Tom Tunguz

JUNE 8, 2025

An analysis of their investment patterns since 2020 doesn’t just reveal the accelerator’s strategy—it provides a map to the entire startup ecosystem’s next chapter. Similarly manufacturing startups have seized on the tariff-induced reshoring opportunity.

Investment 200

Investment Venture Capital Cybersecurity AI 200

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2024

What drives the acquisition market of startups? In 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021, these big mergers drove the figures into the tens of billions. X 2019 23.4% - 2020 61.1% It’s the big deals. In the last decade, the total number of venture backed software M&A by count has remained relatively constant. X 2021 43.8%

Acquisition 314

Acquisition Startup Venture Capital Software 314

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

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Most startups play defense when discussing pricing with customers. Startups operate in newer markets where pricing standards haven’t been set. But throughout this turmoil, startups must adopt a process to craft a good pricing strategy, and re-evaluate prices periodically, at least once per year. AWS, Twilio, Heroku, etc.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 19, 2020

In short, startups with shorter payback periods require less capital and also grow more quickly. In 2020, what is an excellent payback period[1]? 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.

Software 356

Software Acquisition Enterprise Startup 356

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2021

It can be hard to tell from the media and Twitter just what’s happening in SaaS and Cloud startups these days. We see hot earlier-stage startups out of top incubators getting funded at record valuations. So net net, a ton more capital went into later-stage deals, but often into startups that did even better during Covid.

Startup 347

Startup Cloud SaaS Data 347

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2020

Q: What was the biggest news in the venture capital world in 2020? We did a deep dive with many top VCs on the topic here: SaaStr New New Venture 2020. VCs who just a year ago were very biased in favor of SF-based startups … no longer care. The post 2020: When You Could Raise Millions Over Zoom. It’s not all that simple.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Investment Startup Branding 313

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: When Should a CEO Tell Startup Employees That The Company Is Going Under? It’s more common these days than in the past, given all the explosion of capital in 2020-2021 … into startups that aren’t going to make it. Everyone knows in a startup, even a big one. I almost did. But I never did.

Startup 307

Startup Interviewing 307

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2021

Q: What are the top startup lessons we learned during Covid? A few lessons that maybe weren’t new, but they we relearned in 2020-2021: Things always bounce back. When we did the SaaStr Summit: Bridging the Gap in April 2020, no one had any idea things in Cloud would bounce back so fast. Not the CEOs of Slack and Box.

Startup 271

Startup Cloud 271

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2021

So how will SaaS startup geographical distribution change after Covid? Pretty much what you'd expect, in terms of SaaS startup distribution in U.S. Or will California, in the end, still be 42% of SaaS startups and founders? The post 42% of SaaStr Annual Attendees Came from California Through 2020. 33% from outside.

Travel 284

Travel Innovation Startup SaaS 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

Q: What makes a startup a huge success? — Jeff Lawson (@jeffiel) February 6, 2020. The post What makes a startup a huge success? My definition of “success” has changed over time. Yours may well too: At first, just being part of something “successful” was enough. Just being part of a hot start-up working with great people.

Startup 283

Startup Enterprise SaaS Software 283

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Given the explosion in domain suffix permutations I wondered if startups' behavior had changed over the last decade. Down from 89% in 2007, the.com designation adorns the addresses of 64% of startups founded in 2020. ai means a startup is all about the future.AI Zoom is likely the most well recognized startup with a.us

Startup 323

Startup Business AI Trends 323

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2025

Is your B2B startup now part of the past … because it was founded before 2023? VCs especially are obsessed with AI-native startups. When I talk to founders who launched in 2020 or 2021, I hear the same anxiety: “Are we already legacy?” No one’s coming to save you. It’s not too late. We are early.

AI Search 180

AI Search AI ChatGPT Innovation 180

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 16, 2020

And what does that imply about your plans for 2020? Once the team establishes the company’s stance, they can determine the right financial plan for the rest of the year. Which quadrant is your company in today? Strategic triggers are essential complements to a plan, especially those around burn.

Startup 351

Startup Strategy Venture Capital Acquisition 351

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

However, what many businesses may overlook is the startup segment. Often, startups are lumped in with small businesses, yet this approach fails to recognize what motivates and attracts these early-stage companies. Why Seek Out Startups? How is it that you want to sell to startups differently than the rest of your customer base?”

Startup 271

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 271

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 18, 2022

For the next 3 years, Series Ds increased in size until the late 2019/early 2020 correction of 41%. Ds doubled in 18 months starting in 2016, and again doubled from $75m to $150m in 2020-2021 - so the growth has been steeper on the way up and that may suggest a more sudden correction on the other side of the peak.

Marketing 362

Marketing Startup Finance Technology 362

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2024

ARR, Zendesk today gets 14% of new business from startups. On top of that, if you look at their top accounts globally, 33 of the top 50 customers by ARR are startups. This is where they started, but startups weren’t adopting the product as much with a discount, and there was a lot of conflict with the sales team. A free term.

Startup 262

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team AWS 262

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

So Carta recently put together some dat a on a topic I’ve wondered about: just how many startups allow option exercises beyond the traditional 90 day window? The answer: the general trend is just over 10% of startups have extended windows beyond the traditional 90 days for departing employees to exercise stock options.

Startup 274

Startup Trends Data Compensation 274

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 242

Trends Venture Capital Scale PayPal 242

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2022

Q: Where is the best place to launch a B2B-startup in 2022? If you could choose any country or place to launch a B2B-startup which one would you choose? Where is the best place to launch a B2B startup — when almost all of us are now running distributed teams? At least, for some SaaS startups. That’s something.

Startup 245

Startup SaaS B2B Investment 245

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

The last IPO of the 2020-2021 era was HashiCorp in December 2021. The best leaders have experience with both startups and scale to navigate the in-between. The ideal leadership hire is someone who has seen both startups and scale. And it’s one of the first to be acquired! IBM just closed on its $6.4

Scale 180

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 180

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 2, 2021

Unlike equity-only startups, crypto startups maintain two capitalization tables. The first is the equity cap table, just the same as non-crypto startup. At IPO for a classic startup, equity allocation is the reverse. The second is the token cap table: who owns how many tokens. Insiders own 80%. Why this allocation?

Startup 228

Startup Trends Investment Scaling 228

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. Especially now. I really do.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Cloud Startup SaaS 364

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures’ data says while VC investment $$$ are on fire — they aren’t going into more startups. Revenue growth slowed in 2020 for the average public SaaS company — but accelerated for the largest ones. The growth in venture in 2020 was really all in Series D+ rounds. A few top takeaways: #1.

Investment 316

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 316

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2023

B2B companies have reduced headcount to a greater extent than at any time since 2020. In the last three years, B2C startups’ ratio of layoffs have dwarfed B2B layoffs. In 2020, B2C companies cut 8.8x the number of B2B employees. in 2021, & 6.9x Year-to-date in 2023, the figure is 1.6x, just 60% more.

B2C 321

B2C B2B Headcount Innovation 321

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

Joselyn Goldfein , Managing Director at Zeta Venture Partners, which invests in AI and data infrastructure-focused startups from inception through seed stage And see everyone at 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay!! ” Weavi Founded in 2020, they anticipated the growing importance of unstructured data and embeddings.

Technical Review 181

Technical Review Artificial Intelligence AI Marketplace as a Service 181

SaaStr

MARCH 21, 2023

With public market valuations down 70%+ from their peaks, for startups, that means going twice as far on each dollar. But a lot of startups that sell nice-to-have products, especially in sales, are deeply struggling right now. So many of the things we learned from mid-2020 to early 2022 … just don’t apply anymore.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital SaaS Startup Marketing 347

The Daily Egg

MAY 11, 2020

Copywriting has become one of the most in-demand skills of 2020. From startups to Fortune 500s and everything in between, copywriting can make or break the success of an organization. In fact, copywriting jobs can pay upwards of $100k per year. Every business can benefit from someone who writes great copy. The truth of […].

Startup 353

Startup Business 353

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 5, 2020

I was on a panel yesterday to speak about the impacts of the coronavirus on financial markets and startups. Startup Growth Rates. For startups, things will likely slow down. At least, that’s my key metric for startup health over the next few months. Later in the afternoon, I read the Sequoia black swan memo.

Sales Hiring 340

Sales Hiring Construction Travel Startup 340

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

Q: For a Saas startup, what is better: to bill clients annually or monthly? The post For a Saas startup, what is better: to bill clients annually or monthly? Bill and charge your customers the way they want to be charged. And copy the pricing patterns of similar apps they already use. Even SMBs today have now deployed 100+ SaaS apps.

Startup 215

Startup SaaS Pricing Enterprise 215

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

Despite the economic backdrop, startups continue to plow ahead. The late stage venture market is on pace to set a record in 2020. Through Q3 2020, late stage investors have invested as much as the entirety of 2019, and should things continue linearly we should expect the final tally to exceed $100B. Check check. Check on IPOs.

Venture Capital 353

Venture Capital Government Pricing Investment 353

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. Today, we’re answering the question: how do teams grow as a startup scales? The median startup with between 1-5M in ARR will have 12 engineers, 6 in sales and 3 in marketing.

Scale 363

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 363

Tom Tunguz

JULY 30, 2021

Startups are basking in the IPO market. They’ve raised 3x as much year-to-date in IPOs as all of 2020, which was a healthy market. The M&A market is not far behind; it’s on track to double 2020’s decade high of M&A value transacted. Just look at these numbers in the exit markets. See that blip in 2012?

Finance 336

Finance Startup Investment Marketing 336

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2020

While Team SaaStr was ready to put on the most-epic, in-person SaaStr Annual this year, 2020 might’ve had other plans for all of us in mind. We recently completed 3 digital-mega events and are taking our 2020 Annual completely virtual for Annual @ Home on Sept 2-3. After registering, submit your startup in the Meet A VC Program.

Startup 329

Startup Revenue 329

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 16, 2020

And what does that imply about your plans for 2020? Once the team establishes the company’s stance, they can determine the right financial plan for the rest of the year. Which quadrant is your company in today? Strategic triggers are essential complements to a plan, especially those around burn.

Startup 234

Startup Strategy Venture Capital Acquisition 234

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2022

Gartner, spending on SaaS: 2020: $120B 2021: $152B 2022: $177B 2023: $208B. Some of your customers in B2C and that are startups may be under pressure and cutting back. Worry less about a few tweets, more about the opportunity ahead, and here right now. Go sell something pic.twitter.com/TLzgbuQLnW. jasonlk) May 26, 2022.

Cloud 358

Cloud B2C SaaS Enterprise 358

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

2020-2021: VCs jealous of Decacorn founders that own so much more. The Rise of 1000 Unicorns and 100 Decacorns, combined with the overnight changes to fundraising processes from Covid, have radically changed venture capital: Tiger alone is deploying $100 billion , mostly into Cloud startups, and very quickly. With many more coming.

Venture Capital 336

Venture Capital Banking Cloud Startup 336