SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2025

Rolling out our AI SDR this morning. It took a bunch of training, tooling, etc. But … 🔥Already got 15 meetings from it, 7.5% hit rate That’s more than any human SDR did in 30+ days before (More to come) — Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) June 16, 2025 The Top 3 Reasons AI Sales Tools “Don’t Work” (Spoiler: They Actually Do, If You Use The Tools Properly) I get this question at least 3x a week: “Jason, we tried AI sales tools and they just don’t wor

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Scale AI Sales Hiring Sales 272

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 17, 2025

Q1 ‘25 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. The 60 companies that I’ll discuss here (which is not an exhaustive list, but is still comprehensive) all reported quarterly earnings sometime between April 23rd – June 11th. In this post, I’ll take a data-driven approach in evaluating the overall group’s performance, and highlight individual standouts along the way.

Cloud 277

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 277

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 24, 2025

In “ Data Rules Everything Around Me ,” Matt Slotnick wrote about the difference between SaaS & AI apps. A typical SaaS app has a workflow layer, a middleware/connectivity layer, & a data layer/database. So does an AI app. AI makes writing frontends trivial, so in the three-layer cake of workflow software the data matters much more.

Data 197

Data AI Enterprise Customer Support 197

Stax

JUNE 18, 2025

Software tailored to your industry? That’s the main premise of vertical SaaS. Unlike horizontal SaaS solutions that serve a broad range of businesses, vertical SaaS solutions are designed with deep knowledge of specific markets—making them more intuitive, efficient, and impactful. This article explores what vertical SaaS is, its advantages, challenges, and how companies can win in this focused, fast-growing space.

Merchant Services 167

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments 167

Speaker: Kenten Danas, Senior Manager, Developer Relations

ETL and ELT are some of the most common data engineering use cases, but can come with challenges like scaling, connectivity to other systems, and dynamically adapting to changing data sources. Airflow is specifically designed for moving and transforming data in ETL/ELT pipelines, and new features in Airflow 3.0 like assets, backfills, and event-driven scheduling make orchestrating ETL/ELT pipelines easier than ever!

Data

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 8, 2025

Where venture capital flows, innovation follows. And for more than a decade, few faucets have been watched more closely than Y Combinator. An analysis of their investment patterns since 2020 doesn’t just reveal the accelerator’s strategy—it provides a map to the entire startup ecosystem’s next chapter. With Demo Day approaching this week & inspired by Jamesin Seidel’s YC Series A analysis , I wondered how YC investment patterns have changed since 2020.

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Investment Venture Capital Cybersecurity B2B 197

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2025

Dear SaaStr: How Should Founders Build Their First Customer Success Team? Building a Customer Success (CS) team early is critical for SaaS startups. Here’s how early-stage founders should approach it: Hire Early, Even Before It Feels Necessary Don’t wait until churn becomes a problem. Customer Success should be a single-digit hire—ideally, your first 5-10 employees should include at least one CS hire.

Sales Hiring 195

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Churn 195

Kellblog

JUNE 1, 2025

This is going to sound difficult and run contrary to the industry conventional wisdom, but bear with me. When a B2B SaaS startup is hiring their first salesperson, I think they should look for someone who: Is a dyed-in-the-wool seller with sales blood coursing through their veins. Their first sales job was in high school and they’ve sold anything from dictionaries to shoes to cars early in their career.

Sales Hiring 60

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Onboarding 60

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 6, 2025

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now How to Spot ERR Last March (crazy it’s already been a year since I wrote this post!) I wrote an article about ERR vs ARR. Here’s a quick summary of that post. ARR (annual recurring revenue) is a hallmark SaaS metric rooted in predictability.

Cloud 144

Cloud Technical Review Software Review Technical Advisors 144

BetterCloud

JUNE 24, 2025

BetterCloud continues to be named a Leader across multiple categories in the G2 Summer 2025 Report. Thanks to real reviews from our customers, G2 has awarded us top honors, recognizing our commitment to customer satisfaction and innovation. BetterCloud was ranked in 140+ G2 reports, including: #1 choice for SaaS Operations Management User Provisioning and Governance Tools SaaS Spend Management Zero Trust Networking Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Why does this matter?

Government 52

Government Software Review Cloud Onboarding 52

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Outsourced Development

Stax

JUNE 3, 2025

The term SaaS platform gets tossed around a lotbut what does it actually mean, and why does it matter for today’s software companies? Whether you’re building your first product or scaling an established solution, understanding the SaaS platform model is essential for long-term growth. In this article, we’ll break down what a SaaS platform is, highlight real-world examples, and explore key strategies to succeed in the fast-moving software-as-a-service industry.

Payment Services 88

Payment Services DevOps as a Service SaaS Payments Payments 88

The SaaS CFO

JUNE 24, 2025

Defining and calculating ARR is a hot topic. I have been talking to a lot of SaaS founders and finance leaders about how to properly calculate annual recurring revenue. Not too easy with today’s pricing and business models. The shift in pricing models (usage, consumption, outcome-based) has made the lives of tech CFO’s more difficult. […] The post How to Define and Calculate ARR appeared first on The SaaS CFO.

Finance 65

Finance Business Model Pricing SaaS 65

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2025

So Okta rose to rapid growth and IPO as the stand-alone leader in enterprise identity for apps, acquired Auth0 to own it for developers, and now coming up on $3 Billion in ARR, it has settled into a more mature state: $2.75B in ARR Growing 12%, projected to slow to 10% Non-GAAP operating margins of 27% Free Cash Flow margins of 35% (!) $18B market cap, so ~6x ARR Net net it’s a story of new customer growth of 7% combined with slowing NRR of 106%.

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Scale Headcount Outsourced Development Operational efficiency. 232

ChurnZero

JUNE 20, 2025

It’s not personality that makes a top-performing CSM, says Ryan Johansen. Nor is it EQ, customer-centricity, or luck. Instead, it’s the daily practice of super-effective habits. What are the top CSM habits that separate the best from the rest—and how can you practice them? In our latest ChurnZero webinar, productivity expert Ryan shared the five habits he’s consistently observed in the most effective CSMs—habits that drive the biggest outcomes, earn seats at leadership tables, and provide the ba

Scale 52

Scale Customer Success Leadership AI 52

Speaker: Alex Salazar, CEO & Co-Founder @ Arcade | Nate Barbettini, Founding Engineer @ Arcade | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO @ Aggregage

There’s a lot of noise surrounding the ability of AI agents to connect to your tools, systems and data. But building an AI application into a reliable, secure workflow agent isn’t as simple as plugging in an API. As an engineering leader, it can be challenging to make sense of this evolving landscape, but agent tooling provides such high value that it’s critical we figure out how to move forward.

AI

Frontegg

JUNE 9, 2025

What Is Authentication as a Service? Authentication as a Service (AaaS) is a cloud-based solution that provides authentication functions for users, applications, and devices. It allows organizations to outsource their authentication needs, reducing the burden of managing and maintaining this critical security component in-house. By leveraging cloud technologies, AaaS offers scalability and reliability, ensuring that authentication services can handle spikes in demand, such as during a mass login

Outsourcing Services 52

Outsourcing Services Technical Review Outsourced Development Cybersecurity 52

BetterCloud

JUNE 11, 2025

We’ve spent a lot of time on this blog discussing all the ways you can automate IT tasks with a SaaS management platform (SMP). We have also deep-dived into how automation can make IT a lot more efficient, as well as keep employees productive and improve your SaaS security posture. As SMPs have grown in functionality and extensibility, so too has the power of the automated workflows you can orchestrate.

Software Review 52

Software Review Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Scaling 52

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 27, 2025

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now New Rules For a New Game One of the biggest shifts happening in startups right now is that the old rule of thumbs for how you build a successful software startup just don’t hold in the age of AI. Or at least, they don’t hold if you’re trying to build a breakout company… So many of these markets are still wide open.

Cloud 157

Cloud Sales Hiring Scale Investment 157

User Pilot

JUNE 26, 2025

Good help center designs promote self-service, allowing users to find answers independently without waiting for support. Which is exactly how users prefer it. In fact, research shows that 81% of customers try resolving issues on their own before contacting a support agent. So users provided with a well-structured help center end up happier, because they get help fast without any lengthy disruptions.

SaaS Payments 80

SaaS Payments AI Search Payment Solutions Payment Methods 80

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

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AI

SaaStr

JUNE 6, 2025

So Jamin Ball of Altimeter has a great summary of the cumulative revenue growth of all public SaaS companies … and it’s not a great story: Aggregate net new ARR added in Q1 from the software universe isn't looking good! Down nearly 30% YoY from Q1 last year pic.twitter.com/9MLyLe3XXf — Jamin Ball (@jaminball) June 5, 2025 Bottom Line Up Front : The aggregate cloud software market just delivered its worst quarterly performance in years, with net new ARR additions plummeting

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Cloud Software Marketing SaaS 255

Chart Mogul

JUNE 16, 2025

AI is quickly becoming the new interface of the internet, not just for finding information, but for getting things done. So what if you could also chat with your SaaS metrics? Today, we’re releasing an experimental ChartMogul MCP server that makes this possible. It lets you connect your ChartMogul account to AI tools that support … AI is quickly becoming the new interface of the internet, not just for finding information, but for getting things done.

Revenue 59

Revenue Data Customer Lifetime Value AI 59

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). You’ve nailed scheduling, workflows, and analytics. But then you think, “Why not also offer payments to our users?” For example, PracticeSuite doesn’t just help medical offices automate appointments—it also gives them a built-in way to collect payments from patients directly through the PracticeSuite platform.

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Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions 130

ChurnZero

JUNE 6, 2025

If your customer success strategy is still centered around catching churn in real time, you’re behind. In 2025, the top customer leaders are engineering retention by building systems that detect risk early, reinforce value continuously, and empower every team member to act. While reactive “saves” will always matter, they’re no longer enough when your CFO wants revenue predictability and AI-powered competitors are reaching your customers faster than ever.

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Retention Strategy Benchmarks AI 52

Speaker: Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments

Most integrated payments providers share a percent of the payment revenue with their software partners. But, oftentimes, that revenue share is only a fraction of the true income potential software providers can realize. If you want to maximize income opportunities from your payments program, check out Wind River Payments’ webinar-on-demand.

Payments

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 13, 2025

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now You Own Your Data…Or Do you? Something I’ve written a fair bit about, and something I deeply believe, is this: you don’t have an AI strategy without a data strategy. But what if the data you think you have… you actually don’t?

Cloud 144

Cloud Data AI Investment 144

User Pilot

JUNE 20, 2025

Looking for a good user onboarding tool and wondering if Product Fruits is the best option for your SaaS company? The many available Product Fruits alternatives don’t necessarily make the choice any easier. To make the right choice, you must consider your priorities, including your varied JTBDs, budget, and company size. In this post, we’ll examine which Product Fruits competitor is the better digital adoption platform for your needs.

Software Review 52

Software Review Technical Review SaaS Onboarding 52

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2025

Dear SaaStr: Should I Hire a Sales Consultant as My First Sales Rep? No, you shouldn’t hire a sales consultant as your first sales rep. Here’s why: As the founder, you need to be the one to close the first 10–20 customers yourself. This isn’t just about getting deals done—it’s about deeply understanding your sales process, your customers, and what works (and doesn’t) in your pitch.

Sales Hiring 247

Sales Hiring Consulting Scale Sales 247

Frontegg

JUNE 23, 2025

Key takeaways CSPM identifies and fixes cloud misconfigurations to maintain compliance and reduce security risks. Common misconfigurations include exposed storage buckets, excessive permissions, unsecured APIs, and poor network segmentation. Key capabilities of CSPM include multi-cloud integration, policy enforcement, threat detection, compliance mapping, and contextualized risk analysis.

Cloud 52

Cloud Underperforming Technical Team Management compliance 52

Speaker: Tamara Fingerlin, Developer Advocate

Apache Airflow® 3.0, the most anticipated Airflow release yet, officially launched this April. As the de facto standard for data orchestration, Airflow is trusted by over 77,000 organizations to power everything from advanced analytics to production AI and MLOps. With the 3.0 release, the top-requested features from the community were delivered, including a revamped UI for easier navigation, stronger security, and greater flexibility to run tasks anywhere at any time.

Data

BetterCloud

JUNE 9, 2025

Today organizations run on SaaS – and coffee, although coffee is probably a close second. But let’s get back to SaaS. SaaS tools offer flexibility and scalability for every department in your organization, but this convenience comes at a cost (both literally and figuratively). With potential for sprawl and often underestimated expenses, software can significantly impact your bottom line.

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SaaS Software Review Technical Review Finance 52

USIO

JUNE 12, 2025

Embedded payments are becoming the backbone of modern commerce, and no one explains it better than our CEO, Louis Hoch. In a recent episode of the PayPod podcast, Louis joined host Kevin Rosenquist to unpack what’s driving the evolution of payments – from invisible infrastructure to intelligent automation. Whether it’s a fintech startup, a government agency, or a national subscription platform, Louis emphasized one key idea: the future of payments is flexible, seamless, and built to adapt.

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Payments Embedded Payments Payment Methods Payment Solutions 130

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 19, 2025

Systems of record are recognizing they cannot “ take their survival for granted.” One strategy is to acquire : the rationale Salesforce gives for the Informatica acquisition. Another strategy is more defensive - hampering access to the data within the systems of record (SOR). Unlike the previous software era where SORs built platforms on top of themselves to develop broader ecosystems (in Salesforce’s case Veeva & Vlocity ), the AI shift does seem to be more defensive.

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AI Search AI Acquisition Startup 164