SaaStr

MAY 22, 2023

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. Sales is hard again. But overall, this is how hard sales … is supposed to be in SaaS. SaaS markets had fully recovered later that year. It’s still growing.

SaaS 252

SaaS Churn Sales Software 252

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

Sales Efficiency. -. Founded in 2016, Samsara has grown explosively from $119.9m In addition, Samsara enjoys strong and improving accrual sales efficiency of 0.70. Gross Margin. Net Income Margin. Cash Flow from Ops Margin. Average Customer Value, $k. -. ACV, Core Customers. -. Enterprise Customers. ARR per Employee.

CTO Hire 356

CTO Hire CTO Coach Benchmarks Scale 356

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2022

In April 2016, Shippo had only 22 employees and was just beginning to scale. It helps connect store and sales channels, create discounted shipping labels, track shipments, and simplify returns. Free and discounted shipping is not only a must-have, but it’s also a valuable sales expansion tool.

Sales Hiring 203

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Content Marketing 203

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2022

Take it from Gartner, who is now predicting SaaS to grow 20% overall next year to $200 Billion in total sales. It’s not slowing down Salesforce, Snowflake, or almost any other SaaS or Cloud leader. Salesforce Growth: 2023 $31.8B (guidance) 2022 $26.5B 2021 $21.25B 2020 $17.1B 2014 $4.1B. Thank you Ohana! pic.twitter.com/CMhrBXgHSF.

Sales Hiring 318

Sales Hiring Acquisition Cloud Enterprise 318

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2023

But importantly, it’s raised its ACV 4x since 2016. Billion with a sales-driven motion …. Docebo’s pricing is on the “corporate” side of LMS. It doesn’t compete at the bottom of the market, and targets top logos with a reasonably priced product. Can you get to $145,000,000 in ARR, IPO, and be worth $1.1

Scale 336

Scale Pricing Scaling Enterprise 336

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Since 2016, SaaS North has been recognized as THE Canadian hub for rapidly-scaling SaaS founders and their teams. FastSpring makes it easy for digital goods and software companies to sell around the world by handling business needs such as VAT and sales taxes, fraud detection, and global compliance.

Merchant Services 153

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Services 153

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Now, the lows appear to stabilize around the levels we saw in 2016. This is where traditional SaaS methods like subscription pricing only, driving growth through headcount only, or a pure sales GTM strategy only live. PLG is about investing in product and data instead of sales and marketing. You don’t want to be there.

Business Model 255

Business Model SaaS Payments Payments Headcount 255

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2023

Sometimes it’s VP Sales (OK, often, this is the most common mishire — another post here on what a really great VPS can do for you, and how a poor one can wreck your company, coming). 1/ Want the best startup VP Sales candidates in the world? Zenefits was the hottest/fastest growing startup from 2013-2016.

Sales Hiring 285

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Startup 285

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2022

I wrote a version of this post way back in 2016. Sales thinks we need 3-4 more features to win deals. And importantly — use it for a cross-functional discussion across Sales, Support, Customer Success, Marketing, Engineering, and Product. We’ve all evolved a lot since then. Or we’ll lose all our customers.

Metrics 289

Metrics Churn Engineering Innovation 289

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

When I retired from the Boston Ballet in 2016 due to an injury, I didn’t think body language would ever play as much of an important role in my life again. Sales + the pandemic = video. This means skills for impactful communication over video are an essential part of our updated sales competency toolkit. Boy, was I wrong.

Sales 114

Sales Communication AI Development 114

Kellblog

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

I’ll be speaking at the APPEALIE 2019 SaaS Conference and Awards in San Francisco on September 25th and I noticed that in their promotions the folks at APPEALIE had assembled their own Kellblog’s Greatest Hits album from 2016 to 2019, complete with its own cover art. It means greatest of all time.” ” Cool, indeed.

SaaS 44

SaaS Scale Startup Software 44

Teamgate

SEPTEMBER 5, 2022

When Mark Roberge published his bestselling book “The Sales Acceleration Formula” in 2016 and told the world about a formula for achieving scalable revenue growth, that conversation fell on deaf ears. And people still question whether you can even teach sales because it’s an art, not […] Source.

Scale 52

Scale Sales Scaling Startup 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2021

A lot has changed since 2016, but SaaStr is still bringing you the best advice from industry leaders, and we don’t plan on stopping. With 500+ episodes and almost 5 years behind us, we thought this would be a fun time to share the Top 25 episodes of all time. Today, we’ll dive into 25-13.

Scale 249

Scale Benchmarks Enterprise Leadership 249

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

It was interesting because they got to interview a bunch of customers and sales executives. At the time, they were less than a billion or two in revenue, and now, they just crossed over a $30B revenue run rate. I t’s been a wild growth experience, and Google Cloud is considered the fourth or fifth-largest Enterprise company in the world.

Cloud 245

Cloud Scale AWS AI 245

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. 2016 The Second SaaStr Annual: From Impossible to Inevitable .

Scale 287

Scale Sales Recruiting CTO Hire New CTO 287

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

All of our partners have deep backgrounds in go-to-market, whether in sales, channel strategy, or BD. I led Series B in Casetext in 2016. Instead, we have remained extremely consistent in our strategy over the past 10 years, leading rounds at a steady pace that allows us to be dedicated, thoughtful board members.

Scale 233

Scale Venture Capital AI Generative AI 233

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Was $8 billion in secondary sale in November. Last April, the company slashed half its workforce as restaurant sales dropped 80% [link]. The company exploded from 3,000 restaurant locations in 2016 to 40,000 in 2020. 734 employees in sales and marketing (out of 2,200 total), and 669 in customer success.

Payment Methods 275

Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments Cloud 275

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2021

A lot has changed since Harry Stebbings launched podcast #001 2016 with Tiago Paiva, CEO of now decacorn Talkdesk, but SaaStr is still on the same mission. 7 SaaStr 124: Upfront’s Mark Suster on The One Thing That Kills Sales, Why You Have To Price High and Discount & Why Sales People Are Either Farmers or Hunters. #6

Scale 206

Scale Sales Hiring SMB Benchmarks 206

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Many times startup teams ask how to compensate a sales team for renewals and upsells. The 2016 PacCrest Survey contains a wealth of information about these types of go to market questions. Sales Type Median CAC Ratio 25% Percentile CAC Ratio. I’ve reproduced this chart from the 2016 PacCrest report. New Customer 1.13

Compensation 100

Compensation Scale Sales SaaS 100

Sales Hacker

MARCH 12, 2024

He previously co-founded the cloud data pipeline company Stitch (acquired by Talend in 2018) and business intelligence platform RJMetrics (acquired by Adobe by way of Magento Commerce in 2016). A highly curated group of 200 GTM leaders, 85% director level and above across Sales, Marketing, and Partnerships. Austin’s F1 track.

Cloud 98

Cloud Trends Startup Pricing 98

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2020

The first one launched on March 1, 2016 with Tiago Paiva, CEO of unicorn Talkdesk: SaaStr Podcast #001: Tiago Paiva, Founder On How Talkdesk Reached $3m in Sales Without Spending $1 on Marketing. SaaStr just crossed 300 (!) podcasts led by our good friend and family Harry Stebbings. I had enjoyed working with him.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Interviewing SaaS Sales 204

CloseSaaS

MAY 12, 2017

If you're an entrepreneur running a self-funded startup, here's the full recording of a Q&A session with Hiten Shah & Steli Efti at Microconf 2016.

Startup 52

Startup Sales 52

SaaStr

AUGUST 19, 2022

So we’ve talked a lot of the years on SaaStr on how to avoid a mis-hire for a key VP role: We’ve talked here about the 48 Types of VPs of Sales, and making sure you hire the right type. How here that you’ll know in just 30 days if you’ve made a mis-hire at VP of Sales. Sales usually goes down.

Sales Hiring 239

Sales Hiring Interviewing Customer Success Sales 239

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2021

The company also mentions the 2016 cohort of customers expanded 51x in the last 5 years. Throughout this transition upmarket, the company has sustained a strong sales efficiency number with an implied payback period of about 17-18 months. In addition, 70% of new bookings in 2021 originated from expansions.

Payment Services 359

Payment Services Metrics Payment Solutions Payments 359

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

With the Salesforce IPO in 2004, we saw the first sign that institutional investors were comfortable with a standard set of SaaS metrics: Churn, sales efficiency , ARPU, LTV, customer acquisition cost , and so on. . In 2016, Digital Ocean opened a $130m credit facility with Keybanc. . Sales efficiency ratio? Gross margin 85%?

Venture Capital 227

Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Scale 227

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Welcome to Sales Hacker’s first-ever Influential Women in Sales list! In this exclusive list, we wanted to honor not just female leaders that promote their own sales platform (no shame in that!) They say “You can’t be what you can’t see,” and the sales floor is no exception.

Sales Recruiting 111

Sales Recruiting VP of Engineering Scale Sales Hiring 111

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

Between 2016 and 2023, you see the ACV (average contract value) going up and up. When a new sales leader comes in, they usually say the data is messed up, difficult to comprehend, and unclear about where leads are coming from. The more SMB you are, the faster the sales cycle and the quicker the team learns.

Sales Hiring 206

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Outsourced Development 206

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2023

Since 2016, he prefers to make about three or four investments per year, usually within the $1 – $4 million range. . He is the CRO and CO-Founder of Atrium, a data-driven sales management platform that helps sales managers, sales leaders, and sales ops pros use data to improve rep and team performance.

Venture Capital 180

Venture Capital Investment Sales Hiring Entrepreneurship 180

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2022

But one of you will be much better, or at least, much more interested in recruiting a VP of Sales, Marketing, Product, Customer Success, Engineering, etc. Raising capital, and recruiting great team members … is a sales job. Finally, I wrote a version of this post way back in 2016 when I first encountered this situation.

Sales Recruiting 236

Sales Recruiting Technical Cofounder Scale Investment 236

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 24, 2017

Based in Massachussetts, the company generated $320M in revenue in 2016. and 14% in net income margin in 2015 and 2016. How did a business at this price point scale, especially with an inside sales team? What’s more, they operate “below the minimum ACV to hire an inside sales team.”

Sales Hiring 186

Sales Hiring Strategy Venture Capital Marketing 186

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

Every startup’s sales commission plan is different. But it’s key to understand the theory and the benchmark data that governs the creation of sales commission plans to create a good one for your business. Sales compensation is communicated in OTE, On Target Earnings. Before we begin, let’s define a few terms.

Sales Recruiting 119

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Data Sales 119

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

403: Sam Taylor is the VP of Sales and Success @ Loom, the startup that helps you get your message across by making it easy to record instantly shareable videos. As for Sam, prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce following their acquisition of Quip, a startup Salesforce acquired for $750M where Sam was also the 1st sales leader.

Scale 182

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 182

InsightSquared

MARCH 9, 2020

This International Women’s Day, we’d like to give a shoutout to women leaders in the tech industry, especially those in sales leadership positions. Looking for sales leaders to follow for inspiration and best practices? Jill Konrath is one of the most recognized women in sales. Jill Konrath. Tiffani Bova.

Sales 87

Sales Sales Enablement Leadership Engagement 87

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

Jennifer has been at PagerDuty since 2016, a disruptive company that took automation to the next level before AI was hot in 2024. Over the last 18 months, on earnings call, Jennifer noted that: Sales cycles are longer because more approvals are required. Decisions are also centralized — the bring your own tool to work jig is up.

Generative AI 242

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 242

SaaStock

MARCH 27, 2019

André Baldini started out as VP of Sales In 2017 he was promoted to CEO. The biggest reason behind that growth is a switch to a full-blown SaaS model starting in 2016. Also, be sure to sign up for our Insider Sale to get access to one of the 500, 2 for 1, tickets for SaaStock19 in Dublin this October.

Pricing 201

Pricing Headcount Banking Revenue 201

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2020

Product and engineering teams have learned the past few years how to be 100% distributed, but in the coming years, sales teams will start off as 100% distributed on Day 1. This will be the start of the end of the sweetheart run for SaaS from 2015–2016 through today. “No Partner rakes / commissions will become almost untenable.

SaaS 197

SaaS Engineering Software Revenue 197

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2020

2014: Never ran a community before 2016: Never ran own VC fund before 2018: Never ran an events company before 2020: Never ran a digital media company before. A VP of Sales can solve many problems. Startups generally are either sales-focused or product-focused. Startups generally are either sales-focused or product-focused.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Investment 279