SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2024

They did layoffs and froze headcount. They raised prices. That they had to get to cash-flow positive, because no more money was coming. And while many couldn’t pull it off, and will go under, a lot actually got there. They cut marketing spend to $0. So now they are, in essence, NRR Zombies.

Headcount 227

Headcount Finance Startup Trends 227

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2022

5%+ pricing increases help fuel growth. Cloud product pricing went up 5% a year last year, and legacy server products went up much more. Should you have annual price increases in SaaS? Headcount up 7%, while revenue is up 37%. But that only increases total headcount 7% which revenues went up 37%.

Scale 302

Scale Marketplace as a Service Headcount Cloud 302

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2021

Your sales headcount. Raise prices, one way or another for new customers — as you add more value and build your brand. You can raise prices $1 a month. But usually, at $1m ARR, your product is “underpriced” because you have no brand and no way to justify premium pricing. Align your marketing budgets. And ask for it.

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Headcount Pricing Market Segmentation 294

ChurnZero

JANUARY 11, 2024

Most company budgets that earmark dollars for customer success intend for it to go towards headcount. ChurnZero refers to that portion of the budget as the “non-headcount budget.” The central bank continued its fight against price inflation and raised overnight interest rates several times. of revenue. of revenue. of revenue.

Headcount 52

Headcount SaaS Leadership Benchmarks 52

SaaStr

MARCH 8, 2023

Don’t Tie Revenue To Headcount “You want to get away from a business model where every incremental dollar requires incremental hiring,” says Deatsch. So instead of focusing on scaling headcount quickly, work toward growing revenue quickly.

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Enterprise Headcount Scale 226

Sales Hacker

JULY 24, 2018

Decreased revenue per rep, High turnover as you scale headcount. It’s just the price of hypergrowth,” we think. We made our machine more efficient even as we scaled, grew headcount, and skyrocketed our revenue. The post 5 Ways to Keep Your Sales Machine Efficient While Scaling Headcount appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Scale 55

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Scaling 55

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 6, 2023

That’s a big difference, especially when you layer in the growth in headcount from 2021 to 2022. Essentially companies grew headcount significantly to add less ARR. We’re obviously seeing the rightsizing of this now with headcount reductions. The second chart comes from the latest MS CIO survey (below).

Cloud 130

Cloud Headcount Subscription Payment Features 130

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

A fairly standard SMB price point. Fairly low revenue per headcount, although being headquartered in Utah with a large presence in India does seem to bring costs down. #7. Fairly low revenue per headcount, although being headquartered in Utah with a large presence in India does seem to bring costs down. #7. Series C ($5.35

SaaS Payments 245

SaaS Payments Scale Payment Methods Payments 245

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

As Google also reported, usage-based pricing models may weather downturns betterbecause the products they meter grow irrespective of headcount growth, a positive sign for infrastructure.

Cloud 231

Cloud Azure Headcount Software Review 231

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 7, 2022

Increase your leads without increasing your headcount. But one of the major benefits of live chat for sales is that it allows you to capture and qualify more leads without needing to increase headcount. A great tip is to include it wherever visitors show the highest intent or buying signals, such as on your pricing page.

Sales Funnel 245

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount Subscription 245

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Companies have reduced headcount, but new bookings aren’t getting any easier Quarterly net new ARR growth : Some green-shoots! Net retention is more of a lagging indicator, so I expect this downward trend to continue FCF Margins: Down slightly, but still at that >10% range CAC Payback Period : Still elevated.

Cloud 161

Cloud Software Review Headcount Trends 161

IT World

MAY 26, 2022

The company is apparently readjusting staffing needs in reaction to a global economy that's been buffeted by rising prices, supply chain problems, and spillover effects from war in Ukraine. The move was first reported by Bloomberg. "As

Headcount 95

Headcount Pricing Software 95

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

They wait for two reasons: first, it’s another headcount, which costs money, which can seem expensive when you have say just $5k-$10k a month in MRR and 6 months of runway left before you’re out of cash. Yet still … people wait. They wait too long. To hire in customer success. Even when they know they shouldn’t.

Sales Hiring 277

Sales Hiring Customer Success Headcount Churn 277

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

If you have a SaaS startup with a higher-touch sales model where revenue growth is largely driven by sales headcount, the plan needs to be modified accordingly. Revenues" tab The model assumes that you have three pricing tiers. If you have more or fewer pricing plans you can of course adjust the model accordingly (with some effort).

SaaS Payments 217

SaaS Payments Headcount SaaS Payment Methods 217

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

But this is changing - many categories are becoming commoditized leading to massive pricing pressure. Headcount planning, budgeting, fundraising, etc can often be largely based on a top line plan. And because the AI (particularly generative AI) space has so recently come on the scene, there aren’t a huge number of vendors!

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

The only way for software companies to avoid this gross margin compression when incorporating AI features is to raise prices. If we head to their pricing page we’ll see that the most popular plan is $8 / user / month. Double the price! Consumption Pricing. What do I mean by this?

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2023

Many of them said headcount management and spend were common levers they pulled, given the immediate and significant impact they have on spend. Some other strategies for creating a more efficient go-to-market are: Adjusting pricing and contract terms with customers. What are companies doing today to scale efficiently?

Outsourcing Services 164

Outsourcing Services Scaling Venture Capital Forecasting 164

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

If you don’t have tickets, lock in Early Bird pricing today and bring your team! I will really understand, “What is the price I want for my product?” I get to set the price of the apples, because they’re my apples. I actually drive revenue from headcount, but I make sure I have enough stocked away.

Sales Hiring 333

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 333

ChurnZero

JUNE 9, 2023

Good sales teams typically get the budget, headcount and tools they desire because the function is tied to revenue. As a result, CS teams often have to work harder to make the case for headcount, technology and even product requests on behalf of customers. Did pricing go up too far? How can CS leaders address this challenge?

Finance 98

Finance Metrics Customer Success Headcount 98

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2019

” You might cringe the first time you hear this, as it sort of sounds like a pricing game. But if it isn’t budgeted, and the price tag is anything more than trivial, sales has to start with competing for budget. Not that much given the overall headcount I nominally had assigned to me. But it really isn’t.

Headcount 206

Headcount Enterprise Pricing Onboarding 206

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

This is how they optimized the product and pricing. Part of monday’s macro experience was pricing based on seats. For about four quarters, monday kept headcount flat and went from negative to epic cash flow. They would spend $300k on performance marketing and, after one month, saw 50% back from that campaign.

Scale 164

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 164

SaaStr

AUGUST 13, 2021

At what pricing? You need a baked financial model, that includes sales and marketing costs, scaling over time, headcount, and comparison to comps, and when you’ll need the next round(s). Not saying it’s easy, or that you have it all figured out now. Of course you don’t. But a clear path. With comps.

Scale 281

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Headcount 281

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 13, 2022

Companies with an equivalent commercial operation- sales headcount, marketing spend, and customer acquisition cost (CAC). For SaaSco, this may mean comparing their sales headcount to other enterprises IT vendors selling a similar average contract value. Companies at a similar stage of growth and maturity.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks Scale Headcount Software Review 52

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

A mindless policy that basically says the C-suite can’t be bothered with headcount resource allocation and will effectively leave it to chance. the constant price for an ever-shrinking candy bar). No backfill policy. And create perverse incentives to not terminate weak employees in the process. Little or no travel budget.

VP of Engineering 107

VP of Engineering Travel Underperforming Technical Team Headcount 107

SaaSX

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 118

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 118

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Headcount maybe goes from 2 or 4 to 10. At the same time that you recoup value and get comfortable selling your product, there is less land and expand and more selling your product at full price. The First Triple The first triple is one of John’s favorite stages of growth — going from $2M to $6M. NRR can draw down.

Scale 164

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success Scaling 164

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

But specializing across the sales process will take more headcount. You start to become a break-out leader, and there’s a target on your back: Competition leads to price cutting. Whatever it is, you’ll want to move away from a generalist approach. In the end, you can raise AE quotas to pay for this, at least in theory.

Sales Hiring 237

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Venture Capital 237

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Often, founders are unsure about the headcount split between India and the US. Pricing/Packaging (PP) is a key component of GTM. That means showing up in every quadrant of your category, hiring A players, putting yourself out there. Putting yourself out there, even a little bit, helps. That way, one could get the best of both worlds.

Scale 219

Scale Sales Hiring Cybersecurity Underperforming Technical Team 219

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 31, 2019

But how do you staff live chat for your marketing without ballooning your headcount? Or if you want it to appear to visitors who aren’t signed in and have been viewing your pricing page for longer than 30 seconds, you can do that, too. The Volvo chatbot provides instant price quotes to website visitors. By using chatbots.

Marketing 177

Marketing Pricing Headcount Engagement 177

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

Hint: You have to look beyond the website or pricing page. For private SaaS companies that do not publish their financials, you can alternatively compare R&D headcount with Sales and Marketing headcount using LinkedIn data as an approximation. Like OpenView’s coverage of SaaS metrics and benchmarks?

Scale 98

Scale Headcount Sales Hiring Benchmarks 98

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Peter shares his experience with managing headcount. We got a reduced ROI on initial investment on headcount. Yoram Wijngaarde Building out a team is often the next step for companies looking to scale. We built out the CS function but I’d say we kind of overshot a little. Unfortunately, we had to let some people go.

Scale 52

Scale Scaling Headcount SaaS 52

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 4, 2018

While it’s true you may need to incrementally add capacity for this new channel, the impact we’ve seen on our conversion rates has more than paid for the additional headcount. You can opt to have your sales team only talk to visitors who are checking out your pricing page or a product page. Letting humans be humans.

Sales Funnel 220

Sales Funnel Sales Headcount B2B 220

CustomerSuccessBox

DECEMBER 3, 2021

You may find yourself protecting your headcount, rooting for investments you want in tech, and giving suggestions for new product features. Customer Success Manager headcount and performance. Also, the CFO might be worried about the ‘increase in headcount’ investment. Having that conversation can be expected to be a tough one.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Data Technical Review Headcount 52

FastSpring

MARCH 14, 2023

It takes an enormous amount of time, money, and headcount for SaaS companies to handle VAT, GST, and sales tax (and any other form of indirect tax) in-house. Request a demo or sign up for a free account to see how FastSpring can help you expand globally almost overnight without adding headcount.

Payment Solutions 83

Payment Solutions Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Methods 83

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

This INCLUDES headcount-related expenses. If you are utilizing Gusto or a similar payroll tool, your headcount expenses are likely coming into your P&L as one (or maybe two) line item(s). these figures are going to be WRONG because you haven’t properly accounted for your headcount costs in Sales & Marketing.

Finance 52

Finance Sales Hiring Headcount Scale 52

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

The software company’s stated strategy was to offer great products paired with low pricing and self-service purchasing, a Product Led Growth (PLG) recipe that fueled the company’s sustained profitable growth. Sales now accounts for about 7% of the company’s headcount–a similar share of their workforce as marketing or product management.

Sales Hiring 57

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Sales 57

OpenView Labs

APRIL 28, 2020

Reduce headcount. In times of crisis, no department gets a pass when it comes to reducing headcount. Now’s the Time to Revisit Your Pricing. Related: Founders, Extend Your Cash Runway by Taking These Steps Right Now. Of course, the primary driver of overall cost reductions is going to be head count. You can do this.

Sales Hiring 70

Sales Hiring Strategy Headcount Business 70