SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2023

G2 had us back for another great deep dive on just where SaaS investing is there days, and it was a great panel: Accel Partner Arun Mathew Inspired Capital Founder & Managing Partner Alexa von Tobel Salesforce Ventures Managing Partner Paul Drews and Jason Lemkin! Low investment multiples pose a key challenge.

B2B 227

B2B Investment Venture Capital Scale 227

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

At SaaStr we’ve huge champions about investing early in CS. is a number to back into, at scale. It’s a reminder CSM staffing overall is actually fairly thin at scale. Especially in this new age of efficient growth. But again, there’s only so much money. So what’s the current, actual spend for CS?

Customer Success 185

Customer Success Scaling Management Churn 185

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

She was hired because they saw a bit of softening in new business growth, and she came to help diagnose what was going on and help scale the business. While it may seem smart when you have five or fewer salespeople to sell anything and everything between $3k and $100k, that won’t scale. Attune sellers for one or the other.

Scale 238

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 238

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

General Partner Doug Pepper and General Partner and Head of Analytics at ICONIQ Growth, Christine Edmonds, share the art and science of scaling GTM at this year’s SaaStr Annual. Early Growth Stage — $20M to $50M ARR This is the first time companies are really starting to build their GTM organizations for scale. What does that mean?

Scale 243

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Outsourced Development 243

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO @ Stack Overflow recently shared with our community the four key pillars he feels are necessary to propel a company to scale upward. Is your product sound, and does it solve a big problem for customers, enough for you to scale? All of this will help create value and return on investment capital.

Scale 308

Scale Scaling Technical Review Systems Review 308

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Many of you are familiar with this visual, most likely created by an investment firm. You have to keep investing in the new product while getting back to the current product. Keep leaning into the investment, and don’t let off the gas. Or, this is a company bet, and you’re willing to invest 70% for a year.

Scale 242

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 242

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What Are Some Signs That Your SaaS Marketing Programs Won’t Scale Well? You need to invest there, too. So my rule from all of this is basically, invest in any marketing program that even returns $1 for $1 spent. The post Dear SaaStr: What Are Some Signs That Your SaaS Marketing Programs Won’t Scale Well?

Scale 231

Scale Scaling Marketing SaaS 231

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

But with that out of the way, let’s talk just enough about financial accounting to explain why Big Tech Companies both acquire smaller ones — and do corporate VC investment. Because in the short-term, it often costs basically close to nothing to acquire a smaller startup with cash on hand, or do a corporate VC investment.

Acquisition 247

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 247

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

And here, they just couldn’t safely invest. ” Which is, once you are post-Initial Scale, past $3m-$4m in ARR or so, even if you have 80%+ gross margins and a very efficient sales and marketing engine … once your cash dips below 50% of your ARR … you’ll have stress, and importantly — underinvest.

Scale 336

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Construction 336

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? I invested in a company named CAT Labs in Q1 of this year. This was truly a case of the perfect founder building a business that has scale potential. #2. What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? Check that out here.

Technical Review 259

Technical Review Management Investment AI 259

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Despite what we’ve seen post-2020/2021, there has been a surge in AI investments, with AI companies at the infrastructure layer hitting a hundred times valuations at early funding stages. Regularly ask two crucial questions at the end of board meetings: “Scale 1-10: How am I performing?”

Investment 146

Investment Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 146

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

But with that out of the way, let’s talk just enough about financial accounting to explain why Big Tech Companies both acquire smaller ones — and do corporate VC investment. Because in the short-term, it often costs basically close to nothing to acquire a smaller startup with cash on hand, or do a corporate VC investment.

Acquisition 216

Acquisition Investment Headcount Banking 216

SaaStr

AUGUST 5, 2022

Dear SaaStr: Should I Tell VCs How Much I Want Them to Invest? 10m tells me you are really ready to scale. 10m tells me you are really ready to scale. Don’t ask an investor for more money than they will invest, if you’d take less. The post Dear SaaStr: Should I Tell VCs How Much I Want Them to Invest? 2m another.

Investment 229

Investment Scale Scaling Sales 229

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. But before the years of rapid scaling, it took the company a little while to hit its stride. What Did WorkRamp Do Differently to Scale? But sometimes, the road less traveled is the path to success.

Scale 214

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 214

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2022

Yamini Rangan, CEO at HubSpot, has many insights on how to serve SMB customers at scale. But because SMBs are rarely digital-first, their recent challenges allowed HubSpot to leverage their years of experience in marketing automation, as it became a core feature of how these companies worked to scale. HubSpot for Startups” program.

Scale 235

Scale SMB Scaling Innovation 235

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

How do you scale a company based that can be collaborative for everyone in your org — from finance to marketing? Take the time to invest in the right metrics because down the road they will contribute to financial success through sustainable revenue growth in addition to better strategic advantage in the competitive landscape.

Scale 207

Scale Software Review Scaling Sales Hiring 207

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures’ data says while VC investment $$$ are on fire — they aren’t going into more startups. Some guideposts to guide to at scale. #4. The post Battery Ventures: VC Investments Are Way Up. A few top takeaways: #1. Instead, more dollars are going into the break-out leaders, not more deals.

Investment 243

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 243

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2021

Here’s the advice they had to offer on scaling your SaaS company. Adam #18: Invest in a strong hiring and onboarding process from day one. In the early days, Zapier invested a lot into all-hands support. It’s hard to re-engineer your business at scale. Instead, understand the strong foundation and then scale from there.

Scale 295

Scale Scaling Innovation Investment 295

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

Scale-ups are exciting. Scaling to satisfy customers’ demands depends on innovation and foresight combined with enterprise-ready technology and the right partners. On top of considerable dedication, creating a scale-up requires a functional edge—a unique and unreplicable capability compared to the players in the industry.

Scale 234

Scale Scaling Marketplace as a Service Entrepreneurship 234

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

But maybe not while you are scaling, you can often afford to invest more if you have funding. This is pretty much where most of us end up at, at scale. However you do it, $2m ARR per Customer Success Manager — but hired in advance , not arrears — is a solid model to scale with. Well — Maybe.

Scale 251

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 251

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2023

Harry Stebbings of 20VC was kind enough to have us back on the latest VC Roundtable with 2 of the very, very best in growth / late-stage investing — the leaders of Insight Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. They’ve led later stage investments in the best in SaaS and Cloud. And Where is Growth Investing?

Investment 241

Investment AI Cloud Scale 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Check out the session here: Algolia also summarized their Top 5 take-aways here , and below: Most SaaS founders start out the same way— armed with ample expertise of the technical details that go into a product and with limited experience of other aspects of scaling, such as sales. On finding product-market fit in the early stages.

Scale 237

Scale Sales Hiring Technical Advisors Scaling 237

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

She reveals how customer centricity, operational rigor, and data-driven strategies drove Airtable to scale and serve over 300,000 organizations, including 80% of the Fortune 100. Invest in your tech stack so that you keep growing while you scale. As marketers, we must quickly validate decisions and scale programs as needed.

Engineering 235

Engineering Scaling Marketing Acquisition 235

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2022

Confluent’s President of Field Operations, Erica Schultz, explores different tactics businesses can employ to scale revenue and increase efficiency in the current macro environment. As you look to scale your business and make your processes more efficient, it’s essential to foster a shared understanding of who your target customer is.

VP of Engineering 210

VP of Engineering Scale Scaling Sales Hiring 210

SaaStr

MAY 17, 2021

We overindex on the inside information, and how quickly we assume they could scale up … and because of that, we let their other weaknesses slide in candidates we otherwise wouldn’t hire. Sales reps don’t have to scale in a day. So a rep with a $120k OTE has to eventually close at least $480k at scale. Not Training Reps.

Scale 243

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales 243

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2021

3 Invest in people. Invest in long-standing employees and reward them for agility and excite them about movement. Invest “BIG” in people. The post The Secret Sauce to Scaling to $1B with Zendesk appeared first on SaaStr. Your people are the lifeblood of your organization. Specialize and focus your execution.

Scale 201

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring SMB 201

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2024

A Burn Rate That is Too High Venture capital is meant for investing, for sure. But there’s a fine line between investing and keeping a leaky boat and set of metrics afloat. Almost every founder regrets using capital to keep a high-burn rate engine going that isn’t scaling rapidly. #2.

Trends 290

Trends Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital 290

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Eran Zimman, monday.com’s co-founder and co-CEO, shares his secrets to scaling and growth in an unpredictable market. Serve customers a CRM or project management first, and as they scale and use it more, they’re exposed to more features. They kept doing it after the economy changed, and they also scaled it. It’s cheap.

Scale 161

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 161

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2024

So with public SaaS companies continuing to grow, but revenue multiples often at relative lows, it can make sense in some cases to “go private”, invest in more growth for a few years, and try to IPO again down the road. Qualtrics did it, nCino just did it, and the latest is Squarespace. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scaling 246

Scaling Subscription Payment Features Pricing 246

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2023

A Strategic Move Upmarket Another company CIPIO Partners invested in needed to make a strategic move. This company moved upmarket and satisfied the demand of larger customers by strategically investing in product features those customers needed. They had SMB positioning with an unfavorable LTV to CAC ratio. One thing is for certain.

Scale 237

Scale Strategy Scaling Outbound Sales Team 237

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

Scaling your SaaS company isn’t just about hitting the right growth metrics –– it requires a thorough understanding of your business goals, company culture, and leadership dynamic. Roy Mann and Eran Zinman, Co-Founders and CEOs of monday.com, look back at their incredible growth and share the dos and don’ts of scaling. It’s essential.

Scale 208

Scale Scaling Leadership Company Culture 208

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Or do you actually have something worth scaling?”. If you decide that global growth is the right move for your business, then think about your expansion model, the role that capital investment might play, costs, the areas where you will have a structural advantage, the regulatory climate, and your competition.

Scale 218

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 218

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

You might feel confused about where to begin, how to scale up, which mistakes you should avoid, and things you should consider before expanding. Now, let’s look at ten learnings that Dorian gathered while scaling Grammarly from a Consumer to an Enterprise brand with B2B offerings. Enter your email below for the latest SaaStr updates.

Scale 219

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 219

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

They also hired a VP of Partners who knew how to scale B2B software. Partner: investing in different partnership channels. Storyblok then invested in an onboarding and learning platform to create a four-week onboarding program rather than the lengthy wiki pages they previously used. Self-service. We listened to our employees.

Scale 208

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scaling 208

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2021

Protocol and Pitchbook partnered to do a comparison to see what’s happening in Private Equity and enterprise deals so far in 2021, and the data is a bit jaw-dropping: Just in 1H’21, PE invested $20.4B The post Protocal: Private Equity Investments in SaaS Are Up 142% From Last Year appeared first on SaaStr.

Investment 262

Investment SaaS Acquisition Enterprise 262

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

generate momentum, they will inevitably need to scale up. For whatever reason, the company is ready to exit startup status and prepare to scale-up. Dave Kellogg, Executive-In-Residence at Balderton Capital, breaks down the most common mistakes companies make when going from startup to scale-up.

Scale 205

Scale Technical Advisors Sales Hiring Technical Review 205

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

Doug Pepper, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, has invested in software and SaaS companies for 22 years, from seed to growth stage. They initially double their ARR each year in scaling post $10M. Over the last ten years, ICONIQ Growth has partnered with over 90 companies, seeing them grow through critical phases.

Scale 219

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Venture Capital 219