SaaStr

MAY 7, 2024

Because if churn is low and you’d renew that customer anyway for Year 3, you’re giving up a bunch of future revenue tomorrow for more cash today. Big enterprise customers are very receptive to this, once you have a dominant brand. And allow enough flexibility in discounting to learn, and to get the deal closed this month.

Pricing 189

Pricing Churn Enterprise Branding 189

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2024

Dear SaaStr: When Is It Too Soon to Target Enterprise Customers in SaaS? It too soon to target enterprise clients when you can’t support their needs 90 days after you close them. Enterprise customers will even sign contracts agreeing to buy so long as you implement a key feature with X number of days.

Enterprise 260

Enterprise SaaS Churn 260

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2024

Hire your first salesperson when you have closed the first 10 customers and are spending more than 20% of your time on sales. Try to close the first 10-20 customers yourself beyond you hire 1-2 reps, so you know how to do it. Not for nothing, for closing a lot. Big deals don’t close in a week.

Sales Hiring 271

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 271

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2024

I think in SaaS, it’s when you have a handful of customers, and they are happy, and it’s been 9+ months … and you are growing, but slowly. If you have no customers, it’s not really a pivot or tilt, it’s a restart. But in SaaS what can happen sometimes is you are close to a product the market really wants, close, but not quite there.

B2B 196

B2B Startup Product Marketing SaaS 196

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

Concentrate leads in those who can close. If you have a rep or two that just can’t close, that doesn’t work in the early days. Not to save money, but to concentrate the leads you do have in those that can close them. Because the best reps close 2x-9x more than “ordinary reps” They really do. Let them go.

Scale 244

Scale Sales Hiring Sales AWS 244

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2024

Closing those first 10, 100, 200 customers proves your value, your reason to exist, demonstrates traction, etc. In the end, it won’t matter too much if your first 100 customers pay you $50,000 in total or $100,000. And she’ll be better at closing than you are. Most especially in the early days. And that’s OK.

Pricing 268

Pricing Sales Revenue 268

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

Wouldn’t it be more customer-centric if they weren’t just focused on that commission? Well, best case: They won’t ask for 60 seats when the customers says they only “need” 20. But a good one will learn the prospect actually needs 60 seats — and close 60. Tripling the revenue from this customer. They’ll let the deal go.

Scale 251

Scale Revenue Sales Pricing 251

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

This is a rough metric, but I’d say from experience working closely with 25+ SaaS companies … if you aren’t growing > 10% a month after $10k in MRR or so … then you don’t yet have product-market fit. You may be closing customers, but I’m not sure you have true product-market fit yet. Not yet at least.

Product Marketing 278

Product Marketing B2B Startup Marketing 278

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 15, 2019

What if your customer stories are actually killing your win rates? Most sales people make a critical error when telling customer stories, and it demolishes their pipeline. You’ll learn how to avoid the most common mistake when using customer stories, plus detailed tactics that will position your offering as a no-brainer.

Sales 55

Sales 55

CloseSaaS

APRIL 12, 2023

Goodbye missed deals, hello happy customers. These customer success tools will cut churn and supercharge your customer outreach—and boost sales, too.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Churn Sales 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Expecting an SDR to close. Hire stretch reps if you want, but someone without any closing experience likely can’t close at your startup no one has ever heard of. Unless the product is very cheap and the prospect is close to closed already. Hiring reps before you close 10 customers yourself.

Sales Hiring 257

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 257

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2024

And go close those feature gaps, and get back to being ahead of the competition — not behind. More on that here : When You Fall Out of Product-Market Fit (Updated) Second, focus on the customers you do have and making them super happy. But in the end, most of your customers will come from your existing customers.

Startup 284

Startup B2B Metrics Product Marketing 284

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2024

They wanted to do three things: Enter a space they had no product or customers in today; and Add on at least $10m of extra revenue for the year; and Not add too much to their burn rate. It might be worth close to nothing based on a DCD analysis. I’d actually invested in the #1 in the space, which today is at $200m+ ARR.

Pricing 264

Pricing Scale Startup Acquisition 264

Totango

MARCH 31, 2020

Now, you must focus on locking in your core business, your current customers. We are here to help you stay engaged with your customers so you can continue to deliver a great experience for them while they are using your products. You can now install the Voice of the Customer SuccessBLOC from the SuccessBLOC marketplace.

Marketplace as a Service 77

Marketplace as a Service Engagement Communication Metrics 77

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

500k+ Customers Fuel Growth, Up 28% — And NRR is 121% There A story of many SaaS and Cloud leaders today. The big enterprise customers are fueling growth at Cloudflare, at Blackline, at Smartsheet, and more. So roughly, half of Blaze’s path is from new customers, and half from account growth. Let’s dig in.

Sales Hiring 247

Sales Hiring Scale Cloud Enterprise 247

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Hire your first salesperson when you have closed the first 10 customers and are spending more than 20% of your time on sales. Involve sales in product development to ensure alignment between customer needs and product roadmap. A common mistake founders make is expecting to close the deal in the first or second meeting.

Sales Hiring 268

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 268

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Increase Pricing Again Without Angering Customers? First, plan to increase pricing in general once a year, each year for new customers. And generally for new customers, not existing customers. Try to increase pricing annually for new customers. Second, don’t rip your customers off.

Pricing 273

Pricing Branding Sales 273

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2024

A few things I’ve observed about human behavior, negotiation, and good and bad sales processes in SaaS: Customers that expect a discount really expect a discount. One of the top ways to drive up sales is to increase the % of deals that close. And one of the top ways to do that is to close deals faster. They will close.

Sales 174

Sales Pricing SaaS Software 174

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2023

Sales has gotten harder, and those cycles take almost one more month to close than before. So i f deals take longer to close, you’re spending more money and paying people longer, so your customer acquisition costs are increasing, payback takes longer to materialize, and your LTV to CAC goes down. Then, get something exchanged.

SaaS Payments 241

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments Payment Features 241

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2024

The Top 8 SaaStr Tips to Building an Effective First Sales Team The most important tips and best practices for founders when building out their first sales team: Get sales experience yourself first Close the first 10-20 customers yourself to understand the sales process This will give you critical insights to effectively train and manage your first (..)

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Scale AI Search Compensation 226

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

If you are a SaaStr reader, you’ll know how passionate I am about Customer Success, since Day 1. What it all means is that if you do it right, you’ll make 6x or more the revenue from your customers after the sale itself. If you really want to close that big deal, you’re probably going to have to get on a plane.

Customer Success 308

Customer Success Compensation Churn Enterprise 308

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Because you’ll have at least 3 more chances to close them — if you go long: 10 months out (Renewal #1). At least some of them, at least a material percent, you’ll get another shot if you stay close, and you stay in the game, and you keep adding value. Let your customers convince the ones that come to switch! #3:

Sales 283

Sales SaaS Marketing 283

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Was it Like Acquiring Your First Customer? In my first start-up, we were whale hunting — big, large, Fortune 500 customers. So Customer #1 showed us the path to our future. My first customer signed a $10k contract (a small pilot) but our second, their competitor, then signed a $6m (multi-year) contract.

SMB 236

SMB Enterprise Startup Data 236

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How often will a sales engineer also wear a customer success hat in an early stage of an SaaS startup? The “traditional” role of a sales engineer is to support the sales team through the close of a deal. Traditional customer success, and/or a specific team for deployments, can take the baton from there.

Scale 252

Scale Engineering Customer Success Startup 252

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

Most marketing spend builds pipeline that you are lucky to close in 4-12 months. They won’t get you any customers, not really. No, the goal is to acquire customers with even a 1 year marketing CAC. Because, first, those customers hopefully will last a decade or longer. So marketing gets cut. Keep investing there.

Marketing 248

Marketing Scale B2C B2B 248

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2024

As Christian shares on the pod, the company’s current customer list includes many notable companies, with 92 of them being on the Fortune 100. ” Quality pipeline is more effective and important than just quantity or vanity pipeline that just all ends up in closed lost. Those two things should not exist in the same company.”

Enterprise 271

Enterprise Scale Sales SaaS 271

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Bigger Customers Keep Growing, But SMBs Have Slowed A common theme across tech today. Freshworks has 51,700 customers at around $2k ARR, with a quick close of just 25 days. Because there are few things worse than closing a customer that never actually uses your product. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

SMB 271

SMB AI Onboarding Cloud 271

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do You Handle Customers That Want to Build It In-House? Once you are established, once you have a brand … most of your prospects and customers will know they can never commit the long-term resources to “competing” with the 200–2000 releases and updates you’ll do over the coming decade. appeared first on SaaStr.

ChatGPT 233

ChatGPT Innovation AI Branding 233

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

As you scale, your win rate — the % of deals you close vs. the competition — should go down. Your happy customers beget more happy customers in SaaS. But you’ll stall out if your customers don’t recommend you to others, and if they only reluctantly buy more from you.

Scaling 289

Scaling Revenue Underperforming Technical Team Market Segmentation 289

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Second came the customers. A close second, but ultimately the team is more important. Once the company, the customers, and the cap table were all in good shape, and at the “Unstoppable” phase — then sure, take some liquidity after 4-5 years to truly go long and help build something generational. Even in secondaries.

Startup 254

Startup Venture Capital Investment Scaling 254

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

If fewer than 8%-10% or so of your demos convert to paid customers, you’ll start to burn out your sales team. Because they need to close 10-15 deals a month to eat. So avoid obsessing too much about absolute metrics inside your funnel, especially the metrics between lead and close. Even that’s a lot. I’m not so proud.

Scale 256

Scale Startup Sales Hiring SaaS 256

The Daily Egg

NOVEMBER 5, 2023

When your website is down, it’s almost like having a “Closed” sign in the front door, leading potential customers to competitors. The post UptimeRobot Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

268

268

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What’s The Lamest Thing You See Sales Reps Do To Close a Deal? The post Dear SaaStr: What’s The Lamest Thing You See Sales Reps Do To Close a Deal? The “lamest” is Fake FUD. But the thing is, it works. Up to a point. What is Fake FUD? And sometimes even Counter-Counter FUD. Even if you don’t want to do this.

Sales 246

Sales Mobile Development Data 246

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2023

companies: Start marketing, supporting and talking to European customers as a distinct segment once you have 10 of them. Wait past $1m-$2m in ARR, and you are wasting a chance to be closer to customers. As the CEO of Braze put it at SaaStr Europa this year, they could close tech startups as customers without a local office.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring SaaS B2B Revenue 263