SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Lower interest rates lead to SaaS multiple reflation, likely during 2H’24 It’s not clear how truly tight the link is between interest rates and SaaS multiples, but the overall correlation is clear. Lower inflation and the fed lowering interest rates should lead to an expansion of SaaS multiples.

Scale 259

Scale SaaS AI Innovation 259

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2020

A little while back we put together some of the top sales & marketing mistakes SaaS companies and founders make, especially in the early days. Sales: Hiring any reps you wouldn’t buy from yourself. Later, once you have a strong VP of Sales, it’s fine though. Your sales reps need to eat. Yes, Box is SaaS.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 363

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2024

As a SaaS veteran who built and sold a software company for nine figures, invested in startups since 2013, 10x-ing his fund, and continues to build a powerhouse community of SaaStr fans, he offers some hot takes on the communities’ burning questions. Sales is much harder than in 2021. How Does That Impact Sales and Marketing?

Metrics 214

Metrics Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 214

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What are some of the “ultimate sins” in marketing and sales and success in SaaS in the early stages? My list of some bad ones: Sales: Hiring any reps you wouldn’t buy from. Later, once you have a strong VP of Sales, it’s fine though. Your sales reps need to eat. A bit more here.

Sales Hiring 238

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 238

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2022

In 2015, SaaS cloud-based content management tool Box went public. Especially with the coronavirus pandemic, Box—like many other SaaS companies—saw a decline in growth year over year. What you want in SaaS is big accounts you land and expand with. Improvements for a sales team and process are a ‘no finish line’ business.

Scale 265

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 265

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2024

Lemkin expresses concern about the changing work ethic and loyalty of sales and marketing professionals, observing a trend of multiple job-holding and lack of commitment. Revenue per employee has doubled since 2021, leading to budget cuts and the necessity for leaders to achieve more with fewer resources.

Sales Hiring 252

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Technical Review Scale 252

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

You know what’s back in fashion today in SaaS? And that’s a lot rarer in SaaS. But so many SaaS leaders aren’t really profitable at $1B ARR even, Why not? And it’s not just public SaaS companies that are often struggling to get profitable. I’m an investor in maybe 30 SaaS startups. So is SaaS cursed?

Scale 280

Scale SaaS Banking AWS 280

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2023

I see SaaS companies quickly get to cash-flow positive by really only servicing in-bound customers with high intent. Well at a practical level, many SaaS companies are doing a Strategic Sales & Marketing Retreat. What’s a Strategic Sales & Marketing Retreat? Second, you slow or stop sales hiring.

Scale 279

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Marketing 279

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Is A Good Demo Conversion Rate for a SaaS Startup? If fewer than 8%-10% or so of your demos convert to paid customers, you’ll start to burn out your sales team. This is why SaaS start-ups often are so proud of their “amazing” conversion rates before they hire a real VP of Demand Gen. Even that’s a lot.

Scale 237

Scale Startup Sales Hiring SaaS 237

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

Q: What are the common mistakes in B2B sales in the early-ish days? The list could be endless, and it can vary a lot based on type of customer, type of sale, etc. The list could be endless, and it can vary a lot based on type of customer, type of sale, etc. Firing” prospects. Do not fire a prospect. A lot more.

Scale 197

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SaaS 197

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2023

We’ll have 12,000+ of the best in SaaS and Cloud all coming together to share, scale, and learn. We’ll have over 100 of the leaders in SaaS as sponsors, from Salesforce to Expensify, from Google Cloud to G2, and so much more! Need leads? The post Need Leads? And our sponsors are a key part of it!

Scale 208

Scale Cloud Branding Scaling 208

OpenView Labs

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Once dominated by relationships, sales today (especially SaaS sales) are equally propelled by technology. With the broad adoption of CRM, the rise of the sales tech stack, and the advent of social selling and other digital sales channels, the sales landscape has shifted dramatically. Scaling SaaS Sales.

Scale 91

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Technical Review 91

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

The hardest phase of SaaS, at least for the founders, is the phase from Initial Traction ($1-$2m in ARR + 80%-100% YoY growth) to the next phase — Initial Scale. Inevitability in SaaS comes around $10m in ARR , plus or minus. That’s the power of compounding SaaS revenue. Lead qualification reps?

Scale 254

Scale Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scaling 254

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2021

Zapier grew from a small SaaS startup to a company with over 500 employees over a decade. Here’s the advice they had to offer on scaling your SaaS company. Here’s the advice they had to offer on scaling your SaaS company. It’s hard to re-engineer your business at scale. Want to know how they did it? .

Scale 290

Scale Scaling Innovation Investment 290

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2021

Question @jasonlk @saastr to @ericsyuan @zoom_us why the #ads and billboards & the effect of brand on #sales cycle? The good news is if you get anywhere at all in SaaS in the early days, you’ll have a handful of customers. In fact, most of us have. At first, you’ll get 1 or 3 or 5 leads from it.

Branding 291

Branding Scale Innovation Enterprise 291

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 5, 2019

? ?. Over a few decades, SaaS has evolved from a lofty concept to an integral part of the modern business landscape. In many respects, it’s now almost impossible to envisage a work environment that doesn’t rely on a SaaS product in some shape or form. Unarguably one of the biggest brands in the world today.

Scale 118

Scale Scaling Artificial Intelligence Business 118

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Want more leads, pipeline, influence, and awareness in 2024? Leading Public Cloud Company: “We got 110 qualified opportunities and converted 40 to sign-up for our offer. ” Public Fintech #2: “Our sales team walked away with over 100 qualified leads. .” Our prospects were there.

Scale 227

Scale Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions 227

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Let’s deep dive into how combining innovative demand gen strategies with a modern tech stack and specific team setup can provide a winning formula for scaling B2B growth, even with low budgets of greater than a 2x burn multiple. In this playbook we’ll share: Automated outbound at-scale strategies. No humans involved.

Scale 230

Scale Sales Hiring Strategy Marketing 230

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2024

Most SaaS companies steer away from phone support in general, and especially for lower-end and trial prospects/customers. At scale it can be expensive, no doubt. Especially if you can segment out support issues (where you should still pick up the phone) from questions from prospects and trial users. Answer the Chat.

Outsourcing Services 248

Outsourcing Services Scale Banking Branding 248

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Ah the VP of Sales. The first post is What a Great VP of Sales Actually Does. The second post is a script for you to use (and modify as you see fit) – 10 Great Questions to Ask a VP Sales Candidate. Just so you know, there are 48 Different Types of VP Sales. The toughest hire. Such a high failure rate.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 363

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.

Sales Hiring 194

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 194

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Does it get easier or harder to scale SaaS as your company grows? Generally, it gets easier to grow at a “good”/modest rate at you scale, but harder to grow at an outsize rate. Once you cross $5m-$10m in ARR, then usually: You have a brand. At least, you have a mini-brand in your niche.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling Branding 202

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2023

So one recent survey we did really brought out a healthy debate: does your VP of Sales really need to be a product expert? Many of the comments said it was more important a VP of Sales understand process and leadership more than the product itself. They often melt. I say, you just gotta know the product. Not just with buzzwords.

Scale 232

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 232

Neil Patel

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

It’s no secret that the field of marketing is constantly evolving, and SaaS brands are not immune from the challenges that arise due to the fast-paced nature of the field. One great way SaaS companies can keep up is through brand advocacy. 2021 SaaS Trends that Affect Brand Advocacy.

Branding 143

Branding Scale Social Media SaaS 143

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2019

Generally, it gets easier to grow at a “good”/modest rate at you scale, but harder to grow at an outsize rate. Once you cross $5m-$10m in ARR, then usually: You have a brand. At least, you have a mini-brand in your niche. And that brand generates leads organically, and fairly low-cost leads.

Scale 126

Scale Scaling SaaS Branding 126

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 5, 2021

The “Magic Number” is one of those metrics in SaaS that has always sort of vexxed me. On the one hand, you need a shorthand for your sales and marketing efficiency — and that’s Magic Number. Magic Number is your growth in ARR over a quarter divided by the sales and marketing spend in the prior quarter.

Scale 264

Scale SaaS Acquisition Benchmarks 264

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2020

Q: Will SaaS prices drop due to competition from developing countries? I can’t think of too many examples at scale, but for a long time, Zoho took advantage of its low cost basis in India and did just that. Most SaaS products start out cheap. Most SaaS products start out cheap. Eventually, you can spend a ton on SaaS.

Scale 178

Scale Pricing SaaS Branding 178

ChurnZero

JANUARY 26, 2022

82% of marketers say that “active customer retention” is one of the most important objectives for their CRM team , leading many Marketing and Customer Success team members to seek out new ways to understand customer pain points and improve the customer experience. In Marketing and Sales, personalization is the key to building relationships.

Scale 97

Scale Churn Scaling Retention 97

FastSpring

DECEMBER 7, 2023

As the Director of Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships at WP Engine , Carl has worked on many acquisitions and partnerships, including brands like Flywheel, Perfect Dashboard, Block Lab, and recently, Delicious Brains. This leaves the sale of the business a lot more vulnerable to the market. Jump to highlights.

Software Review 146

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Branding 146

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Scale. 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. Jabari Norton, VP WW Partner and Alliances, Sumo Logic.

Scale 204

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 204

SaaStr

JULY 9, 2019

Join Anish Shivdasani, CEO of Giraffe, as he provides unique African experiences learned from scaling to 1M users. Now, unfortunately there are a lot of constraints in Africa, major constraints when you’re talking about setting up and scaling a startup. Well, you have to build a direct sales force. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW.

Scale 162

Scale Sales Recruiting Scaling SaaS Payments 162

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 2, 2019

However, that means there is a huge opportunity for businesses who are able to scale personal, effective support. We surveyed 170 non-native English speaking SaaS customers, and 135 support team leads to learn more. SaaS customers are more loyal to products that provide native language support.

Scale 209

Scale Outsourcing Services Scaling Technical Review 209

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2021

I recently put together a list on Quora of 6 things sales reps recently said to me as a buyer of SaaS products myself that killed the deal: “You are wasting my time”. A prospect’s time is always valuable. Sales is there to serve. If sales was routed the wrong lead, that’s the company’s fault, not the prospect’s.

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 284

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

Finding the perfect VP of Sales position can be daunting, especially in the middle of a global pandemic. Candidates need to find opportunities that not only fit their sales experience and stretch goals, but also companies that are coming out of the pandemic with momentum. Who is looking to hire a VP of Sales in January / Q1?

Sales Hiring 325

Sales Hiring Scale Payment Solutions Payments 325

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2020

One of the classic original SaaStr posts was on the Top 10 Questions to Ask a VP of Sales Candidate. We did an update of that classic post below together with this brand new video on the topic: Use this script for hiring that first VP of Sales. Ready to hire your first VP Sales? But haven’t done it before?

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Sales 307

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2024

If you’ve read SaaStr or have been around for the last decade, you might be familiar with some of the repeated GTM mistakes founders tend to make, but the world of hiring, people, scaling, and workplace expectations are significantly different today than they were before March 2020. They weren’t getting any leads. Don’t make the hire.

Sales Hiring 251

Sales Hiring Scale AI Search AI 251

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 26, 2019

Today we’re releasing a brand new book, Intercom on Sales. You could swap in any numbers you’d like, and the sentiment would still hold true: scaling sales is incredibly hard. I joined Intercom three years ago to do just that, to take our nascent sales team to the next level. And much, much more.

Scale 119

Scale Scaling Sales Business 119