SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Can a SaaS Business Reactivate Churned Customers? This may sound simple, but the #1 thing you can and should do is create a series of marketing campaigns targeted only to churned customers. Most are more B2B2C that B2B, but the point still holds: So, and I know this is basic, but I see too few startups do this: #1.

Churn 313

Churn Business SaaS Mobile 313

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2023

We tend to intuitively think annual contracts help combat churn, but they really don’t — they just defer it. More at the full report here : The post SaaS Capital: Across 1,500 SaaS Startups, Yearly Contracts Don’t Actually Increase NRR appeared first on SaaStr. This data confirms that.

Startup 362

Startup SaaS Retention Churn 362

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2024

In a recent Workshop Wednesday, SaaStr Founder and CEO, Jason Lemkin sat down to discuss 9 signs a startup isn’t going to make it. So, let’s look at the nine signs a startup will likely not be a real success. Sign #2: You’re Too Slow to Hire VPs If you want to gauge momentum in a startup, see how quickly they hire VPs.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 301

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

So lately I’ve listened to a few calls from churned customers from portfolio companies. economy remains strong, the stock market is at all-time highs, AI is fueling Cloud growth, and yet … many folks are cutting their tech budgets, and especially, those that sell to startups are struggling. How much value did you actually deliver?

Churn 276

Churn Market Segmentation Cloud AI 276

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2025

The most successful companies recognize that fantastic docs drive adoption and bad ones cause customers to churn. Promptless is used by fast-growing startups and Fortune 500 enterprises alike to automatically update docs based on feature releases, support tickets, internal Slack conversations, and more.

AI Search 170

AI Search AI Startup Scale 170

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 17, 2025

My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., For businesses selling predominantly to SMB customers, these benchmarks are all slightly lower given the higher-churn nature of SMBs. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 277

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 277

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

I try to look at two things in Vertical SaaS startups, at least when investing : Will everyone in the vertical / industry use it? Churn is all over the place with SMBs. Dear SaaStr: How Big Should The Addressable Market Be to Go into Vertical SaaS? Or at least $10,000 at a minimum? You probably have to go multi-product much earlier.

Payment Solutions 261

Payment Solutions Inbound Sales Team Marketing Scale 261

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2023

Dear SaaStr: When is a Startup Ready to Raise Venture Capital These Days? Churn too high Burn too high Competitors growing faster Already raised “too much” capital The post Dear SaaStr: When is a Startup Ready to Raise Venture Capital These Days? A lot harder. Doesn’t really matter why. appeared first on SaaStr.

Venture Capital 284

Venture Capital Startup CTO Churn 284

SaaStr

AUGUST 6, 2023

As a VP of sales at early stage SaaS companies, what’s your best advice for reducing churn rate? A few things that always work to drive down churn in the early days — and later: Make sure you have a strong Head of Customer Success … whose #1 goal is reducing churn. Far fewer customers churn if you visit them in person.

Churn 242

Churn Sales Hiring Customer Success Onboarding 242

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top Reasons You See Startups Fail? Here’s what’s caused startups I’ve invested in to fail, or at least, not to thrive and succeed: Founder conflict. This really can kill some startups. This hasn’t driven any startup I’ve invest in 100% to failure, but it’s driven them to unoptimal exits.

Startup 260

Startup Venture Capital Scale Churn 260

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Does a SaaS Startup Break Out in a Crowded Market? They might give up on SMBs, or freemium, or higher churn segments. The post Dear SaaStr: How Does a SaaS Startup Break Out in a Crowded Market? Find one segment of the market to win in. Most SaaS markets are crowded today. But you might be able to do well there.

Startup 298

Startup Marketing Healthcare SaaS 298

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2020

Speaking with startups, I’ve collected a list of disciplines that are going to become very important in the next period. This is important to project churn rates, assess timing of software payments, and estimate the impact on cash flows/burn. Some startups may face meaningful attrition within their customer bases.

Startup 247

Startup SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 247

SaaStr

OCTOBER 28, 2021

Phil notes almost all startup questions can be answered via a “state machine” Most users are on “Arrow 11” above — they’ve never used your product. Phil sees most startups pushing too hard on growth too early. At Evernote, they conflated bounce with churn — and Phil challenges us not to.

Churn 258

Churn Retention Acquisition Startup 258

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

From startup to $500M CARR, Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, shares how Braze scaled a growth and customer success team. As an early startup team, you’re doing every job under the sun. We get lazy writing job descriptions, and taking shortcuts is a luxury most startups don’t have. But that was it.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 291

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

People is the first section because people are a startup’s most important element. Customer Success reviews the net dollar and logo retention, plus churns and expansions. Redpoint SaaS Metrics Template. The template is broken into six sections: People, Bookings & Revenue, Cash, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success.

Metrics 250

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup SaaS 250

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Best customer success software for startups and small companies. It enables proactive engagement by identifying critical touchpoints , allowing your support teams to build strong relationships and reduce customer churn. Zapscale Best for : Early-stage startups. Churn risk and upsell opportunities predictions.

Customer Success 105

Customer Success Enterprise Software Review Startup 105

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

Word-of-Mouth is the New Growth Engine – Cursor became one of the fastest-growing startups of all time with zero marketing spend. 42% of businesses don’t intend to allocate additional funds to AI in 2025, and monthly AI churn rates are significantly higher at 3.25% compared to traditional B2B tools.

ChatGPT 220

ChatGPT AI Search AI Growth Hacking 220

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

While the allure of customer acquisition can pull a founder’s attention, it’s equally important to dedicate resources to fighting churn and expanding revenue from existing customers. They discuss how Fox helped build a churn-fighting, upselling, and cross-selling machine that continues to generate revenue.

Retention 246

Retention Startup Revenue Sales Hiring 246

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2023

What is the right Go-To-Market strategy for a startup getting out of the gate? What’s his response to startups figuring out which strategy to begin with, product-led or sales-led? “It Today’s startups need both, with Jason Eubanks, CRO at Harness (Video) appeared first on SaaStr. Sign up here to join them FOR FREE!

Startup 297

Startup Sales Sales Funnel Education 297

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Why Do VC Backed Startups Seem To Almost Always Be Running Out of Money? A customer success team that can’t drive down churn and drive up NPS = cash drain. The #1 issue I see is not understanding what investments really are accretive — and which aren’t. And so the money goes far, far faster than anticipated.

Sales Hiring 267

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Venture Capital 267

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

We’re seeing echoes of 2008-2009, where nimble startups thrived during the downturn. Yes, there’s higher churn at the bottom of the market, but the survivors are growing faster than ever. “Must-Have” Is The New “Nice-to-Have” The fastest growth?

B2B 240

B2B Cybersecurity Scale Data 240

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 23, 2025

Updated) That, plus a few short lines on how things are going in general, is plenty, and better than 95% of startups. That way you will actually get it done. Build One Now. SaaStr The Power and Honesty in a L4M Model. Build One Now. Get the monthly updates out fast.

Churn 169

Churn Startup Metrics Revenue 169

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2025

High CAC Is a Symptom, Not the Root Problem If your CAC is too high, its likely because of one (or more) of these issues: Churn is too high : If customers arent sticking around, your CAC payback period will balloon. Fixing churn is often the fastest way to make CAC more reasonable. Again, it’s usually a bit binary for startups.

Marketing 158

Marketing Scale Churn Content Marketing 158

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 6, 2021

A startup closing only Contract As will be far more capital efficient than one capturing Contract Bs. For example, if a three-year contract is discounted the startup’s cost of capital for borrowing is simply the discount amortized over the contract period (eg, 10% over three years or 3.2%

Sales Hiring 352

Sales Hiring Scale Payments Payment Solutions 352

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

But as a history lesson, let’s use my own startup Adobe Sign / EchoSign to see what happened in ’08-’09 … the worst global recession any of us have ever seen. Two things though did get hit harder — SMB Churn and Upsell s. So our gross SMB churn spiked to a crazy high of 5.5%

SMB 361

SMB SaaS Churn Enterprise 361

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2025

Startups I invested in from cold email from founder: Salesloft (exited $2.4B) Talkdesk ($10B) Pipedrive (exited $1.5B) Logikcull (exited $270m) Owner Mangomint etc. For example, $1M ARR SaaS Startup Growing 15% MoMLooking for a Partner or Were the Next Rippling$500k ARR, 10x YoY Growth. I mean it can work Take your shot.

Scale 156

Scale Startup Investment Metrics 156

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2024

So there are times in startup life when it seems like a wave is just overpowering you, that there is only so much you can do. But startups aren’t always as agile as social media paints them to be. Not Jumping on High Churn Some types of churn certainly can be addressed over time.

Trends 313

Trends Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital 313

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2021

In theory, many things can kill a SaaS startup after $4m-$5m ARR. In theory, many things can stop a SaaS startup after $4m-$5m ARR from getting to $100m. In practice, high churn is the only thing. Put NPS and CSAT and churn in every weekly and monthly email. Because churn will be higher than average.

SaaS 363

SaaS Venture Capital Churn Branding 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2022

But if you target SMBs with a higher churn, aim for 12 months or less. The post Growth vs. Efficiency: How to Weatherproof Your SaaS Startup for Tougher Times with Point Nine Founder and Partner Christoph Janz (Pod 599 + Video) appeared first on SaaStr. Key Takeaways.

Startup 246

Startup SaaS Metrics Churn 246

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 1, 2020

The key open question is whether the affiliation rule will admit venture-backed startups. Historically, startups haven’t been able to access SBA programs because of this affiliation rule. For startups, this means every employee of every startup for every investor. Some are seeing significant churn.

Headcount 329

Headcount Payment Services Government Innovation 329

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

Its the classic question for growing startups: when is the right time to bring sales and revenue operations (RevOps) into your sales process and should you? Dani Riggs, Head of Revenue & Business Operations, Accord But in reality, many successful startups dont follow this path. Where do sales and revenue operations fit in all this?

Scale 52

Scale Sales Hiring Startup Sales Recruiting 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2021

One piece of “evidence” — a lot of fairly successful SaaS startups all sell at about the same point in time … about 5 years in. After the first year, the stress and drama of a startup will be too much on your family. High churn is very stressful in the long run (although it doesn’t feel that way in the short term).

Travel 363

Travel SaaS Banking Startup 363

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2022

The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long. SMB SaaS has a lot going for it, but one big existential challenge — inherent churn. SaaStr 574: 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg. 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg. Here’s what to do about it.

New CTO 300

New CTO CTO SMB Venture Capital 300

Tom Tunguz

MAY 5, 2022

Public markets do impact startup fortunes, but only inasmuch as the prices at which venture rounds clear. If customers cut their software spend, startups should expect a harsher climate. Rather than reading these reports, startups ought to perk up their ears to the echoes of budget contraction within their customer bases.

Outsourced Development 301

Outsourced Development Forecasting Startup Acquisition 301

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2022

For 90% of startups, if you’re struggling right now … sure blame the market. Churn went way up, for sure. If you’re selling to struggling startups, that’s a challenge today. So Hunter Walk of Homebrew aptly summarized what I’ve been trying to say less eloquently for about 2-3 months. It’s You.

Marketing 357

Marketing Startup Cloud Churn 357

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2020

As a startup, there are few things more important than Being Present: Your customers need to believe. Make sure net negative churn is at least covered and invested in. Startups are a journey. If you’ve never run a hot startup, or worked at a hot startup, you may not get this. Cut everything quietly. They know.

Sales Hiring 350

Sales Hiring Startup Investment Revenue 350

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 15, 2024

Having worked in both Fortune 20 and High-Growth Startups, Cliff prefers the fast pace and the ability to deliver significant impact that comes with working in the startup space. Cliff is a recipient of the 2024 Modern Sales Leader award from HubSpot and a 2024Top 50 CRO to Watch by Pavilion.

Acquisition 109

Acquisition Sales Hiring ChatGPT AI 109