Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 22, 2022

They will manage their own servers to reduce the $3m annual AWS bill by 60%. For a hypothetical startup, a 60% reduction in infrastructure costs boosts sales efficiency by 11% & net income margin by at least 12%. For many high-growth startups, the juicy 11% improvement in sales efficiency likely isn’t worth the squeeze.

Sales Hiring 222

Sales Hiring Cloud AWS Sales 222

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

A year ago, AWS, GCP, & Azure averaged 44% annual growth. Amazon: We expect [customer] optimization efforts will continue to be a headwind to AWS growth in at least the next couple of quarters. So So far in the first month of the year, AWS year-over-year revenue growth is in the mid-teens. Amazon: Net sales increased $21.4

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 257

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Cloud AWS Sales Hiring 257

SaaStr

JULY 26, 2021

Q: Dear SaaStr: Should a Startup Founder Handle Sales Themself When First Getting Started? The “best” sequence for building a repeatable sales engine is roughly: The CEO/founder should close at least the first 10 (or 20 or whatever) customers. But not to figure out if you really have a repeatable sales process.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Scale Startup AWS 263

Hitenism

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

In 2006, after Amazon Web Services (AWS) helped pioneer what we now call the cloud, product development changed forever. Today, one-third of daily internet users visit websites built on top of AWS. AWS is now an $11.5B Working backwards isn’t a silver bullet that guarantees you success on the scale of AWS.

AWS 189

AWS New CTO Scale CTO 189

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

Many have used Digital Ocean at the cheaper, simpler version of AWS-Azure-Digital Ocean to get going fast and quickly. Customers Just Tried to Optimize Their Spend — Even Tiny Ones You might not think smaller Digital Ocean customers would be putting as much energy into optimizing their cloud spend as say a $1m a month AWS customer.

Scale 210

Scale AWS Azure Cloud 210

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: It’s Now Year 2 of the Venture Downturn Clawbacks and Tracking-to-Cash: Two Sales Management Tools to Be Thoughtful With 8 Things That Are Just Harder in SaaS Now Tier 1 VC is Great. But More Money May Be Even Better. What’s Holding Up Buyers?:

Scale 217

Scale AWS Scaling Enterprise 217

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

If you’re selling sales and marketing software, like Zoominfo, it can seem a lot tougher than 12-18 months ago. Growth in public cloud services (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Snowflake, etc.) If you’re selling cloud infrastructure, for the most part, growth may be down a smidge but is still strong, e.g., MongoDB.

Merchant Services 248

Merchant Services Azure Software AWS 248

Baremetrics

OCTOBER 31, 2021

When you first get started, effectively any hosting setup will do the trick: your application is small, you have relatively few customers, and perhaps (depending on your sales process) expectations around performance and reliability are a bit lower during the beta phase. Over time all of that changes.

AWS 115

AWS DevOps as a Service Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review 115

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 207

ChatGPT AWS SaaS CTO 207

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 212

AWS compliance AI Startup 212

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2020

3. “Atlassian and AWS Say: Maybe Worry a Little Bit. A Framework For Your First SaaS Sales Comp Plan. 6. “What Makes a Great VP of Sales and How to Hire One” Another SaaStr Classic that is just as relevent today. What Makes a Great VP of Sales and How to Hire One. More on that soon!

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Sales Hiring AWS Cloud 312

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2022

SMB AE | TOP 30 Sales Organizations. Sales Organization 1 Miro 2 Okta 3 Arctic Wolf 4 Sprout Social 5 Google 6 Clickup 7 Cisco Meraki 8 Microsoft 9 Klaviyo 10 AWS 11 Rippling 12 Fivetran. Also consistent with my data and ecosystem. Very helpful to see it this way. — BowTiedCocoon (@BowTiedCocoon) April 14, 2022.

SMB 260

SMB AWS SaaS B2B 260

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Google Cloud Platform, on the other hand, is in a very different set that also competes with Microsoft, but AWS is considered their biggest competitor in the market. What they’re seeing with GenAI and Google Cloud is an opportunity to grab share from AWS. Right now, 70% of the GenAI startups are using Google Cloud.

Cloud 221

Cloud Scale AWS AI 221

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2024

Split Sales Team Managing SMB Accounts Into 2 Teams, One on New Business and One on Upsell It’s interesting to see Okta do this a bit later in life than some, but it makes a ton of sense given the current macro environment. AWS alone generated $175m of contract value for Okta, growing 130%.

Fractional VPE 200

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Scale SMB 200

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

It looks at the YoY dollar change in quarterly revenue from the hyperscalers (just looking at Azure / AWS because the data goes back further) going back a few years. If we break this down and look at Azure and AWS independently (graphs below), you’ll see how the AWS “swings” were a lot more volatile.

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

SaaStr

AUGUST 19, 2023

Ari Lee Bayme, Managing Director @ Sandfox Advisors See You There!! Ari Lee Bayme, Managing Director @ Sandfox Advisors See You There!! Ari Lee Bayme, Managing Director @ Sandfox Advisors See You There!!

VP of Engineering 198

VP of Engineering AWS AI Engineering 198

CloseSaaS

OCTOBER 15, 2015

There is no shortage of awful sales leaders. When the team is underperforming, bad sales leaders blame everyone else but themselves. They cause confusion amongst team members, ignore important business decisions, and lack passion for the profession.

AWS 52

AWS Sales Business Leadership 52

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.

Scale 176

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 176

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2023

Greenhouse has a great co-hosted after-party event with HiBob around WorkTech on September 6 at 7 pm PT here: [link] Mission Cloud and AWS are hosting a happy hour at the Paul Martin’s just near the campus. Sign up here. Plain Sight Capital has an evening of networking, great cocktails, and tasty bites!

AWS 196

AWS Cloud SaaS Sales 196

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Hyperscalers Report Quarterly Earnings This week we saw AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) report earnings. Overall, it wasn’t pretty… AWS grew 28% when expectations were 30-31%. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2023

Spending a Hefty 50% of Revenue on Sales and Marketing. They spend a pretty high 50% of all revenue on sales and marketing — and that’s up from last year. Atlassian by contrast spends just 15% of revenue on sales and marketing, one of the lowest of the public SaaS companies. NRR is holding up. #7. A valuation of 4x ARR?

Scale 181

Scale AWS Scaling Revenue 181

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 184

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 184

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2023

Even If It’s Awful for Series A-E Rounds. SaaStr 628: Revenue Alignment: How to Pull Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success Together with Divvy CRO Sterling Snow  2. SaaStr 629: CRO Confidential: Sales Recruitment in 2023 For Candidates and Hiring Managers With Flexport’s Ben Braverman   3. Really, Really, Low.

Sales Recruiting 174

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring AWS 174

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2020

These days, it can really feel like the Old Bag of Sales Tricks is starting to just not work anymore: With maybe 500x the SaaS vendors of 10 years ago, there’s so much noise. Are there categories where outbound sales just doesn’t work? The old sales playbooks of 2009 and even 2019 may not work as well in 2021.

Sales Hiring 354

Sales Hiring Outbound Sales Team AWS Engineering 354

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. SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin.

Sales Recruiting 206

Sales Recruiting AWS Compensation Enterprise 206

FastSpring

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

The GDC Expo showcases the latest game development tools and services from leading technology companies such as AWS, Epic, and Google. We’ll manage your checkout , VAT and sales taxes , compliance , and more, freeing you to focus on what you do best: building great software. The post FastSpring at Game Developers Conference 2024!

Merchant Services 132

Merchant Services Development Payment Services SaaS Payments 132

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2022

Its PLG-assisted sales motion has kept it capital efficient, and today it’s worth $2.7 But let’s step back a bit … the damage hasn’t been even, and capital-efficient SaaS stocks in many cases have held up pretty well. A few case studies: * Sprout Social IPO’d in December 2019 at an $800m market-cap. It’s tripled. It’s doubled.

AWS 201

AWS SaaS Cloud Scale 201

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

It is the largest in-person event in the country—2,000+ attendees, 800+ companies, and 100+ speakers—along with features such as Betakit Keynote Stage, AWS Pitchfest, Workspaces Tradeshow. The conference is jam packed with networking opportunities too! Schedule a demo now or at SaaS North in person!

Merchant Services 126

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Services 126

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

But are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud just too big for us to learn from? And it’s gone much more aggressive in its sales motions. AWS vs. Azure vs. Google Cloud is one of the greatest case studies of all time. Do they “count” like the scrappy start-ups in SaaS that have now become decacorns?

Cloud 202

Cloud Azure AWS Scale 202

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2022

The way this public company did it was — awful. #3. In any event, three suggestions to the founders, the VPs of Sales and Success, the CROs, and more out there. . Everyone has gotten good at listening to sales calls through Gong, Salesloft, Outreach, etc. Reporting to sales or a CRO is usually a bad idea.

Customer Success 235

Customer Success Systems Review AWS Software Review 235

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2020

To make a partnership successful, your startup will need to teach another sales team to sell your product. The sales team asks for more leads. After scaling sales enablement successfully, the next step is to understand where your customers are. Marketplaces: AWS marketplace, Heroku marketplace, Salesforce marketplace.

Scale 295

Scale AWS Consulting Sales Enablement 295

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2023

AWS is seeing this, and so is Snowflake. Also you can see sales & marketing headcount is basically flat, while hiring is almost all in engineering / R&D. So when CFOs and others tighten budgets, they’ll also try to buy less Snowflake. Not none, just less. Growing remains jaw-dropping at 50% at $2.4

Headcount 185

Headcount Scale Sales Hiring AWS 185

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2022

Patricia Hanna, VP Americas Sales Ops @ Confluent. Shradha Kothari, Chief of Staff, SVP & GM North America Sales @ Twilio. Jen Dawson @ AWS. Bonney Pelley, SVP, Strategy + Operations @ New Relic. Farrah B, VP Business Operations @ Cribl. Courtney Pallotta, VP of Marketing @ ChaosSearch. Olga Perez-Bonnelly @ Elastic.

New CTO 173

New CTO Scale CTO AWS 173

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Why did sales-driven Qualtrics get to $100m+ in ARR without ever raising a nickel, and generating more than $20m a year in free cash flow ? Does it cost so, so much to host a few million lines of code on AWS? Sales, done right, should be accretive (although expect sales efficiency to ultimately decline post-Initial Scale).

Scale 275

Scale SaaS Banking AWS 275

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2024

Some things to think about as you craft your offer are: Does it align with your sales motion? You don’t want conflict with the sales team. This is where they started, but startups weren’t adopting the product as much with a discount, and there was a lot of conflict with the sales team.

Startup 173

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team AWS 173

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2022

Patricia Hanna, VP Americas Sales Ops @ Confluent. Shradha Kothari, Chief of Staff, SVP & GM North America Sales @ Twilio. Jen Dawson @ AWS. Patricia Hanna, VP Americas Sales Ops @ Confluent. Shradha Kothari, Chief of Staff, SVP & GM North America Sales @ Twilio. Farrah B, VP Business Operations @ Cribl.

CTO 193

CTO Scale New CTO AWS 193

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

Second, sales teams spend a lot of time doing laborious, repetitive tasks that don’t always result in much value. We chase after potential leads trying to qualify them, we spend a lot of time trying to book meetings and give demos, we spend an awful lot of time simply trying to make a value driven discussion happen at a later date.

Sales 144

Sales Payment Features AWS Subscription 144