Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 12, 2014

This post is part of a continuing series evaluating the S-1s of publicly traded SaaS companies in order to better understand the core business and build a library of benchmarks that might be useful to founders. WorkDay financed this huge investment by coupling long-term, near-million-dollar agreements and nearly $200M in venture capital.

Benchmarks 109

Benchmarks Deferred Revenue Venture Capital Outsourced Development 109

Sales Hacker

APRIL 19, 2022

In this article, I’ll outline the principles of compensation design , how to build sales compensation plans , and include resources to set OTEs and quotas that keep your reps happy and hungry for more. Why Sales Comp Planning is Key to Rep Retention. Who should be responsible for sales compensation planning?

Compensation 89

Compensation Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Retention 89

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 21, 2017

Those venture dollars have financed a panoply of competition. In 2012 ChiefMartec landscape counted 350 vendors selling to sales and marketing. Salesforce for Sales, Workday for HR & Finance, ServiceNow for Operations, Atlassian for Engineering and so on. Today, that figure is 5000. The chart above shows them by buyer.

Venture Capital 183

Venture Capital SaaS Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning 183

SaaSOptics

AUGUST 11, 2022

So what should you do if you’re strapped for cash and have your sights set on venture capital? In this case, you may not be prepared to take on a round of venture capital. At first glance, product- and sales-led initiatives seem like opposite strategies, but the reality is neither exists in a vacuum.

Scale 97

Scale Scaling Technical Review Venture Capital 97

Kellblog

OCTOBER 30, 2022

One of my new benchmarking themes is that people need to pay more attention to matching their benchmarks with their aspirations. Sales and marketing (S&M) expense of 40% of revenues. New ARR per seller of $673K, which I if I understand, is what I’d call sales productivity. Free cashflow (FCF) margin of -5%.

Metrics 136

Metrics SaaS Benchmarks Churn 136

Chart Mogul

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

In many ways, 2022 (Q2-ish) marked the end of the glory days and we entered the “SaaS slump” We saw new business plummet and an 82% year-over-year drop in venture capital investment in 2022. Sarah It’s easy to get caught up in marketing and sales trends hype cycles. That’s where benchmarks can help.

AI Search 52

AI Search Benchmarks Venture Capital AI 52

Sixteen Ventures

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

So the best companies look for ways to improve the efficiency of that spend, like: Decreasing Sales Cycle Length. So what about that popular notion that a good benchmark for paying back CAC is 1/3 of the customer lifetime? CAC Efficiency Cranks. Improving Conversion / Close Rate. Increasing Initial Contract Value. Powerful stuff.

Venture Capital 87

Venture Capital Benchmarks Acquisition Investment 87

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Less focus on venture capital or funding rounds. Product managers, taxes and payments experts, customer operations pros, and even the occasional sales manager or two are in there and can answer related business questions. That includes: A global focus. Professional moderation.

SaaS Payments 141

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Software Review 141

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

The benchmark lens. The Benchmark Lens. Now that it’s clear that plan-relative performance is only one lens, you may decide to get some benchmark data to see what kind of growth is normal or good at your scale. Is that good? Is that bad? How do you know? The plan lens. The market lens. The Plan Lens.

Benchmarks 121

Benchmarks Scale Headcount Startup 121

Kellblog

MAY 19, 2021

Just a quick post to highlight my recent appearance on the Metrics That Measure Up podcast, hosted by Ray Rike , founder and CEO of RevOps^2 , a firm focused on SaaS metrics and benchmarking. Avoiding survivor bias , both in calculating churn rates and in comparisons to public comparison benchmarks (comps) [1].

Metrics 93

Metrics Scale Benchmarks Acquisition 93

Mattermark

AUGUST 15, 2017

The post Anti-Goals, IoT Sales Traps, Lost Decades, and more – Mattermark Daily appeared first on Mattermark. Join thousands of business professionals reading the Mattermark Daily newsletter. A daily digest of timely, must-read posts by investors and operators.

Sales Hiring 40

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Sales Benchmarks 40

Chart Mogul

JULY 30, 2024

Venture capital A venture capitalist (VC) is a private investor who provides funding to companies with unique products that have a wide appeal. Other ways you can fund your SaaS business Bootstrapping Bootstrapping is where the business is funded with your own money and the income from the company’s sales.

SaaS Payments 52

SaaS Payments Investment Payment Methods Payments 52

Chart Mogul

JUNE 9, 2023

After analyzing data from over 2,100 SaaS startups to publish the SaaS Benchmarks Report 2023 Sid is full of insights on the topic at hand. ’ A lot of sales teams are not set up that way. Daria Danilina , Co-founder, Salesroom The velocity of leads, sales cycles, and customer conversations.

Trends 52

Trends SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 52

Baremetrics

MAY 7, 2019

million – about half of all the cash they had on hand – to buy out their main venture capital investors after eight years since founding. This capital can also greatly accelerate the progress and trajectory of the business with resources that others may not get for years down the road. Venture Capital.

Finance 111

Finance Startup SaaS Payments Payment Methods 111

Buffer Resources

DECEMBER 12, 2023

  She tracks the number of students who join her programs and uses this as a benchmark for her success. Automation workflows : Matt uses tools like ConvertKit to create automated workflows for email sequences, sales follow-ups, and even Slack group invitations. She has developed a unique system for content ideation and creation.

Systems Review 120

Systems Review Social Media Technical Review Scale 120

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 23, 2022

Includes those ramping, though I’ve argued that enterprise SaaS could also use a same-store sales metric. Like sales, you should watch developer density to ensure organizations don’t get an imbalanced helper/doer ratio. This is roughly “same-store sales [link].” In deeper presentations, you should also look at QCR density.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review Software Review Forecasting Churn 117

SmartKarrot

MARCH 2, 2023

The Venture Capital sector has seen substantial expansion in recent times and some VCs have started to podcast and share valuable resources for entrepreneurs, other investors, and those interested in learning more about the industry. Brandon is a host of the Sales Secrets podcast.

Venture Capital 10

Venture Capital Scale Entrepreneurship EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) 10

The Angel VC

MAY 8, 2015

In my post I suggested that you should prepare a key metrics spreadsheet, a chart with your MRR movements, a cohort analysis, a financial plan, an analysis of your customer acquisition channels and, if you're selling to bigger customers, information about your sales pipeline and details about your largest customers.

Development Team Review 252

Development Team Review Software Review Scale Acquisition 252

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 12, 2019

This week on the Sales Hacker podcast, we speak with Jonathan Sherry , Co-Founder and COO at CB Insights. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Welcome to The Sales Hacker Podcast. We’ve got Lucidchart Sales Solutions. Lucidchart is the leading account planning platform for modern sales orgs.

Scale 60

Scale Sales Hiring Management Forecasting 60

Outseta

AUGUST 31, 2018

is a venture capital firm that invests in companies that focus on selling their product at a profit from day one. Sales Pitch, Take Two You may remember from previous updates that we decided to put a page called "Sales Pitch" in the primary navigation on our website. Indie.VC - Indie.VC

Payments 40

Payments Payment Solutions SaaS Payments Payment Methods 40

SaaSOptics

DECEMBER 7, 2021

How to Raise Capital: Preparation, Benchmarks, and Best practices [Webinar Recap]. That was the central theme of a recent webinar about preparing for a capital raise. Raising capital is an ongoing process that needs to be implemented continuously, whether you’re at a pre-seed stage or have your IPO in sight.

Benchmarks 77

Benchmarks Scale Venture Capital Outsourced Development 77

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2020

Last month, housing sales in the US are actually ahead of last year, like literally ahead. If 15 to 20% are COVID beneficiaries, can that absorb all the ventured capital? Does venture capital even need to bother? Venture capital, no matter how it looks, it’s not a huge asset class.

Investment 149

Investment Scale Travel Venture Capital 149

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2019

Before I joined the venture capital industry many years ago, I was a software developer, and I worked for a startup around the 2000 time period. Now, I’m a venture capital investor. Usually, it requires an outbound sales motion. I think it’s a really staggering stat. How long can this last?

Cloud 101

Cloud Scale AWS Machine Learning 101

Outseta

AUGUST 23, 2017

We don’t have any agreed upon budgets, or any sales reps with quotas. Sales quotas and forecasts can hurt your business… and we’ve all seen it Let me start by saying that I live in the same world that you do, one where it’s nearly impossible to avoid being beaten over the head with messaging citing the importance of goal setting.

Forecasting 52

Forecasting Scale Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review 52

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 13, 2020

If you missed episode 130, check it out here: Turning Junior-level Talent into Top Sales Professionals with Eddie Baez. Subscribe to the Sales Hacker Podcast. Sales enablement is easy. REGIE uses artificial intelligence to create entire outbound inbound, and even follow-up sales campaigns faster. We’re on iTunes.

Marketplace as a Service 100

Marketplace as a Service CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 100

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2019

How do good founders respond to questions on not achieving sales targets? #2: They have funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Benchmark, Sequoia, Redpoint and Marc Benioff, just to name a few. 3: Godfather of Sales John Barrow on How To React When a Lead Goes Dark. Why are metrics so important?

Technical Review 154

Technical Review Development Team Review Scale Software Review 154

ProfitWell

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Do you gun straight for the glamour (and pressure) of venture capital investment? What about a venture capitalist who might be sympathetic to your mission? Venture capital. Venture capital is provided by firms or funds founded specifically to give investment to fledgling companies. Low churn rate.

Venture Capital 56

Venture Capital Scale SaaS Benchmarks 56

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

While the median SaaS company spends between 50-100% of their annual revenue on sales and marketing, Atlassian has spent between 12 and 21% of their revenue on customer acquisition in the last three years. They also imply a sales efficiency, normally in the 0.8-1.2 It’s a case study in sales efficiency. range of 2.5

Benchmarks 117

Benchmarks Metrics Venture Capital SaaS 117

Chart Mogul

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

You can think of Horizontal SaaS as broad-based tech that is industry agnostic; a sales person at a Cybersecurity company can use HubSpot the same way a sales person at a Health Supplements company might use it. Benchmarks across the PLG user journey The hardest part of PLG might actually be… marketing?! Forget about Threads.

Scale 52

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring SaaS 52

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 4, 2021

They don’t know the business solutions, the know-how, the practical things that you should do to market or pre-launch your products, but they’re out there making sales. They want to make some sales: they’re making some shea butter, they’re making soap, they’re making candles. Do you have a benchmark?

Outsourcing Services 151

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Business Scale 151

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

In fact, we were below benchmarks for SaaS companies. Then I went over to the sales department. The demo is the sale and we close everybody in month. Heidi Jannenga : When we’ve again, first started going out and looking for funding, everybody wants to amplify your sales strategy. We schedule a demo in the same day.

Scale 165

Scale SMB VP of Engineering Leadership 165

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 23, 2014

But it's also tough: Sales cycles are long, you need to convince various different stakeholders, there are special requirements for the product and you have to do multiple meetings to get the deal. Zendesk's benchmarking reports come to mind as an example. Anyone who's done or tried it knows what I mean.

Startup 152

Startup SaaS Acquisition Scale 152

SaaStr

JULY 4, 2024

Challenges and Realities of Scaling in Venture Capital (00:06:52) Writing a blog post in response to a crazy tweet from a billionaire is a waste of energy that should be invested in deals. Almost everyone in venture capital feels like their edge has eroded over time.

Outsourcing Services 221

Outsourcing Services Venture Capital Investment Scale 221

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2019

Carbon Black, DocuSign, SurveyMonkey, Tenable, Smartsheet, Dropbox; fantastic names that in aggregate, when you put together the three ways to buy stocks, public, IPOs, private venture capital dollars and then outright acquisitions. Last year was a record in terms of total combined capital by a large multiple. companies.

Cloud 162

Cloud Scale Finance Retention 162