SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures’ data says while VC investment $$$ are on fire — they aren’t going into more startups. The average SMB SaaS company has $295k in revenue per employee, and $450k in the enterprise. The post Battery Ventures: VC Investments Are Way Up. A few top takeaways: #1. ” #2.

Investment 231

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 231

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

This relationship is a rare example of increasing returns from investment in upsells and cross-sells. This is a rare example of increasing returns from investment in upsells and cross-sells. But, the best in SMB SaaS do tend to have higher NRR, especially as they scale. Invest wherever, however you can in increasing NRR.

Startup 242

Startup SaaS SMB Banking 242

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Well, fast forward to today and it’s truly an SMB powerhouse. How is SMB SaaS doing today? Most SMB-focused businesses need shorter CACs to make the model wok, but with 111% NRR, Bill can invest at > 12 months here. Billion in ARR, it’s still growing 48% year-over-year. Yes, 48% at $1.2 Billion in ARR.

Payment Services 279

Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 279

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

12,000 customers, very high net review retention (NRR) even with SMB customers. 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. Who Will Be the First to Go Public: ServiceTitan.

SMB 291

SMB SaaS AI Software Review 291

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

can invest in marketing that takes a little while to pay off). SMB SaaS often has much lower than 100% NRR, especially to start. Eventually most SaaS SMB leaders get to 100% NRR one way, or another (often by either going multiproduct and/or a bit more upmarket). But you can’t count that as profitable revenue. They don’t.

SaaS Payments 196

SaaS Payments Metrics Payments SMB 196

Casey Accidental

MARCH 29, 2022

A common issue leaders in product management, design, or engineering face is justifying investment in the “non-sexy” stuff. I’ll walk through some frameworks and examples from my career on how to drive excitement and investment in these critical areas that may not be properly valued or staffed currently in your organization.

Investment 139

Investment Underperforming Technical Team User Experience Scale 139

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

If your SMB product requires or has a salesperson involved in closing, that’s a clear sign you also want a human being involved in making sure that customer is a success post-sale, too. Just assign a certain amount of ARR per each SMB customer success manager. Support has to handle a lot of routine SMB issues anyways.

Customer Success 313

Customer Success Scale SMB Sales 313

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2016

Channel distribution represents one of the biggest and most important changes in customers acquisition for SMB SaaS startups in quite a while. One of the most interesting examples is Microsoft’s Office 365 SMB business. It’s the most successful SMB SaaS acquisition channel ever built. by Thomas Hansen.

Outsourcing Services 113

Outsourcing Services SMB Acquisition Scale 113

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Leveling Up PLG to Accelerate SMB Customers, Including More Attention to Onboarding I love seeing this, it can seem hard to invest heavily in small customers, but if you don’t especially invest in onboarding, that’s a big shame.

SMB 239

SMB AI Onboarding Cloud 239

IT World

MAY 6, 2022

And while investing in hardware and software to better protect sensitive data from cyberattacks is a best practice, it is not cheap. The numbers speak for themselves: Nine out of 10 security leaders believe their organization is falling short in addressing cyber risks, according to Foundry’s 2021 Security Priorities Study.

Cybersecurity 90

Cybersecurity Investment SMB Business 90

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

After switching to SaaS, she started as an SMB sales leader with no prior management or SMB sales experience. Anytime you face a layoff or have to make hard decisions about the future of the company vs. the amazing people who have invested in the company’s success, that’s a bad day.

Scale 230

Scale Underperforming Technical Team SMB Finance 230

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

Others may seek to corner the SMB market. 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.”

Startup 196

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 196

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

While these aren’t great metrics if Weave was enterprise, they are still solid for SMBs. Many SMB SaaS companies struggle to hit 100% NRR and 80% GRR. A fairly standard SMB price point. A reminder growth investing isn’t a space you automatically make money at. And a few other interesting leanings: #6.

SaaS Payments 230

SaaS Payments Scale Payment Methods Payments 230

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

But, it hasn’t left behind its SMB and MidMarket roots, which together are still as large a revenue segment as Enterprise. Are you investing enough there? #3. As we’ll see below, going upmarket and more enterprise has been key to SproutSocial’s growth at scale. Not direct. to $11.1k.

Social Media 210

Social Media SMB Enterprise Scaling 210

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

It has now secured over $67M in funding and offers a robust platform for mid-market and SMB segments. WorkRamp shifted its focus to a different segment –– the mid-market and SMB side. Customer Impact : A much better PMF for SMB & Mid-Market customers. “You Well, not all the time.

Scale 191

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 191

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2020

The startups I’m involved with that have happy SMB customers have much higher brand awareness around $10m in general than those that don’t. This makes the SMB leads worth a lot more than just their direct lifetime value. Don’t stay in SMB if your NPS there is 5 and your NPS in enterprise is 40+.

SMB 341

SMB Sales Hiring Marketing Enterprise 341

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

It does less in SMB. Vista’s investments are older, established SaaS companies with brands. in ARR, so it’s second only to Salesforce in SaaS. And they spans dozens of leading vendors in SaaS. So Vista knows exactly what’s going on in SaaS buying now, especially enterprise and mid-market.

Cybersecurity 296

Cybersecurity SMB Interviewing Enterprise 296

IT World

OCTOBER 13, 2021

After all, upgrading a network has historically required a large IT time investment and substantial planned downtime. For many, this makes them reticent to upgrade their network and deploy more robust solutions with better performance and flexibility.

SMB 91

SMB Investment Management Business 91

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2022

In my own portfolio , more of my investments had a record month in October than a rough month. Note this doesn’t include SMB spend, it’s enterprise focused): In a slightly more dated survey, Gartner found in July 69% of CFOs plan to increase their digital spending in 2023. But is spending? I’m not so sure.

Forecasting 232

Forecasting Artificial Intelligence Software Business 232

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2022

I strongly believe in investing as much in Customer Success as possible. Invest in that ecosystem. The average SMB now uses almost 300 (!) Secrets to SMB at Scale with HubSpot and SaaStr's CEOs [link]. Put the Incremental Dollar into Product. The answer: Product. I loved this answer. Build an Ecosystem.

Scale 227

Scale SMB Scaling Customer Success 227

IT World

DECEMBER 8, 2021

small and midsize businesses (SMBs) reveals that business ambitions in this challenging era are being built on network technology. A recent survey 1 of business and technology leaders in U.S. To read this article in full, please click here

Investment 117

Investment SMB Business Technology 117

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 17, 2023

The Next Best in About 5 Years. 5 Interesting Learnings from Samsara At Almost $1 Billion in ARR Top Podcasts This Week: 1.

Scale 209

Scale Management SMB AI 209

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 23, 2024

So unless there’s some really obvious or transformative thing to do in your business today, it’s worth waiting a little bit to invest heavily in that. We’re experimenting with it, but we haven’t made a massive investment. Both of you sell into SMBs, which is a notoriously difficult segment.

Payments 105

Payments Forecasting Payment Services Payment Solutions 105

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

And thus, customers are willing to invest the time. Most SMB SaaS apps are really ERP 2.0 But it ain’t an Instagram-like deployment, even in an SMB. . — the things that many of our apps do — is a big deal. And a lot of work. But along with this big change (should) come big returns. for a vertical or industry.

Business 260

Business B2C SMB Customer Success 260

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

Net net, even from SMBs, Upwork manages 100% NRR, just as Shopify and Hubspot do from SMBs. 80% SMB, 20% Enterprise. While Upwork has made inrounds into the enterprise, it remains squarely an SMB product. Upwork only now is looking at making deeper investments in a dedicated enterprise salesforce.

Marketplace as a Service 258

Marketplace as a Service SMB Cloud Enterprise 258

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2021

Corporate VC Investments: Limited, But Real, Pros. The State of Software Buying From SMB to Enterprise with G2’s CMO, Amanda Malko. Top Blog Posts This Week: Why The Greatest Sales Teams Just Kill It On Dec 31. When Everyone Else Has Gone Home. What are Some Early Signs a New VP isn’t Going to Be a Fit? And Cons.

Scale 219

Scale SMB Scaling Retention 219

Sales Hacker

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Enterprise sales is hard, which is why most businesses start as an SMB org and grow into an enterprise org. So let’s look at how to drive sales in a high-growth situation, so the transition from SMB to enterprise is smoother (and faster). 2 rules for transitioning from SMB to enterprise. Invest in a community.

SMB 73

SMB Enterprise Strategy Compensation 73

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

And a few other limiters: Most enterprise reps really struggle to sell SMB tools, and vice-versa. They could do it — if they really, really invested the time and energy to do something harder than last time. The prospects come in mostly knowing you, and what they want. It’s radically different at an upstart without a brand.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS SMB 171

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2020

Zendesk doesn’t see the 140%+ net retention we see in the enterprise (big deal sizes) or in many B2D companies like Twilio, but it’s still above 110% for a business that is 60% Enterprise / 40% SMB. Strive for at least 110% net revenue retention if you sell to a mix of SMBs and Enterprise. Are you investing enough there?

SMB 236

SMB Enterprise Retention Churn 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2021

Most of the companies in this 5 Interesting Learnings Series have had net negative churn from SMBs (e.g., Xero’s SMB churn isn’t zero. This is also how they can still afford to invest in a sales-driven sales process with such a low ACV. It takes them over a year to go profitable on an SMB customer. Churn is 1.1%

Customer Lifetime Value 212

Customer Lifetime Value SMB Churn Scale 212

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

Their CEO will join us at SaaSr Scale 2021 on December 15 to talk about using data to get to 10,000 SMB customers! I asked Aasif Osmany to share his learnings as a top-performing SMB VP of Sales, below. A mentor of mine suggested that I reframe my search to seek out companies that I would invest in, instead of the other way around.

Scale 254

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 254

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

David Sacks: SaaS Background and Investments. David Sacks has invested in over 20 unicorn companies, including Airbnb, Bird, ClickUp, Facebook, Slack, and Uber. Positions Needed: Enterprise AEs, Mid-Market & SMB AEs, SDRs, Sales Ops, Sales Engineer. Enter your email below for the latest SaaStr updates. billion in 2012.

CTO Hire 237

CTO Hire Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting CTO 237

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2023

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. For Jason, he doesn’t invest in a company before $10k MRR plus 10-15 customers. Q: When is the Right Time to Invest in a New Product?

Sales Hiring 234

Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital Generative AI 234

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

SMB growth in Cloud and SaaS is still going strong! There’s no seeming ceiling to the number of SMBs than can now buy SaaS and Cloud products. Huge investment in marketing. GoDaddy is a marketing engine, investing $439,000,000 (!) Million More Customers in 2020. Freemium is back! in marketing/ads in 2020.

SMB 293

SMB Cloud Scaling Investment 293

User Pilot

AUGUST 6, 2023

Using customer relationship management (CRM) software to centralize your customer data is a worthwhile investment since it will prevent the formation of data silos and streamline the process of ensuring everyone has access to the information they need. Source: SMB Compass. Miscommunications (both internal and external).

Investment 88

Investment Banking Social Media Customer Lifetime Value 88

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Waze sales executives Fernando Belfort , Head of SMB Sales, and Kendra Wrightson , Head of Sales Enablement, discuss optimizing sales processes for four essential data points: value, variety, volume, and velocity. You’re not the only SMB asking this question as you navigate perpetual pitches, closing clients, and growth. .

Scale 219

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 219

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

For SMB, it could be $20m-$30m in ARR. It’s what I’ve found in particular across my 30+ venture investments. Freshworks is another interesting SMB example of going multi-product early. Roughly — very roughly — you want to be multiproduct in SaaS by the time you have 10,000 customers. jasonlk) April 29, 2022.

Scale 242

Scale SaaS SMB Scaling 242