SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

You need to: Engage with procurement early – don’t treat them as a rubber stamp Build relationships with 20+ key accounts in year one Get executive sponsorship on both sides Never negotiate price with the business buyer Document clear ROI and business cases Remember: The actual buyer is often not the end user.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

Elizabeth explained: “We continued doggedly poking at this problem of where else can Copilot help developers be more creative and more satisfied, and so we integrated Copilot then across the command line, across our pull request features, across issues and documentation, and that became the basis for CoPilot Enterprise.”

Scale 260

Scale AI Scaling Marketing 260

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2025

But its replaced by BigCo pressurehitting metrics, navigating bureaucracy, and managing expectations. At Adobe, I oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document Services to $100M+ ARR, but I also had to adapt to being part of a larger machine. For me, seeing the EchoSign brand retired in favor of Adobe Document Cloud was painful.

Startup 139

Startup Scale Acquisition Leadership 139

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2025

Document the Sales Process Before you hand off sales, you need a repeatable process. Include scripts, objection handling, and key metrics. Pay close attention to metrics like conversion rates, deal size, and sales cycle length. When You Hire Your First Sales Rep — Just Make Sure You Hire Two 3. Be specific.

Scale 182

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Compensation 182

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

With this shift in mindset, the key question becomes: “how can we measure the value of support and set metrics that drive meaningful change?” We talked with support leaders at several forward-thinking companies – including Zapier , Wistia , and InVision – to get insight into how their support metrics have evolved, and why. retention).

Metrics 190

Metrics Scale Retention Churn 190

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

Be explicit about success metrics Define what success looks like beyond revenue targets to align expectations. ” Graham’s advice to other sales leaders: “Document your mistakes religiously and review them quarterly. Our best hires consistently came from our leadership team’s networks.

Sales Recruiting 221

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 221

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 30, 2024

Here’s what we learned: Determine the goals of your customers and document them There is zero chance you will be able to provide value as an Account Manager if you don’t know what is important to your customers. Satisfaction > Adoption When determining success metrics, don’t lose sight of the difference between clues and facts.

Management 105

Management B2B SaaS Scale 105

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 24, 2025

For example, a tailored model could streamline compliance checks by scanning internal documents for potential policy violations or regulatory gaps. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Enterprise 157

Enterprise AI Cloud Artificial Intelligence 157

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 1, 2021

On metrics: Early in Stripe’s history, the company tracked output metrics in dashboards. When the leadership team shifted to set goals, they asked managers to track input metrics ( leading indicators ), operational metrics, and strategic metrics. These documents are called charters.

Scale 265

Scale Scaling Payment Services Leadership 265

Clouded Judgement

JULY 16, 2024

A S-1 is a document companies file with the SEC in preparation for listing their shares on an exchange like the NYSE or NASDAQ. The document contains a plethora of information on the company including a general overview, up to date financials, risk factors to the business, cap table highlights and much more. market cap, and a ~7.5x

Benchmarks 295

Benchmarks Data Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning 295

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions.

Systems Review 144

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence 144

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

Tracking the right user metrics helps you precisely identify issues in the product experience rather than feeling lost in a sea of data. In this article, Ill cover 10 crucial user metrics every product manager should track to turn data into decisions that increase product adoption. Emphasis is on the word right.

Metrics 59

Metrics Scale Software Review Churn 59

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2024

One metric I wanted to highlight. Just one thing, to keep everyone honest: consider deals stale around Day 45 unless there is a true, documented set of steps toward an actual close. So Vendr has their latest SaaS Buyer Report out here. There’s plenty of good data in there and it’s worth a read. Bigger deals take longer.

SaaS 297

SaaS Benchmarks B2B Metrics 297

User Pilot

OCTOBER 19, 2024

Release notes are documents that accompany a new product or update release. Here are the most common types of release notes: Software release notes : These documents summarize changes made in a new software release. Product release notes : These documents provide an overview of changes made to the broader product.

Social Media 105

Social Media Communication Engagement Software 105

Payrix

JANUARY 10, 2025

Instead, software platforms should focus on metrics like approval speed, accuracy, and adaptability to changing regulations. Merchant underwriting and onboarding tips for software platforms David advises software platforms to prepare users early by setting clear expectations about merchant documentation , timelines, and process stages.

Merchant Services 130

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 130

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2023

around the world to let you automate recurring payment collection along with invoicing, taxes, accounting, email notifications, SaaS Metrics and customer management. Founded in 2016, Lark effectively combines messaging, schedule management and online collaborative documents in a single platform.

Payment Features 54

Payment Features Payment Services SaaS Payments Payments 54

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2021

Churn is not a GAAP metric. This public company did break out churn in their public documents (not every company does). But the segmentation, and metrics, were roughly similar. Blended churn metrics only confuse things. You need to retain 118% of your revenue. Etcetera, etcetera. You will get a lot of advice here.

Churn 271

Churn Retention Metrics B2B 271

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2020

But still, that’s 7x ARR for a market leader in document creation. Ask your existing investors if you really have the metrics to raise right now. But less than 7x ARR. Now, the combined company likely will pull off a great IPO soon and everyone will make a lot of money. valuation — on a $300m+ run rate.

SaaS 351

SaaS Acquisition Cloud Finance 351

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

The distributed nature also forced discipline in documentation and knowledge sharing that supported their hypergrowth, turning what could have been a limitation into a competitive advantage. This practical, observable metric drove more decision-making than sophisticated dashboards or forecasting models.

Scale 174

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 174

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2025

These criteria should be documented and agreed upon by both marketing and sales teams to avoid disputes over lead quality. Buying Intent : Theres evidence of intent to solve the problem soon (e.g., a timeline, budget, or external trigger like a regulatory change).

Systems Review 117

Systems Review SMB Engagement Sales 117

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 28, 2024

There’s a broad desire across data teams to empower analysts, marketers, product managers, and sales teams to create their own metrics while balancing the data team’s need for centralized governance of data. New BI systems will enable both. Vectors power AI systems.

Trends 248

Trends Data New CTO CTO 248

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2022

At this early point, your customer journey does not need to be a long, multi-page document. The 3 key metrics for Customer Success are GRR, NRR, and logo retention. NPS is a company metric, not a CS metric. The most important part of planning your CS program is mapping out your customer journey. Just do it.

Customer Success 246

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Leadership 246

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2023

Forecasts should be living documents that you are constantly updating. On process, there is a standard punch list of documents that most investors are going to ask for. So make sure you have those documents ready and make sure they are accurate and defensible. Revisit your assumptions often.

SaaS Payments 246

SaaS Payments Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 246

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2023

There’s much to do in this first growth phase, but remember to document your learnings. Phase 2: $50M – $250M ARR At this point of your growth, you’ll need to monitor metrics, focus on your target customer, and stay humble and curious. Monitor your metrics. Learnings come in handy when you’re under pressure.

Scale 270

Scale Scaling Government Software Review 270

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2023

Buyers want KPIs and keywords typically quantified in pain, metrics, and value. For users, education might be product documentation for a developer, plus call-to-actions for education, speaking to a salesperson, or scheduling a demo. . Educating users differently than buyers.

Startup 293

Startup Sales Sales Funnel Education 293

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

A Fully Baked Financial Model — Including Crystal-Clear MRR and Operating Metrics. And call out clear metrics that you are counting on — ACV, # Customers Over Time, Cost of Sales & # of Reps, etc etc. Go search EDGAR and find the SEC documents of comps. And no crazy aggregated quarterly metrics.

Scale 290

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Headcount 290

User Pilot

OCTOBER 10, 2024

Since it prompts users to define key success metrics and track specific events, users can understand the value of the product right from the start. The checklist and demo document provided afterward are helpful, but they aren’t fully aligned with the user’s stated preferences during onboarding.

Onboarding 105

Onboarding SaaS Software Communication 105

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

What GTM metrics should you track as a product marketer? That’s why we’re going to show you 12 of the most important product analytics metrics that you’ll need in order to measure your product success. There are 12 essential GTM metrics that every SaaS should know about: New user growth rate. Website traffic.

SaaS Payments 105

SaaS Payments Metrics Customer Lifetime Value Marketing 105

SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2022

Before you embark on any big brand campaign, it’s critically important to deeply understand and document the market problems you solve, your competitors, and how you’re uniquely positioned to solve this problem. . However, there are some important channel-level and overarching metrics to track. . Good luck!

Branding 297

Branding B2B Marketing B2C 297

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2024

Monthly business review Tight performance management Documentation Monthly Business Review If you want to run a tight ship, especially as you scale, you must do these three things right. Documentation is Cool Documentation is a great way to force really clear thinking as a revenue leader. Find a way to document.

Scale 297

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Sales 297

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 5, 2021

It isn’t a product requirements document (PRD) or a specification (spec). You may find that you want to work with business problems, for example encouraging a certain customer behavior or driving a financial metric such as revenue. Intercom’s R&D Principles from Intercom. I use the Product Impact Framework to do this.

Transportation 279

Transportation Travel Underperforming Technical Team Finance 279

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 2, 2023

The benchmarking was not a review of business metrics (I did some of that benchmarking in this post ), but rather IPO metrics. If you look at the front page of any IPO Prospectus (the S-1 document), you’ll see a list of investment banks at the bottom of the first page.

Cloud 49

Cloud Marketing Banking Pricing 49

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 25, 2023

A S-1 is a document companies file with the SEC in preparation for listing their shares on an exchange like the NYSE or NASDAQ. The document contains a plethora of information on the company including a general overview, up to date financials, risk factors to the business, cap table highlights and much more.

Benchmarks 246

Benchmarks Artificial Intelligence Data Software Review 246

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Most sophisticated data teams run like software engineering teams with product requirement documents, ticketing systems, & sprints. The Semantic Model Becomes a Must-Have: Semantic models unify a single definition across an organization for a particular metric. 80% of data is unstructured within organizations.

Artificial Intelligence 228

Artificial Intelligence Trends Data Software Review 228

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 13, 2021

Our search clusters contain more than 200TB of customer data, store more than 100 billion documents and, on at the peak on an average day, serve more than 13 million queries every minute. Architecture of the system.

AWS 249

AWS Cloud Software Review Systems Review 249

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2022

In the areas of your business where you have metrics to show you how well members of your team are performing, it’s easy to be vigilant about your talent. Create a culture of documenting the learnings from these calls and correlating them to items on your product roadmap. Mistake 1: Not being honest about your talent.

Scale 271

Scale Sales Hiring Interviewing Engineering 271

Chart Mogul

JUNE 16, 2025

So what if you could also chat with your SaaS metrics? So what if you could also chat with your SaaS metrics? You can simply ask questions about your revenue metrics, manage customer relationships, update records, and perform data maintenance tasks through chat. Find the documentation directly here in our Developer Hub.

Data 59

Data Revenue Customer Lifetime Value AI 59