Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 24, 2024

Thank you for joining us & sharing your insights, Steven! Open-source companies like Elastic ($13b), Confluent ($10b), MongoDB ($33b) have been phenomenally successful. Along the way, many of them have changed their licenses to shield themselves from copycats.

Government 246

Government Compensation Development Technology 246

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 20, 2022

Our strength lies in knowing when we should follow standard best practices for design and when we need to innovate and create something new. “We Here, Charlotte discusses our design principle of “Follow Fundamentals”. We follow 9 fundamentals. At Intercom, we follow 9 fundamentals of great interaction design.

Innovation 211

Innovation Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Mobile 211

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2023

They stop following up as well with customers and prospects. They stop following up on things they said they’d do. None of us are perfect here, but if follow-up abruptly changes … that’s a clear sign of someone starting to check out. Especially when it sort of seems to come out of the blue. A clear sign of disengagement.

Management 211

Management Startup 211

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

" @searchbrat @zapier @kippbodnar @HubSpot @jasonlk pic.twitter.com/dUudpe9s2Q — SaaStr (@saastr) April 16, 2024 HubSpot and Zapier’s CMO had us on their “Marketing Against the Grain” pod / videocast. People that want to do the work because they enjoy the work."

Sales Hiring 247

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 247

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2022

Q: Dear SaaStr: What’s The Best Way to Follow Up From Trade Show Leads? And focus on prospects you can secure a follow-on appointment with. You can’t follow up with them all, at least not in an un-automated fashion. At least for most of us. More is OK too, just have everyone identify a handful, and why.

Marketing 259

Marketing Growth Marketing Sales 259

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2023

Three recent examples from just the past few weeks: Example #1: CEO of $10B+ Public SaaS Company’s Chief of Staff Never Follows Up A little while back, a CEO of a $10B+ Public SaaS Company that I love asked if we could partner on something for SaaStr Annual. I said Of Course, and was passed on to their Chief of Staff.

Startup 197

Startup SaaS Leadership 197

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2023

Sponsors will receive their signups of attendees directly following the live digital event. If you’re interested in hosting a Demo during Demo Day, let us know. The lens for SaaStr Demo Day is that it should be an executive (ideally) showing off your product in a way that will help those in SaaS meet their goals faster in 2024.

Scale 233

Scale Interviewing Trends Innovation 233

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

Lots of us try to run this experiment. At least, those of us who haven’t done software sales before, and have a low-ish price point and run an all in-bound model. They won’t schedule the follow-ups. Dear SaaStr: Do Salespeople on Commission Really Sell More Than Salary-only Salespeople? 1000000000000.00% in SaaS.

Scale 218

Scale Revenue Sales Pricing 218

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2023

My first year with no brand new investments, only follow-ons. Earlier than that is too early for us to see it; after that is a bit too late. Some of my top investments at seed stage include Pipedrive, Salesloft, Front, Talkdesk, Algolia, Gorgias, Greenhouse and more: But 2022 was a quiet time. So we’re behind.

SaaS 244

SaaS Investment Startup Branding 244

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

Last year, our incredible community helped us make SaaStr Europa and SaaStr Annual 2022 a more inclusive event with over +1,000 participants to our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion programs. Apply here to the SaaStr Europa program or apply here to the SaaStr Annual program.

Travel 242

Travel B2B Innovation SaaS 242

SaaStr

OCTOBER 22, 2023

CTV capability – has given us good returns in retargeting website traffic. #3. In 2017, he was named by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 CMOs in the world to follow for thought-leadership in the digital marketing domain. What’s the number one top new app you’ve added the past year? He is a Strategic Advisor to the CEO of Freshworks.

AI Search 248

AI Search Consulting Leadership AI 248

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 20, 2023

When a collapse follows a surge, mean reversion suggests behavior should revert to a reasonable baseline. The red is a linear model based on data from 2010 to 2018 that predicts activity rates for each financing series of US & Canadian software companies. [1] Since then, investing activity dropped precipitously.

Investment 212

Investment Venture Capital Startup Finance 212

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

and Lenny asked us to join his podcast to talk about building a sales team — from the perspective of a product-first founder or exec. Jason recommends that founders follow the “rule of eights” when scaling their sales org: 8 sales reps need a manager, 8 account or sales executives need a director, and a VP may have 8 senior reports.

Sales Hiring 239

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Headcount 239

Buffer Resources

APRIL 16, 2024

  After that, we started to see our social media platforms differently—as a chance to bring the retail experience to customers shopping with us from all around the world. Here are four tactics that have helped us create a seamless experience between our retail and online experiences to improve our sales on both channels.  

Social Media 95

Social Media Scale Sales Strategy 95

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 13, 2022

In the 2010s, US venture capital grew 40x in 10 years. If the Series A market follows suit, the median series A will fall to $7.8m, which means a 28 person company will have 17 months’ of runway - effectively identical to 2010 runway. When capital is scarce, it’s rationed. Round sizes ballooned.

Headcount 321

Headcount Venture Capital Finance Startup 321

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2022

With the summer of Defi behind us and a new year for web3, I wondered which categories of web3 startups generate the most revenue. Setting aside sector, TVL (total value locked), trading volume, twitter followers, and revenue are the four most robust correlates to circulating market cap. Exchanges place second.

Payments 363

Payments Revenue Payment Solutions Blockchain 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2023

But that’s not 99% of us, especially not in the early days. Reach out, follow up, be thoughtful but aggressive. If you’re super hot, and have 10+ VCs already circling around, sure play some games. Put together a data room, run a tight process, with a firm expiration date. And especially not these days. That’s what the best CEOs do.

Investment 209

Investment Data 209

SaaStr

JULY 4, 2022

Come join us!! -> Grab tickets for 20% off here. 2017: How the Best Outbound Sales Teams Are Managed. Mark first joined us in a terrific panel session on how the top outbound teams are managed, 2018: Sales Mistakes that Can Kill Your SaaS Business How to Avoid Them. Ok, now a look back! A top rated session.

Outbound Sales Team 213

Outbound Sales Team Scale Scaling SaaS 213

FastSpring

APRIL 8, 2024

This proactive measure enables us to maintain a robust security framework, protecting both your interests and the integrity of our services. FastSpring will discontinue support for the following payment methods. In alignment with this commitment, certain payment methods are being carefully evaluated and, where necessary, removed.

Payment Services 100

Payment Services Payments Payment Methods Payment Solutions 100

SaaStr

MARCH 28, 2023

The bank startups had used for decades. A week ago this morning, our bank balances still read as follows: pic.twitter.com/h4kTDaDFeb — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) March 19, 2023 So … where did startups that took out their cash put it? It’s probably time for all of us to just in general be a bit more conservative.

Startup 253

Startup Banking Finance Consulting 253

SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2022

Most of us do. It took us a while to figure out how to specialize sales, and we’re still figuring it out in CS. It took us a while to figure out how to specialize sales, and we’re still figuring it out in CS. But a few thoughts: First, maybe nothing. Maybe you need gap fillers for now, primarily. Second, ask the CS team.

Customer Success 273

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing 273

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 9, 2022

Over the last 10 years, we’ve worked hard to develop and iterate on our product principles to codify our approach to decision-making, which has allowed us to consistently build great products at scale. The key is knowing where to follow best practices and where to innovate. Who is joining us today? Looking for a little more?

Scale 138

Scale Innovation Engineering Onboarding 138

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

They wanted us to be at least close to launch. I was just following bad advice from a pre-seed / angel investor. Sometimes, that’s OK, but not with these 2 funds. Know Thy Funder. Being too aggressive. I blew perhaps the most important VC meeting I needed for my first startup by being too aggressive on price. Bad advice.

Startup 204

Startup Pricing Investment 204

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2021

Many of us founders would secretly like to sit in front of the iMac half the day, and spend the rest of the day planning on making the product even better. Being out there & inspiring people about your mission, I think makes customers on balance choose you. and keep you top of mind much more often. note: an updated SaaStr Classic post).

Enterprise 329

Enterprise SMB Scaling Revenue 329

Totango

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

This is why we are so proud to have received multiple leadership awards from TrustRadius in the customer success category, including: TrustRadius Best Relationship: Highlights companies that follow through on their sales and marketing promises, deliver on implementation expectations, and identify customers who would buy again.

Customer Success 112

Customer Success Software Review Technical Review Enterprise 112

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Over 100 Indian founders were in town for a unique double header: SaaStr/Dreamforce and the launch of SaaSBOOMi US. They are hiring leaders, building teams, and attracting advisors in the US while devouring the SV SaaS playbook. US companies follow the same model when they start in India. The Macro View Right Now.

Scale 208

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 208

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 5, 2022

So far we’ve covered our VP of Design Emmet Connolly’s introduction to our principles and the series ; VP of Research & Data Science Karen Church’s take on the importance of delivering outcomes ; and Product Designer Charlotte Sferruzza’s laser focus on following fundamentals. This week you’ll hear from two of these Intercom leaders.

Development 160

Development Data 160

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2020

Many of us in SaaS are really struggling now. Once an organization has accelerated its Digital Transformation projects, 100s more projects follow. Q: What impact will the effects of covid have on the SaaS industry? Restaurants, events, recruiting, and so many other industries are in deep trouble. You know this, but also.

SaaS 363

SaaS Cloud Scaling 363

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 23, 2024

We expect the API (the code we need to plug Threads into Buffer) to be shared with us in the coming weeks. Follow along with our transparent roadmap for progress. Staff Product Manager Amanda Marochko has been growing a following by sharing more about how Buffer builds in public. And we’re working on it!   2.

Social Media 118

Social Media Trends Engagement Consulting 118

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

But Twitter and LinkedIn, despite very high engagement and over 400,000 total followers, is growing the slowest at 10%. It is for us. And “Direct”, which likely is mostly traffic from our email newsletters, is growing 24%. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t be tweeting and marketing on LinkedIn. You should.

B2B 218

B2B Engagement Data Marketing 218

FastSpring

MARCH 8, 2024

FastSpring, for us, has always solved the problem of not having to worry about VAT and taxes, as well as the core of simply getting money from our customers,” Ovi explained. And that use case always worked flawlessly; there wasn’t any problem.” For most customers and most use cases, things just worked.

Merchant Services 133

Merchant Services Payments Subscription Payment Features 133

SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2023

So in the end, one way or another, most of us split the difference with some sort of step-function in quota. After those 3 months, you gradually step it up to a full quota over the following 3 or maybe even 6 months. but You don’t have the capital to invest here … the rep has to be accretive. And The business model does have to work.

Compensation 196

Compensation Scale Sales Business Model 196

Buffer Resources

JANUARY 23, 2024

We expect the API (the code we need to plug Threads into Buffer) to be shared with us in the coming weeks. Follow along with our transparent roadmap for progress. Staff Product Manager Amanda Marochko has been growing a following by sharing more about how Buffer builds in public. And we’re working on it!   2.

Social Media 113

Social Media Trends Engagement Consulting 113

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 1, 2022

Principles tell us where we should focus, how we make decisions and move forward as a team, and help us consistently build great products at scale. We’ve tackled eight of them since – from keeping it simple and delivering outcomes to being technically conservative and following design fundamentals.

Scaling 118

Scaling Engineering Communication Management 118

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 3, 2022

They evolved and were iterated on over years of reflecting and learning from our own successes and failures, of us trying to encode them so that we could create a predictable, repeatable R&D culture. The goal was simple: to help us repeat successes and avoid repeating mistakes. And that they did. ” Looking for a little more?

Scale 118

Scale Scaling Engineering Technology 118

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 9, 2021

That used to mean welcoming them to the company in person but, like everyone, we’ve had to adapt to a new way of onboarding over the past year. The COVID-19 pandemic has completely disrupted the way we work and forced us to reinvent how we onboard new colleagues. Social and belonging. What we’ve learned .

Onboarding 253

Onboarding Sales Hiring Scale Systems Review 253

Buffer Resources

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

While we do have a fairly engaged Instagram following and sometimes work with influencers there, visitors from YouTube had a 28 percent higher conversion rate compared to those from Instagram in 2023. We'd love to send you a product of your choosing if you're interested in working with us. Now, we focus more on engagement.

Strategy 89

Strategy Construction Advertising Branding 89