Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 31, 2023

US VC investment falls from $275b in 2022 to $200b in 2023 & sustains at about $200-220b in 2024 as LP interest in venture attenuates after the euphoria in 2020 & 2021. The hangover from web3’s raucous 2022 extends into 2023. The fundraising market thaws, but at materially lower prices than the first half of 2022.

AI Search 224

AI Search AI Scale Headcount 224

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2023

As you can see below, while non-GAAP operating margins dipped in 2022, they came roaring back in 2023, with 20% free cash flow and a huge gain in operating margins. #3. Freezing Headcount is How They Got So Much More Efficient Again, a common story. Many that did are now re-hiring, from Monday to Salesforce and more.

Payment Services 247

Payment Services Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payments 247

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

Sam just finished 18 months at Founders Fund after joining in mid-to-late 2022. In 2021 and 2022, the money was a net negative, and what GTM organizations did was twofold. Do you have to double your headcount to make it from $10M to $20M or even $2M to $5M? When those outcomes are achieved, the hire gets their headcount.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 264

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 22, 2023

B2B companies have reduced headcount to a greater extent than at any time since 2020. The current wave of layoffs, a difficult component of the innovation boom/bust cycle, differs from the previous years’ dynamics. In the last three years, B2C startups’ ratio of layoffs have dwarfed B2B layoffs. In 2020, B2C companies cut 8.8x

B2C 276

B2C B2B Headcount Innovation 276

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

Download your full copy of the 2022 Customer Success Leadership Study here. Our expert panel offers their take on the trends, challenges and opportunities revealed in the 2022 Customer Success Leadership Study. . of respondents said their Customer Success teams are growing in 2022. report to the CEO, 17.1% However, 76.5%

Leadership 98

Leadership Trends Customer Success Investment 98

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2024

Until recently, founders would describe their growth rate by how fast they were growing their company headcount. What’s the #1 bit of advice you’d give to SaaS founders today? My advice is to keep the bar high. In addition, recent advancements in automation are making it possible to keep the bar higher for longer when scaling teams. #4.

Scale 216

Scale Headcount Travel B2B 216

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

Year Software Spending Growth 2022 10.7% AI Efficiency Gains +2% Headcount Reduction ? Headcount reductions in the last year, which impacted every company, should increase the pipeline coverage ratios for the remaining team members. Gartner projects an 8% increase in overall spend.

Headcount 180

Headcount Sales Hiring AI Cloud 180

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

Slowing headcount growth — like lots of others. Okta headcount grew 32% year-over-year, fairly consistent with revenue growth, but then Okta like others slowed down hiring. Okta is seeing higher SMB churn and more ROI scrutiny, but is also benefitting from some customers wanting to centralize on fewer core vendors.

Scale 288

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring SMB 288

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

From $11m in annual revenue in 2017 to $500m+ in 2022. Like many tech companies, Monday added a ton of headcount in 2021. It then added only 63 employees last quarter, and plans to continue with very slow headcount for a while. They’ve clearly pushed hard on efficiency and it’s working. #4.

Headcount 295

Headcount SMB Engineering Scaling 295

ChurnZero

MAY 17, 2022

WASHINGTON , May 17, 2022 — ChurnZero , a leading Customer Success platform, has earned multiple accolades from business and SaaS industry groups for its product innovation and industry leadership. The company plans on doubling its headcount in 2022. ChurnZero has quickly become one of Washington, D.C.’s

Marketplace as a Service 98

Marketplace as a Service Technical Review Headcount Software Review 98

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

By freezing headcount for a year. Mathematically, if you keep the headcount flat and continue growing 50% like Monday or 30% at $2B like Hubspot, you get wildly more efficient. But then 2022 hit, and things changed for some companies. Founders view 2022 as an anomaly, which is a mistake. How did they do that?

Sales Hiring 239

Sales Hiring Headcount Finance Technical Review 239

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Twilio is the same great company it was in 2022 and 2021, but it’s also been the segment where buyers have cut back perhaps the most. Headcount Down 25% Since September 2022, But Revenue Still Up. As a result, growth has radically slowed for the first time ever, to just 15% at $4 Billion in ARR. Go Global! #5.

Headcount 181

Headcount Cloud Communication Acquisition 181

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2022

Atlassian plans to double its headcount over the coming few years. — Jason 2022 SaaStr Annual Sep 13-15 Lemkin (@jasonlk) August 9, 2022. #5. And come join Atlassian’s CRO LIVE at 2022 SaaStr Annual on Sep 13-15 sharing how they scale their unique business model! The power of high NRR is demonstrated here.

Scale 236

Scale Headcount Cloud Business Model 236

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

For fiscal 2022, large customers represented 61% of total revenue compared to 54% of total revenue in 2021 and 46% in 2020… Overall NDR fell, but enterprise spending remains steady. The enterprise segment outgrew the company’s average growth rate by 8 percentage points.

Cloud 225

Cloud Azure Headcount Software Review 225

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

In theory, higher quotas should “pay” for specialization so in theory, and this wouldn’t impact headcount too much. link] — Jeff Richards (@jrichlive) June 30, 2022 Q: Dear SaaStr: If a VC Backs Out of a Signed Term Sheet, Should the Entrepreneur Spread the Word? SDRs, BDRs, SEs, etc. 75 yield = 30 sales professionals.

Scale 260

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 260

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 26, 2022

Coinbase’s trailing revenue in Q1 2022 approached $7.5b The difference is starkest in headcount: Coinbase employs more than 5,000 people while Uniswap counts fewer than 100. They move in synchrony with an R^2 of 0.79. Just how comparable are these businesses? Coinbase and Uniswap generate billions in revenue.

Benchmarks 264

Benchmarks Headcount Government Business Model 264

ChurnZero

JANUARY 11, 2024

Most company budgets that earmark dollars for customer success intend for it to go towards headcount. ChurnZero refers to that portion of the budget as the “non-headcount budget.” 2023 non-headcount customer success budgets as a percentage of revenue: Most non-headcount customer success budgets range from 0.08% of revenue to 0.2%

Headcount 52

Headcount SaaS Leadership Benchmarks 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin also wrote how Customer Success has now morphed into part of the sales team and that the 2024 trends in CS include everyone wanting to eliminate humans from support to replace that headcount with AI and bots. People did invest a lot in CSM, and in 2021 and 2022, the CSM population grew roughly 20%.

Sales Hiring 255

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale AI 255

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

Without headcount planning for the support team, the company’s response time and customer satisfaction scores dipped. With the growth of account management, Deel grew the business from 50 million ARR in December 2021 to 100 million ARR by the first quarter of 2022. Learnings from the growth stage Measure what you can.

Sales Hiring 240

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 240

SaaSOptics

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Shape up your Financial Operations Before 2022. In reality, one simple discipline can take your Financial Operations from good to great—with no additional cost or headcount. . Follow these 4 steps to shape up your Financial Operations before 2022. . The post Shape up your FinOps Before 2022 appeared first on SaaSOptics.

Point of Sale 60

Point of Sale Outsourced Development Headcount compliance 60

ChurnZero

MAY 17, 2022

WASHINGTON , May 17, 2022 — ChurnZero , a leading Customer Success platform, has earned multiple accolades from business and SaaS industry groups for its product innovation and industry leadership. The company plans on doubling its headcount in 2022. ChurnZero has quickly become one of Washington, D.C.’s

Marketplace as a Service 52

Marketplace as a Service Technical Review Headcount Software Review 52

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 6, 2023

That’s a big difference, especially when you layer in the growth in headcount from 2021 to 2022. Essentially companies grew headcount significantly to add less ARR. We’re obviously seeing the rightsizing of this now with headcount reductions. The second chart comes from the latest MS CIO survey (below).

Cloud 130

Cloud Headcount Subscription Payment Features 130

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

Powered by a modern business messenger , it scales your ability to answer more questions from more customers without increasing headcount, budget, or hours logged.

Technical Review 249

Technical Review Customer Support Payment Methods Payment Solutions 249

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

The Good News: It’s not Too Late for 2022 — but it’s close. With precise headcount and budget needs. When you think about this, you’ll usually see you’re already in the hole in terms of not having hired enough good sales reps for 2022. But that’s for suckers. I’ll Keep it Simple.

Sales Hiring 270

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Acquisition 270

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2023

A Look Back At 2022 Performance ICONIQ Growth leverages quarterly operating and financial data from 92 enterprise SaaS companies. It’s not a surprise or secret that 2022 was challenging, especially starting the year with 2021 growth expectations. It was a tough growth environment, but it feels like it’s changing in 2023.

Outsourcing Services 161

Outsourcing Services Scaling Venture Capital Forecasting 161

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

22 Things We Learned at SaaStr 2022. India’s founders were out in full force at SaaStr 2022. Three key themes emerged: SaaS continues to be a fertile ground despite the 2022 ‘SaaS-acre’. Most companies expect to miss 2022 targets but it is far from a doomsday. . For those that didn’t attend – we got you covered.

Scale 222

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 222

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 15, 2021

Where is Customer Success Headed in 2022? In this article, we share three Customer Success trends to look out for in 2022: NRR becomes red hot (watch out). The post Where Is Customer Success Headed in 2022? How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. Two ways,” said Mike. Gradually, then suddenly.”. appeared first on ChurnZero.

Customer Success 97

Customer Success Benchmarks Scale Underperforming Technical Team 97

IT World

JUNE 22, 2023

For US tech firms, 55% plan to add to their current headcount, up 10% from the previous quarterly outlook. Even so, Q3 hiring projections are expected to be about 5% less than for the same period in 2022.

Headcount 78

Headcount Management Marketing 78

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 13, 2022

SaaSco’s sales have slowed in the second half of 2022 selling to mid-sized enterprises. Companies with an equivalent commercial operation- sales headcount, marketing spend, and customer acquisition cost (CAC). Source: BenchmarkEngine™ 2022. Source: BenchmarkEngine™ 2022. SaaSco’s sales cycle is six to nine months. .

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Scale Headcount Software Review 52

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 26, 2022

And the key to business resilience in 2022? According to recent research from Asana , workers in 2022 are spending 58% of their time on “work about work”. Use automation to make your headcount count for more. In uncertain economic times, it’s even more important to build a strong, resilient business. Time savings: ????.

Payment Methods 118

Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments Payment Services 118

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

According to our 2022 Customer Success Leadership Study, CS teams are already underfunded and under-resourced. This is something that I’m doing with fractional headcount allocation. The pilot programs aren’t meant to be these big bells and whistles, not even after you launch an official full-time headcount on something.

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 98

Point Nine Land

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

A simple framework that might help you with your 2023 planning With only six weeks left in 2022, I’d like to share some thoughts that might be useful for founders as they start to think about their budgets and plans for 2023.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring Headcount Startup Churn 59

BetterCloud

JUNE 22, 2023

For example, during the roaring 2021/2022 IT investment boom, IT has more latitude to invest without the strong involvement of finance leadership. According to early 2023 CFO magazine research , 84% said they expect to be more involved in developing technology strategy than they were in 2022. Now, those days are gone.

Business 52

Business Operational efficiency. Finance Technical Review 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2023

I think a lot of folks are struggling with the ramifications of what happened in hiring from mid-2020 to early 2022: Almost everyone dramatically increased hiring. The hiring bar was often lowered. Compensation went way up.

Sales Hiring 48

Sales Hiring Headcount Compensation Sales 48

CustomerSuccessBox

DECEMBER 30, 2021

2021 has come to a close and we have a bright 2022 ahead for us. Most companies must have done annual planning and outlined a growth plan for 2022. 2) Customer Goals & KPIs for 2022. We see that a major focus for Customer Success in 2022 will be on advocacy and expansion. So how do we go about that?

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Finance Headcount Innovation 52

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 28, 2021

How do I structure a budget for headcount?”. In this article, Kristen Hayer , Founder and CEO of The Success League , shares the Customer Success budgeting strategies and models needed to build a compelling financial case and have more fruitful conversations with your Finance team about headcount. To 2022 and Beyond.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring Headcount Customer Success Outsourced Development 52

BetterCloud

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

It makes a lot of sense, as SaaS stacks just keep getting larger—up to an average of 130 apps in 2022. It’s now more critical than ever to equip your IT team with the platform they need to address and overcome these challenges— without adding headcount.

Headcount 52

Headcount Metrics Interviewing SaaS 52