SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

The SMB sales team was incentivized purely on logo acquisition rather than revenue. Increasing Customer Gross Revenue Retention to 90 The third major focus area for Lindsey was improving the end-to-end customer experience to better align with the newly incentives sales team and larger focus on customer retention.

Revenue 293

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 293

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Driving revenue through acquisition, expansion, and retention. “Having highly tenured reps tends to drive the highest performance, and good managers are key to retention.” “Having highly tenured reps tends to drive the highest performance, and good managers are key to retention.” ” 3.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales 259

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 14, 2020

We continue our series of posts looking back through the Inside Intercom archive with a selection of some of our most popular posts on customer retention. Customer retention is the new conversion. Key takeaway: “Net dollar retention is the single defining characteristic of a successful business.

Retention 245

Retention Customer Lifetime Value Churn Acquisition 245

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

At BILL, logo retention is 86% in the first 90 days. How to Make an Acquired Second Act Work In 2021, BILL completed its acquisition of Divvy , a Leader in Spend Management for SMBs. acquisition. René wanted everything to fit together like a glove, but it was a big acquisition, with over 7,500 customers joining.

SMB 307

SMB Payment Services Payments Payment Methods 307

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

Be Transparent About Assumptions Every projection is based on assumptions—conversion rates, sales cycles, customer acquisition costs, etc. For example, “If our churn rate exceeds 10%, we’ll invest in a dedicated customer success team to improve retention.” Be upfront about these assumptions and explain why they’re reasonable.

Scale 207

Scale Sales Hiring Benchmarks Churn 207

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2025

With $110M in adjusted free cash flow this quarter alone, they’ve positioned themselves with significant capital to reinvest in growth opportunities, potentially including strategic acquisitions to expand their platform capabilities. This is what 12x ARR selling to SMBs++ looks like. 5 Interesting Learnings: 1.

Scale 179

Scale SMB Acquisition Enterprise 179

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2025

Customer Retention Excellence Both companies showcase impressive net dollar retention: HubSpot : 103.9% revenue retention Monday.com : 112% overall (116% for customers with $50k+ ARR, 117% for $100k+ ARR customers) These numbers reflect the sticky nature of their platforms and their continued ability to expand within existing accounts.

SMB 265

SMB Scale Education AI 265

SaaStr

JUNE 6, 2025

Customer Success Is Make-or-Break : With new customer acquisition becoming more challenging, retention and expansion within existing accounts becomes critical. Sales teams need to adjust forecasting models and pipeline management accordingly. The companies that thrive will be those that can grow their existing customer relationships.

Cloud 231

Cloud Software Marketing SaaS 231

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2025

Theyll focus on driving net revenue retention and building a scalable CS function. Marketing : Your VP of Marketing should be building out a team, including content marketing, paid acquisition, and events. Customer Success : As you approach $10M ARR, youll need a full CS team to handle onboarding, renewals, retention and upsells.

Sales Hiring 220

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Scale 220

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2023

“Retention is the new acquisition,” says Co-Founder and CEO of Insider, Hande Cilingir. Given the fact that customer acquisition costs are increasing sharply, the most efficient way to increase revenue base is getting it out of existing ones.” Customer retention means building relationships with people. That’s huge!

Retention 240

Retention Software Review Revenue Systems Review 240

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 23, 2022

Customer retention has never been more critical to business success than it is today. Shifting focus to customer retention can actually be twice as powerful as customer acquisition. Shifting focus to customer retention can actually be twice as powerful as customer acquisition. Let customer data drive your efforts.

Customer Support 211

Customer Support Retention Headcount Customer Lifetime Value 211

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 31, 2023

One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects? Look at different customer acquisition channels, how they are converting, and the expected lifetime value of customers acquired through those channels. What does the business do?

Metrics 390

Metrics Startup Scale New CTO 390

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2025

You might also shift from focusing solely on revenue to incorporating metrics like logo acquisition or customer retention. Quotas should be tied to metrics like pipeline coverage, opportunity-to-close rates, and historical data. For example, enterprise reps might have quotas based on both ARR and the number of new logos closed.

Scale 163

Scale B2B Benchmarks Sales 163

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2025

Focus on showing clear evidence of growth + efficiency, segment-specific excellence, and one truly scalable acquisition channel. Most importantly, make sure your historic trajectory supports your future projections.

Data 136

Data Acquisition AI Finance 136

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

The company developed a comprehensive framework for managing this transition: Key Components of the PLG Model User Acquisition Required scaling to tens of thousands of monthly signups Developed organic growth strategies through SEO Created individual pages for leads in their database User Activation and Retention Focus on immediate value delivery Implementation (..)

Scale 151

Scale Scaling Outsourced Development Sales 151

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

While the allure of customer acquisition can pull a founder’s attention, it’s equally important to dedicate resources to fighting churn and expanding revenue from existing customers. Key Takeaways Don’t start too late with a plan to fight churn –– be ready to start tracking and monitoring churn and understand why customers leave.

Retention 246

Retention Startup Revenue Sales Hiring 246

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

Dear SaaStr: As An Employee, As an acquired employee, How Do I Negotiate My Compensation in an Acquisition? They will likely get special retention packages that stretch out over 2-3+ years. The reality the golden handcuffs, the big retention packages, etc. Especially below the VP level. Right or wrong.

Compensation 183

Compensation Acquisition Sales Hiring Finance 183

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Just a quick reminder: Payback Period = Cost of Customer Acquisition/Gross Margin The gross margin is the revenue per customer minus the costs to provide the service. ” The company grew from $15M in ARR to more than $1B with this model, consistently achieving better than 130% net dollar retention.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

User Pilot

MARCH 30, 2025

But is your mobile user acquisition strategy strong enough? There are many ways to approach each, so lets go over nine of the most effective strategies for mobile user acquisition: 1. Integrate product-led growth in your acquisition strategy I said earlier that you shouldnt rely on your product alone to attract mobile users.

Mobile 65

Mobile Acquisition Software Review Social Media 65

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

Dan, a Stanford-trained engineer with experience guiding companies like Intuit, understands how to optimize your product metrics for growth by focusing on retention and building a product users truly value. While Product B may not attract as many new users, the ones it does acquire have high retention rates.

Metrics 105

Metrics Scale Acquisition Retention 105

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2025

Revenue Quality Score What It Is : Percentage of revenue that’s recurring, predictable, and expanding The Benchmark : 85%+ should be recurring with 110%+ net retention Why It Matters : Public investors pay premiums for predictability. at $47-55 range, priced at $40 Current Performance : +250.4%

B2B 184

B2B Marketing Scale Benchmarks 184

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2025

Net Dollar Retention >110% and GDR of >95%: The Power of Being a True Operating System ServiceTitans NRR consistently exceeds 110%, even with SMB-heavy customers. Larger customers bring higher ACVs, better retention, and more predictable revenue. Just above non-GAAP break-even (3% non-GAAP margins) 110% NRR and 95% GRR $10.5B

Payments 144

Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 144

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2022

PE firms in SaaS basically do three types of acquisitions: Mash you into a larger portfolio company. You can often roll over some of your equity into the combined company, but otherwise it’s a lot like a Big Tech Co acquisition really. You can even … lose your sense of purpose and self sometimes.

CTO 354

CTO Acquisition Cloud Scaling 354

SaaStr

AUGUST 20, 2020

Especially if you have happy customers and are growing: First, and more importantly, bear in mind good acquisition offers are rar e. Are you OK if the company you started is shut down 2 years after the acquisition? Decent priced acquisition offers tend, by their nature, to come for good start-ups. Maybe lower than you think.

Acquisition 335

Acquisition Banking Innovation Cloud 335

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

Founder-led sales provides invaluable dat a When founders sell the first $2-3M, they generate critical insights on customers, conversion rates, and retention that inform the GTM strategy. The first GTM hires are your most important Your initial sales team sets the culture and performance bar.

Sales Recruiting 214

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 214

SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2022

There’s been a run of incredible M&A, from Salesforce buying Slack for $27B, to Qualtrics’ $8b acquisition by SAP (and later IPO at $20b+), to Github’s $7.5b Unless there is a huge earn-out or retention payment tied to performance, the pressure is partially off. Some folks will prefer post-acquisition life.

Payment Solutions 349

Payment Solutions New CTO Payments Payment Services 349

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Free user acquisition. Free user retention. Stage 2: Prove free user retention. Stage 3: Prove scalable quality user acquisition. It’s time to reduce the customer acquisition cost by experimenting with content marketing and virality. As a result, your growth team gets limited to user acquisition.

Technical Review 284

Technical Review Technical Advisors Scale Compensation 284

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2020

Net Dollar Retention. Examining SaaS ratios, we see Asana charts lesser net dollar retention than SmartSheet. The inverse of this number, normalized for months, is the implied cost-of-customer acquisition payback period. SmartSheet. Sales Efficiency. Implied Payback Period, months. S&M Spend / Revenue.

Payment Solutions 363

Payment Solutions Payments Outsourced Development Payment Services 363

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

Nexus’ done-for-you approach to designing a custom web shop now comes pre-configured with FastSpring payments to make it easier than ever to launch a high-converting and compliant web shop that gives you increased margins, better user acquisition, and improved player retention.

Payments 157

Payments Merchant Services Payment Methods Payment Services 157

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Most of you are familiar with the customer life cycle, including customer acquisition, onboarding, adoption, cross-selling and upselling, and retention. . Wang weaves together the narrative of the customer life cycle and employee life cycle, where many common threads exist — customer acquisition is similar to talent acquisition.

Underperforming Technical Team 246

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Acquisition Company Culture 246

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2022

The Private Equity Math of 1+1=3 in SaaS Acquisitions. SaaStr 548: How to Build a Super High-Retention Sales Team with Twilio SVP & GM of North America Sales, Alice Katwan. Don’t Hire a VP of Sales Everybody Loves. Top Podcasts This Week: 1. Revenue Marketing: Build for Scale with Podium’s SVP, Revenue Marketing Jess Weimer.

Sales Hiring 293

Sales Hiring Revenue Scale SMB 293

SaaStr

JANUARY 22, 2021

A product-led growth strategy relies on the product itself as the primary vehicle for customer acquisition, conversion, retention, and expansion. Delivering immersive product experiences is the key to retention and growth. The growth team needs to focus on optimizing user acquisition and PQLs (Product Qualified Leads).

Scale 284

Scale New CTO CTO Acquisition 284

User Pilot

MAY 27, 2025

Which in-app behaviors correlate with long-term user retention? How to use it: Break the complete user journey into stages: Acquisition, Onboarding, Activation, and Retention. Assign trackable events to each stage, such as “Account Created,” during the acquisition stage. What features drive repeat usage ?

Mobile 96

Mobile Retention Payment Features Onboarding 96

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 10, 2024

Account executive to SDR ratios, sales cycle lengths, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime values, net dollar retention. Over the next two decades, we analyzed, quantified, instrumented, & optimized many aspects of the SaaS GTM. The new software GTM playbook has yet to be written.

Software 304

Software Sales Hiring Customer Lifetime Value Scale 304

SaaStr

APRIL 25, 2021

“Building Your Company’s Retention Strategy & Measurement with MongoDB” A session you have have missed with MongoDB’s director of retention marketing. #3. It’s great. Watch it. #2. “The 3 Secrets to Unlocking Revenue Through Customer Trust with GuideCX” #4.

Entertainment 293

Entertainment Cloud Acquisition Retention 293