SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2024

“Doubling Down” is a new series where we hear from top B2B SaaS investors on their most recent activities and takes on the current market. What’s your most recent disclosed investment? It’s one of the top 3 pain points of mid-market and enterprise CFOs. What’s your pulse check on the venture markets right now, today?

Payments 203

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Scale 203

Sparktoro

JANUARY 2, 2023

It’s 2017, and you convince your executives to be early adopters of the #Web3 trend. Blockchain-based product investments, marketing with NFTs, perhaps your own crypto coin. It’s fun, interesting, and it feels like you’re ahead of your competition on a rising tide that will lift all ships.

Blockchain 128

Blockchain Marketing Trends Investment 128

The Angel VC

DECEMBER 27, 2016

As the year is coming to an end I’d like to share a few thoughts on what we’ll be looking for in the SaaS world in 2017. The design of your marketing website, the tone of voice of your marketing emails, interactions with customer service – all of this is part of the experience that you offer. But it’s far from over.

SaaS 183

SaaS Artificial Intelligence AI User Experience 183

Tom Tunguz

JULY 15, 2017

The slowing of venture investment more broadly across the US serves as a backdrop to San Francisco’s particularly strong correction. The first is investors in those rounds have pulled out of the market. The market is cyclical for both investors and founders. Note, the levels still exceed 2010-2013.

Investment 196

Investment Startup Venture Capital Trends 196

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

“Doubling Down” is a new series where we hear from top B2B SaaS investors on their most recent activities and takes on the current market. What’s your most recent disclosed investment? What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? Check that out here. Why did you do the deal?

Scale 232

Scale Software Review Payment Features AI 232

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2017

The fundraising market is in flux. Late stage market dynamics are changing as hedge funds and mutual funds seek other areas to invest. In 2017, there will be a lot of comparison between the prices public bound companies fetch at IPO compared to the last round private valuations as the public window opens.

Finance 100

Finance Startup Investment Pricing 100

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2022

If a SaaS business hopes to win over the SMB market successfully, it will need a precise GTM approach. Boterri’s company Accel invested in PayFit in 2017 and again in 2021. But your sales needs when selling to small and medium-sized businesses differ from an enterprise-level market.

SMB 192

SMB Sales Hiring Scale B2C 192

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 10, 2018

In December 2017, the amount raised in ICOs nearly equaled the amount raised by Series A investments globally. The ICO market today bears many similarities to the dotcom era. In the early 2000s, the billions of dollars invested enabled the Internet. Startups can raise hundreds of millions of dollars on an idea.

Innovation 168

Innovation Blockchain Finance Marketing 168

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2022

Marketing was not always a data-rich environment, but now, a modern growth team can tie marketing together with product engineering and data analytics. “If From 2015 to 2017, Braze grew eightfold. The acceleration in revenue couldn’t begin until the markets for it existed. Understand and build for teams undergoing change.

Mobile 239

Mobile Technology Investment Innovation 239

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2022

Marketing was not always a data-rich environment, but now, a modern growth team can tie marketing together with product engineering and data analytics. “If From 2015 to 2017, Braze grew eightfold. The acceleration in revenue couldn’t begin until the markets for it existed. Understand and build for teams undergoing change.

Mobile 202

Mobile Technology Investment Innovation 202

Tom Tunguz

JULY 22, 2018

When I watch this toy, I’m reminded of the current state of the fundraising market. Long-term trends in the start of fundraising market have been consistent over the last 10 years. But in 2017, the Series A median surpassed the 2009 Series B median. of investment through that period.

Startup 156

Startup Finance Marketing Trends 156

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2021

And it has been since 2017 or so! Invest long here. It sounds expensive, and it is, but think about the payments to the partner as a marketing cost. You’ll see it’s hard to find as effective a marketing program as whatever you pay your partners. Invest in what is working. But that took time.

Payments 285

Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services Investment 285

Neil Patel

JANUARY 27, 2021

Let’s talk about content marketing. Content marketing continues to flourish for one very simple reason: it’s what the people want. Craig Davis , the former Chief Creative Officer at marketing communications firm J. That’s content marketing in a nutshell. So, what’s happening in content marketing, version 2021?

Content Marketing 143

Content Marketing Marketing Social Media Artificial Intelligence 143

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Marketo IPO’s in 2013 at $700m market cap. Today, $128B market cap. 2013: first investment. 2016: IPO at $1.15B market cap. Worth $2B by 2017. And yes, no one could have predicted the run we’ve seen in Cloud in the past few years. But take a look at these examples: Marketo (and Hubspot): Founded 2006.

SaaS 202

SaaS SMB Cloud Revenue 202

SaaSOptics

AUGUST 11, 2022

How to Navigate the Market Downturn. Everyone is starting to feel the squeeze of the market—especially those in the tech space. Seasoned industry vets may know what their next move should be, but navigating a changing market (especially one in a downturn) is an obstacle for any SaaS founder. Raise, Sell, Merge, or Scale?

Scale 97

Scale Scaling Technical Review Venture Capital 97

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

They wanted to invest in apps, not APIs. Markets will change. Jeff says he’s realized startups are either “product constrained or distribution constrained “ Make your investments accordingly. Finally, the session we did with Jeff at the 2017 SaaStr Annual right after Twilio’s IPO was incredible.

CTO Hire 343

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 343

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2020

(Note: I wrote a version of this in 2017 when times were good. And more importantly, they are invested in you. Make sure net negative churn is at least covered and invested in. Maybe they can invest a little more, maybe they can’t. Hiring, marketing, retention, fundraising, everything. In the media.

Sales Hiring 320

Sales Hiring Startup Investment Revenue 320

Unbounce

JANUARY 13, 2022

But as we look back at the past year, it’s clear that we’re still trying to navigate these uncharted waters—especially folks marketing for small businesses. 7 Marketing Trends You Gotta Know About For Your 2022 Strategy. And this isn’t the only privacy factor adding friction to your marketing. Please, just no more Tiger King.)

Marketing 144

Marketing AI Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 144

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 25, 2021

In 2016 and 2017, we took these talks on the road with the incredibly ambitious Inside Intercom World Tours , filling venues in more than a dozen cities with a stunning audiovisual experience. The 2017 tour ran for six months, visited 10 cities with 12 speakers, and had around 6,000 attendees in total. .”

Scale 220

Scale Sales Hiring Branding Engagement 220

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2022

Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud shares how a pivot from targeting B2C creators to the B2B market put the company on the path to success. When Sud took the CEO position in 2017, Vimeo was targeting consumers and creators. The world has remained in flux since the start of the pandemic, and that means new opportunities for market disruption.

B2C 206

B2C B2B Enterprise Leadership 206

Neil Patel

DECEMBER 16, 2020

So, you dive into affiliate marketing, which has a lot of earning potential. A study from VigLink (now Sovrn) shows that affiliate marketing is the biggest revenue generator for publishers after Google AdSense. Once you’ve started with affiliate marketing, you can gain more revenue from using more advanced affiliate methods.

Strategy 134

Strategy Marketing Social Media Software Review 134

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 12, 2018

Known as the Martech 5000 — nicknamed after the 5,000 companies that were competing in the global marketing technology space in 2017, it’s said to be the most frequently shared slide of all time. – lie beyond the realms of this article but one thing is clear: this market is HUGE. What is a marketing technology stack?

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Technology Scale Marketing 223

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

For multi-market, this could be $100m in ARR. So a top theme across SaaStr CEO interviews since 2017 or so, and across our 5 Interesting Learnings series with public SaaS companies, is … when should you go multi-product? It’s what I’ve found in particular across my 30+ venture investments.

Scale 250

Scale SaaS SMB Scaling 250

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

By comparison, the median growth rate for these businesses from 2015-2017 was 27%. Software is a riskier investment. You can invest in a security bearing 0% interest, but you won’t get a return, so folks generally don’t want to allocate capital to risk-free assets. The market is rewarding profitable growth now.

SaaS 248

SaaS Software Metrics Revenue 248

Unbounce

MAY 15, 2020

Just last year, almost a quarter of small businesses reported that finding the time and resources to focus on marketing is their top challenge. Another 33% said they aren’t sure if their marketing efforts are paying off. Marketers aren’t just struggling to invest time in creating great campaigns. Too complex.

Artificial Intelligence 144

Artificial Intelligence Marketing Machine Learning AI 144

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2021

The biggest change is that growth investors, the folks that invest at $10m+ ARR, are often now looking for SaaS startups to be tripling at this stage — not doubling. But the explosion of valuations and market caps in SaaS isn’t “free” There’s a cost. Or at least growing 150% or so. Is that fair?

Startup 242

Startup SaaS Cloud Pricing 242

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2019

That’s way, way up from just 22% of revenue from $100k+ deals in 2017. ” The Slack Fund is tiny. “As of January 31, 2019, Slack Fund has invested $10.1 ” The Slack Fund is tiny. “As of January 31, 2019, Slack Fund has invested $10.1 He was granted an additional 3m shares in 2017 and 1.3m

Scale 278

Scale Venture Capital SMB Enterprise 278

SaaStock

JANUARY 30, 2019

Another was 2011/2012 where not only were another 5 VC firms started but it’s also when international ones set their eyes on this vast market. By 2017 as things stabilized, VC firms such as Accell and Tiger came back, while a new breed of local Seed stage ones was established. Founded: 2017. Founded: 2017.

Venture Capital 155

Venture Capital SaaS Healthcare Finance 155

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 6, 2016

About $1B has been invested in early stage SaaS startups as of November 1. Over the last nine months, marketing startups have raised more dollars in aggregate than any other segment. The chart above shows the early-stage investment dollars by buyer within the organization. First, the emergence of an operations category.

Artificial Intelligence 100

Artificial Intelligence Trends Marketing SaaS 100

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2019

But the goal overall is to significantly outperform the market (+50% higher) to account for risk, while rewarding those who can afford highly illiquid investments (universities, pensions, etc). A $50m fund with 10 investments leaves room for only $5m per investor. That $100m investment is up 15x in just 2 years!

Benchmarks 150

Benchmarks Investment Data Marketing 150

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2019

in 2017, the day before their IPO. Here’s why: For every dollar of sales and marketing investment, DataDog generates $1.68 AppDynamics started with enterprise accounts and they met in the mid-market. One last chart: revenue dollars at IPO per venture dollar invested. NewRelic is public and is worth $3.3B

Metrics 189

Metrics Benchmarks Scale User Experience 189

Unbounce

JUNE 24, 2020

How often do you reflect on the ways technology changes your life as a marketer? We do our marketing… on the internet.”) Because when marketing meets AI , magic happens. To put it another way, marketing and AI is a love story for the ages. To put it another way, marketing and AI is a love story for the ages.

Artificial Intelligence 145

Artificial Intelligence AI Search Machine Learning Marketing 145

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2019

Competition can split markets, and capital can be an offensive weapon in hyper-competitive markets. But in 2017, brands matter more than ever. Invest in Your Brand and Customer Marketing. This is the one investment everyone skimps on, but always works. More on Customer Marketing here. And fix it.

Part-Time VPE 277

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 277

Outseta

JANUARY 9, 2021

Over four years this is really the cost of bringing a software product of Outseta’s scale to market. Our expenses have scaled up from about $8,000 in 2017 to about $57,000 in 2020. On the marketing front, we’ve focused almost exclusively on “free” marketing tactics to date—partnerships, content marketing, and email marketing.

Scale 106

Scale Marketing SaaS Subscription 106

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2019

Join Rene Yang Stewart, Co-Head and Principal, Vista Equity Partners, and Monica Enand, Founder and CEO, Zapproved, as they discuss growing a company from product market fit to scale. Vista Equity Partners invested in Zapproved in 2017. Hear perspectives from both the investor and founder as the company scaled.

Scale 125

Scale Product Marketing Scaling Marketing 125

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2019

Customers invest in not just products, but relationships. If you compare them over 10 year lifetimes, you’ll see you should probably invest much more in the bigger customers. Invest — at least in your bigger customers — as if they are worth 10x what they are worth today. Invest like that.

Scale 347

Scale Churn Construction SMB 347

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Revelations in the Market After the Launch of OpenAI for Enterprise OpenAI shares three things about their journey to building ChatGPT Enterprise, learnings, and what is coming. Another learning was to invest in customer success work early on. In 2017 or 2018, it was easy to prospect in companies. What about the GTM side?

Artificial Intelligence 237

Artificial Intelligence AI ChatGPT Software Engineering 237