Tom Tunguz

APRIL 18, 2022

The company moved to customer_revenue last quarter when we hired a new VP of Finance and they updated the definition. Minerva is ubiquitous inside Airbnb - it manages more than 12,000 metrics and 4,000 dimensions across 200 data producers. If the definition changes, so do the charts. Bad metrics are like salt water.

Revenue 325

Revenue Sales Hiring Finance Metrics 325

Tom Tunguz

JULY 30, 2020

Modeling the data to ensure there is one centralized definition of every metric with an owner, a lineage, and a status. Data modeling curates a data catalog for all the metrics within a company. When metrics are modeled, they are defined once, accurately, and everyone uses that definition.

Trends 361

Trends Data Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 361

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you might be getting excited about the wrong marketing metrics. Vanity metrics. From the article, you will learn what vanity metrics are, how to identify them, and how to choose more actionable alternatives to drive product growth. Choose metrics that directly correlate with these objectives.

Product Marketing 105

Product Marketing Metrics Customer Lifetime Value Social Media 105

User Pilot

MARCH 18, 2024

Let’s explore how a new user activation dashboard works, look at the key metrics you need to include in it, and see how it can help you unlock ways to retain more customers. A new user activation dashboard monitors and reports on activation metrics, identifying conversion bottlenecks and helping you improve the onboarding experience.

Metrics 105

Metrics Onboarding Trends Acquisition 105

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2021

Many have NRR as a top-level company metric. I love having NRR be the #1 metric for Customer Success. It’s also a sign of a great VP of Customer Success when they are willing to sign up for growing NRR as the #1 metric and what their variable comp is tried to. That’s a great deal all around. I love this.

Customer Success 359

Customer Success Trends Retention Metrics 359

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2021

Or there’s always the definitional argument to be made: the Jacobs ladder in which Series A is the new Series B and seed is the new Series A. Perhaps these prices are tied to blockbuster IPO markets. 2012: Facebook. 2014: Alibaba. 2021: Snowflake (late 2020), UIPath, Airbnb, Doordash, Coinbase.

Software Review 364

Software Review Venture Capital Cloud Pricing 364

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

But it’s definitely a Cloud company that benefitted from the dramatic growth in Cloud of the past 5+ years. Today, it’s definition has … loosened. But since the effective NRR is still 145%, ARR-style metrics still work. Is it really SaaS? We can debate that. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. NPS of 71 and 145% NRR.

Outsourcing Services 362

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Payment Features Cloud 362

Buffer Resources

AUGUST 14, 2024

  Again, both Buffer and Hootsuite have you covered, though the different user focuses are definitely evident in the complexity of the social media analytics options.   You’ll get comprehensive metrics for Facebook Pages, Instagram Business and Creator accounts, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn Pages. 

Social Media 112

Social Media Management AI Pricing 112

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Different data sources slice this data differently, but it’s definitely interesting to see it this way. “Venture dollars hit an all-time high, but deal count was at an eight-year low; and deals valued over $500 million accounted for 12% of software M&A transactions, a decade high.” ” #2.

Investment 317

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 317

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2024

One definition of company culture is the rolling average of everyone’s behavior in the company over the last three or so months. Behaviors are the core of that definition. You also coach them on figuring out whether the new thing is working or not and what metrics you should measure.

Retention 317

Retention Scale Company Culture Leadership 317

How To Buy Saas

DECEMBER 20, 2024

These metrics include monthly recurring revenue (MRR), customer acquisition cost, churn rate, customer lifetime value, etc. If you are a SaaS business owner, you can invest in analytics tools to get better insights and data to analyze these metrics and make actionable decisions.

Payment Services 52

Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Features 52

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2021

Jamin Bell of Altimeter Capital has a great Substack looking a lot of SaaS and Cloud metrics. Since these are all public companies, they are all by definition Great SaaS Companies. I thought I’d pull out one set of data and focus on what it means for startup valuations.

Startup 325

Startup Revenue SaaS Cloud 325

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2020

3: “SaaS Metrics Masterclass: Pricing Strategies and Billing Models with Stripe” One of the top-rated sessions from SaaStr Europa. #4: 5: “The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics” Definitely a fun one. #6:

Scale 299

Scale Acquisition Cloud Scaling 299

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

Sales definitions you should know. Know what metrics you want to track. Design your sales process so you can report on key metrics. If you want to hire your first sales rep and close more deals, you need to understand how the sales process works, what tools your team needs to be successful and learn to speak sales.

Sales Hiring 321

Sales Hiring Startup Sales Outsourced Development 321

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2021

Churn is not a GAAP metric. It doesn’t have a universal definition. But the segmentation, and metrics, were roughly similar. Even if churn is higher than you’d like based on certain metrics, if at the end of the day, you retain a lot of the money, that’s may be fine. Etcetera, etcetera.

Churn 279

Churn Retention Metrics B2B 279

SaaStr

MARCH 30, 2024

Hiring is >hard< And at some point, you definitely have to compromise in some ways. NPS is A Great Core Metric. Then, you’ll have enough folks and experience to put a small team on a new initiative / segment / market. The “I Give Up” VP Hire. But not on quality. More on that here: I Was Wrong.

Scaling 306

Scaling Revenue Underperforming Technical Team Market Segmentation 306

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2025

This is where having a clear definition of a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) or Sales Qualified Opportunity (SQO) becomes critical. The point at which a lead should convert to an opportunity or deal is when it meets specific qualification criteria that indicate its worth investing sales resources.

Systems Review 122

Systems Review SMB Engagement Sales 122

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 23, 2022

A great cold outbound email can work well too if the metrics and pitch make you lean forward at a keyboard. There are always a bunch of founders you know that if the stars align, you’d definitely want to back. Then I definitely want to meet. They create an obligation to meet without a desire to. But you can’t do too many.

Investment 306

Investment Startup Metrics Software 306

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2023

Each channel, function, and team has different goals, metrics, and KPIs. It’s also wise to develop a mutually agreed-upon definition of key stages in the buyer’s journey. Measure value, volume, and velocity and check that each metric improves over time. Traditionally, each of these departments was siloed. Not anymore.

Enterprise 264

Enterprise Sales Sales Funnel Compensation 264

SaaStr

OCTOBER 28, 2021

The talk is definitely focsued on the early days, so if you’re at Scale, it may be more of a trip down memory lane … but it was a great and super engaging presentation. Be Careful About the Metrics and Ratios You Pick. At Evernote, there was a push to do more and more analysis on the metrics and numbers.

Churn 261

Churn Retention Acquisition Startup 261

User Pilot

JUNE 27, 2024

Learn more about industry benchmarks in our latest SaaS Product Metrics Report. Customer activation rate is crucial for SaaS companies as it impacts all other success metrics, like revenue. Userpilot allows you to create onboarding flows without coding and enables tracking activation rate and related metrics from a single dashboard.

Benchmarks 105

Benchmarks SaaS Social Media Onboarding 105

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 10, 2019

In some ways, this discussion is more relevant to product teams, and product-led companies, than for growth teams, who are by definition focused on outcomes. The core problem here is the gap from shipping an improvement to measuring its impact on your key business metrics is, for most product teams, as wide as an ocean.

Retention 281

Retention Scale Metrics Startup 281

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 14, 2022

Questions about production: We wanted our definition to be wide, generic, and representative of the broad scope of workflows we cater for. Armed with our own definition of observability, we assessed our existing practices and formulated a problem statement. Until recently, our observability tooling has been primarily based on metrics.

Engineering 272

Engineering Outsourced Development Metrics Pricing 272

User Pilot

APRIL 21, 2024

TL;DR A customer onboarding dashboard is an analytical tool designed to monitor and report different onboarding metrics. Create an onboarding metrics dashboard to measure KPIs like new signups, activation rate , and time to value. Recommended metrics include: Monthly New Sign-ups. Time to Activation Metric.

Onboarding 105

Onboarding SaaS Metrics Trends 105

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2023

Shah’s definition of revenue operations includes things like: Laying out the operational foundations for how an organization thinks about these functions and how they grow. Lay the groundwork for metrics that tell you what success looks like. These metrics and insights evolve into good decision-making down the road.

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Education Scale Strategy 245

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2020

But often, they don’t really have all the data and metrics, or even really know what they are getting themselves into. Definitely give these folks a shot. And sometimes, those folks can be the perfect candidates for your stage and company. And finally, VPs make mistakes. They join start-ups out of passion and belief. Not always.

Sales Hiring 362

Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Startup 362

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 11, 2020

Do the metrics suddenly change? I think there’s definitely a relationship between product market fit and inbound. I suppose there’s definitely a relationship. You don’t pass up an engineering leader because he or she didn’t code in the language that your company codes in. A CMO is a company builder first. You hire for strategy.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Product Marketing Startup 263

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

A great cold outbound email can work well too if the metrics and pitch make you lean forward at a keyboard. There are always a bunch of founders you know that if the stars align, you’d definitely want to back. Then I definitely want to meet. They create an obligation to meet without a desire to. But you can’t do too many.

Investment 290

Investment Startup Metrics Software 290

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

Through these interactions, I’ve built up mental benchmarks for metrics on which I place extra emphasis. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., This metric is more self-explanatory, so I won’t go into detail.

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

SaaStr

JANUARY 14, 2021

When you set out to track your churn, it’s vital to pick the correct metric. When calculating your ATR Churn Rate, be mindful of your FX impact with respect to specific metrics. Key Takeaways: Build a working definition of churn and update with corner cases based on your ongoing learnings. Rule 1 – Customer vs. ARR Churn.

Churn 260

Churn Customer Success Payment Features Subscription 260

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

It’s definitely a challenge to keep the sales team in the game once things … slow down a lot. NPS is A Great Core Metric. Q: How do you motivate your sales team after a disastrous month? Because everyone in sales knows. They know if the competition is getting stronger. If the new VP of Sales isn’t good enough.

Sales Hiring 309

Sales Hiring Sales Investment Metrics 309

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2021

This is my blend of several metrics, which is — What % of Targeted Potential Customers Can You Get to Take a Phone Call and Do a Demo? Outbound will definitely work.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Scale Outbound Sales Team Sales 299

User Pilot

AUGUST 14, 2024

Metrics-Driven : Product-led growth uses performance metrics , like user engagement and conversion rates , to measure success and guide design changes. Traditional approaches evaluate success based on adherence to design principles , with less emphasis on metrics.

Scale 105

Scale User Experience Acquisition Technical Review 105

User Pilot

JULY 29, 2024

Metrics like DAU, MRR, sales figures, satisfaction scores, and traffic are examples of quantitative data across industries. Here are some examples of quantitative data: Daily Active Users (DAU) : This metric counts the number of unique users interacting with a product or service daily. Website traffic metrics, like page views.

Data 105

Data Data Analysis User Experience Trends 105

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2023

So leading growth stage VC Iconiq has published its latest and very detailed Definitive Guide to Sales Compensation here. Many SaaS companies are struggling to hit those metrics these days, but that’s still consistent with my experience in how the best sales teams achieve when startups are fast growing.

Compensation 306

Compensation Scale Sales SMB 306

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2023

Reasons I've lost money investing, or had mediocre outcome: – founder wars – CEO misled on metrics – CEO ignored zero cash date What didn't stop unicorn outcomes: – one terrible year – bigger competitors – taking a long time — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  ?? But it definitely rhymes.

Venture Capital 278

Venture Capital Investment CTO Churn 278

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

The Semantic Model Becomes a Must-Have: Semantic models unify a single definition across an organization for a particular metric. BI systems marry the centralized control of data teams with the ability to define and promote metrics at the edge of an organization (Omni). Looker did this within the context of a BI system.

Artificial Intelligence 228

Artificial Intelligence Trends Data Software Review 228