SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2025

Learning #3: The NRR Superpower – This One Metric Can Transform Your Entire Business Here’s a stat that should make every SaaS executive stop what they’re doing: Companies with the highest Net Revenue Retention report median growth that is 83% higher than the population median.

B2B 202

B2B Data Scale Startup 202

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Most startups play defense when discussing pricing with customers. Startups operate in newer markets where pricing standards haven’t been set. But throughout this turmoil, startups must adopt a process to craft a good pricing strategy, and re-evaluate prices periodically, at least once per year.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 31, 2023

When talking to startup founders or other innovators, we always ask questions to better understand their business as a core. R : Revenue - Can you monetize any of this behavior? Conclusion Startup metrics are an invaluable tool for founders and innovators. Focus on building an MVP to gather startup metrics.

Metrics 390

Metrics Startup Scale New CTO 390

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Dear SaaStr: Should SaaS Startups Really Have CROs or COOs? Theres no way a SaaS startup needs a CRO or COO or other C-level Officers Without a Clear, Single Functional Area to Own Until $40m-50m+ in ARR. You want each revenue leader doing what they do best. Is That Too Many Management Layers? Title Inflation.

Sales Hiring 193

Sales Hiring Startup Management SaaS 193

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

With Databricks now one of the largest pre-IPO technology companies, with $10 billion of expected non-dilutive financing and a valuation of $62 billion, Ron’s insights are gold for any revenue leader looking to scale. For startups looking to land their first big customers, Rons advice is simple: Leverage existing user communities.

Scale 173

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue 173

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

And the evidence is mounting that AI startups aren’t just complementing SaaS — they’re actively hunting traditional SaaS incumbents for lunch. The Billion-Dollar AI Unicorn Factory The scale of AI startup funding isn’t just impressive — it’s existential for SaaS: The AI Billion-Dollar Club: OpenAI : $8.4

AI Search 267

AI Search Artificial Intelligence AI CTO Hire 267

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2025

Don’t try to evolve into a compound startup later – Unlike conventional wisdom about starting focused and expanding, Conrad believes it’s “really hard” to transition from a point solution to a compound startup: “You kind of have to almost refound the company.” The advantages are substantial: 1.

Startup 154

Startup Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Cloud 154

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

Just not as quickly as overall revenue growth. #4. A third of revenue is from outside the Americas. #5. New Startups and Companies and Enterprise Strong. But it’s clear that it’s still in the investing phase, and increasing spend in sales & marketing. SMB Weaker.

Scale 297

Scale SMB Scaling Enterprise 297

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2024

Revenues Multiples Are Down Even the best public SaaS companies are worth ~10x revenue today. In 2021, they were often worth 40x revenue. And it also makes it harder to meet the “ask” of a startup that might want a much higher revenue multiple. In tech at least, there are two big issues: #1.

Acquisition 274

Acquisition Technical Review Revenue Startup 274

SaaStr

OCTOBER 19, 2024

Note I did take out a few that would have made the list but were a bit dated etc: #1, 279,000 Views: “How To Perfectly Pitch Your Seed Stage Startup With Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel: Ycombinator is pretty popular #2. 46,771 Views: “From Burn-Out to $100M in ARR with Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine” #6.

Acquisition 281

Acquisition Innovation Startup Engineering 281

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2024

Our revenue team went on to be the CROs of Brex, Rippling ,Gong, so many SaaS leaders, like 10 of them. AI in B2B SaaS: The Incumbent Advantage On the AI revolution in B2B software, it’s the age-old ‘startups are innovating and racing to get distribution, and the bigger companies have distribution and are racing to innovate.’

AI 281

AI Marketing SaaS Interviewing 281

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2023

Salesforce is ceding the startup CRM market to HubSpot. Salesforce is focused on $100m+ deals, and SFA/CRM is a minority of their revenue. But I would tell every startup I invested in or worked with to move onto Salesforce — at least once they hire a real VP of Sales. So startups and SMBs are just … hard for them to focus on.

Startup 70

Startup Sales Hiring Scale Investment 70

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 1, 2025

I analyzed Q4 revenue data from publicly traded companies across multiple sectorssoftware companies, consulting firms, and hardware manufacturers to determine which segment dominates the AI market. NVIDIA’s data center business dominated the field, generating $31b in Q4 revenue with impressive margins exceeding 70%.

AI 247

AI Revenue Azure Consulting 247

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2025

There is a time and place for experienced executives, but early stage startups often arent one of them especially true for experienced CFOs. While other businesses with <$10M in revenue may need a true CFO because of their complexity. Butjust because you can afford an experienced executive doesnt mean you need one (yet).

Scale 312

Scale Finance Headcount Leadership 312

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

That year, Cisco acquired AppDynamics for 17x trailing revenue. If we assume a company recognizes about 2/3 of its ARR as revenue, then I estimate the Adobe/Figma deal at roughly 75x trailing revenue. Not too long before the public market correction, high-growth startups routinely commanded 100x ARR multiples.

Startup 355

Startup Acquisition Pricing Revenue 355

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2024

In a recent Workshop Wednesday, SaaStr Founder and CEO, Jason Lemkin sat down to discuss 9 signs a startup isn’t going to make it. So, let’s look at the nine signs a startup will likely not be a real success. Sign #2: You’re Too Slow to Hire VPs If you want to gauge momentum in a startup, see how quickly they hire VPs.

Sales Hiring 297

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 297

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2024

So Emergence Capital put together a great report here on B2B startups, “Beyond Benchmarks 2024” , with a ton of great data across 664 software startups. One piece I loved is how 2023 growth rates compared to 2022 for Top Quartile Software Startups. From $5m-$20m ARR, top quartile startups are growing 58%.

Startup 340

Startup Benchmarks B2B Pricing 340

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

A startup doing $300k in ARR is rarely valued at $1.8m A combination of the fact that so much seed capital in the market is keeping multiples close to all-time highs there — at least for the hottest seed and pre-seed startup. More here: [link] The post How Revenue Multiples Really Fall After Each VC Round appeared first on SaaStr.

Revenue 321

Revenue Startup AI Investment 321

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 23, 2024

We corrected the trailing 12 months’ revenue at the time of IPO for inflation & plotted the data. Before 2018, only one company IPOed with more than $200m in revenue. In fact, the median revenue at IPO at $90m. Today, the median revenue at IPO is $189m (corrected for inflation), more than double.

Revenue 308

Revenue Finance Trends Startup 308

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 17, 2025

My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., Q1 Revenue Relative to Consensus Estimates Now let’s dive in to the financial results of Q1 starting with revenue. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 277

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 277

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

And there is bad behavior all over the place on these imploding startups. Because VCs not only meet hundreds of startups a year, but they also get probably thousands of random inbounds asking for investment. And that means that 99 percent of startups can’t even raise venture capital. It is not just Theranos.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Software Review Investment Startup 309

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

Successful startups balance optimism with realism by presenting a compelling vision while grounding their projections in credible, data-backed assumptions. Use a Bottom-Up Approach for Projections Startups often get into trouble by pitching top-down projections, like “If we capture 1% of a $10B market, we’ll hit $100M ARR.”

Scale 221

Scale Sales Hiring Benchmarks Churn 221

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2025

Promptless is used by fast-growing startups and Fortune 500 enterprises alike to automatically update docs based on feature releases, support tickets, internal Slack conversations, and more. These startups demonstrate deep technical expertise, clear ROI cases, and impressive early traction.

AI Search 165

AI Search AI Startup Scale 165

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 1, 2023

AI startups building next-generation offerings should prioritize common workflows shared across a significant fraction of the employee population or workflows for highly paid employees. Startups should focus on AI for Execs (perhaps why legal has been a heavily funded category) & AI for common workstreams (code autocompletion).

AI 321

AI Startup Scale Headcount 321

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2023

The US startup M&A market in Q4 2022 was one of the quietest in the last 20 years. There are 3 types of acquisitions : team ; team & technology ; team, technology & revenue. During a down-market, young startups who face a radically more challenging fundraising market than six months ago more often choose a quick sale.

Startup 327

Startup Marketing Acquisition Technology 327

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

Cross-Vertical Market Expansion Creates Unexpected Innovation Synergies While many startups laser-focus on dominating a single vertical, Sekar’s experience at both Meraki and Samsara showed that deliberate cross-vertical expansion creates powerful network effects of innovation.

Scale 259

Scale Transportation Scaling SMB 259

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore? Third, focus on metrics besides revenue that matter, and that you can grow right now. If revenue growth has slowed, at least get folks using your product more. Even If It Isn’t Revenue. First, be honest about why. Especially usage.

Startup 304

Startup B2B Metrics Product Marketing 304

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

Offers workshops, networking, and investor matchmaking for startups and enterprises. Large Audience: Considered the biggest SaaS conference with a large number of attendees from leading SaaS companies, startups, and venture capital firms. Features 300+ speakers from top SaaS companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Snowflake.

Software 239

Software Scale Venture Capital SaaS 239

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Biggest Problems You Face as a Startup Founder? The list of problems is endless (this is one of the hardest parts of the job), but let me try to order a few of the biggest challenges roughly based on stage: Pre-Revenue: Finding a Truly Great Co-Founder That is Just as Committed as You. It never ends.

Sales Recruiting 281

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 281

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

From startup to $500M CARR, Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, shares how Braze scaled a growth and customer success team. As an early startup team, you’re doing every job under the sun. You have to be scrappy at this stage, and Braze was trying to find product market fit with no product, no revenue, and no customers.

Scale 287

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 287

SaaStr

JUNE 21, 2025

Here’s the full breakdown of 25 top public B2B / SaaS companies and what it means for your startup. And defense contractors don’t trade at 10x revenue. AI Revenue Separation Companies will be forced to break out AI revenue separately. Separate AI revenue – Investors will demand this soon anyway.

B2B 249

B2B Government Healthcare AI 249

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2025

. #5: Doing 5, 6 or 7 Figure Deals?

AI 271

AI Sales Hiring Venture Capital Startup 271

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

But there are multiple ways to build a leader, and startup don’t always start off with high NRR even if they end up there. The higher a company’s retention, the easier it is to grow, as the company doesn’t have to replace as much lost revenue. Yes, most of the best in SaaS have high NRR, at least once they are public.

Startup 290

Startup SaaS SMB Banking 290

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

The current business model for software companies involves spending a significant portion of revenue on sales, regardless of available tools and automation. In the SaaS industry, 80% of buyers choose companies they’ve heard of, making brand recognition a critical factor in revenue growth. Consistency is key in marketing.

Sales Hiring 297

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 297

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 11, 2025

Net Magic Number (pretty efficient) $230,000 in revenue per employee (again pretty efficienct) Second, in the age of AI, how much faster are start-ups saying they are going to grow? At $25m ARR, the answer is: 100% growth 110% NRR 0.9x About 35% faster (!)

B2B 238

B2B AI Startup Revenue 238