SaaStr

MAY 12, 2023

So SaaS Capital put out its latest report on SaaS retention and NRR after having surveyed over 1,500 SaaS companies and professionals. Median NRR is 102% across all SaaS companies, Media Gross Retention is 91%. You can download it here. Let customers buy the way they want to buy. #2. NRR Gets Better as You Cross $10m ARR.

Startup 335

Startup SaaS Retention Churn 335

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2023

We tried everything we could in upsell. The most extreme example of the public Cloud and SaaS companies is Fastly. We saw Cloud and SaaS leaders sending unsolicited 3 year binding contacts to month-to-month customers. We made it harder to cancel. And most importantly, we relied on our 100%+ NRR to stay in the game.”

Cloud 312

Cloud Pricing Customer Success Metrics 312

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 29, 2020

Top 10 Blog Posts from 2020. The SaaS Debate: Who Owns the Renewal and Upsell? Whether Customer Success or sales should own the renewal, expansion, and upsell is a hot-button issue in today’s SaaS sphere. 31 st Fastest Growing SaaS Company on SaaS Mag’s list. Customer Success vs. Sales.

Sales Hiring 98

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Software Review 98

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

But very few SaaS companies pay sales reps on renewals as they scale. And you can definitely pay on upsells and account expansion. Longer reason: most SaaS companies don’t pay AEs on renewals — because you want to specialize. We’ve all learned this over the past years in SaaS: You want qualifiers qualifying — BDRs.

Scale 254

Scale Sales Finance Customer Success 254

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2021

Getting customer success right is one of the most powerful levers in SaaS: Upsell + expansion with existing customers costs 62% less than acquiring new customers ($0.63 upsell + expansion CAC vs $1.67 new customer CAC, per KeyBanc 2021 Private SaaS Company Survey ). Presented By: . Chloe Stewart – CRO Pilot.

VP of Engineering 349

VP of Engineering Customer Success Engineering Retention 349

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

The Massive Push to Efficiency As almost every public SaaS company got cash-flow positive and radically more efficient, and most startups had to stretch their dollars much further — customer success took a lot of the brunt. CS just doing upsells? What happened? At least 3 core changes: #1. A terrible experience.

Customer Success 273

Customer Success AI Pricing Enterprise 273

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2023

So how are the top SaaS and Cloud companies doing in 2023? Their top 100 SaaS and Cloud companies — the “Cloud 100” — are almost all at $100m+ ARR, and growing on average 55% year-over-year. Still, averages are good to give us all a sense of overall “macro” impacts in SaaS.

Cloud 226

Cloud Forecasting Retention SaaS 226

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

He’s a billionaire and the CEO of the largest vendor in all of SaaS. If you haven’t explored the difference between behavioral and attitudinal loyalty, it’s one of the most important things you can understand in SaaS customer success. The difference is the upsell and NRR. You can upsell in the first 6-18 mos.

Airlines 267

Airlines Cloud Market Research Customer Success 267

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2024

So Okta is one of our favorite SaaS and Cloud leaders. But like many SaaS and Cloud leaders today, the bigger ones are still growing faster. The story is super inspiring. Founder CEO Todd McKinnon was VP of Engineering at Salesforce and left to start Okta in the depths of the last downturn.

Fractional VPE 241

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Scale SMB 241

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

So Samara is that vertical fleet-and-more-management-and-more SaaS company that has just roared out of the gate since its quiet IPO. 49% of Revenue From New Customers, 51% From Existing It’s great to see a public SaaS leader break this out so clearly. And efficient growth at that. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. . #2.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Engineering 263

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2023

So Domo is an interesting case study on SaaS entrepreneurship. Founder Josh James had one of the earliest $1B+ exits in SaaS when Adobe bought his first start-up, Omniture, for $1.8 After decades running SaaS companies, it was time for a break in 2022, and Josh eventually stepped down as CEO. Billion way back in 2008.

Entrepreneurship 265

Entrepreneurship Enterprise Pricing Churn 265

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

The amount of folks buying SaaS software is a force like we’ve never seen before, and even with some stock market drama, many top SaaS companies still trade at $4B, $10B, $20B or more just a decade after being founded. First, even in the darkest times of ’08-’09 — folks still bought more SaaS than ever.

SMB 327

SMB SaaS Churn Enterprise 327

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2023

So Cloudflare is one of our hero Cloud / SaaS companies and even under tougher macro conditions, still grew a stunning 37% at $1.2 And I think it’s also telling, as it summarizes what has happened all across SaaS sales in the past 24 months: Their top reps are still closing, and closing well — at 129% of quota.

Sales Hiring 287

Sales Hiring Scale Cloud Sales 287

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

If you’re a SaaS sales rep with a $500k annual quota, doing $5k ACV deals … you have to close 100 deals a year. And that was customer success managers who were really just farmers — compensated 100% or close to it for Upsells, not Retention. SaaS Compounds. WebEx-type environments). ” Sigh.

Compensation 269

Compensation Customer Success Interviewing Sales 269

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2023

That their job is to process customers, to attempt to drive NPS up (and these days, really more upsell up). And be very careful when you hire a Head of Customer Success from a Bigger SaaS Company. But here’s my only point — don’t settle for a CS team that just focuses on “process” at least in the earlier days.

Customer Success 221

Customer Success Scale Sales Hiring Leadership 221

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2022

The reality is though, in SaaS, especially if you are primarily sales-driven, that’s often gonna be tough. So if you’re building a model for your SaaS start-up, or thinking about cash-flow positive as a goal, let me offer a few learnings about how we got there faster: Land A Few Whales. Big Customers) in SaaS.

SaaS Payments 291

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring SaaS Payment Services 291

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

For sure this is true in SaaS. And yet … What tends to happen for most SaaS businesses even as early as $2m ARR or so, is that they get a core engine that’s working. SaaS Compounds (more on that here ). Your churn will go down, and your upsells will go up. Add Someone to Own Upsells. Pick a Few.

Sales Hiring 328

Sales Hiring SaaS Outbound Sales Team Customer Success 328

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2022

They are the great gifts in SaaS. The quality of the average CS experience I’ve had over the past decade has deteriorated as SaaS has grown. Making upsell implicity the top goal of CS, which is part of NRR, corrupts being customer-centric. The job all ends up becoming about upsells. With top, leading SaaS vendors.

Customer Success 268

Customer Success Systems Review AWS Software Review 268

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 13, 2018

Great SaaS sales reps can change your entire business. So what is it about these SaaS sales reps that differentiates them from the rest? Let’s break down a few things that all the best SaaS sales pros understand. Upselling value to existing customers is key. Persistence is a key driver of SaaS sales.

Scale 224

Scale SaaS Sales Sales Funnel 224

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

upsell/account growth + renewals – churn) for very small businesses. Let’s look at some of the top public SaaS companies: Shopify — very SMB: 100%. On the low end for the enterprise SaaS companies, but still basically 120%. The post What’s a Good Net Retention Rate in SaaS? Hubspot — mostly SMB: 100%.

Retention 344

Retention SMB SaaS Enterprise 344

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2023

Second, it showed early you can build a SaaS and enterprise leader from anywhere. And third, it’s a SaaS and Cloud leader we all have opinions on. Atlassian already spent less on sales and marketing than virtually ever other public SaaS company. But upsells, NRR, and growth into $1m+ accounts remains strong. #5.

Sales Hiring 209

Sales Hiring Scale Cloud Scaling 209

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2020

Should you pay sales reps on upsells a long time down the road? You need to, to scale in SaaS. We’ve all learned this over the past decade in SaaS: You want qualifiers qualifying — BDRs. You want upsellers upselling — AM or sometimes AEs. Should you pay sales reps on … ? Pay closers on closing.

Scale 259

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Scaling 259

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2023

While now mainstream, our early thinking on the power of Second Order Revenue in many ways informed a generation of SaaS entrepreneurs and the whole CS space. But if that means Customer Success is now just a glorified upsell function — count me out. But … things have change in the past 24 months or so. Everyone wants to be a CRO now.

Customer Success 271

Customer Success Pricing Revenue Sales 271

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

Sales-driven SaaS startups end up with about half their headcount in sales and marketing. One thing that sneaks up on you in SaaS is just how many sales, marketing and revenue professionals you are going to need: First it sneaks up on you in the early days because the initial tiny team become so efficient. Sales doesn't.

Scale 348

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 348

SaaStr

MAY 17, 2023

So RingCentral is a quiet SaaS leader that has been around for a long time, since the early days of SaaS. Just an interesting note, when so many other SaaS and Cloud leaders are getting most of their growth in this macro environment from their larger customers. As part of that, upsells are down as well.

Scale 252

Scale Cloud Enterprise Trends 252

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2020

While the concept may sound old hat to those that have been in the software business for a long time, in SaaS in particular, very little tools, processes, and software are applied to marketing to customers after they are closed. Podcasts, blogs and video conten t. How good is your onboarding content? Podcasts are everywhere today.

Marketing 275

Marketing Retention Customer Success Content Marketing 275

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

UiPath is one of the most amazing not-really-an-overnight success stories in Cloud, SaaS and software. One of the fastest-growing SaaS companies ever. Is it really SaaS? If you can grow new customers bookings and upsell bookings at about a 1:1 ratio, like UiPath, that’s the golden ratio for future growth.

Outsourcing Services 362

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Payment Features Cloud 362

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. For most of these companies, expansion and upselling make a significant part of new ARR in the growth stages. Companies need an existing customer base to upsell in the later stages of growth.

Scale 225

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Venture Capital 225

SaaStr

DECEMBER 6, 2022

SaaS and IT budgets are still going up in 2023. And that seems to be where the #1 largest SaaS vendor is, Salesforce. But they aren’t adding new products or upsells at anything close to the rate earlier in the year. Maybe it’s just a reset to a time when selling SaaS was just a bit harder, as it always was until 2H’20 or so.

Forecasting 246

Forecasting Cloud Scale Enterprise 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

So Zoominfo is one of our favorite SaaS / Cloud leaders at SaaStr. Logo retention isn’t down much, it’s just customers are looking to cut, cut, cut back their spend, via fewer seats and less upsell. #5. Basically bootstrapped. Incredibly profitably — amazingly so. Great founder-CEO.

Scale 232

Scale Cloud Scaling Subscription 232

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2023

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday.com, and the founder of SaaStr. For a quick recap on SaaS metrics: What is ARR in SaaS? How Is CAC Calculated In SaaS? In the early days of SaaS, efficiency mattered because there was no capital.

Metrics 211

Metrics SaaS Sales Hiring Finance 211

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2023

So many CROs, at top SaaS companies you’ve heard of, are taking on onboarding, QBRs, and much more post-sales themselves than they used to. This is different than wanting to own upsells, or renewals. On a related note, take a look at our top CRO Deep Dives here: SaaStr Deep Dives With 100+ of the Top CROs in SaaS!

Sales Recruiting 239

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Onboarding Sales 239

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2020

In SaaS, it is recruiting your VPs and management team : SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. SaaS products get too complex to hack a product roadmap too long. Upsell and retention is an art, science and craft. Q: What’s the number one challenge for scale-up founders? You can’t hack it forever.

Part-Time VPE 246

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Fractional VPE Sales Recruiting 246

SaaStr

MARCH 2, 2023

We’ll see 2,500+ of the best SaaS founders, execs, and VCs June 6-7 at 2022 SaaStr Europa ! Embed white-labeled dashboards in your SaaS application or portal. We do this by mapping out risk or upsell opportunity with automated engagement results for every customer. Grab tickets here.

Scale 235

Scale Technical Review Software Review Machine Learning 235

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2022

This VP of Sales has built legendary teams, and his Directors and Managers have gone on to run many of the top SaaS companies out there. He’d partnered with great CS leaders and knew SaaS cold. CS does more than help close the deal and support the largest upsell opportunities. -> Ok this isn’t the most profound post.

Customer Success 285

Customer Success Scale Sales Hiring Sales 285

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

Go-to-Market matters because sales and marketing spend remain the biggest proportion of SaaS spend, so honing in on that spend to build an engine and drive growth is paramount. The goal is not just to retain but to grow, cross-sell, and upsell those customers, and the increase in spend and revenue can help drive that.

Scale 254

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Outsourced Development 254

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 2, 2021

How do you pay AEs for upsell after the initial deal close? The post Join One Great SaaS Discussion a Day on SaaStr University!! What’s the #1 thing you’ve done this year to increase close rates? What ratio of SDRs:AEs are you using, and why? What’s the #1 thing you’ve done in 2021 to drive down churn?

SaaS 224

SaaS Churn 224