SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2022

The number of global venture capital (VC) investments dipped in 2022, thanks to ongoing geopolitical tensions, turbulence in global capital markets, supply chain issues, and increasing interest rates. Venture capital firms pumped a lot of money into the economy during the pandemic, buying countless software companies.

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Venture Capital Marketing Startup Construction 189

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

This focus can be a risk because it is shrinking your market. Many start-ups think they need to net venture capital to jumpstart their growth. Sales and marketing are still significant, but consider dedicating more research and design to the user experience. Know how to market your product.

Scale 196

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring SMB 196

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 12, 2024

Every type of investor was broadly operating in a “risk on” mindset given the ZIRP environment, and the venture capital ecosystem was no exception. Many companies raised rounds in 2021 who thought they had product market fit. Or who thought their market was 10x bigger than it actually was.

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Cloud Venture Capital Acquisition Metrics 284

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

The Most Surprising Thing About VC This Year Shen has been in venture capital for 12 years now, and it’s been a crazy ride to watch the whole bull market back in ‘10 and ‘11 when 10x revenue was insanely expensive for a SaaS company. Shen likes to use the super-human definition of product market fit.

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AI Generative AI Venture Capital SaaS 232

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

Those companies will have a headstart on the competition when the market arrives. When I look at the purpose of venture capital, it’s not to burn a dollar five in order to grow a dollar of revenue,” says Magnuson. Braze didn’t find a true product-market fit until around 2014-2015.

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Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 181

The Angel VC

JULY 5, 2017

In the first part of this post , I looked at what some of the most knowledgeable people in the industry said about Product/Market Fit (PMF) and how they try to define and measure it. Note that this definition intentionally doesn’t say anything about market size. Let me know if you have any feedback!

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Venture Capital Product Marketing Startup SaaS 252

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

If you’ve raised venture capital, you know net revenue retention is important. If you don’t know, it’s the hockey stick curve going from $2M to $6M to $18M to $36M and on and on after you’ve found product market fit. What is the highest form of product market fit? Product market fit never stops.

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Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success Scaling 159

ProfitWell

JANUARY 6, 2020

Imagine a world in which your customers sell your product for you. You just have to achieve stellar product-market fit. Marc Andreessen, cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, put it this way, “product-market fit is when people sell for you.” What is product-market fit? Ideal, right?

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Product Marketing Underperforming Technical Team Marketing Advertising 52

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2020

What we do know is that overall, Q2 will be a much rougher quarter in the public markets overall than Q1. He believes things will be much worse next week for fundraising and venture capital. In Bear Markets, Folks Are Paid to Consolidate and Cut Costs. Mark recommends changing product marketing ASAP.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Innovation Pricing 281

User Pilot

JUNE 13, 2022

We covered the best blogs on SaaS growth, product marketing , UX analytics, venture capital, and sales. The Userpilot blog provides well-researched, in-depth articles on user onboarding, product growth, product growth, user experience, and so much more. Product -led growth blog. Product marketing.

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Venture Capital SaaS Data Scale 52

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 22, 2017

Whether it’s Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Google search engine marketing and retargeting, email marketing, or outbound calling, all of these channels bear some hallmarks of saturation. The surge of venture capital in the last five years worsens this predicament. A product that is hard to sell isn’t the right product.

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Scale SaaS Venture Capital Machine Learning 186

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 21, 2017

This rivalry causes four major responses: Verticalization - compete with a horizontal player by picking one customer segment and building a product better suited to them. Trades market size for better product market fit. Segmentation - focus on SMB, Mid-Market, or Enterprise, to play where competition isn’t present.

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SaaS Venture Capital Finance Machine Learning 180

SaaSHolic

MAY 5, 2023

From Silicon Valley to Rio – The Globalization of Venture Capital Mathias Schilling , Co-founder & Managing Partner (Headline); Romero Rodrigues, Managing Partner (Headline); Artur Búrigo, Reporter (Folha de S. How to build a product-market fit “engine” Rahul Vohra, founder and CEO (Superhuman).

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Technical Review VP of Engineering Development Team Review Software Review 90

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 31, 2017

On one hand, growth is important in order to raise a venture capital round. Growth shows demand for a product. On the other hand, churn is a huge source of friction and raises questions of product market fit. That’s a challenging marketing obstacle to overcome.

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Churn Scale Venture Capital Acquisition 100

Chart Mogul

JUNE 8, 2018

On what it takes for SaaS startups to get venture capital funding today. “If you want to raise capital from a VC fund then it only makes sense if you really have the ambition and a very strong desire to do something really really big.” On increasing transparency in venture capital. Let’s dive in!

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Venture Capital Software Review Scale Startup 84

FastSpring

MARCH 17, 2022

Same if you’re the development lead at a venture-backed startup that just crossed $10 million a year. That will be our focus in Global SaaS Leaders: to create a space where you can talk about the unique challenges that happen after you reach product-market fit and begin to grow. Not focused on venture capital or funding rounds.

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SaaS Venture Capital Scale Software 78

SaaStr

JANUARY 29, 2019

It had just raised three million dollars at a 12 million dollar valuation from a venture capital firm and it had just secured a two million dollar secured credit facility from a commercial bank that the venture capital firm had introduced Power Drive to. Like it clicks product market fit. And it works.

Startup 106

Startup Venture Capital Banking Scale 106

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to understand how venture capital works. A market is too small” is both a truism and an excuse. We don’t need a VP of Sales, Engineering, Product, Marketing, Customer Success.” And then some believe they don’t need one, especially a VP of Product or Engineering. 99% of startups aren’t that.

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Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 168

Chart Mogul

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

The growing divide between SaaS and venture capital. I believe competition is a major driving force, especially since venture capital is conspicuously copious.” The wind has changed in some way, and has spurred some conversation on the topic. So what’s the deal? I’m using SaaS seed rounds as a proxy metric.

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Venture Capital Startup SaaS Travel 77

Casey Accidental

MAY 12, 2021

After three years there, where we tripled the user base and unlocked international, I then decided to… hang out at a venture capital firm. Now, I’m a Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, a public company. As Rick James might say, product/market fit is a hell of a drug. Then started an advising business.

Scale 101

Scale Venture Capital Growth Hacking Scaling 101

OpenView Labs

MAY 14, 2020

This advice comes by way of OpenView’s once-bootstrapped portfolio companies Deputy , Loopio and Calendly —as well as conversations I’ve had with the founders of Tuple and Whimsical , two bootstrapped product-led businesses. First things first: Not every business is a venture-scale business .

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Venture Capital Scale Compensation Pricing 64

Kellblog

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Flood of venture capital (VC). Venture capital continues to flow. PitchBook data reveals that while total funding and mega-funding (where the round raises $100M+) are up, deal is count slightly down, meaning average deal sizes are up and consistent with my view that VC today is have or have-not market.

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Blockchain Technical Review Venture Capital Sales Hiring 143

Mucker Capital

MAY 6, 2020

When investors make available capital, it's possible to mitigate some of that risk by extending runway – in some cases, almost indefinitely. But markets are cyclical, and in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the venture capital landscape has changed.

Startup 52

Startup Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring 52

Mattermark

AUGUST 24, 2017

” explains not only how to structure a narrative, but explicitly identifies the aspects of the business that are crucial to being successful in growing a company fueled by venture capital. If you want to research who you should pitch to, Mattermark Standard is now $49 per month.

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Venture Capital Sales Hiring Travel SaaS 40

ProfitWell

APRIL 20, 2020

The profitable company has, in the past, raised $175 million in venture capital from firms including Accel Partners and Battery Ventures and was valued at $700 million back in 2015. They'll take you on a deep dive into ProfitWell's Subscription/DTC Market Index, the current environment, and lessons from previous downturns.

Wireless 52

Wireless Software Review Venture Capital Technical Review 52

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

I spent a few years there and then went to a venture capital fund where I spent five years investing in online businesses with network effects. Natasha: I’m Canadian, for anyone curious about the accent, but I’ve lived in London for 13 years. Liam: I think that’s one of the things branding early.

Scale 206

Scale Software Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring 206

Kellblog

JANUARY 7, 2022

Stop worrying about category creation , and worry about proving product-market fit [2]. Managing this difference can be particularly hard for a larger-company director of product marketing who’s just joined their first seed- or early-stage startup. Analysts name categories, not vendors. Just be clear.

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Entertainment Startup Technology Market Research 123

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2019

Then also went into venture capital where I invested in API first products. On one half of it you have product market fit and on the other half you have partners and ideally developers integrating in order to reach your users. You really have to find product market fit. This went really really well.

Payments 117

Payments Scale Scaling Revenue 117

Chart Mogul

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

So much great Sales strategy 💥 “A common theme we came across at SaaStock, sitting in David [Apple]’s session as well as other discussions with speakers and investors, was to focus more on your product marketing and finding your ICP. ” ( read more ). ” ( read more ). Amaan Nathoo, Bonjoro.

Venture Capital 40

Venture Capital Scale B2B Churn 40

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

Honestly, Andy, as do so many founders today and they say the biggest, biggest challenge is we cannot find great product marketers. We actually can’t find product marketers full stop. Why is there such a drought of good/product marketers? A great product marketer is invaluable in that process.

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Sales Hiring Scale Leadership Sales Enablement 181

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2020

The first is product, and that includes everything from technical risk, timing risk, those kinds of things related to establishing product market fit. But that’s only the beginning for them, collecting data is the thing that they can do right now. Unfortunately, accept that you don’t have it at the seed stage.

Scale 138

Scale Finance Investment Government 138

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

And so much time, quarters and quarters spent on recruiting, spent on fundraising, spent on kind of kicking the can down the road on major issues around things as fundamental as what does it really look like to have product market fit in this market? Really it’s more like product market fit solves all problems.

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Sales Hiring Scale Outsourcing Services CTO Hire 131

Kellblog

JULY 8, 2020

They should have input, but startups should hire a VP of Marketing with strong product marketing skills at the same time as the first VP of Sales. (DK: That embrace needs to be deeper than just go-to-market; it has to include product in some way.). Expecting the sales leader to figure out positioning and pricing.

Sales Hiring 140

Sales Hiring Startup Software Review Enterprise 140

The Angel VC

MAY 8, 2015

Ideally you have strong organic growth (which is strong proof of product/market fit) as well as some success with paid customer acquisition channels (which can be scaled more easily). Organic, paid, both? How does your conversion funnel look like for different sources of traffic?

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Development Team Review Software Review Scale Acquisition 252

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2019

Felix will share insights on how he founded Collibra in Belgium, successfully relocated the company headquarters to New York City, and raised $233 million total in venture capital to become a unicorn company. Product-market fit has been really important. That’s when we found product market fit.

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Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Government 171

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Q: Should Product Marketing Work for Product or Marketing? Product marketing is a weird art, with many over-indexing. These days, CEOs are looking for too much magic from product marketing. Maybe we expect too much, even up to $10-20M ARR, and expect magic from product marketing.

Scale 220

Scale Sales Hiring AI Sales Recruiting 220

Kellblog

JUNE 6, 2021

The role of both the product and marketing leaders in startups with either a technical founder or business founder. How to align product, marketing, and sales around a strategy — and dealing with the normal challenges in focusing that strategy. When is the right time to hire your first CPO and/or CMO.

Sales Hiring 86

Sales Hiring Marketing Startup Leadership 86