SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2025

Billion Revenue Run Rate Growing a stunning 60% $16 Billion valuation, so about 8x revenue We're back to IPOs seeming normal again That's quietly a big deal And a good thing [link] — Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ The “Interest Rate Risk” Learning: When 99% of Your Revenue Depends on One Variable Circle generated $1.7B

compliance 229

compliance Marketplace as a Service B2B Healthcare 229

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 19, 2020

In 2020, what is an excellent payback period[1]? I also looked at sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue, which bore a similar result. Payback period is one of the best composite diagnostic metrics of product market fit. I've written before about the benefits of short payback periods. But there's no correlation.

Software 356

Software Acquisition Enterprise Startup 356

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

Ok, it’s November now and it’s time to start getting excited for the second annual SaaStrScale.com 2020. The core sessions are FREE and we have a very inexpensive workshop pass if you want to be mentored in small sessions by literally dozens of the top revenue and customer professionals in SaaS and Cloud. VPM LinkedIn.

Scaling 312

Scaling Cloud Revenue SaaS 312

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2022

Q: Dear SaaStr: How Do VCs Verify a Startup’s Revenue? If they do, the financials and revenue are likely at least 90% accurate, which is good enough for seed stage. At least, they did outside of the crazy times of late 2020 and 2021. They also often recognize revenue too early. Fraud is always possible.

Revenue 308

Revenue Banking Startup 308

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

It’s been a fun experience being on Quora for … a decade We’ve crossed 60,000,000 views of our answers there, so let’s take a look at the Top 50 most viewed SaaStr Answers on Quora in 2020: Why do many startup owners sell their firm and move on instead of planning on making it a big player like Google, Microsoft, etc.?

Software Review 293

Software Review CTO Coach Technical Review Sales Recruiting 293

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2024

Our revenue team went on to be the CROs of Brex, Rippling ,Gong, so many SaaS leaders, like 10 of them. “The universe slammed SaaS down at the beginning of 2020, then splashed it way up, then slammed it down again. ” “I regretted it almost every day until about a year ago,” Jason answered.

Marketing 284

Marketing AI SaaS Interviewing 284

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

They prioritize revenue growth, market share and profit maximization differently. Maximization (Revenue Growth) - maximize revenue growth in the short term. Many mid-market software companies price with the goal of revenue maximization, negotiating for the highest possible price in each sale.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2023

Some SaaS and Cloud leaders have seen big impacts from the post-2020 hangover, but others keep accelerating. 2 — New Workloads Are Only A Small Percentage Of Today’s Revenue, But Are The Majority Of Tomorrows. They milk the base, and the new customer account doesn’t remotely approach the new revenue growth rate. Revenue growth.

Revenue 245

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Cloud 245

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2025

When I talk to founders who launched in 2020 or 2021, I hear the same anxiety: “Are we already legacy?” VCs especially are obsessed with AI-native startups. New pitch decks without an AI strategy aren’t even making it past associates. The market has fundamentally shifted. They weren’t even founded last year.

AI Search 175

AI Search AI ChatGPT Innovation 175

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 9, 2022

In 2020, revenue growth was the most important factor explaining a public software company’s forward multiple. Net income has surged to the highest correlate of a public software company’s multiple surpassing revenue growth. Revenue growth diminishes to 0.61 The formula has changed since then.

Software 364

Software Revenue Metrics Sales 364

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

The last IPO of the 2020-2021 era was HashiCorp in December 2021. 4 Unexpected Learnings from Dave’s Scaling Journey The $30M Revenue Threshold : Companies that can reach $30M in revenue have typically found sufficient product-market fit to scale to $100M. And it’s one of the first to be acquired!

Scale 175

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 175

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 10, 2022

In fact, their revenue trajectories through 2020 are nearly identical. In 2016, each company recorded less than $50m in revenue. In two years, both would near $200m in revenue. They would both exceed $400m in 2020. Market Cap to Revenue Multiple. Red Company’s revenue explodes from $595m to $9.9b.

Startup 338

Startup Pricing Revenue Development 338

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2021

Over $500,000 revenue per employee. As a result, it’s quite profitable, with $150m in free cash flow in 2020. #2. But in contrast to Wix and Shopify, it doesn’t keep much of the revenue from merchant services itself. This ecommerce revenue was $143m in 2020, about 22% of total revenue.

Payment Methods 337

Payment Methods Merchant Services Payments Payment Services 337

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Revenue growth slowed in 2020 for the average public SaaS company — but accelerated for the largest ones. The average SMB SaaS company has $295k in revenue per employee, and $450k in the enterprise. The top SaaS companies are all at $400k+ in revenue per employee. ” #2. year-over-year.

Investment 311

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 311

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 14, 2020

Sam Jacobs created the Revenue Collective , a group of more than 1700 sales professionals at some of the fastest-growing companies. With chapters across the US, Revenue Collective has broad reach within the sales community. Recently, Revenue Collective surveyed its members about the impact of coronavirus on businesses.

Sales Hiring 334

Sales Hiring Sales Forecasting Travel 334

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Subscriptions can fuel payments and merchant revenue. It’s now bigger than Shopify’s SaaS revenue, by far: 3. Both Shopify and Zendesk have added rich enterprise offerings over time, but despite the larger ACVs of bigger customers, SMBs have kept up as a percent of revenue. It works for Zoom and Slack, too.

Payments 363

Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions Scale 363

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

Old Me, 2020 : It does feel that way. In 2020, that same business will be doing $300m ARR. Old Me, 2020 : There will be other options. Old Me, 2020: I hear you. Old Me 2020 : Indeed, that is stressful. But even if they do, as long as your customers remain happy, your revenue base will still compound.

Sales Recruiting 328

Sales Recruiting Cloud Retention Revenue 328

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2022

No, this SaaS Crash is so tough on VCs and public market investors because the market was just so, so high for Cloud stocks from mid-2020 to late 2021: You can see above in the BVP Nasdaq Cloud Index that while these are still Great Times in SaaS, they aren’t the crazy days that peaked around Thanksgiving 2021. But it’s OK. I really do.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Cloud Startup SaaS 364

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2025

Million Paying Users ARPU increased substantially from 2020 to 2023, and is up modestly again in 2024. #3. 43% of Revenue Outside Of U.S. More than 50% of HubSpot’s revenue is outside North America. ARPU Continues to Slowly Increase Across 18.2 And 43% of Dropbox’s is outside the U.S. #4.

AI Search 160

AI Search Scale B2B AI 160

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2021

Guidance 2020 $17.1B — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) August 25, 2020. It means it’s really, really hard to get revenues going. You close a customer for $120 in annualized revenue, you only get to recognize $10 of that a month. Tons of work, tiny revenues to start. Salesforce Growth: 2021 $20.8B 2014 $4.1B.

SaaS 329

SaaS Travel Churn Revenue 329

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 12, 2021

This chart shows the median and the 75th percentile of enterprise value/forward revenue multiple for the basket of public stocks which were public at that moment in time. Till 2020, the growth rates of the private market valuations and the public valuation multiples paralleled each other at the highest level. Correction Year.

SaaS 361

SaaS Cloud Enterprise Software 361

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. -. Amplitude’s revenue growth rate is in the top quartile for modern software companies at 49%. The company spent $47m in 2019 on sales and marketing, and $52m in 2020, an increase of $3m or 6%, while growing revenues 49%. The 2020 sales efficiency is 0.54. Gross Margin.

Metrics 294

Metrics Benchmarks PayPal Enterprise 294

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2021

49% revenue growth from 20% customer growth. Freshworks had about 44,000 customers on June 31, 2020 and now has 52,500 — 20% growth in customer count in a year. Freshservice on its own crossed $100m in ARR in December 2020. 62% of revenue from annual subscriptions. But ARR is growing 49%. #4.

Scale 361

Scale SMB Scaling Subscription 361

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

From Evite to AdBrite to ClearSlide, Jim has expanded new categories and scaled revenue teams from zero to tens of millions in SaaS revenue. 2020 pushed sales teams to learn new sales motions selling online. As Co-Founder of ClearSlide and later as CEO of Apollo, Jim helped create the Sales Engagement category.

Scale 348

Scale Scaling Metrics Revenue 348

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020. Now, how many people here have read Predictable Revenue? First, you get product market fit, then you create predictable revenue, and then you scale. So that every revenue increase is a big deal. I don’t think it’s going to add incremental revenue.”

Scale 263

Scale Outsourcing Services Revenue Outsourced Development 263

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 18, 2020

Most high-growth software investors value public companies on enterprise value to forward revenue multiple. But investors in private companies use a different metric, enterprise value to forward annual recurring revenue (ARR).The The public markets project revenue for the next 12 months. What conclusions could we draw?

Software Review 363

Software Review Finance Enterprise Acquisition 363

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. -. GitLab is the third fastest growing software company at IPO, registering 87% revenue growth in 2020, while charting 88% gross margins. Gross Margin. Sales Efficiency. -. Net Income Margin. Cash Flow from Operations Margin. Net Dollar Retention. Large Customer NDR. Customer Count.

Metrics 315

Metrics Outsourced Development Scale Cloud 315

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 26, 2022

The market values COIN, Coinbase’s stock, and UNI, Uniswap’s token at about 3x trailing 12-month revenues. As the market has corrected, so have the trailing 12-month revenues (TTM)/Market Cap multiples. Coinbase and Uniswap generate billions in revenue. Coinbase’s trailing revenue in Q1 2022 approached $7.5b

Benchmarks 309

Benchmarks Headcount Government Business Model 309

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2021

Google Cloud itself is predicting the Cloud will triple by 2026 or so , and reach $760B in spend in 2025, up from $290B in 2020 (note, I’m extrapolating a year or so from this chart and prediction, which itself is from IDC data): While Google is focused in particular on Cloud infrastructure, it really doesn’t matter.

Cloud 363

Cloud Revenue Product Marketing SaaS 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2020

— Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) December 7, 2020. Today, just 2 years after that, Hubspot in a very similar space (just more SMB) and with very similar revenue, is worth $18B. First product doesn’t work, no revenue for 3 years. 2013: first investment First product doesn’t work, no revenue for 3 years.

SaaS 280

SaaS SMB Cloud Revenue 280

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2020

TTM Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. At the time of IPO, Asana generates more revenue, $162M in revenue to Smartsheet’s $111M. Asana is also growing faster, 86% annual revenue growth vs. SmartSheet’s 66%. Asana generates about 2x the loss of SmartSheet as a percentage of revenue. SmartSheet.

Payment Solutions 363

Payment Solutions Payments Outsourced Development Payment Services 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2024

3,100 $100k+ Customers, Up From 973 in 2020. Down From 125%, But Still World Class 115% NRR, 30% revenue growth, and a 34% CAGR in $100k+ customers suggest a strong next 5+ years for Zscaler. Still, it’s still very efficient, and far more so than 2020-2022. And 567 $1m+ Customers. This is what the markets want.

Software Review 307

Software Review Cybersecurity Enterprise Scale 307

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

There was an 80% drop in employee engagement rates in 2020. So by creating relevant, purposeful, and project-appropriate IRL moments, you can build an inspired, more productive company that better drives revenue. This means getting the hybrid strategy right. Part of what makes IRL so valuable is the way it can influence engagement.

Strategy 244

Strategy Revenue Company Culture Engagement 244

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

But fast forward to today, and there have been dozens of SaaS and Cloud IPOs, and the top ones trade at very high “revenue multiples” The average multiple of revenue in the BVP Nasdaq Index of public SaaS and Cloud companies is 15x next year’s revenue: But averages are misleading. Iconic SaaS companies.

SaaS 343

SaaS Cloud Acquisition Revenue 343