SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

With precise headcount and budget needs. Third, build a real marketing / customer acquisition / demand gen budget for next year — and figure out how to start it in Q4 … and how to fund it. I’ll Keep it Simple. How many reps. How many SDRs. How many MQLs, how big a marketing budget, and how many in marketing.

Sales Hiring 267

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Acquisition 267

ChurnZero

JULY 14, 2021

This metric helps determine which customers are your most profitable and can be useful both pre-sale to focus on acquiring highly valuable customers but then also post-sale to make sure your Customer Success team is able to focus their efforts on retaining your customers with the strongest lifetime value.

Customer Lifetime Value 98

Customer Lifetime Value Scale Headcount Churn 98

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

Therefore the key drivers of my imaginary startup are organic growth rate, marketing budget and customer acquisition costs, conversion rate, ARPU and churn rate. If you have a SaaS startup with a higher-touch sales model where revenue growth is largely driven by sales headcount, the plan needs to be modified accordingly.

SaaS Payments 217

SaaS Payments Headcount SaaS Payment Methods 217

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

Like OpenView’s coverage of SaaS metrics and benchmarks? This new way of thinking about R&D spend also requires companies to rethink the relevance of classic SaaS metrics like CAC payback, which only consider Sales and Marketing costs as part of customer acquisition.). Atlassian has an R&D:S&M ratio of 2.9:1.

Scale 98

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Benchmarks 98

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

The intention of the acquisition is to integrate Baremetrics and Flightpath to bring you an end-to-end financial data tool. We can improve our forecasting tools and provide better metrics on expense data. The acquisition of dedicated financial modelling software will allow users to turbo charge their forecasting. We listened.

Finance 96

Finance Outsourced Development Sales Hiring Forecasting 96

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2019

Actual GAAP revenue, real recognized revenue is, has, and always will be, your primary metric. With precise headcount and budget needs. Third, build a real marketing / customer acquisition / demand gen budget for next year — and figure out how to start it in Q4 … and how to fund it. But that’s for suckers. How many reps.

Sales Hiring 182

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Revenue 182

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

You’re investing resources in hiring and training the right people, tracking different metrics at different stages, adding more and more complexity with each increase in headcount, use cases, and customers. I moved there for university, and then I started working at Goldman Sachs in their mergers and acquisitions team.

Scale 206

Scale Outsourcing Services Software Sales Hiring 206

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 13, 2022

Companies with an equivalent commercial operation- sales headcount, marketing spend, and customer acquisition cost (CAC). For SaaSco, this may mean comparing their sales headcount to other enterprises IT vendors selling a similar average contract value. Companies at a similar stage of growth and maturity.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Scale Headcount Software Review 52

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 23, 2022

The first slide is focused on the ARR leaky bucket, metrics derived from ARR, and ARR-related product.ivity measures. Slide 1: The Leaky Bucket of ARR and Related Metrics. Not to be confused with cash conversion score which is defined as an inception-to-date metric, not a period metric. Expansion ARR as % of new ARR.

Technical Review 116

Technical Review Software Review Forecasting Churn 116

Sixteen Ventures

APRIL 26, 2023

When NRR is going up, it’s a great metric that everyone wants to talk about. NRR is a Vanity Metric” 2Q23: “NRR is tanking” “I’m SO over NRR” NRR is a Lagging Indicator Some people are derisively calling NRR a lagging indicator. Also called Net Dollar Retention or NDR. 3Q22: (and for years before): “NRR is your North Star!”

Headcount 43

Headcount Churn Retention Metrics 43

Sales Hacker

JULY 22, 2021

What people often get wrong about SLAs is that they focus too much on marketing and sales metrics which are not connected in any way. Lead demand, conversion rates – these are all metrics tracked by every company. But to make the SLA symmetrical, you need to use qualitative metrics on the sales side as well. Time to close.

Scale 110

Scale Sales Marketing Metrics 110

Sales Hacker

JUNE 16, 2022

Even if you don’t control the headcount and even if layoffs come later, help them find a new role. Is your technology helping keep your whole revenue team in sync on goals and metrics? What are the metrics you look at? Make them feel safe. Have their back (and tell them you do). Encourage them to go above and beyond.

Scale 93

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 93

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

In any funding round, there are metrics you just can’t miss. Cost of Customer Acquisition / monthly gross profit) strictly goes up with every round raised. Based on our data, a good rule of thumb is to double your headcount between rounds starting with 10 FTEs at your seed round. The non-negotiables. CAC Payback (i.e.

Headcount 55

Headcount Benchmarks Banking Retention 55

CustomerSuccessBox

MARCH 9, 2022

In the glorious business of the SaaS space, one underlying truth that determines the growth and scaling of the business is that it takes several months to recover the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and get to the profitable zone at a unit economics level. In a nutshell, CRMs focus on the transaction stage of a customer relationship.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value Outsourced Development 52

OpenView Labs

MARCH 10, 2019

Over this time, our headcount has grown by over 10x, and our revenue has grown by over 60x. Focusing on Customer Success from the very early days of Typeform has been instrumental in improving both retention and acquisition, and has played an important role in our overall achievements. North Star metric.

Scale 69

Scale Customer Success Scaling Sales Hiring 69

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

Those line charts showing fast-rising user acquisition or explosive ARR have been synonymous with the industry over the past decade. Growth is arguably the most defining and sought-after trait of technology companies. However, growth is seldom linear, as is all too clear in the current economic climate.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2024

Customer acquisition. One thing about moving away from paid acquisition to higher quality revenue is it requires a re-emphasis and reinvestment into free. The two of them together own their metrics, and on free, it’s 100% MAU. A piece of tactical advice from Adam is to have fewer metrics, not more. It’s a pain.

AI Search 227

AI Search SaaS Advertising Sales Hiring 227

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 29, 2018

Traditional Sales Organizations – Growth of headcount in sales was structured around revenue per individual contributor (IC). CASE IN POINT: Acquisition needs: To grow revenue annually, SDRs need to find business for AEs who attain clients , commitment and help them on-board to the point they can use the service.

Sales Recruiting 75

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Sales 75

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2020

As for Sam, prior to Loom, Sam spent over 4 years at Salesforce following their acquisition of Quip, a startup Salesforce acquired for $750M where Sam was also the 1st sales leader. She kicked my butt in every metric you could possibly imagine. How do you get a distributed workforce unified on the mission, the message, the metrics?

Scale 171

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 171

OPEXEngine

JANUARY 5, 2021

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a key SaaS metric that accounts for how much it costs your company to procure each new customer. However, this metric calls for discerning judgment. The post Why a Low Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Isn’t Always a Good Benchmark appeared first on OPEXEngine.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Acquisition Customer Lifetime Value Scale 52

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

As investors, we keep a close eye on customer acquisition cost (CAC) payback. This metric represents how long it takes, in months, to pay off the costs of acquiring a given customer on a gross margin basis. We use it as an indicator that a company has the right fundamentals in place to effectively ramp up customer acquisition.

Headcount 73

Headcount SaaS Compensation Acquisition 73

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 3, 2021

” I think the “Sure thing boss, give me more headcount” is obvious. If you’re a SaaS company, that could be new customer acquisition, it could be an expansion or even reduce contraction, reduce churn. Headcount and salaries and comp and all that kind of stuff. That’s one category.

Strategy 228

Strategy Software Review Development Team Review Sales Recruiting 228

SmartKarrot

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

Compare this figure with the acquisition cost and document the loss in ROI due to early churn. Compare the cost of acquisition (which would be much higher) with that of investing in building brand advocates. Upsell limitations: Calculate the bucket size of customers who qualify for upgrades or account expansion. Quantify outcomes.

Outsourcing Services 10

Outsourcing Services Customer Success Technical Review Business 10

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 25, 2019

Given that the primary metric we measure growth in is revenue, it follows that sales feels growth more acutely than almost any other function. To create a lean, mean working machine, it’s important to establish healthy metrics for tracking success, like time spent on high-value activities. Each approach exercises a different muscle.

Scale 136

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 136

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

But Tara Bryant, SVP of Sales at Pipedrive, thinks this is a mistake if you don’t have the right processes, systems, and metrics in place first. When I started, they had a big growth plan as far as headcount, but they were a little bit looser on processes and cadences and things like that framework I was talking about.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Payment Services 172

Brian Balfour

JANUARY 4, 2017

I recently wrote about the most common mistakes with CAC (customer acquisition cost) that can derail growth efforts before you even get started because CAC is a metric that's foundational to growth strategy. Making CAC truly useful as an operating metric comes down to segmenting. Facebook for example has oCPM, oCPC, oCPA, etc.

Scale 71

Scale Marketplace as a Service Acquisition Content Marketing 71

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 5, 2019

“You have to be there almost instantaneously and responding” Dan: That’s why – we were talking about metrics a little earlier – we manage speed to lead. ” It’s such a key metric. Could you give us an overview of a few levers that you guys are pulling to drive growth outside of growing headcount?

Scale 139

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Trends 139

Chart Mogul

DECEMBER 22, 2021

And we know how important it is for you to be able to track your metrics on the move. They also have a VC feature that lets you track metrics for multiple ChartMogul accounts at once. Exclusion of transaction fees from metrics — added the ability to exclude transaction fees from your MRR and cash flow calculations.

Software Review 52

Software Review Systems Review Payment Features PayPal 52

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

That company, of course, is Slack, and Rachel’s growth marketing team now owns Slack’s full acquisition funnel, from demand generation and team creation to activation and monetization. But, it’s high enough that it actually screens out a lot of teams of people who have said, “I don’t really know what Slack is.

Growth Marketing 174

Growth Marketing Scale Marketing Outsourcing Services 174

Sales Hacker

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

The goal of the account selection process is to optimize your sales and marketing resources — time, headcount, and budget — by focusing on the accounts most likely to drive big revenue. Behavioral data also includes: Activity metrics and Interaction with your content (eBooks, webinars, whitepapers, etc.). Job postings.

Underperforming Technical Team 58

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Data Development Team Review 58

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2020

” Now we have to look to a different metric. We have to look at different metric than just quota attainment. inaudible 00:32:31] Some cuts, in this case, the company with 50 AEs, you drop 20 headcount, and then you’re 30. Tableau is an acquisition that Salesforce made a year ago or so. Adnan Chaudhry: Sure.

Sales Hiring 158

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services 158

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

JULY 24, 2018

The number of employees when things get particularly troublesome are three, 10, 30, 100, 300 and 1,000 - before company headcount hits these milestones you’ll need to rethink how you operate. These metrics immediately give insight into the health and likely success of a SaaS business. Retention trumps acquisition.

SaaS Payments 131

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Payment Services Business 131

Kellblog

JANUARY 2, 2024

PE software acquisitions were at roughly pre-pandemic levels in the first three quarters of 2023, though still well below 2021 and 2022 highs. Customer retention came into sharp focus in 2023 and with it a new, balanced view relying on both NRR and GRR as key retention metrics. Expect more of this activity in 2024. That’s the point.

AI Search 109

AI Search Technical Review Technical Advisors ChatGPT 109