SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2024

Having been there, a few reason the trend has accelerated — to a point: More anchor “limited partners” willing to fund to partners that want to spin out. Fund sizes shrinking = headcount reductions. Dear SaaStr: Why Do Venture Capitalists Seem To Be Switching Firms More Frequently Than Before? More generational change issues.

Headcount 257

Headcount Trends 257

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 18, 2022

Our new report reveals the top five trends transforming support and how to capitalize on them. Last year, as the world grappled with the global pandemic, we released our first Intercom Customer Support Trends Report. Download the Intercom Customer Support Trends Report 2022. Want a sneak peek into the report’s findings?

Customer Support 138

Customer Support Trends Headcount Finance 138

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2024

But there’s a trend I want to highlight now that we’ll see all across 2024. They did layoffs and froze headcount. So we try to be positive on SaaStr — that’s what helps the most. Showing folks the way, often through tougher times. It’s the “NRR Zombie”. What’s that? They cut marketing spend to $0. They raised prices.

Headcount 289

Headcount Finance Startup Trends 289

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 17, 2022

Understanding trends in those time series should shed light on variances in lead volumes. A spike of mid-market leads because a competitor has sunsetted their product raises the question of whether to grow the mid-market AE headcount. Sales motion: unassisted or sales assisted. Customer segment: industry or business size.

Headcount 253

Headcount Engineering Onboarding Trends 253

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 31, 2023

Software purchasing activity seems to be trending up, which should instill more confidence in their pipelines. AI Efficiency Gains +2% Headcount Reduction ? Headcount reductions in the last year, which impacted every company, should increase the pipeline coverage ratios for the remaining team members.

Headcount 216

Headcount Sales Hiring AI Cloud 216

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 16, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Today, IT budgets are roughly broken down into: ~50% headcount / personnel, ~25% software, ~15% hardware, and ~10% outsourcing / consultants. As software grows as a percentage, I think we see headcount / outsourcing shrinking.

Outsourcing Services 274

Outsourcing Services Cloud Software Outsourced Development 274

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2022

The survey results review the trends in the public market, in founders’ minds, and the private market. About 20% of those polled will conduct a layoff, and on average will reduce headcount by 20%. Over the past week, I’ve analyzed the nearly 500 responses from founders who responded to the 2022 Market Conditions Survey.

Startup 242

Startup Scale Headcount Compensation 242

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

Another new trend is people reverting to founder-led sales because of mishires and getting burned. You will need to hire headcount infinitely and linearly with revenue. Whatever it’s growing, you have to grow your headcount in sales roughly. You have to spend as much time in sales after hiring a VP as you did before.

Sales Hiring 298

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Technical Review 298

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 1, 2021

Over the past year, many support teams have struggled with budget cuts, reduced headcount, and less bandwidth – while the volume and complexity of customer queries has only risen. So how can you manage a larger volume of queries without needing to add headcount? Challenge #1: Limited team bandwidth, resources, and budget.

Underperforming Technical Team 232

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Scale Headcount 232

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

Do you have to double your headcount to make it from $10M to $20M or even $2M to $5M? For headcount specifically, make sure that the constraint to growing faster is that you don’t have enough salespeople to work the demand that exists for your business. When those outcomes are achieved, the hire gets their headcount.

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 294

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2023

They grew headcount fairly aggressively from ‘21 to ‘22, and then Q4 of last year dipped and held flat before starting to regrow. Monday will probably add 25% headcount this year. Two Conflicting Trends Everyone has learned to become more efficient and could hold off on profitability. Salesforce is back to hiring.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring SaaS Headcount Compensation 278

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2023

It can be both costly and exhausting to stay privy to the latest trends and able to predict the next big thing. Three macro trends summarize the recent shifts in B2B sales: Millennial generational shift. Redeploy funds from headcount to sales technology. You can see all of Mary’s slides for this session HERE.

Innovation 246

Innovation Sales Hiring B2B Strategy 246

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

I’m watching public company earnings to identify early trends in the software market to inform startups’ plans for 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 243

Cloud Azure Headcount Software Review 243

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

These are just some of the findings in this year’s Customer Success Leadership Study, ChurnZero’s third annual report on the top trends and opportunities in Customer Success, presented in partnership with ESG and sponsored by Higher Logic Vanilla and involve.ai. Read more on Customer Success industry trends: . However, 76.5%

Leadership 98

Leadership Trends Customer Success Investment 98

OPEXEngine

OCTOBER 7, 2020

We filtered on the Bessemer Nasdaq SaaS Index for companies with revenues between $100M and $300M and revenue growth rates over 25%, to give us a cohort of public companies small enough to see resource allocations and trends more easily than with very large companies. The average EBITDA margin has improved in a trend that may continue in Q3.

Trends 96

Trends Technical Review Headcount SaaS 96

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

By using technology to detect signals in their product and monitor trends in inbound conversations from customers, workforce management platform Tanda is leveraging proactive support to stay ahead of the curve and offer help to customers before they reach out to the support team. Here’s how they’re doing it.

Scale 237

Scale Headcount Mobile Communication 237

Kellblog

NOVEMBER 6, 2024

To what extent will companies raid headcount budget to generate AI budget? Answer: try to skate to the puck of where you see the industry trending.) A discussion of Andy Wilson ‘s successful exit at Logickull where Jason was an investor and I was an advisor What will be the impact of AI on SaaS budgets?

Headcount 72

Headcount AI Generative AI Acquisition 72

ChurnZero

JANUARY 13, 2023

However, it’s tough to predict the future alone — so we asked Customer Success leaders across the industry to share their top trends for 2023. First, digital CS will become a way of life due to flat or reduced headcount. Here are 12 predictions and trends your team can take advantage of now to make a big impact this year.

Trends 98

Trends Customer Success Sales Hiring Artificial Intelligence 98

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

If you take this ability to not follow the herd and the experience, you can spot trends. When you think about it, when a trend is early, everybody thinks you’re wrong. Peter : Long term, you go back the last 1,000 years, that has been the trend. I was an intern at IBM mainframe software when I was 20 years old.

Sales Hiring 337

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Headcount 337

SaaStr

OCTOBER 8, 2024

Most businesses fall under a power law, where a small number of people run them, yet the company continues to add headcount and spread it out. If you don’t know the math, your trend line, and your progress, and you aren’t evaluating multiple components at the same time, how do you make any choices? Go figure out what they’re doing.

Scale 270

Scale Scaling SaaS Point of Sale 270

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2023

CIOs and others want to concentrate their budget on vendors they trust, so if you have a strong brand, you can benefit from this trend. They kept the headcount kind of flat. Yet leaders like MongoDB are growing quicker than startups, and it’s usually the opposite. Mongo’s $1M+ customers are up 30%, which is pretty epic. And it worked!

Revenue 245

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Cloud 245

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

Discover five trends transforming the support industry along with tips on how to capitalize on them. Discover five trends transforming customer support. In the report, we explore the key five trends that are shaping and redefining customer support today (and are set to accelerate in 2021).

Headcount 145

Headcount B2C Customer Support Trends 145

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin also wrote how Customer Success has now morphed into part of the sales team and that the 2024 trends in CS include everyone wanting to eliminate humans from support to replace that headcount with AI and bots. The world has changed. We still want to drive retention and growth and make money.

Sales Hiring 315

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale AI 315

ChurnZero

MARCH 23, 2023

Customer Success benchmark: headcount How many people should be on a Customer Success team? of revenue or less…and overall 64% of respondents reported non-headcount budgets of $200,000 or less: a severe under-investment in this critical business function.” When asked about non-headcount budgets; 8.3%

Headcount 52

Headcount Benchmarks Customer Success Scale 52

ChurnZero

MARCH 23, 2023

Customer Success benchmark: headcount How many people should be on a Customer Success team? of revenue or less…and overall 64% of respondents reported non-headcount budgets of $200,000 or less: a severe under-investment in this critical business function.” When asked about non-headcount budgets; 8.3%

Headcount 52

Headcount Benchmarks Customer Success Scale 52

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

Unlock further growth potential to scale Stuart’s support across all of their markets and support more delivery partners without increasing headcount on the support team. Identifying conversation trends. Strong, scalable support. We see a lot of benefits to be gained in empowering our delivery partners to self-serve,” she says.

Scale 193

Scale Forecasting Headcount Trends 193

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Overall, I’d describe the tagline of Q3 software performance as “stabilizing trends with some green-shoots starting to show up.” Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Review Headcount Trends 167

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 20, 2020

We need to stay on top of market trends and product updates, all while making sure our customers become wildly successful. On the flipside, I’ve also had customers who are investing more in automation as they’ve reduced their headcount. As customer success managers, we wear many hats.

Scale 223

Scale Customer Success Scaling Technical Review 223

Totango

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

This is our look at the leading customer success trends for 2020. The days of an expanding customer base being met with a move to a bigger office and a greater employee headcount are over. Customer success and retention have therefore become critical to achieving maximum customer lifetime value.

Customer Success 83

Customer Success Trends Customer Lifetime Value Scale 83

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 6, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. 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. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Headcount Payment Features Subscription 130

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

Clouded Judgement

MAY 24, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now First Look at April Quarters Heading in to this week, software earnings have not been good.

Cloud 157

Cloud Software Headcount Scale 157

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

While the pandemic has demanded certain adaptations, in many cases, it’s simply accelerating trends that customer support leaders were experiencing anyway. Increasing your chat support offering doesn’t have to mean increasing headcount, however; it’s also about finding smart ways to make your chat tool work harder (and smarter) for your team.

Technical Review 222

Technical Review Systems Review Customer Support Headcount 222

ChurnZero

JANUARY 10, 2023

Whether you’re an experienced Customer Success professional looking for a new role, or you’re a newcomer hunting for your first Customer Success position, these are the hiring trends to anticipate and leverage in 2023. With limited headcount, companies are focused on filling their most critical roles. Last year, 63.3%

Trends 52

Trends Customer Success Headcount Scale 52

BetterCloud

APRIL 24, 2025

The numbers dont lie: A growing gap The steady climb of the IT-to-employee ratio is a trend that is always one to keep an eye on. Several factors contributed to this trend: Rapid SaaS adoption: SaaS apps have revolutionized how businesses operate, but it also adds complexity. Looking to help your IT team without adding headcount?

Cybersecurity 52

Cybersecurity Artificial Intelligence Headcount Government 52

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

KPIs help sales reps, managers and leaders track progress to targets, identify high-level trends and themes, and manage individual and team performance. That’s why we keep a close eye on churn, contraction and expansion trends to make sure we’re constantly delivering value to our customers.

Sales Hiring 188

Sales Hiring Metrics Revenue Sales 188

Sales Hacker

MAY 21, 2020

This includes their own technology, reporting, and headcount as well as what Marketing needs from Sales in terms of feedback and accountability. This includes their own technology, reporting, and headcount as well as what Sales needs from Marketing in terms of feedback and accountability.

Scale 138

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Headcount Technology 138