SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

Dorian Stone , Head of Organizations Revenue at Grammarly, is here to share lessons from his experience of scaling the company from consumer to SMB to Enterprise to help you steer your expansion efforts in the right direction. The admin, influential decision-makers, and consumer sales reps can be the same people in a Consumer or SMB setting.

Scale 214

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 214

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

In this week’s Workshop Wednesday , Salesforce Ventures Investor, Jessica Bartos, shares the 5 metrics every SaaS company should care about in any market environment, especially the one we’re currently in. Growth Is Still Number One Growth is still the number one metric, but it’s not the only one. You do that by showing momentum.

Metrics 218

Metrics Marketing SaaS SMB 218

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2021

One of the very first SaaStr presentations ever was How to Hire a Great VP Sales (And Not Screw It Up). One was how my First Real VP of Sales Doubled Our Net New Revenue in 90 days. Brendon Cassidy joined as our VP Sales at a tough time, as we’ve discussed before, as we were coming out of our Year of Hell.

Sales Hiring 343

Sales Hiring Sales SMB Pricing 343

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2023

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday.com, and the founder of SaaStr. For a quick recap on SaaS metrics: What is ARR in SaaS? So now we must be smarter about the most important SaaS metrics because they matter again.

Metrics 200

Metrics SaaS Sales Hiring Finance 200

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. My personal objective was simple, learn as much about SMB SaaS as I could and move on to another company to continue learning.

Scale 265

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 265

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2022

What are some of the foundational ways sales leaders can think about building their sales teams as their company continues to expand and grow? There’s no shortage of ways to tackle this challenge, but one thing is clear: build sales teams thoughtfully and intentionally. Principle #1: Ownership is Key.

Scale 224

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales 224

Kellblog

APRIL 19, 2024

A lot of today’s SMB companies will be mid-market tomorrow, so we want to catch them on the way up. CEO: Well, you know, you can’t really control who clicks on a Google ad, so we can get inbound from SMB, MM, and ENT. Segmented metrics. Without segmented metrics, you can’t easily tell. Not-on-list lists.

Startup 104

Startup SMB Airlines Banking 104

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

Scaling a sales organization isn’t easy. Knowing which metrics matter and how to analyze them to increase your revenue and hit organizational sales goals is essential. . What makes a sales organization grow? What’s the best way to grow a sales organization? Enter your email below for the latest SaaStr updates.

Scale 236

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2022

Average NRR at IPO is 119% — but this excludes a bunch of SMB folks who did not disclose their NRR. Folks that are very SMB with mediocre retention often don’t disclose it. Pretty consistent with what we’ve seen on our 5 Interesting Learning series , but helpful to see it distilled to one average number.

SMB 319

SMB SaaS Retention Scale 319

OPEXEngine

MAY 18, 2021

In this blog, we are looking at the business metrics that can be measured quantitatively and providing a few insights on how investors analyze them. We’ve talked to dozens of our SaaS customers, as well as investors to learn more about what is happening with these key metrics. SaaS Metric #1 – Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

SaaS Payments 98

SaaS Payments Metrics Payments Payment Services 98

SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2022

“Top 5 Ways to Scale a Sales Team with Zoom CRO Ryan Azus and SaaStr VP of Sales Bryan Elsesser “ A great deep dive on how to go more enterprise and build a sales team from Zoom’s CRO. #3 3 How to Scale Outbound Sales with the CROs of Outreach, Malwarebytes, HubSpot, Seismic.

Scale 210

Scale SMB Innovation B2B 210

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

How can Sales and Marketing work together? The simplest way is to get sales and marketing to work together is to (x) align marketing’s #1 goal to a revenue-related “commit” that (y) sales agrees to. Your VP Sales Has a Sales Quota. The pro here is that’s the same thing sales is signing up for.

Marketing 196

Marketing Sales Social Media SMB 196

SaaStr

APRIL 9, 2023

SaaStr 647: Scaling The Top SMB SaaS Companies: What It Takes with GGV Capital Managing Director Jeff Richards and GGV Capital Partner Tiffany Luck   3. 5 Metrics Every SaaS Company Should Care About with Salesforce Ventures (Workshop Wednesday) 2. All Your VPs Really Need to Do is Tilt the Curve Top Podcasts This Week: 1.

Scale 215

Scale SMB Generative AI Management 215

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

119% NRR from SMBs Profitable, and only burned $15m net to date 130,000 total customers There’s not much to not love here! But the metrics, especially for an SMB-focused SaaS business, are breathtaking. 14 Month CAC CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is one of those metrics there are about 10,000 ways to calculate.

Scale 233

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Interviewing 233

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

Others may seek to corner the SMB market. Zendesk knew that they could risk selling to startups like any other SMB, so that was the problem they set out to solve. Anchor your startup strategy in a specific sales and service team. Durham says, “We are judging ourselves in how we treat startups differently from an average SMB.

Startup 212

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 212

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2022

How to check on a competitor's growth plan: 1/ Search on LinkedIn how many sales reps they have 2/ Multiply by $500,000 ($250,000 if SMB). But one thing hasn’t changed since 2012 — how many sales reps you need to hit the plan. That's how much in bookings they plan to add this year.

SMB 251

SMB Scale Startup Enterprise 251

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2022

But this will be one of the last chances we get to see its financials and metrics as a public company. Once it goes private again later in 2022, Zendesk won’t publish many metrics anymore. Even though Zendesk still has thousands and thousands of SMB customers. #2. Zendesk IPO’d as an SMB support solution.

SMB 271

SMB Scale B2B Metrics 271

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

The core product is very B2C, but the upgrade to paid has very SMB B2B metrics, and 80% of the revenue is subscription based. We wrote a classic SaaStr post long ago saying you needed about 50,000,000 Freemium users to make the model work, more or less, and Duolingo’s metrics tie to this. But is Duolingo SaaS?

Scale 302

Scale B2C SMB B2B 302

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2022

While not a surprise, it was very helpful to hear Yamini share just how much their sales motion has changed since the Q1’22 — as it has for most of us. NRR is Metric #1. More Than Sales. This is a long-term theme on SaaStr, but it was interesting to me just how much this is Yamini’s #1 north star metric.

Scale 244

Scale SMB Scaling Customer Success 244

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2021

One question I struggled with a lot in the early days was what price points supported inside sales reps. It was clear to me that our freemium offering, priced at from $0 to $19/month, couldn’t really support a traditional inside sales team. Can you really sustain a sales team around a $299/mo product? A $2000 ACV?

SMB 330

SMB Pricing Sales Metrics 330

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2023

” The PLG efficiency is tremendous both in cash & sales efficiency, which tops the charts of public software companies at 1.03 When the company spends $1 in sales & marketing expense, Klaviyo produces $1.03 Braze targets enterprise buyers with a sales-led motion. Est. Sales Efficiency 1.04

Benchmarks 174

Benchmarks Venture Capital Marketing SMB 174

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2021

and (y) a complex sales process with sales reps selling to very small businesses not paying all that much. A tough way to build a decacorn — sales-driven very small-business sales — but they’ve done it, so there’s a lot to learn here. Xero’s SMB churn isn’t zero. A LTV/CAC of 6.0

Customer Lifetime Value 230

Customer Lifetime Value SMB Churn Scale 230

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. ” But it’s also a reminder how hard it is to combine services, hardware and software and make money from SMBs. #3. A fairly standard SMB price point.

SaaS Payments 247

SaaS Payments Scale Payment Methods Payments 247

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2023

” The PLG efficiency is tremendous both in cash & sales efficiency, which tops the charts of public software companies at 1.03 When the company spends $1 in sales & marketing expense, Klayviyo produces $1.03 Braze targets enterprise buyers with a sales-led motion. Est. Sales Efficiency 1.04

Benchmarks 160

Benchmarks Venture Capital Marketing SMB 160

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 24, 2022

On October 19th, the final day of the event, I appeared on the Growth stage for a fantastic conversation with Mark Organ, Categorynauts CEO, and Founder and CEO of Influitive and Eloqua, discussing how companies can build winning sales strategies as they continue to evolve. 4 top tips for optimizing your sales strategy.

Strategy 91

Strategy Sales SMB SaaS 91

OPEXEngine

MARCH 13, 2020

Last week, Mike Volpe, CEO of Lola.com , and I had a terrific, hour-long discussion on the value of a metrics-driven culture at every stage of growth, from early stage to large enterprise. As the SaaS industry has evolved, so too have the metrics and company management structures. through today’s SaaS 4.0. Key Take-Away.

Metrics 75

Metrics Cybersecurity SaaS Customer Lifetime Value 75

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2021

We’ve seen a lot of leaders with tons of SMB customers and a smaller number of $100k+ deals, but Cloudflare is perhaps the most extreme here. Like many similar developer-centric products, the vast majority of customers come in via self-serve, but as the deals grow, sales is brought in. #2. Here are 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

SMB 262

SMB Cloud Enterprise Scale 262

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. After the shift, the sales reps stopped chasing whales and working outbound ops with more than 5K employees.

Scale 209

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 209

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2021

We’ve seen a lot of leaders with tons of SMB customers and a smaller number of $100k+ deals, but Cloudflare is perhaps the most extreme here. Like many similar developer-centric products, the vast majority of customers come in via self-serve, but as the deals grow, sales is brought in. #2. Here are 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scale 287

Scale SMB Cloud Enterprise 287

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2023

Investors want to know about metrics, the drivers of your business, and whether users are growing, engaged, or churning. Enterprise will likely have a different problem set vs. an SMB. The “right time” for sales efficiency metrics is unique to the company. Founders can definitely help lift the ecosystem in SE Asia.

Development Team Review 228

Development Team Review Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team SMB 228

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 13, 2022

They create a sales opportunity in your pipeline and pass it to a seller. Our average sales price (ASP) , say $100K. For extra credit, our segment-specific ASP: SMB opportunities get valued at our SMB ASP of $25K and enterprise ones get valued at our enterprise ASP of $100K. Some semi-random proxy value , say $25K.

Sales 131

Sales SMB Systems Review Forecasting 131

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2019

What lessons can we learn from this huge Kiwi SMB success, for other founders? ” So even in SMB sales in smaller markets, if you take dominant market share — you can get to $500m+ in ARR! ” So even in SMB sales in smaller markets, if you take dominant market share — you can get to $500m+ in ARR!

SMB 221

SMB Customer Lifetime Value AWS Churn 221

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 16, 2013

At first glance, SMB SaaS companies, those who sell Software-as-a-Service to small to medium businesses, may seem like any other software company. Successful SMB SaaS companies have reinvented their businesses eschewing the expensive enterprise sales model in favor of end-user centric marketing, support and product development.

SMB 100

SMB Scale Startup SaaS 100

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2019

The simplest way is to get sales and marketing to work together is align marketing’s #1 goal to a revenue-related “commit” that sales agrees to. Your VP Sales Has a Sales Quota. The pro here is that’s the same thing sales is signing up for. Sales almost always complains the leads are getting “worse”.

B2B 165

B2B Marketing Sales Social Media 165

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2021

. #9 SaaStr 150: Why New Qualified Leads Divided By Win Rate Is The Metric in SaaS, Why It Is Harder To Go Enterprise Down Than SMB Up & How To Create Engines of Growth Within Your Organization with Paul Albright, Former CRO @ Marketo. #8 1 SaaStr 221: HBS Sr. . #8 1 SaaStr 221: HBS Sr. . #6 1 SaaStr 221: HBS Sr. . #4

Scale 208

Scale Sales Hiring SMB Benchmarks 208

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2022

In most SaaS companies, a sales rep’s quota is in the end 3x-5x their OTE (i.e., Generally low with smaller deal sizes and SMBs, and generally approaching 5x in the enterprise and with bigger deals. You can push as low as 3x for SMB deals if there are a ton of inbound leads. salary + target bonus).

Scale 266

Scale SMB SaaS Onboarding 266

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

For SMB, it could be $20m-$30m in ARR. I’m going to summarize a bunch of my learnings into 2 rough metrics , and then let’s do a deep dive across a bunch of SaaS leaders to see what we can learn. Freshworks is another interesting SMB example of going multi-product early. For multi-market, this could be $100m in ARR.

Scale 259

Scale SaaS SMB Scaling 259