SaaStr

OCTOBER 10, 2024

So Thomasz Tunguz put together a great chart summarizing one of my top worries over the past 24+ months in SaaS. And what you can see is there is really almost no liquidity for startups and scale-ups in SaaS and Cloud at the moment. And 2021 was a record year for Saas IPOs. What will the future bring for SaaS liquidity?

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SaaS Acquisition AI Cloud 242

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2025

Dear SaaStr: What Are Some Successful SaaS Leaders Without Sales Teams? The post Dear SaaStr: What Are Some Successful SaaS Leaders Without Sales Teams? Many that are self-serve and SMB-focused can start off without a sales team … for a while. But almost none stay without a sales team … forever. Maybe on Day 0.

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Scale Sales Hiring Sales Headcount 260

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2024

What are the most common mistakes I see first time SaaS founders make? Second-time SaaS founders make other mistakes. Here’s what I see most often, the Top 6 Mistakes First Time SaaS Founders Make: Incomplete understanding of business model, and how it will scale. They think they know more than they do.

Scale 273

Scale Social Media SaaS Business Model 273

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Can a SaaS Business Reactivate Churned Customers? The post Dear SaaStr: How Can a SaaS Business Reactivate Churned Customers? This may sound simple, but the #1 thing you can and should do is create a series of marketing campaigns targeted only to churned customers. So most importantly, go long.

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Churn Business SaaS Mobile 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

Will $1B SaaS companies be run by 1 person teams? What I do know is many of the billion+ SaaS companies I invested in a decade ago would not be remotely competitive today. It’s the era of Hyperfunctional SaaS. Welcome to The World of Hyperfunctional SaaS. So is AI taking over everything? I mean … maybe.

AI Search 245

AI Search SaaS Headcount AI 245

SaaStr

JANUARY 1, 2025

2025 should be a good year for almost all leading public SaaS companies: 1 Overall, any downturn ended in Q324, if there was one at all in their segment. 2 Most SaaS leaders are now in market with an AI offering, and even if early and minor, its leading to a boost because there is incremental budget there. See Salesforce, Asana, etc.

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Sales Hiring SaaS AI Investment 260

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How far in the SaaS can a 10 or 20 person team go? But maybe not so much in SaaS. Today, the most efficient public SaaS company is probably Doximity, at about $700,000 in revenue per employee. It takes a team of 50 to maintain most scaling SaaS apps, and it takes 100 to get you past $10m ARR and beyond.

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Sales Hiring Scale SaaS AI 231

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2025

Dear SaaStr: Which SaaS Products Offer ONLY Annual Pricing? The post Dear SaaStr: Which SaaS Products Offer ONLY Annual Pricing? Many of the companies Ive invested in only offer annual pricing. The common denominator is: they are products that require some real business process change to achieve the value from the product.

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Pricing SaaS Enterprise Investment 225

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2024

Holy cow are some top SaaS stocks on a run. That SaaS was Dead. It’s not 2021 again, but so much has changed as the year ends: Many top SaaS and Cloud stocks are up +40%-60% or more in the back half of the yea r. Many top SaaS and Cloud leaders have seen growth re-accelerate. What a difference 8 months makes.

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SaaS AI Cloud B2B 249

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

So there were barely any SaaS IPOs in 2022 or 2023. The last big SaaS IPO of the Boom Era was Hashicorp in December 2021, and after that, multiples fell off a cliff. There were basically no significant SaaS IPOs for almost 2 years, until Klaviyo (+ Instacast + ARM) all tried to reopen the market in September 2023.

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SaaS Software Marketing Management 300

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Much Should a SaaS Company Invest in Professional Services? A rough yardstick is that most enterprise-focused SaaS companies tend to get about 8%-10% of their revenues from professional services. A few data points: At $800m ARR, Qualtrics was still getting 25% of revenue from professional services. I say overinvest.

Investment 237

Investment SMB SaaS Enterprise 237

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Can a SaaS Company Get to 50% Profit Margins? in ARR, and it’s at 37% non-GAAP operating margins: The post Dear SaaStr: Can a SaaS Company Get to 50% Profit Margins? in ARR, and it’s at 37% non-GAAP operating margins: The post Dear SaaStr: Can a SaaS Company Get to 50% Profit Margins? appeared first on SaaStr.

SaaS 273

SaaS Scaling Software 273

SaaStr

DECEMBER 19, 2024

So we have a classic set of New Year’s Resolutions in SaaS that we update every year. Over the years, so much has changed in SaaS. So with that here are Your Top 10 New Years SaaS Resolutions for 2025: #1. The post Your SaaS New Year’s Resolutions for 2025 appeared first on SaaStr. Not yet, at least.

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Sales Hiring SaaS Venture Capital Healthcare 208

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Jason now has 5 investments at $200m+ ARR that are all cash-flow positive (which is necessary today), and there’s one clear trend he’s seen in today’s new efficient world: The New Normal is 700 Employees at $200,000,000 in ARR (or $300,000 per employee) at the average public SaaS company. “Don’t hire the broken.

Sales Recruiting 291

Sales Recruiting Trends Sales Hiring Software Review 291

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Much Does a Typical B2B SaaS Company Spend on Digital Marketing per Year? SMB-focused SaaS companies often have better performance with Facebook in particular, and can often deploy more there. But paid social for SaaS is generally poor and limited. To a point. appeared first on SaaStr.

B2B 206

B2B B2C Marketing SaaS 206

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2024

So it’s hard to get a sense of just what is happening in SaaS. “B2B2B” remains in a big funk, with Salesforce projecting a decline to single-digit growth for the first time ever next year. And in the aggregate, public SaaS companies are growing the slower they have in history. this year, from $247 Billion.

SaaS 263

SaaS AI Enterprise Scaling 263

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2024

Private Equity Gets Very Interested in SaaS Once You Cross $20m ARR, growing 30% — if you are burning almost nothing. Private Equity has different goals, and Andy did a great deep dive on the process. We’ll do more here on SaaStr but my Top 5 Learnings below. #1. That’s my view and Andy confirmed.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Banking Sales SaaS 263

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

And most bigger SaaS and Cloud companies are still hiring, but not at the same pace. The post 5 Tips to Getting a Job in SaaS in a Tougher Market appeared first on SaaStr. However, it is true that it’s different today. In general, public companies are hiring at a slower pace than they are growing. And better.

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Sales Hiring Scale Marketing SaaS 236

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Is The Best Indicators of Product Market Fit at an Early Stage SaaS B2B Startup? This is a rough metric, but I’d say from experience working closely with 25+ SaaS companies … if you aren’t growing > 10% a month after $10k in MRR or so … then you don’t yet have product-market fit. Not yet at least.

Product Marketing 288

Product Marketing B2B Startup Marketing 288

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024

So the past 24 months have been such an odd time in SaaS and Cloud. But here’s the thing, at a macro level, there is no big downturn: SaaS and Cloud spending are still up a massive 20% this year Folks taping into the trends where spending is up are on a tear. The dollars are still there for SaaS spend. But for a reason.

SaaS 282

SaaS AI Cloud Trends 282

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2024

Probably the biggest challenge in vertical SaaS I see is scaling the sales team. It’s pretty easy to hire SaaS sales execs to sell … a SaaS sales product. In vertical SaaS, most customers demand to talk to a domain expert. Maybe much longer than your peers and friends as non-vertical SaaS complained.

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Scale Sales SaaS 261

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Many SaaS companies have copied this for a long time as a two-part tariff: a base platform fee upfront then the incremental cost of additional users as you go. The post The State of SaaS Go-to-Market with Theory Ventures General Partner Tomasz Tunguz appeared first on SaaStr. You get a base number of minutes for a particular price.

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 277

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

of SaaS VC investments are in the SF Bay. Of the last 3 SaaS IPOs, only 1 was HQ’d in the Bay Area (Rubrik). of All SaaS VC Funding is in the Bay Area Now appeared first on SaaStr. For the average SDR or AE? Maybe less so. Carta shows for VC overall, 35.0% Klaviyo and OneStream aren’t.

SaaS 263

SaaS AI Investment Data 263

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2024

A few bits of advice you hear a lot in SaaS that I think often don’t really work in practice: Move to annual contracts to generate more cash. The post 5 Common Pieces of SaaS Advice … That Are Often Wrong appeared first on SaaStr. Sure, if customers want to pay annually for a discount — do it. You’ll see.

Scale 231

Scale Social Media SaaS Acquisition 231

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2024

Dear SaaStr: If you were hiring a head of sales for a high-priced, niche B2B SaaS product, would you focus on general B2B SaaS sales experience or on market/customer knowledge, assuming it will be very difficult to find a candidate with both? So be wary of hiring generic B2B reps into your early-stage, complex vertical B2B SaaS.

Sales Hiring 277

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS B2B 277

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do Enterprise SaaS Companies Deal With Late Payments? image from here ) The post Dear SaaStr: How Do Enterprise SaaS Companies Deal With Late Payments? Yes, in the end, you have to be willing to switch off the platform. But do it gracefully, with respect. Of course not. Let it Go and Move On.

SaaS Payments 254

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 254

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Does a SaaS Startup CEO Need to Have Sales Skill? The post Dear SaaStr: Does a SaaS Startup CEO Need to Have Sales Skill? Yes, if you have customers that talk to humans. Possibly no, if you only have “users” and/or are a freemium + no-touch model. But if you build Snowflake or Datadog or Box, you have to get good at it.

Startup 258

Startup Sales SaaS Enterprise 258

SaaStr

APRIL 21, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup? The post Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup? My Top 5: It will take you at least 24 months to really get anywhere. Everyone mentally budgets 10–12 months. It’s never enough. appeared first on SaaStr.

Startup 282

Startup CTO SaaS Interviewing 282

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

So who’s doing well in SaaS today? ” Samsara’s Rise to Vertical SaaS Leader Samsara is now hailed as a vertical SaaS leader, growing at a remarkable pace—36% at an astounding $1.26 Key Takeaways Samsara stands as a testament to the potential of SaaS to transform and modernize traditional industries.

Scale 269

Scale CTO Coach AI New CTO 269

SaaStr

AUGUST 11, 2024

So this was another Pretty Good Week in SaaS: #1. Billion in ARR So Another Good Week in SaaS. The post A Pretty Good Week in SaaS: Shopify, Datadog, Abnormal Security, Palantir, Atlassian All Crush It appeared first on SaaStr. Shopify is re-accelerating at $8B ARR. Don’t Call It a Downturn at Shopify.

Government 266

Government SaaS AI Cloud 266