SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

The second SaaStr post ever, way back in late 2012, was “ Everybody Lies: SaaS Revenues in the Inc. 5000 “ It was a fun one, analyzing the only public source of data on just how much ARR a lot of SaaS companies had. Box in 2015 was the first IPO from the SaaS 2.0 Really more Adtech than SaaS. #8

SaaS 269

SaaS Technical Review Scaling Software Review 269

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

There are a few things that are clear: The “Old” San Francisco, in particular of 2015-2020 in SaaS, is never coming back. Never again will SaaS companies have floor after floor full of AEs and SDRs in downtown San Francisco. A bunch of top public SaaS CEOs have quietly come back to the Bay Area.

SaaS 222

SaaS Engineering Data 222

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

What started as a simple WordPress blog in 2012 has now become the world’s largest community of SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. And SaaStr Europa brings 2,500+ SaaS execs, founders, and VCs together to Europe every summer. We were the first major SaaS event back in the SF Bay Area. SaaStr is turning 10!

Scale 271

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 271

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

What’s really going on in the world of SaaS right now, from software valuations to business performance to interest rates? PST, Jamin Ball, Partner at Altimeter Capital and author of Clouded Judgement , took us through the current state of SaaS and what we should expect in 2024. At Workshop Wednesday, held every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

SaaS 239

SaaS Software Metrics Revenue 239

SaaStr

DECEMBER 6, 2022

The first "rocketship" of SaaS 2.0. So Slack is ending a bit of an era at $2B+ ARR, having been the fastest growing SaaS startup of its generation, rocketing to an incredible IPO, and then an epic acquisition by Salesforce in 2021 for $27 Billion! And The End of One Era in SaaS. The first IPO of its generation.

Entrepreneurship 210

Entrepreneurship SaaS Travel Acquisition 210

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2020

2015 IPO at $1.27B. These are the Best of TImes in Cloud and SaaS. The post The Power of Going Long in SaaS appeared first on SaaStr. Today, just 2 years after that, Hubspot in a very similar space (just more SMB) and with very similar revenue, is worth $18B. That’s 18x. Shopify: Founded 2006. Today, $128B market cap.

SaaS 196

SaaS SMB Cloud Revenue 196

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2022

When Aileen Lee published “Welcome to the Unicorn Club” - the article that coined the word unicorn for a $1b startup - the average public SaaS company commanded a market cap of $1.5b. Fewer than 15 SaaS companies traded on public exchanges then. 2015 Return Multiple by Round. RM at $1.5b (2015).

Startup 295

Startup Software Investment SaaS 295

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2023

David Sacks is back for 2023 SaaStrAnnual.com, doing a deep dive on “Where SaaS Is and Will Be in 2024” together with Jason Lemkin. The SaaS Org Chart by Series with David Sacks, Co-founder and General Partner at Craft Ventures. Grab your final, 20% OFF tickets here for 2023 Annual, Sep 6-8 in SF Bay Area.

Headcount 212

Headcount Startup Scaling SaaS 212

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2021

Indian SaaS hybrid super success stories. but with 3,800 of 4,300 employees in India, and customers spread across the globe — Freshworks is a great example of the future of SaaS. Many of us older timers in SaaS will continue to think of Freshworks as mainly Freshdesk, but that’s hardly the case.

Scale 344

Scale SMB Scaling Subscription 344

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2019

How far along was the typical SaaS Series A in 2018? The chart below shows a representative sample of SaaS Series As’ ARR and projected ARR growth rate for 2018. In 4 years, we’ve seen a 4x increase in the median MRR of a Series A SaaS company. The median business was at $1.8M in ARR and growing at 250%.

Benchmarks 261

Benchmarks Startup SaaS Data Analysis 261

SaaStock

MARCH 26, 2019

As we have showcased in previous pieces, there are many reasons to be excited about the Latin American SaaS ecosystem. Not only is the region producing superstar SaaS contenders, but the interest from local and international VCs is increasing. However, our interest goes beyond the current state of SaaS in Latin America.

Startup 210

Startup Artificial Intelligence SaaS Construction 210

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

UiPath is one of the most amazing not-really-an-overnight success stories in Cloud, SaaS and software. Even ten years on, in 2015, it still had just 10 full-time employees. from 2015 to 2016 … and then exploded: UIPath History. 2015: $1m rev. One of the fastest-growing SaaS companies ever. 2014: $500k rev.

Outsourcing Services 359

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Payment Features Cloud 359

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Most of the SaaS IPOs we’ve analyzed have traded growth for profitability and they have been rewarded handsomely for it. These public market cash reserves total $430B or so across the top 250 or so public tech companies, a massive war chest that will fuel startup M&A in 2015. Growth is king in today’s public markets.

Startup 100

Startup Acquisition B2B Trends 100

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

In SaaS, we talk a lot about hyper-growth, uber-successful companies, but many founders, including hyper-growth founders, make mistakes over and over. Maybe you feel SaaS is crushing it this year, but it’s not easy for a lot of folks. ARR around 2015. Scaling newly acquired raw technology too soon.

Scale 227

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 227

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2020

Q: What will SaaS companies look like in the future? I’m no brilliant futurist, but here’s what I see in the best SaaS companies today, so I assume will be table-stakes going forward: The Bay Area will remain a draw, but mainly as a small-ish HQ. Overall corporate budgets for SaaS will start to come under stress. It’s too much.

SaaS 186

SaaS Engineering Software Revenue 186

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

But compared to 2014, 2015 was a meager year for startups looking to go public or be acquired. Through November 1st 2015, transaction values dipped 40% to $6.8B. However, in 2015 the median acquisition was worth $410M, compared to $193M in 2014, indicating that buyers are not buying as frequently, but when they are, they spend more.

Startup 100

Startup Software Data Acquisition 100

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2022

Some areas of spending are slowing in the economy, but SaaS overall is still growing faster than ever. It’s not slowing down Salesforce, Snowflake, or almost any other SaaS or Cloud leader. But it’s not here yet, at least not across the board on average in SaaS. Salesforce Growth: 2023 $31.8B (guidance) 2022 $26.5B 2014 $4.1B.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Acquisition Cloud Enterprise 307

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 11, 2017

When I analyzed the SaaS fundraising market in 2016 , three trends emerged. The number of SaaS companies raising rounds had stalled, while the total number of dollars plateaued. A year later, those trends have continued to converge, and SaaS valuations have resurged, reaching their highs of the 2014-2015 boom.

Venture Capital 203

Venture Capital SaaS Trends Startup 203

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2023

It was a really great deep-dive on where venture is right now: Multiples have fallen back to 2015 and 2016 Why VCs can’t justify investing at $100m+ valuations in many cases today How optimism is bleeding out of VC, and realism has seeped in Why the “next round” often isn’t coming anymore, and how everything got inverted in (..)

Interviewing 204

Interviewing Investment SaaS Sales 204

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2023

seed round 2015: $1m rev. 2019: $336m rev 2020: $607m rev One of the fastest-growing SaaS companies ever — Jon Ma (@jonbma) March 27, 2021 Daniel Dines Co-Founder and Co-CEO – UiPath Daniel Dines is the co-founder and Co-CEO of UiPath, a leading provider of enterprise automation software. 2016: $3.5m rev 2017: $30m rev.

Company Culture 243

Company Culture AI Innovation Enterprise 243

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2023

[link] — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  (@jasonlk) August 29, 2023 I was lucky enough to be the first venture investor in a next-gneration ediscovery startup, Logikcull, way back in 2015. Because I think we can learn a lot here about Private Equity works in SaaS and acquisitions. What happened here? 1+1 =3 here How does it work?

Acquisition 209

Acquisition Scaling Startup SaaS 209

SaaStock

MARCH 8, 2019

These 18 women are powerful, relentless and are all making SaaS and tech in general a better place. They have impressive professional achievements, all the way from founding companies through to running international operations across continents all the way to funding the SaaS companies of the future. They are stars in tech in Asia.

VP of Engineering 264

VP of Engineering CTO Coach Venture Capital SaaS 264

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2020

One of the biggest changes since we started SaaStr is the massive number of SaaS veterans out there. The decade-long run of next-generation SaaS start-ups, and the explosion since 2015 of SaaS unicorns and decacorns has led to a lot of experienced execs on the market. Because SaaS is hard. This is great.

Sales Hiring 220

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS 220

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2023

Since late 2015, trusted and empowered “Bobbers” from around the world have brought their authentic selves to work, inspired to build our exceptional HR systems that will revolutionize the work experience for HR professionals, managers, and employees alike. Companies waste up to 30% of their SaaS spend.

Cloud 199

Cloud Scale Startup Sales Hiring 199

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2021

There’s no question SaaS and Cloud companies scale faster than ever these days. More on that here: The Top SaaS and Cloud companies are now growing 100% at $100m ARR. . Just a few examples: UiPath took 10 years to get to its first $1m in ARR in 2015. And Zoom just passed a $1B quarter. Then, it accelerated like a rocket.

Construction 273

Construction Cloud Scaling Product Marketing 273

Aber Law Firm

JUNE 9, 2015

Building trust as a concept A while back I wrote a blog post about Trust Sites , and why, if you are a SaaS company, you should have one (outside of your SaaS agreement). There are lots of third party services that can setup a trust site for your SaaS application (for a very reasonable monthly fee). What is New 1).

SaaS 52

SaaS Education Cloud Pricing 52

Aber Law Firm

JUNE 9, 2015

A while back I wrote a blog post about Trust Sites , and why, if you are a SaaS company, you should have one (outside of your SaaS agreement). There are lots of third party services that can setup a trust site for your SaaS application (for a very reasonable monthly fee). – When you are selling SaaS, you are selling trust!

SaaS 52

SaaS Education Cloud Pricing 52

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2022

I miss #SaaStrAnnual and all my fellow SaaS peeps. In the run-up to SaaStr Annual 2022 on September 13-15 , we wanted to look back at some of the highest-rated SaaStr sessions of all time, since the first SaaStr Annual in 2015. Hope to see you this year, @jasonlk. — dharmesh (@dharmesh) January 21, 2022.

CTO 246

CTO Retention Startup Scaling 246

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 17, 2019

In 2015, I wrote about the trade-off facing vertical SaaS companies. Vertical SaaS companies focus their efforts on a particular group of customers. There is a new twist in SaaS with a parallel dynamic. Procore targets construction with their software and Veeva targets pharmaceuticals with their CRM.

Machine Learning 233

Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence AI Startup 233

Clouded Judgement

JULY 21, 2023

I went back and looked at an old research report from Morgan Stanley from 2015 (believe this was after their first quarter as a public company). In March 2015 the Morgan Stanley model predicted Box would generate $400m of FCF in 2025. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years.

Cloud 130

Cloud Software Sales Hiring Scale 130

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2021

So three of my personal favorite SaaS companies finally went public, Squarespace, Procore and UiPath. Procore is a personal favorite because it did vertical SaaS the hard way, with many mid-market deals, and made it a tenacious success. But then, growth became insane, rocketing from $1M in 2015 to $600M in 2021!

Construction 265

Construction SMB Mobile Cloud 265

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 23, 2015

Public SaaS companies have been particularly hard hit. The chart above shows the enterprise value of publicly traded SaaS companies. While there are five companies who currently sit at their all time highs, as of August 21, more than 90% of the SaaS companies are below at a median decline of 40%. Let’s dig in a bit more.

Marketing 113

Marketing SaaS Enterprise Pricing 113

The Angel VC

MARCH 31, 2015

Status Quo From an investor’s perspective, SaaS companies have a lot to love: High gross margins, predictable (recurring) revenues and capital efficient operations. It might be too much to label it the ‘ long, slow SaaS ramp of death ’, but their revenues tend to develop slower than those for consumers plays.

Scale 168

Scale SaaS B2C Finance 168

User Pilot

MARCH 12, 2024

Collecting and interpreting user behavior analytics is crucial due to the extreme competitiveness in the SaaS space, which only continues to escalate. UEBA is a newer, more comprehensive rendition of UBA introduced by Gartner in their 2015 marketing guide. UBA vs. UEBA: What is user and entity behavior analytics?

SaaS 52

SaaS Software Review Systems Review Technical Review 52

Incredo

DECEMBER 29, 2013

5 Digital Marketing Behaviors to Avoid in 2015. The post Outsourcing Social Media: 5 Mistakes To Avoid In 2015 appeared first on Incredo. Social media is a very powerful tool to interact, communicate and connect your customers and outsourcing social media can be very powerful…provided you don’t make the mistakes above.

Outsourcing Services 100

Outsourcing Services Social Media Communication Advertising 100

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2023

It’s a time when SaaS and Cloud spend are also at record highs , and many Cloud leaders are still growing at strong rates … yet many startups have stopped growing at all. What public (and private) SaaS companies are valued at as a multiple of revenue. Well, there’s just not that much FOMO today in SaaS at least.

New CTO 239

New CTO CTO Banking Cloud 239

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2021

and as Cloud continues to scale: Many of the best in SaaS are accelerating even at massive scale. The grandparent of SaaS blew out last quarter, growing 23% at $24B+ in ARR!! It seems like every market in SaaS is even bigger than we expected, and importantly, able to not just hit $1B in ARR but accelerate afterwards. Salesforce.

Cloud 274

Cloud Scaling SaaS Revenue 274