SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2025

Dear SaaStr: Do SaaS Companies Typically Pay Their Sales Reps a Bonus on Renewals? Simple answer: almost no SaaS companies pay sales reps on standard renewals. Weve all learned this over the past years in SaaS: You want qualifiers qualifying BDRs. More leads close, faster. If So, How Much is Typica l?

Scale 269

Scale Sales SaaS Cloud 269

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. Theres just physics here to get to $10m in ARR in a sales-led model, even a partially sales-led model: After $1.5m

Sales Hiring 261

Sales Hiring Scale SaaS AI 261

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

And CEO David McJannet came to SaaStr Annual a little ways back to share his top scaling learnings. CEO Dave McJannet shared his systemic approach to scaling companies through distinct growth phases. The best leaders have experience with both startups and scale to navigate the in-between. 30-100M: Scaling phase.

Scale 184

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 184

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Former Head of Revenue at BILL and HubSpot Americas leader Michelle Benfer recently joined us on a SaaStr Workshop Wednesday share her insights on one of the most critical roles in any SaaS organization: the frontline sales manager. “At HubSpot, I had over 100 frontline sales managers reporting to me.

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales 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 307

Scale SaaS Social Media Business Model 307

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

The Enterprise-Grade Platform That Makes AI Voice Agents Actually Work at Scale We’re proud to announce that Syllable is returning as a partner for SaaStr Annual + AI Summit 2026 , following their tremendous success and impact at our 2025 event. Your AI agents qualify leads 24/7 while human experts focus on complex cases.

Payment Solutions 267

Payment Solutions Scale AI Payment Services 267

SaaStr

JULY 23, 2025

Managing revenue operations (RevOps) in a SaaS company is all about aligning sales, marketing, and customer success to drive growth efficiently. Align Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success These teams need to work as one unit. Focus on Net Revenue Retention (NRR) NRR is the most important metric in SaaS.

Sales Hiring 256

Sales Hiring B2B Scale SaaS Payments 256

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2025

✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) June 16, 2025 The Top 3 Reasons AI Sales Tools “Don’t Work” (Spoiler: They Actually Do, If You Use The Tools Properly) I get this question at least 3x a week: “Jason, we tried AI sales tools and they just don’t work. I’ve been in B2B and Saa sales for 15+ years.

Scale 273

Scale AI Sales Hiring Sales 273

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2025

The 40% Problem: How AI Will Finally Fix Sales Coverage and Customer Face Time A wake-up call from HubSpot’s CEO Yamini Rangan on why your sales team is failing 60% of their accountsand how AI will change everything There’s a brutal truth about B2B sales that most founders refuse to acknowledge. Forty percent.

Scale 254

Scale AI Underperforming Technical Team Sales 254

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2025

We’re living through the biggest transformation in B2B sales since the birth of SaaS itself. The latest from 2025 survey data by ICONIQ from 205 GTM executives across leading B2B SaaS companies The data tells a stark story. This isn’t about sprinkling ChatGPT into your sales process.

Scale 193

Scale AI B2B SaaS 193

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

Start-ups, scale-ups and public companies in 2021 would hire a lot of folks they just wouldn’t hire today. 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. If not, take a pause and write it again.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing SaaS 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Meet Wyatt Jenkins: From Construction Sites to Chief Product Officer If you want to understand how vertical SaaS companies scale to $1B+ in revenue while staying true to their customers, there’s no better person to learn from than Wyatt Jenkins, Chief Product Officer at Procore Technologies.

Construction 251

Construction Scale SaaS Travel 251

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2025

At $549M quarterly revenue (22% YoY growth), they’re proving something important: you CAN still grow 20%+ at massive scale. The “Growth Re-Acceleration” Playbook at $2B+ Scale The Numbers: After moderating to 19% growth in FY2025, MongoDB bounced back to 22% in Q1 2026.

Scale 267

Scale B2B Sales Hiring Acquisition 267

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

So the latest SaaS leader to cross $1B ARR is Klaviyo. Klaviyo dominates marketing in the Shopify ecosystem and in ecommerce, and just keeps on scaling. It was the only SaaS IPO on 2023. But it’s clear that it’s still in the investing phase, and increasing spend in sales & marketing. The only one!

Scale 301

Scale SMB Scaling Enterprise 301

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

” – Colin Jones, CRO Emeritus at Wiz You may have seen the news that Google is making its biggest acquisition — by far — of Cloud and SaaS security leader Wiz for a stunning $32 Billion (!). It’s an incredible look back on scaling and more: Colin Jones, first Chief Revenue Officer at Wiz.

Scale 184

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Sales Recruiting 184

SaaStr

JULY 4, 2025

Dear SaaStr: What Quota Should I Give to my Enterprise Sales Reps? For enterprise sales reps, quotas typically range from 3x to 5x their fully burdened on-target earnings (OTE). The exact number depends on your deal size, sales cycle, and how mature your sales process is. Then, scale it up to 3x-5x their OTE after.

Enterprise 260

Enterprise Scale Sales Scaling 260

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. Force them to go annual, and you are just adding friction to the sales process. Yes, as you scale you do need to maintain efficiency in sales and marketing. You’ll see.

Scale 297

Scale Social Media SaaS Acquisition 297

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2024

SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin chats with Mangomint CEO Daniel Lang about why vertical SaaS is booming and how Mangomint got to 110% NRR. What was once considered too small or too niche, vertical SaaS has recently emerged as a hotbed of innovation and profitability. Full-Stack SaaS for SMBs Toast today is worth $14B at $1.5B

SaaS Payments 257

SaaS Payments Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 257

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2025

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Best Ways to Transition From The Founder-Led Sales Stage? Transitioning from founder-led sales to a commissioned sales team is one of the most criticaland trickysteps in scaling a SaaS business. You Never Get to Leave Sales. This is non-negotiableeven if you hate sales.

Scale 197

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Compensation 197

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

Per OpenAI: The #1 event in SaaS is widely considered to be SaaStr Annual. Its the largest community-driven SaaS event, bringing together 12,500+ founders, executives, and VCs. Features 300+ speakers from top SaaS companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Snowflake. Why SaaStr Annual?

Software 243

Software Scale Venture Capital SaaS 243

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2024

Pricing is more than just a number on a contract — when used thoughtfully, it can become a strategic tool for your SaaS product that can drive product adoption, customer satisfaction, and business growth. Scaling stage: Reduced to single-user plans to maximize accessibility.

Payments 284

Payments Pricing Scale Revenue 284

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2025

The success rate for executive hires at high-growth SaaS companies can be surprisingly low – you’re often lucky if 50-60% of your management team works out long-term. ” If you have a SaaS company above 2 million in revenue, both Brian and Jason agree that at that point, all that matters is the management team.

Sales Hiring 284

Sales Hiring Scale Systems Review Interviewing 284

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

Sales isn’t going anywhere in the Age of AI. OpenAI has a big sales team, Windsurf does, Anthropic has a great one. Especially the next generation of them: Perplexity has scaled to 5,000 enterprise customers with just 5 sales reps. Cursor built a $400M business with what appears to be a skeleton GTM team.

Scale 184

Scale AI Headcount Sales Hiring 184

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2025

The Learning : At scale, customer count growth in your premium tier matters more than total customer adds. scale is still a stong growth engine. Okta’s following the classic SaaS maturity curve – the key is maintaining predictability in the deceleration. The Bonus 5: Operational Excellence Metrics 6.

Scale 234

Scale Headcount Outsourced Development Operational efficiency. 234

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2025

How Canva’s CCO Built a $7B Enterprise Motion While Preserving PLG Culture Rob Giglio, Canva’s Chief Customer Officer, shares the playbook for scaling from 170M to 230M monthly active users while building enterprise sales without compromising company culture. Top 5 Takeaways 1.

Scale 173

Scale AI Enterprise Venture Capital 173

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2025

Dear SaaStr: What are the most common mistakes first-time founders make when building enterprise sales teams? The most common mistakes first-time founders make when building enterprise sales teams are surprisingly consistent. Heres the breakdown: Hiring a VP of Sales Too Early : This is a classic. Its harsh, but necessary.

Outsourcing Services 193

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 193

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2025

So what gets you more high-quality leads and ultimately business — smaller, more “intimate” industry events? And your top prospects? There is no question the ideal event in theory is just you and you alone … and 50-100 of the very top prospects in the world. But — it’s the wrong question.

Scale 293

Scale Marketing Travel B2B 293

SaaStr

JULY 12, 2025

To put this in perspective, it took Snowflake—one of the fastest SaaS companies in history—six quarters to go from $1B to $2B ARR. API-First Revenue Model Unlike the subscription-heavy models of traditional SaaS, 70-75% of Anthropic’s revenue comes from API calls through pay-per-token pricing.

B2B 248

B2B Scale Outsourced Development AI 248

SaaStr

JUNE 20, 2025

The Great Spending Showdown: AI vs SaaS in 2025/2026 — What Every B2B Leader Needs to Know We’re witnessing the most dramatic shift in enterprise tech spending since the cloud migration began 15 years ago. Meanwhile, SaaS — our tried-and-true darling — is projected at $295 billion with a “mere” 18.4% year-over-year.

AI Search 289

AI Search Artificial Intelligence AI CTO Hire 289

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2025

Workato’s SVP of Embedded Sales and Director of Solutions Marketing joined us at SaaStr Annual to talk about how to nurture customers — a great topic in general, but especially for embedded sales and APIs that can take a while to scale. The Second Most Important SaaS Hire? Customer Success. But the results?

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Churn 246

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2024

In general, the report ties to what were seeing everywhere in SaaS. That ties to our overall rough sales cycle data here: Dear SaaStr: What’s a Good Benchmark for B2B Sales Cycles? Is usually see 15%-20% as start-ups scale, but 25% is probably the right target as you scale. You can grab it here.

Scale 284

Scale Benchmarks B2B Enterprise 284

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2025

Convergent evolution from 2 very different start-ups that now have many similarities at scale. Keys to HubSpot’s Success: The “Hub” Strategy : HubSpot mastered the land-and-expand model, starting with Marketing Hub and strategically expanding to Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, Operations Hub, Commerce Hub, and Content Hub.

SMB 273

SMB Scale Education AI 273

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Big Should The Addressable Market Be to Go into Vertical SaaS? I try to look at two things in Vertical SaaS startups, at least when investing : Will everyone in the vertical / industry use it? It’s just hard to get most vertical SaaS start-ups to scale if they can’t get to a $10k ACV.

Payment Solutions 261

Payment Solutions Inbound Sales Team Marketing Scale 261

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2025

AI and Cybersecurity: How Rubrik’s Co-Founder Built a $1B+ ARR Platform While Joining the AI Revolution Lessons from Arvind Nithrakashyap, Co-Founder and CTO of Rubrik, on scaling cyber resilience platforms, building multiple product curves, and implementing AI across both products and operations.

Cybersecurity 256

Cybersecurity AI Scale CTO Hire 256

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2025

But here are some general guidelines: ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) : Most SaaS companies raising a Series A are doing between $1M and $2.5M Typically, you’ll want to show 7%-15% month-over-month growth leading up to the raise. This shows you have a scalable and efficient sales model. Churn : Low or negative churn is critical.

Benchmarks 259

Benchmarks Scale Generative AI Churn 259

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Playbook: How Top SaaS Companies Drive 2-3x Better Campaign Performance Through Multi-Channel Personalization A deep dive with Jason Lyman, CMO at Customer.io Speaker Bio Jason Lyman leads marketing at Customer.io, where he’s helped scale the platform to power over 35 billion customer interactions for 7,000+ high-growth companies.

Scale 271

Scale SaaS B2B Scaling 271