SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures, David Sacks, shares his perspective on what to expect from SaaS in 2024. Can you raise a Series A if you’re not “AI SaaS?” Can You Raise A Series A If You’re Not AI SaaS? So, can you raise a Series A if you’re not “AI SaaS?” Is everything going to be focused on AI?

SaaS Payments 226

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions AI SaaS 226

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

Bootstrapping in SaaS it isn’t that hard, per se. Take a look at our great deep-dive discussion with Ryan Smith, CEO of Qualtrics here: There are generally a handful of common characteristics though that make Bootstrapping to Scale work in SaaS: First, it takes much longer, usually, to get to to Initial Scale ($10m ARR).

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Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale SaaS 361

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2023

So price increases have been the name of the game in SaaS for the past 12 months, in many (not all) cases to help make up for slowing growth: Zendesk up 16% Salesforce up 9% Google Workspace up 20% HubSpot up 12% Webflow up 16% Shopify up 33% Slack up 10% And some of them like Slack and Salesforce hadn’t raised list prices in quite some time.

Pricing 205

Pricing Software Review Churn SaaS 205

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2023

So there’s a quiet SaaS success story you probably don’t know much about, but can learn a lot from. And while it’s stock price is down from its 2021 peaks, it’s still up 2x since its 2020 IPO. 3,245 Customers, Up 23% — While ARR is up 40%. It’s Docebo. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scale 336

Scale Pricing Scaling Enterprise 336

User Pilot

APRIL 21, 2024

Wondering how to build a conversion path for your SaaS product or e-commerce site? A conversion path is a sequence of steps the user has to complete to reach a goal, such as signing up for a free trial, booking a demo , or making a purchase. Signing up for a conference? For example: ‘Increase free trial sign-ups by 3.4%

SaaS Payments 104

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 104

SaaStr

AUGUST 4, 2023

So one of our recent themes on SaaStr is that while things are still tougher for almost everyone that the go-go days of 2021, in at least some ways, they seem to have bounced off the bottom and are at least getting easier than before: Top Cloud and SaaS stocks are up 31% this year. We’re all macro experts in SaaS now!

Cloud 210

Cloud Startup SaaS Marketing 210

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

I have a strong, semi-proven thesis that in SaaS, market size doesn’t matter that much … at least in the traditional top-down sense. Yes, many of the big winners in SaaS entered already large markets, from CRM (Salesforce) to ERP (Workday) to Collaboration (Workday, Asana). And it’s better than that, these days.

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Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 215

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2024

And public SaaS stocks in many cases did really, really well in 2023. This is going to burn up a ton of energy in VC funds. The bottom line is there likely is at least another full year of working through the excesses of 2021. jasonlk) January 23, 2024 So I thought the toughest times for venture would be behind us now.

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Venture Capital AI Investment Startup 249

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2023

The bottom line is while views weren’t consistent, I can tell you VPs of Sales that don’t know the product close to cold … fail. That their job is to process customers, to attempt to drive NPS up (and these days, really more upsell up). More on that here. They just plain fail in my experience. Trust me here.

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Customer Success Scale Sales Hiring Leadership 199

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2021

Because I suspected that small but interesting early traction was just bottom-feeding in the market. Because at this scale, there will be room at the bottom. But that’s not Disruption — in SaaS at least. Sometimes in SaaS, there are natural monopolies. And that, among other factors, creates Room at the Bottom.

Scale 241

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Many of the fundamental business models that were once engraved in the SaaS playbook are now changing thanks to a tougher macro environment and a maturing market. PST, Stephanie Opdam, Partner at Notion Capital, shares four business model changes that will allow SaaS companies to build resilience and staying power over time.

Business Model 258

Business Model SaaS Payments Payments Headcount 258

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2022

So for many of us in SaaS, these are still the best of times. The Cloud is bigger than ever, CIOs are buying more than ever, and SaaS is still on a roll. Let go of your bottom 20% of sales reps, concentrate leads in the best reps. Show up to your bigger deals in person much more often. A few simple thoughts: 1.

Sales Hiring 288

Sales Hiring Management Airlines Venture Capital 288

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2022

So is Square a SaaS company? And yet … and yet … its engine is all software and really SaaS. Let’s see what we can learn from a SaaS perspective: #1. Square gross profit from mid-market sellers was up 73% year over year in the fourth quarter and 47% on a two-year CAGR basis. #2. At least still for now.

Payments 278

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services Revenue 278

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

Different Pathways to CRO For Jane Kim, former CRO of CircleCl,, she used to work in finance before transitioning to SaaS. After switching to SaaS, she started as an SMB sales leader with no prior management or SMB sales experience. During her time in finance, she did multi-million dollar deals with 12 to 18-month deal cycles.

Scale 250

Scale Underperforming Technical Team SMB Finance 250

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Beyond multiples, many Cloud companies faced a deluge of headwinds that impacted business fundamentals… Lengthening sales cycles Tightening customer budgets It was no surprise that SaaS IPOs came to a screeching halt. The BVP Cloud Index is up 25%, indicating a light at the end of the tunnel.

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Cloud Payments Software Review Payment Solutions 256

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

1000000000000.00% in SaaS. They won’t schedule the follow-ups. Now, at close to the very bottom of the market, tiny little deals — say < $50-$100 a month … you can do a simpler, smaller commission system. Dear SaaStr: Do Salespeople on Commission Really Sell More Than Salary-only Salespeople? They’ll let the deal go.

Scale 236

Scale Revenue Sales Pricing 236

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2021

Catch up on those sessions here! Bottoms Up vs. Top Down Selling in the Enterprise with ThoughtSpot’s CEO. A classic session from SaaStr Enterprise 2021 on when top-down selling works vs. bottoms up. “Sales Mistakes that Can Kill Your SaaS Business & How to Avoid Them with Mark Roberge.”

Scale 281

Scale Finance Market Segmentation Enterprise 281

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

SaaS buying has changed. As buyers grapple with expanding technology, higher prices, and a need for efficiency, SaaS companies need to deliver what their audience is looking for to win in the market. SaaS Market Snapshot In Q1 of 2023, Vendr gathered data on SaaS Spending and yielded some pretty interesting results.

VP of Engineering 251

VP of Engineering Trends Cybersecurity Sales Hiring 251

SaaStr

AUGUST 11, 2022

So in the Boom Times of later 2020 and 2021, almost every VC pushed SaaS companies to at least become a little bit of a fintech. It seemed such an easy way to bolt on more revenue to an underlying SaaS platform. Shopify now gets 2x the revenue from payments and merchant services than it does from SaaS subcriptions.

SaaS Payments 263

SaaS Payments Merchant Services Payments Payment Solutions 263

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

So we’ve talked about it often here at SaaStr, but things are just so … odd right now in SaaS. It’s still close to the best times ever in SaaS for growth and customers, even with mixed signals in the economy. But only up to a point. The best are still growing, if not faster than ever, then still close to it.

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AWS Venture Capital Azure Cloud 310

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Often, these bottom-left quadrant people fall into one of two buckets: Not putting forth the effort Areas of improvement Some people are doing a lot of work, but they’re not working out. If you think about the customer acquisition funnel, you have the top, middle, and bottom. Rebates came way down, and margins went way up.

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Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Sales 211

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2022

When you’re starting off in SaaS, it’s very tempting to target small businesses. But most SaaS companies get there with companies of all sizes — including the true, big large, scary enterprise. And then grow up market … then you can have something that really changes how the enterprise uses software.

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SMB SaaS Enterprise Software 341

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

At SaaStr Miami, former Founder’s Fund Partner and CRO of Brex Sam Blond — host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast — sat down with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin for a fireside chat about finding success as a SaaS company in 2024. People need to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work. It’s a bit of a flywheel.

Sales Hiring 266

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 266

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2023

In part one of this week’s Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) with SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin, he answered the community’s questions about whether all anyone cares about is AI anymore, investor appetites going into 2024, vertical SaaS, and thriving as a solo founder. Catch up on the first half here if you missed it. Fire them.

Scale 240

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success AI 240

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

What’s really going on in the world of SaaS right now, from software valuations to business performance to interest rates? PST, Jamin Ball, Partner at Altimeter Capital and author of Clouded Judgement , took us through the current state of SaaS and what we should expect in 2024. today, so the ten-year is up almost double.

SaaS 258

SaaS Software Metrics Revenue 258

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2022

Zendesk has really grown up. It’s moved beyond its tiniest customers, of an ACV of < $1k, but other than that, it’s going upmarket without giving up its SMB roots. A shot across the bow of anyone saying SaaS is slowing. Up from 29% in 2020. are now 40% of ARR — up from 7% a year ago.

SMB 276

SMB Scale B2B Metrics 276

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2023

But you aren’t quite as sensitive when the bottom 10%-30% isn’t really making any money. Almost everyone I’ve talked to that does profit sharing or similar initiatives gives up and just ends up doing traditional bonuses in the end, traditional sales comp plans, etc. #6. You see it, but you aren’t quite as sensitive to it.

Sales Hiring 193

Sales Hiring Headcount Startup Revenue 193

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

Metrics are the key to evaluating success and setting goals, but not every SaaS business should orient itself around the same one-size-fits-all numbers. The Evolution of Language For SaaS Business. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that SaaS metrics gained respect and popularity in the industry. Key Takeaways.

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Metrics Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 221

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2021

This week a big week for video watching on SaaStr’s YouTube, especially catch-ups from our epic SaaStr Enterprise 2021. “Bottom Up vs. Top Down Selling in the Enterprise with ThoughtSpot’s CEO” A really great session on how to combine the two sales motions. #2. The Top 10 of the Week: #1.

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Scale Interviewing Enterprise Engineering 229

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

You Gotta Do the Work (Of Course) Your Competition is Trying to Sell To, And Steal, Your Customers And yet, I still see so few SaaS companies doing even the most basic steps here. The bottom line is, if you want to steal customers from the competition, at least think about it from their perspective. What about sales commissions?

Sales 285

Sales Pricing Enterprise Revenue 285

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2022

The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army with Craft Ventures General Partner David Sacks. #23. The SaaS Org Chart by Series with David Sacks, Co-founder and General Partner at Craft Ventures. #22. Bottom Up vs. Top Down Selling in the Enterprise with ThoughtSpot CEO Sudheesh Nair. #21.

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Scale AI Innovation Scaling 202

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2021

When you’re trying to grow your SaaS business, the challenges can stack against you. Here’s how they scaled their open-source product with a bottom-up and top-down sales motion. Transition to SaaS. So Why Open Up New Sales Channels? Key Takeaways: SaaS is the most powerful way to monetize open-source.

Scale 273

Scale Sales Cloud Enterprise 273

SaaStr

JUNE 6, 2021

“12 Key Levers of SaaS Success with David Skok” Another SaaStr Classic, and David is also coming back for a brand new MasterClass at SaaStr Annual!! ” Spekit is one of the hottest SaaS companies right now and take a look at how employees will learn post-Covid here: #8. Bottoms up or Top Down selling?

New CTO 183

New CTO CTO Cloud Enterprise 183

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2022

Now, if you’re average price point is higher, you can still afford to go a bit lower to expand the bottom of your market. But with demos, follow-up, etc. That’s a lot if you need to do multiple demos, follow-ups, etc. Even with a very efficient team, it’s tough to afford a sales team much below $299 a month / $3k a year.

SMB 196

SMB Sales Pricing Revenue 196

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2022

Veeva: The Biggest Vertical SaaS Success Story of All Time with Founder/CEO Peter Gassner. 30,124 of you tuned into this SaaStr Classic sessions, really one of the best of all time in terms of how to get a true enterprise SaaS off the ground. The Future of AI, Open Source, and Enterprise SaaS with Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi. #12.

VP of Engineering 242

VP of Engineering Scale Outbound Sales Team SMB 242

User Pilot

MARCH 6, 2024

How do you create a robust product funnel for your SaaS? When creating marketing content , focus on the middle and bottom-of-the-funnel topics as they drive the most conversions. There are a few good reasons why SaaS organizations love product funnels. This is the main question we explore in the article. Its different stages.

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Social Media Sales Funnel Acquisition Retention 104

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

The second SaaStr post ever, way back in late 2012, was “ Everybody Lies: SaaS Revenues in the Inc. 5000 “ It was a fun one, analyzing the only public source of data on just how much ARR a lot of SaaS companies had. Box in 2015 was the first IPO from the SaaS 2.0 Really more Adtech than SaaS. #8 generation.

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SaaS Technical Review Scaling Software Review 282