Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

This post is part of a series leading up to SaaS Office GTM Edition on June 24 in which we’re reviewing the results of the 2020 Redpoint GTM survey. Today, we’re answering the question: how do teams grow as a startup scales? And at that scale or higher, CROs lead the go-to-market for more than 50% of respondents.

Scale 354

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 354

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

General Partner Doug Pepper and General Partner and Head of Analytics at ICONIQ Growth, Christine Edmonds, share the art and science of scaling GTM at this year’s SaaStr Annual. Early Growth Stage — $20M to $50M ARR This is the first time companies are really starting to build their GTM organizations for scale. What does that mean?

Scale 251

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Outsourced Development 251

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Mark Roberge , SaaStr fan-favorite and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital brought together some of the top CROs in SaaS during the SaaStr Annual to share some of their greatest learnings and pivotal moments leading some of the Cloud 100 SaaS companies. So, Calendly decided to invest in going Enterprise.

Scale 246

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 246

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2021

Protocol and Pitchbook partnered to do a comparison to see what’s happening in Private Equity and enterprise deals so far in 2021, and the data is a bit jaw-dropping: Just in 1H’21, PE invested $20.4B in SaaS and enterprise deals. Who’s writing these big checks in SaaS and enterprise?

Investment 270

Investment SaaS Acquisition Enterprise 270

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 270

Startup SaaS SMB Banking 270

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

One of the open secrets behind a lot of great SaaS companies is going multi-product. Many of you are familiar with this visual, most likely created by an investment firm. You have to keep investing in the new product while getting back to the current product. Keep leaning into the investment, and don’t let off the gas.

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Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 252

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.

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Scale SaaS AI Innovation 276

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2021

His SaaS CEO asked him to stop selling so much. Well, it does make sense, when you understand the scenario, a combination of two things: First, this SaaS company has a mix of freemium customers and sales-driven customers (with higher ACV, lower churn). Second, this SaaS company had a very tight balance sheet.

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Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Construction 340

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.

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Azure AWS SaaS Customer Success 241

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.

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AWS SaaS Pricing Acquisition 268

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

And for Intercom’s VP of Sales EMEA, Sanj Bhayro , scaling is just what you need to invest in to ensure growth becomes as constant and linear as it can be. Sanj has plenty of experience scaling sales teams at growing businesses, and that’s precisely why, as of November of last year, he‘s overseeing EMEA sales at Intercom.

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Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. But before the years of rapid scaling, it took the company a little while to hit its stride. What Did WorkRamp Do Differently to Scale? You Should Have an 80%+ Gross Margin in SaaS.”

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Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 219

SaaStr

AUGUST 18, 2023

So while the media is full of stories of unicorns doing layoffs and massive cutbacks, the story is a bit different with leading public SaaS companies. Yes many public SaaS companies have done some sort of layoffs the past 12 months, they were often more really reorgs, though, without any net decrease in headcount. Billion in ARR!

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Scale Headcount Point of Sale SaaS 216

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Check out the session here: Algolia also summarized their Top 5 take-aways here , and below: Most SaaS founders start out the same way— armed with ample expertise of the technical details that go into a product and with limited experience of other aspects of scaling, such as sales. On finding product-market fit in the early stages.

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Scale Sales Hiring Technical Advisors Scaling 247

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 254

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 254

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 251

Investment AI Cloud Scale 251

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2023

SMBTech Companies Take A Long Time To Build Richards and Luck have been investing for quite some time, and early on, they learned that not everything works right out of the box. A growth mindset product strategy can help you drive NDR (net dollar retention) over time and make you a company worth investing in.

Scale 216

Scale SMB Merchant Services Payment Methods 216

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 265

Investment Scale Scaling SaaS 265

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 8, 2023

In SaaS, we talk a lot about hyper-growth, uber-successful companies, but many founders, including hyper-growth founders, make mistakes over and over. Maybe you feel SaaS is crushing it this year, but it’s not easy for a lot of folks. Failure #3: Not Scaling Based On Leading Indicators There’s a big fallacy in software.

Scale 257

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Scaling 257

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

In SaaS, there are a lot of great “rules” that do make sense overall but can be confusing or borderline misleading at times. But maybe not while you are scaling, you can often afford to invest more if you have funding. But maybe not while you are scaling, you can often afford to invest more if you have funding.

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Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 255

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

So we’re reaching new levels of efficiency in SaaS — at least in the public markets. The average public SaaS company now has hit $300,000 in revenue per employee or so on average. Almost Everyone’s Gotten Radically More Efficient in SaaS That’s a good metric to think about at scale now.

Venture Capital 295

Venture Capital Scaling AI Investment 295

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2021

Zapier grew from a small SaaS startup to a company with over 500 employees over a decade. Here’s the advice they had to offer on scaling your SaaS company. Here’s the advice they had to offer on scaling your SaaS company. Adam #18: Invest in a strong hiring and onboarding process from day one.

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Scale Scaling Innovation Investment 305

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

You know what’s back in fashion today in SaaS? And that’s a lot rarer in SaaS. But so many SaaS leaders aren’t really profitable at $1B ARR even, Why not? And it’s not just public SaaS companies that are often struggling to get profitable. I’m an investor in maybe 30 SaaS startups. So is SaaS cursed?

Scale 283

Scale SaaS Banking AWS 283

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

Roughly — very roughly — you want to be multiproduct in SaaS by the time you have 10,000 customers. So a top theme across SaaStr CEO interviews since 2017 or so, and across our 5 Interesting Learnings series with public SaaS companies, is … when should you go multi-product? For enterprise, this could be $300m-500m in ARR.

Scale 273

Scale SaaS SMB Scaling 273

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

So over the past decade-and-a-half we’ve come up with a lot of yardsticks, metrics and rules for SaaS companies. can invest in marketing that takes a little while to pay off). But — they are broken if you aren’t really a traditional, 100%+ NRR SaaS company. SMB SaaS often has much lower than 100% NRR, especially to start.

SaaS Payments 223

SaaS Payments Metrics Payments SMB 223

User Pilot

JULY 4, 2023

Read on to discover how to cross the chasm and scale your technology company. Implement a product-led growth strategy to allow early adopters a chance to test your product without making an investment. Use loyalty programs and rewards to encourage users to leave reviews, increasing your SaaS’s word-of-mouth promotion.

Scale 79

Scale Scaling Technical Review SaaS 79

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2024

But now a second SaaS security leader has filed to IPO, Rubrik. Is this the new bar to IPO in SaaS? New Customers Still Growing 22% at Scale. For me, Net New Customer Count has become the metric I obsess the most about at scale. For me, Net New Customer Count has become the metric I obsess the most about at scale.

Scale 250

Scale Pricing Scaling Cloud 250

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

So things got a bit broken with SaaS sales exec comp in the run-up up until 2020 … and then it got really broken in the crazy times of late 2020 and 2021. SaaS companies and fintechs and pseudo-SaaS companies could end up paying out more than the entire year’s margin in the commission check. This wrecks the unit economics.

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Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Sales 329

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

Scaling your SaaS company isn’t just about hitting the right growth metrics –– it requires a thorough understanding of your business goals, company culture, and leadership dynamic. Roy Mann and Eran Zinman, Co-Founders and CEOs of monday.com, look back at their incredible growth and share the dos and don’ts of scaling.

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Scale Scaling Leadership Company Culture 217

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Eran Zimman, monday.com’s co-founder and co-CEO, shares his secrets to scaling and growth in an unpredictable market. Serve customers a CRM or project management first, and as they scale and use it more, they’re exposed to more features. They kept doing it after the economy changed, and they also scaled it. It’s cheap.

Scale 166

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 166

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 5, 2019

? ?. Over a few decades, SaaS has evolved from a lofty concept to an integral part of the modern business landscape. In many respects, it’s now almost impossible to envisage a work environment that doesn’t rely on a SaaS product in some shape or form. Building successful SaaS companies in a rapidly evolving market.

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Scale Scaling Artificial Intelligence Business 118

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2022

Yamini Rangan, CEO at HubSpot, has many insights on how to serve SMB customers at scale. But because SMBs are rarely digital-first, their recent challenges allowed HubSpot to leverage their years of experience in marketing automation, as it became a core feature of how these companies worked to scale.

Scale 242

Scale SMB Scaling Innovation 242

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

JANUARY 13, 2021

Burnout is a real risk in SaaS. One piece of “evidence” — a lot of fairly successful SaaS startups all sell at about the same point in time … about 5 years in. But you have to own less as you scale. The post 10 Tips To Avoid SaaS Burnout appeared first on SaaStr. Not usually in the early days.

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Travel SaaS Banking Startup 363

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

How do you reverse-engineer your first million as a SaaS startup founder? He’s invested in startups as a VC since 2013 and has 10x his fund. You Need A Business Model with Economies of Scale As you’re trying to reverse engineer whether your business model makes sense, you have to look at your business model.

Engineering 267

Engineering Business Model Pricing Scaling 267

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

Doug Pepper, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, has invested in software and SaaS companies for 22 years, from seed to growth stage. They initially double their ARR each year in scaling post $10M. For most SaaS startups, 60-75% of the costs are personnel related.

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Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Venture Capital 224