SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2023

Carta is a platform that helps people manage equity, build businesses, and invest in the companies of tomorrow. The company is trusted by more than 30,000 companies, over 5,000 investment funds, and half a million employees for cap table management, compensation management, liquidity venture capital solutions, and more.

Scale 186

Scale Payments Payment Solutions Artificial Intelligence 186

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Even with late stage VC capital much harder to get now, and the IPO markets still frozen, I see many folks on my LinkedIn feed saying Sales and Customer Success are underpaid. Well, for most of time, about 10% of the “profit” on a deal has done to sales, and about 5% of renewals have gone to customer success.

Scale 213

Scale Customer Success Venture Capital Sales 213

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2023

SaaStr 624: Investing and Venture Capital in 2023 with SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin and Atrium Founder and CRO Pete Kazanjy. . SaaStr 623: Removing Friction: How to Turn More Than 40% of Your Prospects Into Long Term Enterprise Customers with Attentive Co-founder and CEO Brian Long.   .

Scale 216

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Scaling 216

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? Canvas Ventures manages $835 million in AUM, currently investing out of our third, $350 million fund.

Scale 216

Scale Venture Capital AI Generative AI 216

SaaSOptics

AUGUST 11, 2022

Raise, Sell, Merge, or Scale? In this article, we’ll help you determine the next best step for your business and provide guidance on whether you should raise, sell, merge, or scale your SaaS. Option 1: Raising capital. So what should you do if you’re strapped for cash and have your sights set on venture capital?

Scale 97

Scale Scaling Technical Review Venture Capital 97

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Catch up on part one here , where he deep dives into what he really thinks about AI, Sales and lead Gen for SaaS in 2024. Jason re-takes the stage in Part 2 of the series to answer questions about the right time is to invest in a new product line, building vertical vs. horizontal, multiples in 2024, and much more.

Sales Hiring 232

Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital Generative AI 232

SaaStr

JANUARY 22, 2023

SaaStr 626: 10 Lessons Learned Scaling to $1B Valuation with Drift Co-founders David Cancel and Elias Torres  2. SaaStr 627: Move Over, Sales: Why Product & Marketing are the C-Suite’s New Power Partnership with Checkout.com CMO Leela Srinivasan and CPO Meron Colbeci    4. with Brex’s VP Product Marketing 5.

Scale 183

Scale Customer Success Venture Capital Sales Hiring 183

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2019

I’ve watched many bridge rounds over time from a far, and took $500k in bridge capital at EchoSign myself when our seed round didn’t end up being quite enough to get us to the Series A. And generally, they prefer a new lead investor for the next round, and often, the most prestigious one possible. The bridge has to last.

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Scale Finance Pricing 221

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

As you finally begin to scale, you’ll have enough revenue to hire some great folks, but not enough to build very redundant teams. More here: From Initial Traction to Initial Scale (~$10M in ARR): The Hardest Phase. SaaStr From $10m ARR on: Capital Inefficiency. Why is my sales team less efficient at $20m ARR than at $2m in ARR?

Sales Recruiting 244

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 244

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

Many start-ups think they need to net venture capital to jumpstart their growth. UserZoom invested in a model where they didn’t just provide software, but services, in a model known as SaaS++. After being useful, UX is the leading factor impacting user retention. “I Pick the right partners to scale. Choose wisely.

Scale 202

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring SMB 202

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2022

Go Long — if you get to Initial Scale with happy customers and good growth. This one took me a little while to figure out (thanks to Auren Hoffman for helping me see this clearly), but if you’re a founder, the best investment you can make is in yourself. And I put in a very large capital commitment into investing.

Scale 360

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Startup 360

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2021

The CEO basically is the VP of Sales and Revenue and Customer Success, with maybe a junior resource or two helping. And they realize, now that they’ve gotten here, that — it’s time to Go Bigger: That the CEO, not trained in sales, shouldn’t be the VP of Sales anymore. Maybe a bit more.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Sales 264

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2023

We had a great one last week with Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder & General Partner at Canvas Ventures. This week we’re focusing on Nina Achadijian, Partner at Index Ventures! #1. What’s your most recent disclosed investment? What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal?

Technical Review 197

Technical Review Software Review Payment Solutions Venture Capital 197

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2022

But I’ve made 30+ investments, and while many have been big wins, some haven’t. Here’s what’s caused startups I’ve invested in to fail, or at least, not to thrive and succeed: Founder conflict. This hasn’t driven any startup I’ve invest in 100% to failure, but it’s driven them to unoptimal exits. Unable to control the burn rate.

Startup 197

Startup Venture Capital Scale Churn 197

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

Magnuson shares his insights on how to find opportunities during headwinds and how Braze scaled to $400M+ ARR. When The Pace Of Change Accelerates, It Creates Opportunity When times are changing, the ones who will win are the ones who predict what the change is leading to, and they start building for that tomorrow right now.

Scale 186

Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 186

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

Yes, you can manage the sales team yourself. Cash was tight and I didn’t know any great VPs of Biz Dev, so between myself and my VPs of Sales, Product and Customer Success, we all jointly managed our key partners. Fight and create mindshare with partners that deliver you leads. Less and you under-invest.

Part-Time VPE 256

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 256

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2022

There’s a common meme in Venture Capital that traction is tough to quantify, but you know it when you see it. Not from a large base yet, but it’s now started compounding, albeit at a small scale. Leads and customers from the ether. This is what will enable you to scale. And invest. But Trust Me.

Scale 252

Scale Venture Capital SaaS Branding 252

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

And as part of that push from my vantage point as Chief of Staff, I saw the need to continue investing in those early-stage startups so that we didn’t put all our eggs in one basket but that we continue to grow and nurture the companies that would go on to become great.” Anchor your startup strategy in a specific sales and service team.

Startup 195

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 195

OPEXEngine

JANUARY 28, 2020

These flexible, non-dilutive financing solutions scale with a business’ growth, enabling entrepreneurs to focus on their business without giving up equity, personal guarantees , or board seats; it’s understandable why entrepreneurs are increasingly seeking such solutions to reach their next growth milestone.

Venture Capital 61

Venture Capital Finance Payments Revenue 61

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Or of my investments, ones like Algolia and Salesloft, that yes, in theory, were playing in larger markets, but in practice, their entry points were quite narrow. How can that scale over time? How many sales reps, how much marketing spend, how many engineers will you really need? Worth investing 7+ years of your life in.

Scale 196

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 196

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

On top of that, founders are full of excuses preventing them from scaling. You have to understand how venture capital works. 2 “Give the VP of Sales more time.” You can’t always expect a great VP of Sales to double sales in 30-60-90 days. But you have to see progress in one sales cycle.

Part-Time VPE 172

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 172

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2021

As the premier SaaS conference , SaaStr Annual’s ability to attract top-tier investment firms and the best SaaS Founders creates unparalleled Founder <> Investor networking and learning opportunities. . Active Capital. Advaita Capital . Alliance Venture. Generation Investment Management. How Women Invest.

Scale 222

Scale Venture Capital Innovation Banking 222

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 31, 2022

We are delighted to share that we are officially launching our new program for fast-growing, venture-backed startups. We’re working with venture capital, accelerator, incubator, and technology partners to help founders bring the best communication experience to their customers.

Startup 118

Startup Venture Capital Scale SMB 118

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2019

As part of our new 5 Interesting Learnings series, here are a few: Freemium continues to scale for Slack, but now more as a lead gen tool. Free also serves as a hunting ground for sales to find prospects and leads. Slack notes this is now the primary value of self-service (lead generation vs. direct conversion).

Scale 275

Scale Venture Capital SMB Enterprise 275

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

Even if leads are still a bit lumpy, outbound is still stretching itself … you at least learn how to close by this point. And often, if you are capital efficient, your marketing cost will be close to $0 at this point (you are barely spending anything to acquire most customers), and your sales costs are pretty predictable.

Sales Hiring 224

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Venture Capital 224

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2019

Niall Wall, Box SVP of Business and Corporate Development alongside Vicki Lin, Stripe’s Head of Ecosystem and Cecilia Stallsmith, Slack’s Director of Platform Marketing discuss scaling your revenue via indirect channels and platform ecosystems. Then also went into venture capital where I invested in API first products.

Payments 120

Payments Scale Scaling Revenue 120

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2020

This article looks at the history of SaaS as it relates to financial capital and production capital. I argue that standard saas metrics make it possible for founders to scale using debt capital (production capital thats cheaper) instead of solely relying on venture capital (financial capital thats more expensive). .

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Technical Review SaaS Scale 217

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2020

Equality and Unicorns in 2020: Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures and Jason Lemkin of SaaStr. We’re going to do something a little different here, and both catch up on the state of Equality in Venture Capital and Cloud, and also revisit Aileen’s classic pieces in TechCrunch that kicked off the age of the Unicorn.

Trends 212

Trends Venture Capital Scale PayPal 212

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2022

Startups often begin with a bootstrapping phase with little to no outside investment. Paddle’s Senior Product Manager, Allissa Chan, and Chief Strategy Officer, Patrick Campbell, share their experience of scaling a bootstrapped startup. Venture capital-backed companies update their pricing once every 2.8

Payments 130

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Venture Capital 130

SaaSHolic

MAY 5, 2023

The speakers believe that the next 10 years will be better for the region, with opportunities for investment in various industries using technology to solve problems. Latin America has interesting characteristics that make it a viable place for investment, including a high level of internet penetration and social engagement.

Technical Review 90

Technical Review VP of Engineering Development Team Review Software Review 90

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Scaling a support team is challenging enough as it is. You’re investing resources in hiring and training the right people, tracking different metrics at different stages, adding more and more complexity with each increase in headcount, use cases, and customers. The complexities of scaling a support team. Natasha: It really is.

Scale 206

Scale Outsourcing Services Software Sales Hiring 206

FastSpring

APRIL 7, 2022

How Messente scaled with no funding. In their case, the cash that Messente generated from these early sales enabled them to pay salaries quickly, which meant they could keep their doors open and the ideas flowing. One way to scale: be location-agnostic. Bring a product to market quickly; start paying salaries ASAP.

SaaS Payments 143

SaaS Payments Technical Advisors Payment Services Payments 143

Buffer Resources

DECEMBER 12, 2023

Scale 📈 Lastly, systems enable creators to scale their content from solo operations into media businesses. However, with the right systems, creators can scale their operations to meet this demand without compromising quality or burning out. As a creator's audience grows, so does the content demand.

Systems Review 110

Systems Review Social Media Technical Review Scale 110

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2019

Later, when we finally got two term sheets (from different firms), each lead VC talked to the other without telling us to dictate and manage terms. We received 4 offers to lead our seed mainly because I’d already had a successful exit (it’s wasn’t nearly so hard to raise the second time). It was kind of rough.

Scale 184

Scale Venture Capital Investment Pricing 184

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 4, 2023

However, if a company has backing from a venture capital firm, we would recommend that they meet with their venture firms first to review the firm’s existing relationships and/or to get recommendations for lenders based on the company’s stage and preference.

Outsourcing Services 122

Outsourcing Services Software Review Scale Banking 122

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2019

.” We had been talking, up until that point, we’d been talking somewhat informally about potentially creating a proper ventures fund at Workday. And the very first thing that I did, like any neurotic person is I Googled corporate venture capital. And I found some exciting things happening in a lot of investments.

Development Team Review 130

Development Team Review Scale Technical Review Software Review 130

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

For part one of this Ask Me Anything session, Jason covers everything you need to know about hiring your first VP of Sales, what he really thinks about AI, what the future of lead generation in 2024 looks like, and much more. Q: What is the Future of Lead Generation, and How Do You Stand Out? People don’t do that today.

Scale 230

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 230