SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

25x’d Revenue and Crossed $100M ARR Apollo.io, an all-in-one go-to-market platform, underwent a significant transformation in its business model that led to remarkable growth. From Sales-Led to Product-Led: How Apollo.io

Scale 158

Scale Scaling Outsourced Development Sales 158

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 31, 2023

What does the business do? One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects? Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) How much money will your business generate from each converted customer? How does it meet customers’ needs?

Metrics 390

Metrics Startup Scale New CTO 390

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

Billion acquisition of HashiCorp. After nearly two decades building infrastructure companies from zero to IPO, Dave has distilled the repeatable patterns of successful scaling into a framework that works across any B2B SaaS business. This specific threshold serves as a critical signal that your business model has legs.

Scale 176

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 176

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2025

billion after the failed $20B Adobe acquisition Genesys – AI-powered customer experience platform, confidentially filed October 2024. $21 Last valued at $12.5 21 billion 2021 valuation, $1.6B+ revenue Navan (formerly TripActions) – Corporate travel and expense management, confidentially filed June 2025.

Payments 176

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services AI 176

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2025

This suggests a profound competitive advantage for new entrants who design their entire business model around AI augmentation from day one. This suggests a mistake in not integrating acquisitions more aggressively from the beginning. Top 4 Mistakes Marc Made 1.

AI 240

AI Enterprise Scale Airlines 240

SaaStr

JULY 6, 2025

and strong unit economics … Figma’s IPO filing also reveals fascinating insights about the future of software creation, team collaboration, and platform business models. Beyond the obvious metrics of explosive revenue growth (48% YoY at almost $1B ARR!!) Here are the hidden gems: 1.

Software Review 150

Software Review Scale Systems Review Software Development 150

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Underrated: How great of a business model SaaS is. And realistically, cut off any potential M&A acquisitions deals for even hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, there aren’t that many acquisitions in general in SaaS, no matter how it looks on TechCrunch. 1,000+ Unicorns bloomed, hundreds of them in SaaS.

Acquisition 338

Acquisition Startup Business Model SaaS 338

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 13, 2018

You can spend months working on a great idea, pour tons of time and energy into crafting the perfect marketing, but without customers your business will cease to exist. All future growth hinges on one thing – customer acquisition. Hopefully this will give you some ideas on how to build sustainable growth for your business.

Acquisition 156

Acquisition Strategy SaaS Payments Content Marketing 156

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Companies successfully implementing PLG are seeing dramatically lower customer acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue. It’s a business model, an organizational framework, and ultimately, a path to building a more efficient, customer-centric company. Why PLG Matters More Than Ever First, let’s talk numbers.

Enterprise readiness 147

Enterprise readiness Enterprise compliance Acquisition 147

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2021

Because the (maybe semi-sad) thing for VCs is, only Unicorns make the business model work : Say you have a $200m VC fund (not that large, but basically our current fund, as an example). For VCs that manage a fund any bigger than $150m or so though (which is relatively small for a VC) — there really is only one way.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Acquisition Business Model Investment 363

Stax

JUNE 18, 2025

This increases conversions and ROI and lowers the customer acquisition cost. For example, small businesses in healthcare, food service, financial services, or construction often struggle to keep up with changing regulations, distinctive business models, and complex sales processes. Targeted marketing strategies.

Merchant Services 167

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments 167

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2025

The CEO who delegated AI strategy to someone who “really gets AI” discovered too late that AI strategy is business strategy. The companies winning with AI aren’t optimizing existing processes—they’re creating entirely new business models. And that there isn’t “stealth churn” in your base.

AI Search 168

AI Search AI Technical Review CTO Hire 168

Incredo

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Just look at customer acquisition vs retention statistics. Existing customers are 4-5x more likely to repurchase, refer your product and forgive your mistakes ( source ). What if I am starting out a business and don’t even have leads, not to mention SaaS customer acquisition strategy? What do you see? Of course not.

Acquisition 148

Acquisition Strategy Technical Review SaaS 148

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2025

Market Penetration Velocity What It Is : Rate of expansion within existing customer base + new logo acquisition The Benchmark : 40%+ of revenue growth from existing customers Why It Matters : Land and expand models create natural moats. Rubrik’s success reflects strong expansion within existing enterprise accounts.

B2B 174

B2B Marketing Scale Benchmarks 174

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2022

The Sword: a product-led growth business. Every successful business you admire—Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, et al.—was was built on a solid, profitable business model. Its economic model needed to capture the entire market, which leads to the second piece of the Conan Economics puzzle. Nothing else matters.

Scale 296

Scale Marketplace as a Service Advertising Business Model 296

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2020

Today, the company is a massively successful SaaS business and another example of the flywheel business model that creates demand at the individual user and leverages that interest to sell department and company-wide contracts. Asana competes with SmartSheet, another publicly traded productivity company.

Payment Solutions 363

Payment Solutions Payments Outsourced Development Payment Services 363

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

There’s a little bit of work to do still, but you know, tonight the title of my talk is how to make user acquisition practically free. I want to talk about how we got to the business model that we have at Lambda School because it’s one of the things that separates us from other schools. They needed something now.

Acquisition 163

Acquisition Software Review Payment Methods Marketplace as a Service 163

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Adopting a lower price point may increase sales velocity, create lots of demand, and keep sales teams happy, but if the price point doesn’t generate enough gross margin to achieve reasonably quick payback periods, and the business suffers from an increase in churn, the company is in trouble.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

The current business model for software companies involves spending a significant portion of revenue on sales, regardless of available tools and automation. Marketers should focus on the acquisition channels they’re best at, even if it’s not the perfect fit for the situation.

Sales Hiring 290

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 290

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2022

by Adobe — the largest private acquisition in SaaS ever, and maybe startups ever — it doesn’t really have to disclose any information itself, and Adobe only has to disclose limited information for now (it will share more later). This is a good business model! So we can only learn so much about Figma.

Cloud 58

Cloud Business Model Engineering Acquisition 58

Incredo

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Just look at customer acquisition vs retention statistics. Existing customers are 4-5x more likely to repurchase, refer your product and forgive your mistakes ( source ). What if I am starting out a business and don’t even have leads, not to mention SaaS customer acquisition strategy? What do you see? Of course not.

Acquisition 134

Acquisition Strategy Technical Review SaaS 134

Clouded Judgement

JULY 16, 2024

” How OneStream Makes Money From the S-1: “Our business model centers on maximizing the lifetime value of a customer relationship. Our cloud-based platform enables a modern and expanded approach to finance and EPM, which is sometimes also referred to as corporate performance management, or CPM. months and 23.4

Benchmarks 295

Benchmarks Data Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 295

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2021

It’s been great to have the CEOs of Qualtrics join us multiple times over the years, as it scaled from a late-stage startup to IPO to $8B+ acquisition. 2 Category-defining products require new business models. Businesses often build something powerful but don’t create the proper value package, and it fails in the market.

Scale 245

Scale Scaling Business Model Company Culture 245

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Historically, the business model has been to sell radio ads, and the people running the ads are typically local businesses. The problem is that when a BDR called these businesses, the person on the other end didn’t have the budget or know-how to create an effective ad.

Cloud 158

Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence Healthcare 158

User Pilot

AUGUST 31, 2023

What is customer acquisition for SaaS, and how can you leverage it to drive sustainable growth ? The purpose of customer acquisition is to expand and make more revenue. Customer acquisition funnel stages in SaaS are Awareness, Consideration, Evaluation, Conversion. What is customer acquisition?

Acquisition 110

Acquisition SaaS Payments Payment Methods Metrics 110

Baremetrics

AUGUST 1, 2021

Acquiring customers for SaaS is a completely different ball game altogether than, say, for the traditional business models (think: eCommerce, for instance). In the SaaS industry, acquiring new leads through short-term marketing promotions will not cut it--which works as a killer strategy for the eCommerce business model.

Acquisition 98

Acquisition Strategy SaaS Underperforming Technical Team 98

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2022

Acquisitions don’t happen out of the blue. Of course I kept some secrets but I shared how our business model really worked, including the nonobvious parts. Well, first off — you can’t. Not without engaging. They almost always take time. In my first start-up as a co-founder, it was a multi-year process.

Acquisition 256

Acquisition Business Model Metrics Engagement 256

User Pilot

JULY 30, 2023

Customer retention vs acquisition cost: Which metric matters more? Thus, striking the right balance between acquisition and retention costs significantly improves profitability and sustainability. TL;DR Customer acquisition is the process of attracting and converting prospective users into paying customers.

Acquisition 98

Acquisition Retention Customer Lifetime Value User Experience 98

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 13, 2024

A $1B Acquisition with a Singular Leader for Both Sales and Customer Success In 2017, tech leader Vikas Bhambry found himself at a crossroads. Seamless customer journey Owning the entire customer lifecycle from acquisition to retention eliminated disconnects between pre- and post-sales teams. Lets get into it.

Scale 106

Scale Sales Hiring Acquisition Customer Success 106

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

You Need A Business Model with Economies of Scale As you’re trying to reverse engineer whether your business model makes sense, you have to look at your business model. Certain business models have economies of scale, and some don’t. So, what does it take to get to a $100M outcome?

Engineering 290

Engineering Business Model Pricing Scaling 290

ProfitWell

MAY 21, 2020

Customer acquisition vs. customer retention—which one is better? Nevertheless, many companies focus the majority of their time and resources on acquisition. In reality, though, retention offers a much higher ROI on advertising spend for certain business models—and is often much more cost-effective than its counterpart.

Acquisition 98

Acquisition Retention Advertising Customer Lifetime Value 98

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

While both Hiten and I are big proponents of freemium, it’s definitely not the easiest business model to work with if you don’t understand how to make it work. Freemium is an acquisition model, not a revenue model. And there’s no other model that will get you those customers faster than freemium.”

Acquisition 99

Acquisition Revenue Scale Retention 99

Incredo

JUNE 25, 2019

Freemium business model is when you give your product to the users for $0, provide them with the basic value of your product for unlimited time but at the same time encourage them to become a paying customer in order to have access to more advanced features. Note that freemium model ? And so does the freemium pricing model.

SaaS 236

SaaS Pricing Software Review Acquisition 236

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

With the Salesforce IPO in 2004, we saw the first sign that institutional investors were comfortable with a standard set of SaaS metrics: Churn, sales efficiency , ARPU, LTV, customer acquisition cost , and so on. . Salesforce’s IPO is also seen as a test of a new business model that could shake up the software industry.

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Scale 291

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2022

As soon as you have a repeatable methodology around customer acquisition. Determine how much business each CSM can handle. However, your business model will dictate how large the book of business is for each CSM. When should you start customer success? This is where most companies get hung up.

Customer Success 246

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Leadership 246

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 3, 2019

The customer acquisition cost can help you create, measure, and improve a business model that will put your business on the path to profitability. You’re starting a new business. How about your business model ? What is the Customer Acquisition Cost? CAC stands for customer acquisition cost.

Acquisition 91

Acquisition Underperforming Technical Team Startup Customer Lifetime Value 91

SaaSOptics

APRIL 7, 2022

” Or, as Openview Partners defines it, “ product-led growth is an end user-focused growth model that relies on the product itself as the primary driver of customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion.” A freemium business model allows companies to build up a large initial user base at no additional costs.

Business Model 74

Business Model Payment Features Business SaaS 74