SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Her company specializes in API integration platforms that enable SaaS companies to launch integrations faster and automate complex business processes. The post Where AI Really Matters in Vertical SaaS With CEOs of Owner, Alloy Automation, and DoNotPay appeared first on SaaStr.

AI 207

AI Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Systems Review 207

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

There simply aren’t enough businesses in the entire country + Europe to get most products to a $100m freemium business in almost any business/SaaS/work segment. Even so, it’s still a lot of users you’ll need: So is freemium hopeless to build a $100,000,000+ business for most of us? The problem?

Business Model 293

Business Model Scale Business PayPal 293

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 16, 2019

The SaaS industry is constantly evolving, and for many companies in the space, that means having to evolve their business model. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean a “pivot”, but more often the evolution is a shifting business model as the company scales and the user base grows and changes. Purchase process.

Business Model 195

Business Model Scale Pricing Payment Methods 195

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2025

So Circle is the latest tech IPO and it’s not really B2B or SaaS per se — it’s a fintech that issues and manages “stablecoins” Cypto that converts 1:1 to U.S. ✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) June 5, 2025 5 Interesting Learnings for B2B and SaaS Founders from Circle’s IPO: 1. The culprit?

compliance 238

compliance Marketplace as a Service B2B Healthcare 238

USIO

JUNE 19, 2025

Picture this: You’re building an awesome SaaS tool—maybe for managing booster clubs (like BoosterHub) or for streamlining medical offices (like PracticeSuite). Let’s explore how SaaS companies are monetizing embedded payments, how big this opportunity really is, and what providers make it easy (and profitable). Valued at $261.1

Payments 130

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions 130

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2025

We analyzed every major public SaaS company’s YTD performance through just about the end of the first half of 2025. TL;DR: The SaaS market has clearly bifurcated in 2025. Traditional horizontal SaaS faces big headwinds (Salesforce -18%, Asana -31%). The Three Forces Reshaping SaaS 1. This isn’t cyclical.

B2B 252

B2B Government Healthcare compliance 252

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2025

SaaS Capital just dropped their 14th annual survey analyzing growth rates across 1,000+ private B2B SaaS companies. Remember when everyone was throwing money at anything with “SaaS” in the name? Know where you stand relative to your actual peer group, not the entire SaaS universe.

B2B 205

B2B Data Scale Startup 205

Tom Tunguz

JULY 1, 2025

Given its high growth & unique business model, how should the market value Figma? We can use a linear regression based on public SaaS companies to predict its forward revenue multiple. The model shows a modest correlation between revenue growth & valuation multiples (R² = 0.23).

Compensation 190

Compensation AI Retention Business Model 190

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2025

The numbers validated this quickly: 2018: 100 apps, $1M tracked revenue 2020: Series A at $15M 2021: 6,000+ apps, $1B+ tracked revenue, Series B at $300M valuation SaaStr Fund’s bet wasn’t just on the founders or the technologyit was on the inevitable shift toward subscription-first mobile business models.

Payments 277

Payments Payment Solutions Underperforming Technical Team Payment Methods 277

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

So things got a bit broken with SaaS sales exec comp in the run-up up until 2020 … and then it got really broken in the crazy times of late 2020 and 2021. SaaS companies and fintechs and pseudo-SaaS companies could end up paying out more than the entire year’s margin in the commission check. This wrecks the unit economics.

Scale 345

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Sales 345

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2020

It took us 2 years just to figure out our ultimate business model. It seems like everyone wants to be a SaaS founder these days. Start their own SaaS company. There are three things I ask folks who want to start their own SaaS company: 1. That just doesn’t happen in paid SaaS apps. >>

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting SaaS Interviewing Consulting 363

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2025

AI is already reshaping B2B SaaS, and its only going to accelerate. One Thing is Clear: AI Makes a Lot of Business Software Look Awfully Expensive Today. Gross Margins Will Improve for AI-Driven SaaS. AI is also transforming the economics of SaaS. AI is forcing every SaaS company to level up. Is Deflation Coming?

AI 140

AI Trends SaaS AWS 140

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

Jason starts with the meta-question we’ve been asking a lot of SaaS leaders lately ( Klaviyo , ZoomInfo ) — ‘are we in a downturn?’ ’ Bill is approaching half a million customers, so has a good pulse on small businesses. Going Long We’ve written before on the power of going long in SaaS.

SMB 307

SMB Payment Services Payments Payment Methods 307

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2025

Monday.com Has Achieved Rule of 40 with Room to Spare The Rule of 40 (growth rate + profit margin should exceed 40%) is a benchmark for successful SaaS companies. Their ability to maintain growth while improving profitability shows they’re not just growing at all costs but building a sustainable business model.

Scale 187

Scale SMB Acquisition Enterprise 187

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

Debt for SaaS companies done right is a gift. Few folks have more data than Nathan Latka and he offers up some insights on how to properly leverage up in SaaS. Geoffrey Moore calls this group the Late Majority and the Laggards in his book Crossing the Chasm , a secret bible for many SaaS CEO’s. . — ed.

Venture Capital 287

Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Scale 287

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2020

There are some questions in SaaS that are, at some level, almost a mystery: Why was Veeva able to burn only ~$10m net on its way to an IPO? Why are burn rates so divergent in SaaS? Market-dominant strategy does work in SaaS, at least muchly. A longer SaaStr post on Dominant Strategies in SaaS here. So it’s not that.

Scale 339

Scale SaaS Business Model Strategy 339

FastSpring

JANUARY 23, 2025

If you own a SaaS or other digital product business such as a Slack plugin, Chrome extension, online publishing business, mobile app, or even a blog and youre looking to exit, you may have a lot of questions about how best to go about it. How selling an investment business is very different from getting VC funding.

Scale 119

Scale Entrepreneurship Scaling Underperforming Technical Team 119

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2021

How does a SaaS company reach enterprise buyers? Zhao says, “Our business model is B2B SaaS, but our sales motion is similar to a consumer-like company…there’s a lot of B2C elements to it.”. Align your business goals with your user community. A Different Way to Approach Enterprise Leads . Always add value.

Enterprise 313

Enterprise Scale B2C SaaS 313

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2023

More here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months – SaaStr Picking cofounders that aren’t as committed. More here: Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? SaaStr Trying to pursue a “Grass is Greener” business model. 8–12 months is almost never enough time. Related to the prior point.

SMB 274

SMB SaaS B2C Interviewing 274

The Angel VC

JANUARY 10, 2017

In less earth shattering news, the fact that it's 2017 also means that my "SaaS Funding in 2016" napkin needs an update. As a reminder, in the original post I tried to give a "back of a napkin" answer to this question: What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016? So, what does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in early 2017?

SaaS 262

SaaS Marketplace as a Service Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 262

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2025

And for SaaS companies with strong fundamentals, the opportunity window is wide open. The B2B SaaS companies everyone has been waiting for are finally filing and preparing to go public: Already Filed (2025 IPOs Highly Likely) Figma – Cloud-based design platform, confidentially filed April 2025. Stop waiting.

Payments 178

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services AI 178

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 31, 2023

Proving your Business Model Works - Build, Define, and Review But how do you prove your numbers? Then use what you’ve learned in this blog post to decide if the numbers validate your business model, or if you need to rethink your approach. cto , infotech , innovation , product , project , saas

Metrics 390

Metrics Startup Scale New CTO 390

Tom Tunguz

JULY 11, 2024

The SaaS business model of the last 20 years for SaaS is a beautiful one. The now-classic seat based model disrupted the perpetual license model. Maybe we’ll see a No-SaaS rebel replicate Marc Benioff’s playbook. In a world where AI agents are 2.5-3x

Pricing 240

Pricing AI Software Compensation 240

Incredo

JUNE 25, 2019

But when it comes to SaaS, freemium plans become a reality. SaaS freemium model: The What, The How and The Why. The concept of freemium is mainly typical for the SaaS world (yeah, SaaS means the world to us) and the video games industry. Note that freemium model ? Business life is not that simple.

SaaS 236

SaaS Pricing Software Review Acquisition 236

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

So recently we’ve done deep dives on the SaaStr pod with several of the top leading SaaS founders — and of course, asked their perspective on just where we are with AI in B2B SaaS today. The post How AI is Really Changing SaaS From CEO of Procore, co-CEO of Monday and Chair of HubSpot appeared first on SaaStr.

AI 194

AI Construction SaaS B2B 194

Predictable Revenue

APRIL 19, 2021

SaaS businesses also need to adopt a modified business model for surviving in this unprecedented time. The post How To Crisis Proof Your SaaS Business Right Now appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Business 222

Business SaaS Business Model Revenue 222

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2025

AI-adjacent businesses like CoreWeave have benefited from sustained investor enthusiasm, while sector-specific leaders like Hinge Health prove that domain expertise and strong unit economics can overcome broader market headwinds. The company also faces fundamental business model questions. valuation, raised $2.5B

B2B 177

B2B Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services 177

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2022

Because I don’t think Initial Traction is at all nebulous in SaaS — and I think it occurs earlier than many think. Well it means two things: >> First, that your SaaS product’s customer base (and revenue) is compounding. And that’s where the power and leverage is in SaaS. >>

Scale 284

Scale Venture Capital SaaS Branding 284

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2025

The Talent Reckoning Here’s what I’ve learned from talking to 200+ SaaS founders over the past six months: The companies shipping great AI aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest AI budgets or the fanciest ML infrastructure. The $939B Question: Is AI Eating SaaS or Feeding It?

AI Search 167

AI Search AI Technical Review CTO Hire 167

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2025

After years of drought, 2025 has delivered a scorching hot public market for tech companies so far, with some eye-popping returns that should have every SaaS founder and investor paying attention. What This Means for Your SaaS Company If You’re Series C+ and Growing Fast The window is open, but it won’t stay open forever.

B2B 184

B2B Marketing Scale Benchmarks 184

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

The 5 Key Things You Need to Know About Modern Go-To-Market Adam Gross, former CEO of Vimeo and Heroku and and veteran of Salesforce and Dropbox joined SaaStr Annual for a deep dive on the evolution of SaaS go-to-market strategies. What he shared was pure gold for any SaaS founder trying to navigate the complex world of GTM motions.

Enterprise readiness 140

Enterprise readiness Enterprise compliance Acquisition 140

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

The reality is if you read the stories of a lot of SaaS successes, almost all of them had patches where, as meteoric as the growth seemed, they had patches when growth slowed, when things were harder, when they needed more money, or when they almost ran out. And that means that 99 percent of startups can’t even raise venture capital.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Software Review Investment Startup 312

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

After nearly two decades building infrastructure companies from zero to IPO, Dave has distilled the repeatable patterns of successful scaling into a framework that works across any B2B SaaS business. This specific threshold serves as a critical signal that your business model has legs.

Scale 178

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 178

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

The current public market environment might look like a great SaaS crash for many people. As things appear to slow, how do we get back to the fundamentals, find the things that are great about SaaS that are measurable, and help people see the value in your business? In reality, it’s not a crash. Why does the rule of 40 matter?

Metrics 261

Metrics Marketing SaaS SMB 261

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

Laiva Becoming the platform of choice for life science companies and research institutions by creating a two-sided marketplace with significant SaaS components. SaaS vs. AI: A Misleading Analogy Unlike SaaS, AI isn’t necessarily disruptive to the existing tech stack.

Technical Review 177

Technical Review Artificial Intelligence AI Marketplace as a Service 177

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Freshworks is a successful public SaaS company that has a humble beginning in the small town of Chennai, India. Big Bet #2: Find Tomorrow’s Great Anglers — Hire Talent With A Learning Mindset In 2010 and 2011, San Francisco was the place for SaaS talent. It helped them get funding in the first round.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Scale SMB SaaS 284