1129 BigMachines.

SaaS 269

SaaS Technical Review Scaling Software Review 269

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

Strong Gross Margins, But Not the 80%+ of “Classic” Software. SentinelOne was incorporated in January 2013. International revenue is 36% of total, growing 124% a year. International is outperforming overall. A reminder to chase your customers wherever they are. #5. Which is slightly out of fashion in today’s world.

Cybersecurity 225

Cybersecurity Scale Cloud Scaling 225

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Same software, dude. But same software. And the model said we’d need it … It also showed me that, barely, if you squinted, and the market grew just right … by 2013, there’d be $100m in ARR in our space. It was just a little while ago that Salesforce was doing $1 billion in ARR revenue.

Scale 198

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 198

The SaaS Garage

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Chicago & Munich, September 13, 2022 ( businesswire ) — Sphera, a leading global provider of ESG performance and risk management software, data and consulting services, today. announces it has entered into an agreement to acquire riskmethods, an award-winning software company specializing in supply chain risk management (SCRM).

Artificial Intelligence 52

Artificial Intelligence Software Machine Learning Management 52

SaaStock

JANUARY 25, 2019

Trailblazing through their home continent, venturing successfully onto the world stage or changing from on-premise software to SaaS, these companies could have a postal code in any SaaS hotspot in the world. ContaAzul was acquired by the collaborative software platform Wabbi Software S.A. Founded : 2013. Founded : 2013.

SaaS Payments 257

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Methods Payments 257

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Failure #3: Not Scaling Based On Leading Indicators There’s a big fallacy in software. Failure #7: Not Being Prescriptive Enough Early Enough Gainsight’s first product was software to scale Customer Success teams. In 2013, people didn’t even know what Customer Success was. Your average sales quota is $1M.

Scale 227

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 227

The Angel VC

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

A little more than a week ago we did the second PNC SaaS Founder Meetup. Around the same time a year ago we organized our first SaaS Founder Meetup in San Francisco, this time we did it in Berlin.

SaaS 108

SaaS Software 108

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 9, 2013

Software has become the differentiator for all these devices because the hardware is indistinguishable to all but the geekiest. Unfortunately, many equipment manufacturers lack the skill set to develop compelling software. As these OEMs face the challenge of building great software, they must choose among three options: 1.

Startup 100

Startup Outsourced Development AWS Marketing 100

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2018

A recent addition to the list of public software companies, Mulesoft is a tremendous business. For acquirers of software companies, one thing seems to matter: growth at scale. In the first three months of 2018, we’ve witnessed two multibillion dollar software acquisitions. SAP/Callidus. Microsoft/LinkedIn. Oracle/Taleo.

Acquisition 189

Acquisition Marketing Enterprise Revenue 189

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

IT World

MAY 13, 2022

Founded in 2013, Solvvy offers an AI-powered self-service customer support agent aimed at easing the load on customer support teams by dealing with simple requests before handing over to a human agent. Customers include technology companies like Calendly, Calm, Seat Geek, and Scribd. To read this article in full, please click here

Acquisition 69

Acquisition AI Customer Support Startup 69

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 20, 2017

We’ve seen quite a bit of volatility in the valuations of publicly traded software companies over the last 5 years. In 2014, the average software company traded at 7.7x Today, we’re exactly where we were in 2013, at 5.4x, which is coincidentally, is the average over this time period.

Marketing 156

Marketing SaaS Software Revenue 156

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 17, 2018

Since 2013, we seen an incredible amount of volatility in SaaS forward multiples. The next four are enterprise software companies. Enterprise value is the market of a publicly traded company minus the available cash the company holds. Forward revenue is the sum of the next 12 months’ revenue.

SaaS 175

SaaS Healthcare SMB Enterprise 175

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2021

It started off by accident — we did a meet-up in 2013 as an experiment, with no content. It will be the largest non-vendor event in the world for business software, by far, and perhaps the one really Tier 1 B2B event this year. And boy we’ve learned a lot over the years. And almost 400 folks came!

Interviewing 182

Interviewing Scaling B2B Investment 182

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 30, 2017

There are not many software companies who can nearly quadruple their enterprise value in two years. Merchants pay subscription to rent the software. Since 2013, Shopify GMV has 10xed from $1.6B Shopify is an exceptional business. But Shopify has grown from $2.7B in enterprise value to more than $10B.

Merchant Services 181

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payments Payment Solutions 181

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2020

— Topic: “The Essential Companies SaaS Relies On” The software-as-a-service marketplace is rapidly growing year after year! He then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where he oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document Services to $50,000,000 in ARR in 2012 and $100,000,000+ ARR in 2013.

VP of Engineering 126

VP of Engineering Marketplace as a Service Scale SaaS 126

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. To run a startup, you have to make bets. Lead our clients to the outcome.

Sales Hiring 255

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Customer Success 255

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 6, 2016

To answer that question, we can analyze the data set of all software companies acquired over the last six years and benchmark them by enterprise value-to-revenue multiples. The chart above shows the median multiple across all software acquisitions. In 2013, acquirers paid the highest multiples for premium companies at more than 8x.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Startup SaaS Benchmarks 100

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 23, 2018

In 2013, there was one Series A for every five seed investments. Startups can invest in deep technology by building machine learning software that might take a year or two to bring to the market. In the meantime, the number of series As has only declined 20% from its high, remaining relatively stable from 2014 through 2018.

Machine Learning 189

Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Startup Investment 189

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2019

Hubspot is an inbound marketing and sales software company based in Massachusetts. Jay Simons rose up the ranks from Area Sales Manager with Plumtree software to VP of Product Marketing and Strategy. Prior to Logickull Andy was a software developer at EDS (an HP Company). Brian Halligan is co-founder and CEO of Hubpost.

Scale 164

Scale Leadership Consulting Metrics 164

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 12, 2015

But I was curious about how widespread aggressive investments are in software companies. 845 software companies raised seed rounds in 2013, a 40% increase from the year before. Meanwhile, Series As remained roughly constant from 2013 to 2014, and Series Bs rose by about 17%. The typical SaaS/software company raised a $1.1M

Marketing 100

Marketing SaaS Investment Startup 100

The Angel VC

JULY 17, 2015

This doesn't come as a surprise, since the consumerizaton of enterprise software has been one of the most important driving forces in the software world in the last years. But B2B software websites haven't always looked like this and it's fascinating to see how much things have changed.

SaaS 188

SaaS Software Review B2B Trends 188

IT World

APRIL 19, 2019

Docker is a software platform for building applications based on containers — small and lightweight execution environments that make shared use of the operating system kernel but otherwise run in isolation from one another. To read this article in full, please click here

Software Development 70

Software Development Cloud Trends Technology 70

Stax

DECEMBER 20, 2023

One of the most famous data breaches happened to Target in 2013. Part of this includes performing regular maintenance on your hardware- and software, and ensuring that your settings are configured for reduced friction. After this, you choose the appropriate hardware and software for processing transactions.

Payment Services 88

Payment Services Merchant Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 88

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2016

The rate of new software company formation seems to have declined materially in the past few years. In 2011-2013, about 1450 software companies were founded each year on average. Perhaps software companies remain in stealth longer. In 2014, that figure fell to 1186 and in 2015, we count 481. Why could this be?

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital SaaS Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 100

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 30, 2016

Salesforce’s initial public offering in 2003 demarcated the beginning of a new era, the era of Software as a Service. In the 13 years that followed, many startups have followed their path to build innovative software that has transformed their respective industries and sectors. The chart above plots the number of SaaS IPOs.

Marketing 102

Marketing SaaS Software Delivery Scale 102

Frontegg

MAY 27, 2021

The 80s and 90s were all about physical purchasing and installation of software CDs and floppy disks. This innovative software tool is a proven and tested customer engagement booster. Founded: 2013 Known customers: Lyft, Clearbit, Amplitude, AdRoll, Segment Price starts at: $249/month. #3 So pick accordingly. #1 1 Intercom.

Payment Solutions 98

Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments Scale 98

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2016

Census in 2013, indicates that 47 million people are employed by enterprise companies, 31 million people work at mid-market companies and 40 million people hold posts at small businesses. Workday may dominate the enterprise part of the human capital software market, but it has ceded the mid-and small business market to others.

Outsourced Development 142

Outsourced Development SaaS SMB Enterprise 142

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2014

in 2009 revenue to 2013 revenue of $71M - an 88% CAGR. FLTX, a maker of fleet tracking software, has identical ARPC. 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. RNG 1999 14 162. QLYS 1999 13 91.

Benchmarks 113

Benchmarks SMB Metrics SaaS 113

The Angel VC

OCTOBER 24, 2013

Start with January 2013 and enter the number of new customers that you’ve acquired in that month. Then move to the right and enter how many of those January 2013 customers were still customers in February, March, April and so on. If your data goes further back than January 2013, extend the table accordingly.

Customer Lifetime Value 211

Customer Lifetime Value SaaS Churn Growth Hacking 211

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

Today, we’ll examine Tableau, the market leader for data visualization software. Tableau sells software the old-fashioned way, with perpetual licenses not subscriptions. Customers pay a fee for the software up-front, in addition to an annual maintenance fee of about 20-25%.

Benchmarks 100

Benchmarks SaaS Payments Metrics Scale 100

Kraftblick

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

How Can Kraftblick Help Your Software Company? ML allows the program to evolve without any human intervention, so the software becomes more and more effective over time. Today there is software that can look through ready-made content, analyze it and give advice on how to improve it. More about that here.

Artificial Intelligence 96

Artificial Intelligence Technical Review AI Search AI 96