Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Subscribe now ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) vs ERR (Experimental Runrate Revenue) ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is one of the most popular SaaS (Non-GAAP) metrics. Many investors laugh (and some rightly so) at the fact that software companies’ valuations are often described as a multiple of revenue.

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 26, 2022

A former venture capitalist, Mark Leonard started Constellation in 1995 with $15m of outside investment & a goal of buying vertical software companies with a moat & good unit economics. From 2003 to 2014, Constellation’s revenues compounded from $80m to more than $5b, an average of 25% annually. Growth Source. Net Growth.

Software Review 232

Software Review Investment Software Acquisition 232

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 26, 2024

For example, one customer pointed out that the ability to automate processes around new customer onboarding is a revenue-accelerating outcome because it enables them to serve more customers. We’re quick to think of time and cost savings, but the impact is much larger.

Investment 117

Investment Healthcare AI Business Model 117

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2019

Q: Why would an investor invest in a pre-revenue company? And de-risk the investment. If someone else is going to do the deal, you may need to invest now. You are worried you can’t get enough ownership unless you invest now. The earlier you invest, the easier it is to get your target ownership.

Investment 148

Investment Revenue Venture Capital Pricing 148

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2023

Harry Stebbings of 20VC was kind enough to have us back on the latest VC Roundtable with 2 of the very, very best in growth / late-stage investing — the leaders of Insight Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. They’ve led later stage investments in the best in SaaS and Cloud. And how are they seeing today? New normal?

Investment 231

Investment AI Cloud Scale 231

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2022

Investments I've made that didn't work out: – Momentum investment – CEO a bit of bulls**t artist – CEO good at sales but weak product team / CTO. Investments I've made that had so-so outcomes: – CEO not better than me – CEO couldn't control burn rate – Not really SaaS.

Investment 266

Investment Sales Recruiting CTO Startup 266

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Solving High Volume, Low Conversion at Lattice Dini Mehta joined Lattice at $3M in revenue when it had just 10 people in seat for Go-To-Market and 7 salespeople. From an R&D perspective, they invested in what they called vertical solutions to support those new use cases. So, Calendly decided to invest in going Enterprise.

Scale 228

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 228

ChurnZero

APRIL 1, 2024

When companies think about investing in their customer base, they are usually thinking about driving product adoption, reducing churn, or even delivering expansion revenue. Invest in your customers and stay close to them as they mature in their careers across companies. This is a guest post by Todd Busler, CEO of Champify.

Investment 92

Investment Sales Funnel Customer Success B2B 92

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

If I gave you $10,000 to invest in one company today among the following four software businesses, which would you pick? Which investment will generate the greatest return? Company 2 compounds revenue at 83% the rate of company 1, but at half the price. The revenue trajectory mirrors company 3 at one-half the price.

Investment 245

Investment Pricing Business Model Enterprise 245

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Despite what we’ve seen post-2020/2021, there has been a surge in AI investments, with AI companies at the infrastructure layer hitting a hundred times valuations at early funding stages. We are in the era of efficiency – as a 10% QBR attendance is no longer adequate for achieving a 140% net revenue retention.

Investment 146

Investment Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 146

Predictable Revenue

JUNE 30, 2020

The post How To Upscale Your Home Business With Little Investment appeared first on Predictable Revenue. It’s important to use this time wisely, spend some time adjusting and finessing your business so you can hit the ground running when they do.

Investment 264

Investment Business Revenue 264

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

So I remember the first time I saw a CEO fire their entire revenue team. I’d invested in a PLG-first company that was transitioning at millions in revenue to being more sales-led. The company hit a wall on revenue growth. If you’re going to fire your whole revenue team, you better have a real plan.

Revenue 211

Revenue Sales Hiring Sales Investment 211

SaaStr

JULY 19, 2021

Q: How do VCs and investors find companies to invest in? They track who else invest. They aggregate data on revenue and stage. Referrals from other folks invest at the same time, or in the pre-seed or prior round. The post Dear SaaStr: How Do VCs Find Companies To Invest In? Anything more looks like spam.

Investment 227

Investment Startup Data Revenue 227

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures’ data says while VC investment $$$ are on fire — they aren’t going into more startups. Revenue growth slowed in 2020 for the average public SaaS company — but accelerated for the largest ones. The average SMB SaaS company has $295k in revenue per employee, and $450k in the enterprise.

Investment 236

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 6, 2021

Q: I run a bootstrapped software company and our biggest customer (60% of our revenue) has offered on several occasions to invest in the company. Taking an investment from your largest customer certainly will complicate things. Rarely keep investing after the initial investment. But a VC investment is.

Investment 277

Investment Software Review Acquisition Pricing 277

Buffer Resources

APRIL 19, 2023

Within nine months of launching my company I was able to quit my full-time job and go all in, and now, just two years later, I’ve achieved multi-six-figures in revenue. Here are some of those investments, and why they’ve been instrumental to my success. There have also been some monetary investments.

Outsourcing Services 100

Outsourcing Services Investment Social Media Revenue 100

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2022

So net net: Global VC investment doubled in 2021 from 2020, from $335B to $643B; and. But all that money, that 100% growth in investment — only went to about 25% more startups. The top public market revenue multiples, the highest ones — are only going to the public SaaS companies with crazy high growth rates.

Investment 246

Investment Startup Revenue SaaS 246

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2021

Q: What are the top portfolio company metrics that VCs track post-investment? Where is the company in terms of revenue. The post What Top Metrics do VC Funds Track After They Invest? In practice, there are just a few: ARR. Growth Rate. How fast is it growing. Burn Rate & “Zero Cash Date”. appeared first on SaaStr.

Metrics 209

Metrics Investment Revenue SaaS 209

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2022

Tracking business performance through revenue targets remains one of the most valuable ways to measure company success. According to Blond, there are two main components to creating the perfect revenue goal: “There are two variables to hitting targets. At this stage, you don’t need a revenue target quite yet.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Revenue Finance Startup 263

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Mihoyo’s Genshin Impact has grossed over $3B in revenue since taking the world by storm in 2020, and in the process also redefined the standard for cross-platform, live-operated role-playing games (RPGs). In 2022, anime games accounted for 20% of total mobile game spend at $17B , not inclusive of PC/console spend.

Investment 134

Investment Generative AI AI Mobile 134

Baremetrics

AUGUST 3, 2021

We’re here to tell you that all revenue is good revenue. But there are nuances that you need to know when operating your SaaS business when it comes to revenue. Those nuances come into play when understanding the different types of revenue in your SaaS business. What is Revenue? Types of Revenue 1.

Payments 98

Payments Revenue Payment Services SaaS Payments 98

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2022

Co-founder and CEO of Insider , Hande Cilingir, talks about what it takes to write a successful revenue growth story. However, the revenue forecast accuracy and the realization of that revenue each month are more important. Or the revenue their business will generate by month-end. Mistake 1: Not accepting your mistakes.

Scale 221

Scale Sales Hiring Revenue Marketplace as a Service 221

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 16, 2017

How much should a SaaS startup invest in sales and marketing at different stages of the business? Sales and marketing investment depends on many different factors including establishing product market fit, the business’s sales model (inside, field, freemium), and not least, cash balance and fundraising capacity. Revenue, $M.

Investment 274

Investment Startup Marketing SaaS 274

SaaStr

JULY 4, 2021

This was my first venture investment. One of the earliest posts I did on SaaStr was back in 2013 when I made my first venture investment, co-leading the seed round in Pipedrive. I also made a lot of mistakes on this investment I’ll share in another post. Lemkin invest in Pipedrive? So I said — invest in that one .

Investment 256

Investment Scale Scaling SaaS 256

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2022

He highlights the three key strategies that helped TripActions scale and boost their revenue. With a clear strategy for direction, stakeholders, employees, and customers can remain loyal and invest confidently, even during a crisis. Develop a well-defined vision. They ultimately want to be assured of long-term stability.

Travel 203

Travel Revenue Underperforming Technical Team Scale 203

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2022

Confluent’s President of Field Operations, Erica Schultz, explores different tactics businesses can employ to scale revenue and increase efficiency in the current macro environment. Another approach to scaling revenue involves accelerating the customer adoption and expansion phases. Invest in a repeatable playbook.

VP of Engineering 200

VP of Engineering Scale Scaling Sales Hiring 200

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Jameson Yung, SVP of Sales at Gong, and Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund and previous CRO at Brex, share five tactical ways to get back to growing and hitting revenue targets. The days of working a little for big returns are behind us in the Boom of ‘21, so what can you do to start hitting revenue targets? #1: Revenue matters, too.

Sales Hiring 199

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Revenue Sales 199

SaaStr

JULY 13, 2020

Q: What was your failed investment experience and where will you never invest funds again? I’ve made about 30 material investments. Most have been successful, but of course not all have and I’ve been reflecting on the ones that didn’t, because they still had attractive elements when I invested. More on them here.

Technical Cofounder 228

Technical Cofounder Investment New CTO CTO 228

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2022

DigitalOcean has done that and grown beyond $150M in revenue in Q3 2022. Cliff Bockard, Senior Vice President of Revenue at DigitalOcean, joined us at SaaStr Scale to discuss how businesses can serve SMBs and still bring in large numbers of revenue. . Market understanding. Key takeaways.

Scale 201

Scale Scaling Revenue Enterprise 201

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 7, 2020

“Support isn’t just a cost center, but a strategic investment that increases customer retention and reduces churn” Indeed, if you look at the broader financial models of customer support, you’ll see that support isn’t just a cost center, but a strategic investment that increases customer retention and reduces churn.

Customer Support 196

Customer Support Investment Scale Retention 196

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

While the allure of customer acquisition can pull a founder’s attention, it’s equally important to dedicate resources to fighting churn and expanding revenue from existing customers. They discuss how Fox helped build a churn-fighting, upselling, and cross-selling machine that continues to generate revenue. Set Up Tracking Processes.

Retention 212

Retention Revenue Startup Sales Hiring 212

Predictable Revenue

JULY 9, 2020

The post How to create an enablement team and prove its return on investment appeared first on Predictable Revenue. Discovering the ins and outs of building a sales enablement team – from building an enablement org from scratch, to refining processes, to expanding enablement when the time is right.

Investment 165

Investment Sales Enablement Revenue Sales 165