SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2023

To convert an idea into a successful venture, startups need to be equipped to scale. Hiring a reliable team is an all-encompassing issue where startups dive in head-first but fail to optimize it for success. . Hiring a reliable team is an all-encompassing issue where startups dive in head-first but fail to optimize it for success. .

Scale 203

Scale CTO Hire Cloud Scaling 203

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2024

They are overall benefitting here from the growth in Cloud and security budgets, even if smaller companies and startups and scaleups are struggling more. While many tech SMBs are struggling, finding the gems in the SMB base that can grow into large accounts is still critical. Their multi-million dollar contracts are 30%. #5.

Fractional VPE 217

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Scale SMB 217

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 13, 2016

When an SMB SaaS startup is young with quickly growing revenues, more of the same works. A $1M ARR SaaS startup with an average selling price of $750 per year needs to add 1,333 each year on average to double. For some SMB SaaS companies, generating this kind of lead volume even at scale isn’t a challenge.

SMB 100

SMB Scale Startup Marketing 100

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

Yet, I see most “Hybrid SaaS” startups ignore this and spend as if they had 80% margins. SMB SaaS often has much lower than 100% NRR, especially to start. Eventually most SaaS SMB leaders get to 100% NRR one way, or another (often by either going multiproduct and/or a bit more upmarket). They don’t.

SaaS Payments 204

SaaS Payments Metrics Payments SMB 204

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2024

Even SMB leaders like Monday are there. Not just unicorns and startups, but almost every public SaaS company had negative operating margins. SaaS startups that IPO’d funded it with IPO proceeds. The rest are marching there. Monday just crossed $800,000,000 in ARR with less than 2,000 employees.

SMB 243

SMB Cloud Startup Scaling 243

TurnKey Labs

JANUARY 7, 2024

Are you looking for an efficient way to source top development talent without having to jump through all the traditional (and tedious!) hiring hoops? Are you seeking a cost-effective and flexible way to increase your software development capabilities? If the answer is yes to either – or both! –

SMB 62

SMB Startup Software Development Development 62

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What do startup founders typically get wrong when starting a business? More here: Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? SMB folks want to go upmarket because there is too much churn in SMB. There are probably 10–100 other startups with the same idea. 8–12 months is almost never enough time. That is important.

SMB 231

SMB SaaS B2C Interviewing 231

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What is the average percentage of annual vs. monthly plan sold for a BtoB SaaS startup targeting the SMB market? 90% of Smartsheet’s SMB customers pay annually. 20%+- will pay annually to save money. Most would rather skip the discount and pay less now. 38% of Freshworks customers pay monthly.

Data 217

Data SMB Payment Features Churn 217

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

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 31, 2022

We are delighted to share that we are officially launching our new program for fast-growing, venture-backed startups. Over 5,000 startups from top incubators around the world use Intercom. It is an essential element of the startup stack as founders optimize their customer engagement”.

Startup 118

Startup Scale Venture Capital SMB 118

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

But as a history lesson, let’s use my own startup Adobe Sign / EchoSign to see what happened in ’08-’09 … the worst global recession any of us have ever seen. Two things though did get hit harder — SMB Churn and Upsell s. SMBs just plain went out of business in ’08-’09.

SMB 311

SMB SaaS Churn Enterprise 311

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2022

The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long. SMB SaaS has a lot going for it, but one big existential challenge — inherent churn. SaaStr 574: 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg. 7 Secrets to a Successful SMB GTM Strategy with PayFit and Accel.

New CTO 246

New CTO CTO SMB Venture Capital 246

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2023

10+ Actionable Things You Can Do To Scale Faster In The Early Days The Chat GPT Growth Story: How AI is Changing the Way We Work The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long (Updated) Dear SaaStr: My Top Sales Rep Made $600,000 a Year — And Just Quit! What Happened? Top Podcasts This Week: 1.

ChatGPT 238

ChatGPT Scale SMB AI 238

SaaStr

AUGUST 6, 2022

Is Every SaaS Startup Worth Half of What It Was Last Year? Every Venture Backed Startup is Now Competing for Reserves. The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long. SaaStr 574: 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg. 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg.

SMB 218

SMB Startup Scaling Churn 218

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2024

Shrav added that if you want to close bigger deals, not just Enterprise, but mid-market and SMB as well, that the moment you’re ready to Go-To-Market, you need to become compliant. How is Secureframe servicing both startups and enterprise customers? So look for security and compliance to gain momentum this year.

AI 146

AI SMB compliance Sales Hiring 146

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. It has now secured over $67M in funding and offers a robust platform for mid-market and SMB segments. And they mostly did this by ignoring four pieces of traditional startup advice.

Scale 204

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 204

SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2022

The 4 V’s of Sales: Volume, Value, and Velocity: Waze Head of SMB Sales & Head of Sales Enablement. A good and different look at some good ideas for SMB sales. #6. 10. “SaaStr Annual 2022: 5 Critical and Company-Altering Learnings from B2B Startups | Y Combinator.” appeared first on SaaStr.

Scale 204

Scale SMB Innovation B2B 204

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Enterprise Doing Better than SMB A common trend across many selling into tech. Startups are struggling. Collaboration and developer-focused tools are very global by nature. Lean in there, if you can. #5. Enterprise leaders are the islands of strength today. It was the opposite in 2021 ? And a few other interesting notes: #6.

SMB 229

SMB Enterprise Scaling Trends 229

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

And as startups scale, many try to automate away support and success for the smaller accounts. If your SMB product requires or has a salesperson involved in closing, that’s a clear sign you also want a human being involved in making sure that customer is a success post-sale, too. The post Do SMBs Need Customer Success?

Customer Success 324

Customer Success Scale SMB Sales 324

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2021

Maybe you want to be 100% SMB, or focus on functional silos in the enterprise. The post Can an 8-Person StartUp Sell to a CIO? But be open to it. Because closing 1 or 2 CIO-level, pan-enterprise deals in the early days — can really make your company. And the CIO can also often write the largest checks as well.

Startup 252

Startup SMB Enterprise Innovation 252

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2020

Even once you hit just $2m-$3m ARR — fairly early — the trade-offs start to become clear for startups with customers both Smaller and Larger: Small customers consume just as many sales, success, and marketing resources. This makes the SMB leads worth a lot more than just their direct lifetime value. Probably more.

SMB 349

SMB Sales Hiring Marketing Enterprise 349

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

After switching to SaaS, she started as an SMB sales leader with no prior management or SMB sales experience. The decision to leave a fairly scaled role leading 200+ AEs at LinkedIn to join a smaller-stage startup. During her time in finance, she did multi-million dollar deals with 12 to 18-month deal cycles.

Scale 239

Scale Underperforming Technical Team SMB Finance 239

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Today, we’ll dig into valuation metrics to see if there’s any systematic bias in the investor community for SMB, Mid-Market and Enterprise SaaS companies. SMB is less than $10k, Mid-Market is between $10k and $100k, and Enterprise is greater than $100k in average customer value.

SMB 100

SMB Scale SaaS Marketing 100

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). It still mostly works, and you can roughly tell how much revenue a “normal” startup has from its employee count. That's how much in bookings they plan to add this year.

SMB 243

SMB Scale Startup Enterprise 243

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2023

I didn’t so much learn from it as confirm — confirm things I’ve seen, known, and put into practice, and seen it confirmed across many SaaS startups. Enterprise Quota:OTE ratios are higher (5x+), SMB is a bit lower, but at the end of the day, you need to close 4x-5x what you take home. #2. My top take-aways: #1.

Scale 267

Scale Compensation Sales SMB 267

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2023

So it’s really probably easier if you start in freemium, SMB, consumer, or developer tools. But they started as a consumer/SMB play, it wasn’t enterprise yet, and they’d been building and working on software for years. The older you are, the more likely you are to succeed as a startup founder.

Software Review 179

Software Review SMB Enterprise B2B 179

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 8, 2015

See also: Innovator’s Solution for SaaS Startups. There’s a familiar path now to SaaS companies that start in the SMB (small-to-medium business) part of the market. In short, new startups leverage a distribution advantage to acquire SMB customers at scale. SMB 3-7% 31%-58%. Why does this happen?

Innovation 155

Innovation Startup Scale SMB 155

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 9, 2016

What are the attributes of the ideal SMB SaaS company, an entrepreneur asked me recently. I believe that the next wave of SaaS companies will be centered around workflows, Event Driven SaaS , and this extends to SMB SaaS. I don’t have the answer to building an amazing SMB SaaS company. It’s a good question.

SMB 100

SMB SaaS Acquisition Education 100

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2016

Channel distribution represents one of the biggest and most important changes in customers acquisition for SMB SaaS startups in quite a while. One of the most interesting examples is Microsoft’s Office 365 SMB business. It’s the most successful SMB SaaS acquisition channel ever built. by Thomas Hansen.

Outsourcing Services 108

Outsourcing Services SMB Acquisition Scale 108

SaaStr

OCTOBER 2, 2022

The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long (Updated). SaaStr 595: 5 Critical and Company-Altering Learnings from B2B Startups with Y Combinator MD of YC Continuity Anu Hariharan. . 5 Critical & Company-Altering Learnings from B2B Startups | Y Combinator MD Anu Hariharan.

Cloud 257

Cloud Scale SMB B2B 257

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2021

startups [link]. It’s also an interesting contact to Zoom , Zendesk and Slack , which recently have seen enterprise and SMB growth be about equal post-Covid. #2. This is top-tier NRR for a product with many SMB customers. 95% renewal rate, even with 10,000+ SMBs. It’s a testament to the ROI in PagerDuty.

SMB 317

SMB Enterprise Scaling Startup 317

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

It does less in SMB. So it’s less representative of raw startups, but more representative of overall enterprise and mid-market spend. in ARR, so it’s second only to Salesforce in SaaS. And they spans dozens of leading vendors in SaaS. That’s some slowdown for sure, but not a downturn.

Cybersecurity 308

Cybersecurity SMB Interviewing Enterprise 308

SaaStr

DECEMBER 18, 2022

SaaStr 616: Secrets to SMB at Scale with Hubspot CEO Yamini Rangan and SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin. . 10 Tips for Startups to Create Powerful Partnerships with Big Companies with SAP. Secrets to SMB at Scale with HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan and SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin. Top Podcasts This Week: 1. Top Videos This Week: 1.

Scale 138

Scale Venture Capital SMB Forecasting 138

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long (Updated) The 8 Signs of a Failing Sales Rep. SaaStr CRO Confidential: Brex GM of Startups Lucas Fox on Customer Retention and Expansion 3.

Scale 198

Scale SMB Sales Scaling 198

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2023

Your Marketing Site Really Should Be Even Better Than Your Product Dear SaaStr: How Much Of My Startup Do I Need To Sell In Each Venture Round? Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: Is the Employer-Employee Social Contract in Tech … Now Broken?

Generative AI 177

Generative AI SMB Education AI 177

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

And a few other limiters: Most enterprise reps really struggle to sell SMB tools, and vice-versa. Whatever you do, make sure if someone comes from even a slightly easier sales environment, that they really can do it at your startup. The prospects come in mostly knowing you, and what they want.

Sales Hiring 168

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS SMB 168

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Building and scaling a startup isn’t for the faint of heart and often comes with many ups and downs that SaaS veterans have experience in. A first-time founder of a Generative AI startup is struggling with the question of going vertical vs. horizontal. Public multiples are 6x, but startups don’t have to be 6x.

Sales Hiring 243

Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital Generative AI 243