SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2021

A question so many of us had in the earlier days of SaaS was … will we max out all our bigger customers? We all saw especially larger customers buying more and more each year, but most of us founders a generation or so ago in SaaS worried we’d max out our larger accounts. Invest More There. Pretty consistent.

Scaling 333

Scaling Investment Cloud Customer Success 333

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

So there’s a question I’ve had for some time in SaaS: does high NRR really equal higher growth? Yes, most of the best in SaaS have high NRR, at least once they are public. SaaS Capital asked this question among some other great ones of 1,500 private SaaS companies here. This wasn’t obvious to me.

Startup 257

Startup SaaS SMB Banking 257

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2023

So SaaS Capital put out its latest report on SaaS retention and NRR after having surveyed over 1,500 SaaS companies and professionals. Median NRR is 102% across all SaaS companies, Media Gross Retention is 91%. This is consistent with my experience and across 30+ investments. You can download it here.

Startup 322

Startup SaaS Retention Churn 322

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 Where is Growth Investing?

Investment 237

Investment AI Cloud Scale 237

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.

Investment 274

Investment Startup Marketing SaaS 274

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

Q: How Do VCs Mitigate Investment Risks? There are a number of slightly subtle things the best VCs do, and the rest really don’t: Getting other investors to carry their “Yellow Lights” You’ll end up with investments sort of doing OK, with customers, but really burning too much cash to justify another check.

Investment 246

Investment Cloud Pricing Branding 246

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

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

Q; Dear SaaStr: I Just Received a $1M investment for My 3-year old Industrial SaaS Product to Scale. If you are very careful, 1m will let you invest in your first sales team. You can keep investing in whatever small paid channels already work. It doesn’t let you truly invest. What Should I Do First? You can’t. $1m

Scale 195

Scale Sales Hiring Investment Scaling 195

The SaaS CFO

AUGUST 22, 2023

We make constant capital tradeoffs in our SaaS business. Even if we have a ton of cash in the bank, we still need to prioritize the investments in our business. Investment in our product roadmap is a constant discussion.

Investment 52

Investment SaaS Banking Business 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Lower interest rates lead to SaaS multiple reflation, likely during 2H’24 It’s not clear how truly tight the link is between interest rates and SaaS multiples, but the overall correlation is clear. Lower inflation and the fed lowering interest rates should lead to an expansion of SaaS multiples.

Scale 261

Scale SaaS AI Innovation 261

SaaS Metrics

JULY 22, 2023

The significance of SaaS in the investment banking industry lies in its ability to improve efficiency and streamline operations, leading to cost savings and enhanced client experiences. Read more The post The Significance of SaaS in the Investment Banking Industry first appeared on SaaS Metrics.

Banking 52

Banking Investment SaaS Metrics 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

Why is Jason Worried for The First Time About SaaS: We are trading at 6x revenues in the public markets. What does Jason Know Now That He Wishes He Had Known Earlier in Investing: If you don’t know in 20 minutes that this is one of the best founders you’ve met. Don’t do the investment. And A Few Worries.

SMB 304

SMB SaaS AI Software Review 304

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures recently put out its Software 2021 report with a ton of interesting learnings across the leaders in SaaS and Cloud. Battery Ventures’ data says while VC investment $$$ are on fire — they aren’t going into more startups. The top SaaS companies are all at $400k+ in revenue per employee.

Investment 242

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 242

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2023

SaaS buying has changed. As buyers grapple with expanding technology, higher prices, and a need for efficiency, SaaS companies need to deliver what their audience is looking for to win in the market. SaaS Market Snapshot In Q1 of 2023, Vendr gathered data on SaaS Spending and yielded some pretty interesting results.

VP of Engineering 247

VP of Engineering Trends Cybersecurity Sales Hiring 247

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Why Do So Many SaaS CEOs Get Fired? I’ve been investing for 10 years, across multiple billion+ outcomes, and only seen 1 founder “fired” in my portfolio, and one who the biggest VC suggested they step down. I think this is a bit of a misnomer. And both companies did quite well. appeared first on SaaStr.

SaaS 245

SaaS Investment 245

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

So one thing that has exploded in SaaS in the past decade is the role of Private Equity buying both public SaaS companies (to take them private, “fix” some metrics, and IPO or sell them again), and generally later-stage private SaaS companies. PE wants to invest in leaders, if not necessarily always #1 in a category.

AWS 253

AWS SaaS Pricing Acquisition 253

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 26, 2021

It’s no secret that the Cambrian explosion of SaaS applications is already leading to a massive shift in how companies reach and engage with customers. As students of this evolution, we’ve watched the decade-long Death of the (traditional) Salesman alongside … The post Investing in Crossbeam appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Investment 143

Investment Engagement SaaS Enterprise 143

USIO

APRIL 22, 2024

SaaS companies are continually seeking innovative strategies to not just maintain but amplify their growth trajectory and increase revenue. Integrating efficient payment systems along with offering revenue share will significantly impact a SaaS company’s revenue streams and overall expansion.

Payment Services 130

Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payments 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

The “Rule of 40” is one of the most commonly cited valuation benchmarks in SaaS for both public and private companies. The SaaS “Rule of 40” has gained popularity due to its simplicity, requiring only two common financial metrics to be added together. What Is The SaaS “Rule of 40”?

SaaS 271

SaaS Technical Review Benchmarks Azure 271

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS? Typically support consumes about perhaps 5%-7% of your revenue at scale (excluding customer success) in most SaaS models. And that leaves you at the 75%-85% gross margins traditional SaaS companies have. Have instant support while you can.

Azure 227

Azure AWS SaaS Customer Success 227

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

They’ve often lived through the pain of bad software, diagnosed the cause of their suffering, and made it their mission to convince the world they have … The post Investing in Svix appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz. Every so often, we meet founders with unusually strong conviction about solving systems problems.

Investment 134

Investment Software Software Development Enterprise 134

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2024

It was mixed actually, even if startups didn’t seem to get a breather, it wasn’t so bad for most public SaaS leaders. And yet … it wasn’t all bad, for the bigger guys: The median SaaS and Cloud stock was up 41% in 2023! Most SaaS leaders flipped to cash-flow positive, for many, for the first time.

Startup 177

Startup SaaS AI Pricing 177

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2023

The new year has officially begun, and since the markets have become more unpredictable over the past few years, SaaS founders are likely wondering what the VC landscape will look like in 2023. Since 2016, he prefers to make about three or four investments per year, usually within the $1 – $4 million range. . The Backstory.

Venture Capital 188

Venture Capital Investment Sales Hiring Entrepreneurship 188

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 259

Investment Scale Scaling SaaS 259

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Long Should a Free Trial Be for SaaS Products? What I mean is, this is one of those things in SaaS that is over-analyzed, as if it will make a magical difference. Just bear in mind that’s the real history behind the extremely common 14 day duration you’ll see at many sales-led SaaS leaders. And that’s OK.

SaaS 203

SaaS User Experience Startup Investment 203

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 252

Investment Startup Revenue SaaS 252

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2021

Q: What are the top portfolio company metrics that VCs track post-investment? A related post here: What are the most important metrics for SaaS? The post What Top Metrics do VC Funds Track After They Invest? In practice, there are just a few: ARR. Where is the company in terms of revenue. Growth Rate. How fast is it growing.

Metrics 215

Metrics Investment Revenue SaaS 215

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

In the latest SaaStr Workshop Wednesday (sign up for FREE here ), Jessica Bartos of Salesforce Ventures did a great deep dive on the state of SaaS and venture in 2013. One metric stood out to me I hadn’t seen presented before: just how many private SaaS companies (i.e., The full session is below and it’s a great watch.

SaaS 303

SaaS Startup Metrics Investment 303

SaaS Metrics

JUNE 17, 2023

SaaS, or Software as a Service, is the term that refers to apps or other services that users can connect to and utilize over the internet. We use SaaS in everyday lives, whether we are aware of the term or not, including streaming services like Netflix or email services such as Gmail. .

Investment 52

Investment SaaS Software Metrics 52

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2020

Do startup investors care about how employees are treated where they invest? Are looking for inspirational leaders, especially in SaaS/B2B. Last week, I literally was on a back-door reference call for a $250m+ valuation investment (not a company where I am an investor) where a late-stage VC did not invest just for this reason.

Investment 204

Investment B2B Startup Metrics 204

Andreessen Horowitz

AUGUST 1, 2023

But here’s the elephant in the room: There is a huge attack surface hidden within this seemingly solid foundation, and the proliferation of open source usage has opened … The post Investing in Socket appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Investment 98

Investment Enterprise SaaS 98

Andreessen Horowitz

JUNE 20, 2023

s … The post Investing in ElevenLabs appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz. [link] Listen to Bryan Kim read this blog post, with voice generated by ElevenLabs. The human voice is one of our most primal, personal and expressive forms of communication. From a newborn’s first babbles to Martin Luther King Jr.’s

Investment 101

Investment Communication Generative AI AI 101

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2022

The Day in SaaS, 07.28.22: Public SaaS companies are worth exactly 50% of What They Were 12 Months Ago: [link] pic.twitter.com/pbK4BmoNwo. The best of the best in SaaS and Cloud, truly the fastest growing and most iconic SaaS companies, from Snowflake to Datadog and more are way, way down. But what about startups?

Startup 298

Startup Venture Capital SaaS Cloud 298

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

SaaS Metrics

JUNE 18, 2023

Traditional investing is laser-focused on maximizing and diversifying profits. But there’s another way: impact investing. While profits are still a consideration, impact investing seeks to drive positive change. It’s about making money work for a good cause. It makes capital. It makes capital.

Investment 52

Investment Metrics SaaS Revenue 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2023

So I’ve been investing since 2013, and have done fairly well. Some of my top investments at seed stage include Pipedrive, Salesloft, Front, Talkdesk, Algolia, Gorgias, Greenhouse and more: But 2022 was a quiet time. My first year with no brand new investments, only follow-ons. So we’re behind. More here: www.saastrfund.com.

SaaS 259

SaaS Investment Startup Branding 259

Sixteen Ventures

MARCH 9, 2024

This statistic highlights a crucial reality in today’s competitive SaaS landscape: customer engagement is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity for survival.

Engagement 64

Engagement Investment SaaS Growth Hacking 64