SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

Up From Almost None in 2020 to 295 Today. And a true engine of growth. #9. Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) is a Year Old But Fueling $159m in Q2 Bookings Alone To some Cloud and SaaS leaders, AI is a table-stakes addition. But for Palantir, it’s a true accelerant. #3. Commercial Customers Fueling Growth.

Artificial Intelligence 231

Artificial Intelligence Government AI Cloud 231

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2020

Well 2020 was certainly an interesting year for SaaStr. Things start off looking bleak, with SaaStr Annual 2020 the first big tech event to be postponed due to Covid. Now the engine was running, with over 250,000+ tuning in across our various channels, and another 500,000+ listening to many of the sessions later on our pocast.

Technical Review 294

Technical Review Cloud Enterprise Engineering 294

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 17, 2021

The automation of QA is a secular trend that perhaps accelerated with more software engineers working from home. Rather, this category is buttressed by an ever increasing number of software engineers searching for the best way to accomplish a goal with a new tool, API, or service.

Startup 362

Startup Software Engineering Finance Engineering 362

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2020

I thought it might be helpful and fun to share some of the demographic data of who’s coming to the 2020 SaaStrAnnual.com on March 10-11-12 in the SF Bay Area. Product and Engineering represent 14% of annual attendees, so Annual is also an excellent way to meet thousands of top leaders in Cloud technology roles. But who comes?

Cloud 254

Cloud Engineering Trends SaaS 254

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2020

It’s still early — the 2020 SaaStrAnnual.com isn’t until March 10-11-12 in the SF Bay Area — but we can already start seeing some of the hottest VC sessions at Annual. The Next Iteration of “Software is Eating the World” 2020 with Atrium and Andreessen Horowitz. There will be almost 1,000 (!)

Trends 229

Trends Venture Capital Scale PayPal 229

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 21, 2020

Given how unprecedented 2020 has been, with turbulence and tragedy on so many fronts, it’s hard to try and pick a post that sums up the year on Inside Intercom. The post 2020 on Inside Intercom appeared first on Inside Intercom. From all of us here on the Intercom Content team, we wish you a very peaceful and safe holiday season.

Technical Review 233

Technical Review Healthcare Communication Content Marketing 233

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 2, 2021

For the very first time, we’re releasing Engineer Chats , an internal podcast here at Intercom about all things engineering. Previously hosted by Jamie Osler , a Senior Product Engineer at Intercom for over seven years, it’s now up to Principal Systems Engineer Brian Scanlan to pick up the baton and keep the chats going.

Engineering 178

Engineering Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Systems Review 178

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

This post is part of a series leading up to SaaS Office GTM Edition on June 24 in which we’re reviewing the results of the 2020 Redpoint GTM survey. The median startup with between 1-5M in ARR will have 12 engineers, 6 in sales and 3 in marketing. Today, we’re answering the question: how do teams grow as a startup scales?

Scale 363

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2019

We’ll be back at the San Jose Convention Center, March 10-12th, 2020. Prior to Shopify, Jean-Michel was a VP of Engineering at Atlassian for four years and held several positions at IBM for six years. The post Four Powerful Leaders Speaking at SaaStr Annual 2020 appeared first on SaaStr. The Unicorns ??

Part-Time VPE 176

Part-Time VPE CTO Leadership Cloud 176

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2019

We have several different mentoring opportunities at SaaStr Annual 2020 this year and at our events year round but whether this is your first event or a superfan, here’s a rundown of all the best mentoring opportunities to make the most of your time at Annual this year. Take a look at some of our highlights before March 10-12th.

Engineering 175

Engineering Development Revenue 175

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2019

2020 Annual. We’re less than 90 days out to 2020 SaaStrAnnual.com ! If you have 2+ years of experience in sales, marketing, product, ops or engineering AND aren’t yet at Director+ level, we want you. We’ll have 3,000+ mentors at 2020 Annual. If you are a “tweener” in SaaS, we want you there.

Scale 179

Scale Cloud Engineering Scaling 179

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2019

Are you a developer coming to SaaStr Annual 2020 but afraid there might be not quite enough content for you? From large scale mainstage sessions to intimate workshops and even a dedicated lounge, we are carving out some of SaaStr Annual just for developers and engineers. The post Developers and Engineers!

CTO Coach 162

CTO Coach Engineering CTO Hire Development 162

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2019

Well, not QUITE yet but if you’re already planning your trip to SaaStr Annual 2020, here is our initial speaker lineup. Bora Chung, Bill.com SVP of Product and Vinay Pai, Bill.com SVP of Engineering will be joining with a product and engineering focused tactical session. We’re back in San Jose! here you go ).

Payment Methods 151

Payment Methods Point of Sale Payments Engineering 151

SaaStr

MAY 17, 2023

That together, the two of you have all the key functional areas covered decently, at least initially (Engineering, Product, Sales & Customers, Marketing). If you are good at coding, she is good at sales and customers. Or whatever. AND Someone you want to sit down at the end of the day, each day, to talk about the day.

Engineering 355

Engineering Sales Marketing Leadership 355

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2020

— Ben Chestnut (@benchestnut) November 12, 2020. But VPs are still sitting on their computers, struggling to hit their plans, manage their teams, hire the next great engineer, deploy their software releases, and hit their number. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) December 9, 2020. The post Outbound Always Works.

Sales Hiring 356

Sales Hiring Outbound Sales Team AWS Engineering 356

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

— Clint Reid (@clintverse) September 3, 2020. Engineers in the Bay Area are incredibly expensive. If you need 5 Bay Area ex-Google engineers to get your start-up going, it will be close to impossible without capital. Longer until you can hire enough engineers to close key feature gaps. It happens all the time.

Sales Hiring 361

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale SaaS 361

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2021

— Roseanne Wincek (@imthemusic) December 21, 2020. Someone has to be the #1 engineer. But one of you has to lead on Customers/Sales/Marketing and the other likely on Product/Engineering for it really to work. — Farhan Thawar (@fnthawar) December 20, 2020. You spend all your time together. Someone has to sell.

Sales Recruiting 278

Sales Recruiting Engineering Product Marketing Marketing 278

SaaStr

OCTOBER 22, 2021

Sometimes, the self-serve / PLG engine stalls out at a certain scale. Fintech is the engine of growth at scale. Expense reports are the core product and growth engine, but moving money is the growth vector at scale, (which grew 2.5x Growth of only 10% in 2019 to 2020 — but then exploded! Oftentimes, even.

Scale 321

Scale SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 321

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2021

Guidance 2020 $17.1B — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) August 25, 2020. Think of trying to get a train out of a station with a very small engine. Salesforce Growth: 2021 $20.8B 2014 $4.1B. Thank you Ohana! If you haven’t done a SaaS start-up before, it’s different. A lot of work for ten bucks.

SaaS 325

SaaS Travel Churn Revenue 325

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

GitLab provides a suite of DevOps tools that enable engineering teams to build and deploy software, and then secure it. GitLab is the third fastest growing software company at IPO, registering 87% revenue growth in 2020, while charting 88% gross margins. GitLab is the first fully remote software company to go public. Revenue, $M.

Metrics 315

Metrics Outsourced Development Scale Cloud 315

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2020

jasonlk) July 10, 2020. Where do i find a great VP of Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Product, Customer Success, etc.? A 2020 update of a classic saastr post). DO YOUR 1-ON-1s. i know they arent always fun pic.twitter.com/Sb1BWxsWj3. — Jason ?BeKind?

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Management Engineering Customer Success 363

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

Software engineering teams have been early adopters of AI coding assistants precisely because they provide an immediate, measurable lift. ” Weavi Founded in 2020, they anticipated the growing importance of unstructured data and embeddings. This is exactly backward.

Technical Review 166

Technical Review Artificial Intelligence AI Marketplace as a Service 166

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2020

— Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) October 27, 2020. Someone to take over the hackey way you pick features, drive engineering to get there, and also, to live at the intersection of sales, customer sucess and dev. A “head” of product that sales, engineering and customer success won’t respect … can’t get the job done.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring Management Leadership Engineering 286

SaaStr

JULY 4, 2019

Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020. I’m the SVP of sales for WP Engine. Then fast forward to WP Engine. I’ve been with WP Engine for the last five-and-a-half years. One of the things that I do at WP Engine I’ve always done is I overembellish that. I was the first sales leader ever at WP Engine.

Sales Hiring 194

Sales Hiring Scale Engineering Sales Recruiting 194

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. See, also, most engineering teams. But this week was the first time since March 2020 I had SF Bay Area FOMO: There were 2 board meetings in SF this week where I was the only one on Zoom.

SaaS 269

SaaS Engineering Data 269

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

2020-2021: VCs jealous of Decacorn founders that own so much more. Engines like YC and EF and others have automated the creation of a “high quality” pre-seed startup. Funding “engines” / machines at Tiger, Insight, etc. 2002-2019: Founders jealous of VCs, with their easy life, diversified.

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Banking Cloud Startup 333

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2021

And the engine really never stopped running, evolving into a dominant DevOps Platform for software development. And 100 by 2020 and 200 by 2021. GitLab’s SaaS revenues are still just 20% of their revenues, although that’s up from 9% in 2020. So GitLab is one of those ones that sort of … always was doing well.

Outsourced Development 66

Outsourced Development Software Development Innovation Cloud 66

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

Million More Customers in 2020. GoDaddy is a marketing engine, investing $439,000,000 (!) in marketing/ads in 2020. We’ve seen this also with Salesforce, where its classic CRM product is no longer its largest cloud, and is also its slowest growing (and most mature) segment: 3. Freemium is back!

SMB 312

SMB Cloud Scaling Investment 312

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2020

Lemkin (@jasonlk) March 27, 2020. They include: Auren Hoffman and Safegraph hiring 3 in sales and 5 in engineering. is looking for a Solutions Engineer. We put out a thread here you can click on for a deep dive on 100s of SaaS openings from SaaStr CEOs: Are you hiring? Respond with a link to your top hire to make, etc.

Sales Hiring 272

Sales Hiring SaaS SMB Content Marketing 272

SaaStr

OCTOBER 1, 2023

We’ve all gone though so much change since March 2020. We’ve gone from somewhat efficient through 2018 or so, to less efficient into 2020, to incredibly inefficient in late 2020 and 2021, to layoffs seemingly everywhere in 2022, and now to Efficient Growth. So, so much change. It’s so much change.

Engineering 270

Engineering SaaS Marketing 270

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 26, 2024

Who is Eric Yuan | CEO of Zoom Eric Yuan joined WebEx as one of the first several software engineers. He was instrumental in developing the WebEx videoconferencing technology and eventually became Vice President of Engineering. billion, and Yuan continued with the company as their Corporate Vice President of Engineering.

VP of Engineering 258

VP of Engineering Software Engineering Company Culture Engineering 258

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2021

From 41% in 2020 to 51% in 2021! 245 employees in Sales & Marketing — vs. 101 in Engineering / R&D. The engineering team is also surprisingly lean. #7. Customer count growing as fast as revenue — a good sign for the future. We don’t see this that often. This is rare. And a few bonus notes: #6.

Scale 300

Scale CTO Hire New CTO CTO 300

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2020

— Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) October 20, 2020. Every Great Engineer is Accretive at $2m in ARR. You think engineers are cost centers, at least from a financial model perspective? If you just had that one extra great engineer, you would have closed Google. A truly great hire is >always< accretive.

Sales Hiring 341

Sales Hiring Headcount Engineering Banking 341

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2024

The three core areas to focus on are: Evolving your growth engine Building and solving for when to become a multi-product platform Investing in your people and team #1: Evolving Your Growth Engine Let’s start with some context for Bitly’s journey. Bitly had a huge inbound funnel created early on, and it continues today. It wasn’t good.

Scale 293

Scale Scaling Underperforming Technical Team User Experience 293

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2019

Come and hear about the typical pitfalls (and how to avoid them) from Pat Poels, an executive with over seven years under his belt leading Eventbrite’s now 300+ strong engineering team that sits across North America, South America, and Europe. Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020. The company was 145 people, 40 of which were engineers.

Engineering 182

Engineering Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale 182

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2023

So another quiet SaaS success story is Jamf after a quiet IPO in 2020. They’re doing pretty much everything right, with strong NRR and an efficient engine. Expanding its product offerings into security has been critical to the Jamf growth engine. But are they worth 10x ARR? Jamf’s star also rose: #4.

Engineering 277

Engineering Trends Enterprise Revenue 277