SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2023

Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Marc Benioff sold a huge amount of his Salesforce stock before its run from $2b to $100b+ in market cap. Note: an updated SaaStr Classic answer) The post Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares.

Startup 209

Startup AWS Pricing Marketing 209

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

" As with many other companies reporting strength in the market, AI & unstructured data workloads are fueling growth. ” For startups operating within data, which tops buyers’ lists , this news further signals a stronger market in 2024. ” “We are seeing stability in customer expansion patterns.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 143

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure Data Startup 143

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Alison brings the perspective of all sides of a startup, from investing to SaaS to Cloud. With the marketing team, there are a lot of the classic functions — brand marketing, product marketing, and partner marketing. What they’re seeing with GenAI and Google Cloud is an opportunity to grab share from AWS.

Cloud 228

Cloud Scale AWS AI 228

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 28, 2022

A few months ago, we retired our last pieces of infrastructure on DigitalOcean, marking our migration to AWS as complete. Our journey was not your regular AWS migration as it involved moving our infrastructure from classic VMs to containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. Ultimately, we decided to go with AWS. Team expertise.

K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) 52

K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 52

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2024

Salesforce and Marc Benioff at first said the core market, security identity, was too small of a market. They are overall benefitting here from the growth in Cloud and security budgets, even if smaller companies and startups and scaleups are struggling more. AWS alone generated $175m of contract value for Okta, growing 130%.

Fractional VPE 206

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Scale SMB 206

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2023

AWS re:Invent : AWS re:Invent is Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) annual conference, focused on cloud computing and SaaS-related services. The event brings together developers, architects, and IT professionals to explore the latest AWS developments.

ChatGPT 211

ChatGPT AWS SaaS CTO 211

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

Well, certainly it exploded in 2021, in my portfolio at least, if perhaps not as dramatically as in the public markets. The startup I invested in that were acquired by PE in the 2020-2021 Boom were acquired for 8x in one case, 12x in another, and 15x in a third. So what do they pay on average? You might be worth less ?

AWS 237

AWS SaaS Pricing Acquisition 237

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 25, 2023

In addition, Microsoft & Snowflake announced a deeper AI go-to-market partnership with Snowflake. For startups building LLM-based applications & infrastructure, this alters the calculus of selecting a cloud. Five years ago, many startups defaulted to AWS for the generous credits, broad catalog, & rapid pace of innovation.

Artificial Intelligence 209

Artificial Intelligence AI AWS Cloud 209

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

I’m using Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive), AWS , Vercel , Slack , Figma , Notion , Salesforce , HubSpot , Secureframe , Clari , and Zapier. #2. Last week we had a great one with Luca Penati, CMO & CCO of BEE, check it out here. This week we have Shrav Mehta, Founder and CEO of Secureframe! #1. What’s your core stack of apps today?

AWS 219

AWS compliance AI Startup 219

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2021

A lot of our SaaS older times don’t quite know what to make with a lot of B2B startups these days, let alone some public SaaS companies. So many startups these days are claiming they have “ARR” from revenue that … doesn’t recur. 220m in ARR, $13B market cap. Well of course it does. Only half does.

Merchant Services 356

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 356

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. Azure : Coming into the quarter, a growth rate that would have satisfied the market would have been ~29%. All eyes shifted to the AWS report on Thursday.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., The first few months of this year felt like a lot of churning in the market. What I’ve shown below is the market-adjusted stock price reaction. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: Datadog, ZoomInfo, Atlassian, AWS: Epic Growth — But Some Real Headwinds For The First Time. When You Fall Out of Product-Market Fit. The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised $100s of Millions Are Doing Layoffs.

Sales Recruiting 213

Sales Recruiting AWS Compensation Enterprise 213

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2023

Even If It’s Awful for Series A-E Rounds. Why VCs Love Founders That Respond to Email Almost Instantly 90%-95% of Salespeople Won’t Make It At Your Startup. SaaStr 628: Revenue Alignment: How to Pull Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Together with Divvy CRO Sterling Snow  2. Really, Really, Low.

Sales Recruiting 178

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AWS 178

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 Even without any breakdowns, obviously the CEO was fully aware of the company’s increased spending in sales and marketing. Donut charts – while often frowned upon – are handy for quickly introducing your company’s expense breakdown.

Merchant Services 90

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS 90

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

So for the audience, cloud giants are turbocharging startup sales, and the predominant reason for this is because they’re fundamentally changing IT budgets at the customers that we’re all selling to. And it’s one of the three large cloud vendors that we all know: Microsoft, AWS, and Google. Jabari Norton. Crowdstrike.

Scale 189

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 189

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2020

Recently, we welcomed Lisa Lawson to SaaS Office Hours to talk about building a channel go-to-market strategy for SaaS companies. The first place to start is to learn to sell your startup’s product well. The first place to start is to learn to sell your startup’s product well. Here are my notes. Where to Start.

Scale 317

Scale AWS Consulting Sales Enablement 317

SaaStr

AUGUST 4, 2021

From AWS to Vimeo: this year’s speaker lineup is packed with incredible speakers and content. A Marketer’s Playbook for Building a Sustainable Growth Strategy with Datadog’s CMO Alex Rosemblat. Why Intent is the New Lead: 2021 State of Marketing Technology with Marqeta’s CMO Vidya Peters.

Scale 256

Scale AWS B2C SaaS 256

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 30, 2024

Previously, Amit led marketing efforts at startups like Tact AI (1st AI Assistant for Sales backed by AWS, Microsoft, and Salesforce), HP Inc (next-gen computing) and Spire AI (Human Capital SaaS). What You Will Learn: Challenges of entering crowded markets with large incumbents.

AWS 79

AWS AI Advertising Finance 79

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 3, 2014

Startups benefit from a booming public market for three reasons. As a consequence of higher stock prices, stock increases in value and cash becomes easier to raise and relatively less expensive, both of which entice tech publics to acquire startups, extending the current vibrant M&A market.

Startup 100

Startup Trends AWS Marketing 100

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

So the public markets are in tumult. This is just starting to roll through the private markets and is going to make a bumpy rest of the year. Revenue multiples are how much VCs, investors, and ultimately, an IPO and public markets will value each dollar of revenue. And indeed there is today! A Covid Hangover in SaaS stocks.’

SaaS 325

SaaS Azure Cloud AWS 325

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

Innovative startups. The first army are innovative startups. I’m referring to the full spectrum of business execution, from product management to design to engineering to marketing to sales to support and all the other functions needed to scale a business. Basic marketing and selling at a global scale is becoming easy too.

Software Review 224

Software Review Outsourcing Services Software Outsourced Development 224

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

I’m an investor in maybe 30 SaaS startups. Does it cost so, so much to host a few million lines of code on AWS? And your marketing costs should be manageable as your mini-brand kicks in. 18 in marketing? Because you end up basically having to pay the same in sales and marketing, no matter what.

Scale 278

Scale SaaS Banking AWS 278

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 9, 2013

Not constrained to large competitors, startups like FitBit and Jawbone launched competing (and nearly identical) products within weeks of each other: the FitBit Flex and the Jawbone Up Even newer segments like gesture control of TVs or GoPro self-recording cameras are addressed by six competitors, many of them white-label.

Startup 100

Startup Outsourced Development AWS Marketing 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 18, 2019

The direct listing becomes the standard way for startups to go public in 2020. Most startups at IPO have plenty of cash and don't need to raise more in the public markets. The M&A market continues to surge. Most startups will be distributed (have several offices) before they reach 50 employees. wrong and 3.5

Blockchain 155

Blockchain AWS Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 155

Kellblog

OCTOBER 7, 2021

Please join me on October 13th at SaaStock EMEA , a free European SaaS event, for my presentation entitled “ How to Make a Marketing Machine ” on October 13th at 9:05 am PT (6:05 pm CET). Executives from companies including Algolia, AWS, Celigo, Contentful, Freshworks, Intercom, Yellowfin, Zephr, and Zoominfo.

Marketing 76

Marketing AWS Venture Capital SaaS 76

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

They did call out sequential growth in Confluent Cloud every quarter this year which was a big positive Still seeing elongated deal cycles and less expansion revenue The Bad AWS: Headwinds Getting Worse Their quarter ended in March, but on the earnings call they called out weakening growth in April. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 5.7x

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

That you absolutely, positively, have to only hire “Rockstars” in your startups. If you don’t think you need a great VP of Sales, Product, Marketing, Customer Success, and Engineering — then all that all that means is you’ve never worked with a great one. Head of Marketing – Where Can I Settle?

Sales Hiring 271

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Recruiting 271

Baremetrics

OCTOBER 28, 2021

If you’ve seen our recent articles on AWS migration, the updated stripe integration and the acquisition of Flightpath Finance, it will come as no surprise to you that our team is getting pretty busy! Just look at the Baremetrics dashboard and the Open Startups project to see how we try to empower founders with financial transparency.

AWS 94

AWS Forecasting Onboarding Finance 94

OpenView Labs

DECEMBER 2, 2020

In some cases it can create the tipping point that not only helps a startup overcome big marketing challenges, but can even steal action away from big-name incumbents. As a newcomer with a fresh take on the database, they needed a way into an already crowded market. Related read: The Do’s and Don’ts of Marketing to Developers.

Marketing 54

Marketing AWS Scale Development 54

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

I started at Amazon before they had Amazon Web Services (AWS) so I was lucky enough to see AWS born out of the guts of all of the great operations work done for the amazon.com retail website. You can think of them beginning from very base infrastructural technologies, and in our case we’re betting exclusively on AWS as a cloud vendor.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2021

And your existing market. But if you can’t tell me the future (in your market) at least 3 years out … then it’s hard for me to believe in SaaS you’ll ever build a unicorn. billion, but Addressing a Larger Segment of the Market” That gives me confidence. This is sort of awful.

Sales Recruiting 336

Sales Recruiting Scale AWS Investment 336

How To Buy Saas

MAY 15, 2024

Examples of IaaS Cloud Providers Amazon Web Services (AWS) Google Cloud Provider (GCP) IBM Cloud Microsoft Azure PaaS Taking a step ahead from IaaS, let us introduce you to PaaS or Platform-as-a-support. From marketing, data analysis, and education to HR activities, financial tasks, and more, all of these can be done using SaaS tools.

DevOps as a Service 52

DevOps as a Service Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS 52

Stax

APRIL 18, 2024

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Software-as-a-Service Providers (SaaS) operate within the same market, thus creating a push-and-pull revenue dynamic. Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Salesforce AppExchange). Some use cloud-based solutions to deliver online solutions (e.g.,

Outsourcing Services 88

Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 88

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

The majority of COGS (revenue less COGS = gross profit) fall in hosting costs (ie AWS), and some customer support. Startups and younger companies don’t have this luxury. Multiples shown below are calculated by taking the Enterprise Value (market cap + debt - cash) / NTM revenue. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 6.1x

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 12, 2022

If you’re short on time, here are a few quick takeaways: Although data science can’t predict the future, it can definitely help you focus resources, troubleshoot issues, and even unlock new markets. Liam: Was it challenging to get to this point with Mode in the startup journey? That was my first job in tech. Benn: For sure.

Data 151

Data Airlines AWS Underperforming Technical Team 151

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 12, 2021

This post is an adaptation of a talk I recently gave at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) community day event in Dublin about the technical strategies I’ve experienced that don’t work and the ones that have helped us to grow and scale at Intercom. Day one of your startup is probably not the time to be learning Kubernetes.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Scale multi-cloud Kubernetes Scaling 269