SaaStr

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

The SaaS sales model seems so well-established, as hundreds of founders build their businesses and raise funding. Mark Roberge, Founder of Stage 2 Capital and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, shares insights from his years of experience into common SaaS sales missteps and how you can avoid them.

Sales Hiring 180

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 180

CloudGeometry

MARCH 3, 2022

When developing a SaaS product plan, it’s important to recognize two foundational principles. First, SaaS is a business strategy, not a technology strategy. Second, there is no one-size-fits-all SaaS architecture (the second principle is a corollary of the first). So why put it on our shortlist? More on that below.

Well Architected Framework 130

Well Architected Framework VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) SaaS Cloud 130

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Negative churn is an incredibly attractive characteristic of a SaaS company because it means that customer accounts are like high-yield savings accounts. This is a powerful effect and can fuel SaaS companies to huge success, as we saw in New Relic’s S-1. Contrast this with a company which has achieved 5% negative churn.

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Churn AWS Startup Revenue 103

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2019

Xero is one of those SaaS companies most of us have heard of and know is a big success and sort of know about, but, not really ??. Churn is 1.1% Most of the companies in this 5 Interesting Things Series have had net negative churn from SMBs (e.g., Xero’s SMB churn isn’t zero. subscribers. But it’s low.

SMB 211

SMB Customer Lifetime Value AWS Churn 211

ChurnZero

MARCH 31, 2022

Did you catch our Customer Success and SaaS metrics crash-course webinar with leading SaaS expert Dave Kellogg, of Dave Kellogg Consulting ? We’d like to extend a huge thanks to Dave for his expert insights below, which will help you choose and use Customer Success and SaaS metrics in a more nuanced and purposeful way.

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Customer Success Metrics Technical Review Scale 98

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2020

It’s 2020 and SaaS buyers are more skeptical and suspicious, more disbelieving, more unconvinced than they were in 2019. The SaaS Trust Crisis is making it harder to market and sell software and services than ever before. And what I’d like to talk to you about today is the SaaS Trust crisis we’re seeing.

Software Review 178

Software Review Scale Technical Review SaaS 178

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

But they are often just awful managers. This means more employee churn, friction, drama than you need. Especially in SaaS. Because SaaS is so cross-functional. Because they don’t know it’s impossible. Or at least, far worse than they are the second time.

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Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting AWS Churn 277

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Moving from a traditional SaaS to a pure consumption model was a challenging but fun transition for MongoDB. Then, we moved to a more customer-friendly model with SaaS and subscription-based pricing. There are still some complexities around SaaS-based approaches. At a recent Workshop Wednesday, held every Wednesday at 10 a.m,

Compensation 164

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 164

Chart Mogul

JUNE 23, 2022

“May you live in interesting times” is a rough translation of a traditional Chinese proverb that is bearing more meaning today than ever in the history of SaaS. After a brilliant run up to 2022, SaaS valuations got hammered in the public markets lately. SaaS startup growth has taken a hit as well as we noted.

SaaS 52

SaaS DevOps as a Service Marketplace as a Service Forecasting 52

The Angel VC

MAY 12, 2018

In last week's post I shared some thoughts about Dropbox and why, although Dropbox is unquestionably one of the most amazing SaaS companies ever built, I am a tad less confident in the company's long-term future than I am in other SaaS leaders such as Salesforce.com, Zendesk, or Shopify. 8 – Weaning off AWS Look at this.

AWS 187

AWS Scale Subscription Payment Features 187

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

The SaaS industry is growing fast, but if you want to be one of the companies contributing to that trend, you'll need to know the secrets of successful SaaS businesses. In this post, we'll lay out a SaaS growth blueprint. In this post, we'll lay out a SaaS growth blueprint. SaaS growth is looking strong.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66

User Pilot

MAY 10, 2023

Amazon grants its AWS customers access to its recommendation engine to help them personalize their user experience. Using this tool, Amazon AWS users can now offer up to 50% better recommendations to their website visitors, email marketing lists, and more, thus improving the customer experience and their conversion/click-through rates.

Artificial Intelligence 90

Artificial Intelligence AI Search AI Machine Learning 90

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

The good news is gross retention (ie churn) stayed constant. The hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are seeing some uptick, but this is largely from selling compute (ie cloud GPUs). The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. However, it’s not showing up in the data yet.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

ProfitWell

MAY 15, 2020

The SaaS model continues to gain traction. If you haven’t transitioned to SaaS yet, I promise moving to a cloud-based computing system sounds more complicated than it actually is. There are many different cloud-based models for storing data, but this article is focused directly on SaaS. What is SaaS? Cheaper upfront.

SaaS Payments 75

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 75

Blulogix

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Reduced Churn Customers are more likely to stay with a service that provides them with the exact value they need, no more and no less. Reduced churn is a natural outcome of usage-based pricing. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Many SaaS providers have adopted usage-based models, allowing customers to pay per user or feature.

Technology 52

Technology Pricing Payment Features Subscription 52

OpenView Labs

MARCH 4, 2021

The company struggled with poor churn and anemic expansion revenue. Net revenue retention was near 70%, a far cry from the 100%+ that most SaaS companies aim to achieve. It’s no wonder that public SaaS companies with the strongest net revenue retention are disproportionately likely to employ usage-based pricing.

Pricing 55

Pricing Outsourced Development Marketplace as a Service AWS 55

ChurnZero

AUGUST 11, 2020

This is a guest blog post by Anita Toth, Chief Churn Crusher. . Did you know that 60% of SaaS companies reported a negative impact on customer retention and upsell deals due to the pandemic? This article shares three successful approaches B2B SaaS companies took to retain customers in the first wave. This is shocking.

Retention 97

Retention Strategy Underperforming Technical Team Software Review 97

Baremetrics

MARCH 30, 2021

Baremetrics integrates with Chargebee and Chargify to help growing SaaS & subscription driven-businesses with accurate metrics. Their integration to SF is also quite awful, and most of the time, the data does not appear. Get deep insights into MRR, churn, LTV and more to grow your business. Try Baremetrics Free.

Payment Solutions 105

Payment Solutions Payments Payment Features Payment Methods 105

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2024

A lot of you reading SaaStr are probably more B2B SaaS oriented and may not be paying attention to the consumer market, but it’s already massive and is continuing to grow quickly. So, let’s look at the state of subscription apps and how B2B SaaS can learn from it. You can tune into Workshop Wednesday every single Wednesday at 10 a.m.

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Subscription Payment Features B2B Mobile 251

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2019

It was around that time about 12 years ago that Jeff Bezos launched AWS, and some of you may remember that, when he did this, Wall Street analysts were looking at him and saying, “Why would you take what’s already a very unprofitable business and drive it further into the red by investing in this AWS initiative?”

Cloud 100

Cloud Scale AWS Machine Learning 100

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What’s the Harder Part About SaaS Companies, At Each Stage? Most SaaS products are inexpensive. Enough to pay some salaries and AWS bills, but it’s not that much. And human churn. At $1B+ ARR, the hardest part is you have to be so Multi-Product that you are really running 2-5 SaaS companies.

SaaS 348

SaaS Headcount AWS Churn 348

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

Many SaaS companies have made a shift toward relying on a variable pricing component for the majority of their revenue. 62% of SaaS companies have variable pricing that accounts for product usage such as number of seats, infrastructure load, etc. How do we square this focus on revenue with the realities of churn and contraction?

Customer Success 43

Customer Success Revenue AWS Retention 43

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

So the first question is what made SaaS so successful. If you kind of that question, thinking about the stakeholders and the decisions and companies of using SaaS products, there’s kind of three types. Customers love SaaS products and tools because it simply works. Why do developers love SaaS products? Why is that?

SaaS Payments 227

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 227

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 13, 2019

We’ve published over 250 articles in 2019 and we’re proud to have contributors who provide our community with key insights and takeaways in the SaaS industry. 2019 Expansion SaaS Benchmarks. Our 2019 Expansion SaaS Benchmarks Report is live! SaaS is now ubiquitous. The Ultimate Guide to SaaS Product Management.

Sales Hiring 52

Sales Hiring Benchmarks AWS Scale 52

Chart Mogul

FEBRUARY 19, 2018

There are many use cases for sending data from Segment to ChartMogul, such as: Pushing product usage data to ChartMogul to understand the impact of specific feature usage on churn rate. Before you get started with this integration, you’ll need: An Amazon Web Services (AWS) account. Prerequisites. An Xplenty account.

Data 58

Data Churn AWS Data Integration Services 58

Chargify

AUGUST 17, 2020

However, with the introduction of Events-Based Billing by Chargify, this event-based billing model is now available to small and medium-sized businesses, giving them the ability to offer the same pricing models and bill customers just as precisely as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or the popular voice and messaging platform Twilio.

AWS 98

AWS Payment Services SaaS Payments Payments 98

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2022

Most SaaS products are inexpensive. Enough to pay some salaries and AWS bills, but it’s not that much. And human churn. The post Dear SaaStr: What is the Hardest Part About Starting a SaaS Company? The hardest part changes every 12–24 months. Not enough to pay even a single salary. So much work, so little revenue.

Headcount 212

Headcount AWS SaaS Churn 212

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Related read: Freemium vs. Free Trial: How to Know Which One to Pick for Your SaaS Startup. Offering free usage is par for the course as a SaaS customer acquisition strategy. It’s logical, therefore, that spoilage is a leading indicator of churn. The signature of such compressions is that they are short term.

Scale 52

Scale Payment Methods Payment Services Systems Review 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2020

And then, we ripped it out and Aaron went and talked to some of the top SaaS companies from today and added the case studies. Maria is one of the top SaaS leaders in marketing, just finished up the CMO Vanna plan, which IPOed. This is the best of times in SaaS, right? We wrote a book together. Aaron : Yeah. Maria : Yeah.

Sales Hiring 204

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Recruiting 204

SmartKarrot

JANUARY 18, 2021

Many entrepreneurs have joined the bandwagon of SaaS industry, but they are yet to realize that SaaS growth model is quite different from traditional ones. A deep understanding of SaaS growth levers can take your business to the next level. SaaS is a growing industry. There are some 14 courses in SaaS on Udemy itself.

Customer Lifetime Value 10

Customer Lifetime Value Scale SaaS Acquisition 10

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 15, 2020

Churn is the enemy of subscription-based businesses; it measures the rate at which your hard-won customers cancel their subscription to your service. Left unchecked, what seems like a relatively low customer churn rate month-on-month can quickly escalate into a crippling annual churn rate that your business can’t sustain.

Churn 52

Churn SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Solutions 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Open Source is here to stay—and Open Source + SaaS is the future. Databricks started out in the Cloud; we never provided an on-prem offering, only a SaaS Cloud offering. Slowly, you’re going to find lots of companies like Databricks that offer open source technology as a SaaS service. It was difficult, but it was worth it.

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AI Enterprise SaaS AWS 229

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

In the latest installment of SaaStr’s What’s New series – where we sit down with the leaders in SaaS and Cloud for the inside scoop on what’s top of mind and what’s new, SaaStr CEO and Jason Lemkin chats with the CEO of ZoomInfo , Henry Schuck. So, what’s new at ZoomInfo?

New CTO 240

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring AWS 240

User Pilot

APRIL 21, 2023

Churn and retention analyses help teams understand why users leave or stay with the product. In SaaS, product analysis focuses both on business and economic factors as well as product-market fit , UX and UI design , features, and usability. Who can benefit from product analysis in your SaaS? Why is it relevant? Cohort analysis.

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Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Onboarding Retention 98

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2021

It can be easy for SaaS companies to lose momentum if they haven’t quite found the perfect product-market fit. Commoditization From AWS & Google Cloud. SaaS KPIs Suddenly Taking a Turn for the Worse. As a result, the logo churn went up, the NRR stopped increasing, and the deal rate decreased as the sales cycle got longer.

Sales Hiring 255

Sales Hiring Data AWS Leadership 255

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

To find out which of these features are most common, OpenView surveyed over 500 SaaS companies ranging from pre-revenue to $100 million in ARR. Despite disparities in reporting, self-reported data on CAC payback does reveal a clear trend: The fastest growing SaaS companies report a median CAC payback period of only 8 months.

Headcount 73

Headcount SaaS Compensation Acquisition 73

Outseta

JANUARY 20, 2020

In this post I’m going to share the most important lessons about growing a SaaS business that I learned at Buildium—collectively, these things had an awful lot to do with the company being valued so highly. I learned a million lessons about SaaS, about start-ups, and about life along the way. How the hell does that happen?

SaaS Payments 145

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Payment Methods Payment Services 145