SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2021

It’s been a fun experience being on Quora for … a decade We’ve crossed 60,000,000 views of our answers there, so let’s take a look at the Top 50 most viewed SaaStr Answers on Quora in 2020: Why do many startup owners sell their firm and move on instead of planning on making it a big player like Google, Microsoft, etc.?

Software Review 286

Software Review CTO Coach Technical Review Sales Recruiting 286

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Let’s review everything your customer success team has to do in the absence of any customer success tools. Best customer success software for startups and small companies. Best customer success software shortlist ClientSuccess – starting from $15,000/year. Defining a customer success tool and other FAQs.

Customer Success 105

Customer Success Enterprise Software Review Startup 105

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

Joselyn Goldfein , Managing Director at Zeta Venture Partners, which invests in AI and data infrastructure-focused startups from inception through seed stage And see everyone at 2025 SaaStr Annual, May 13-15 in SF Bay!! What VCs Are Funding in AI Today The AI funding landscape has evolved rapidly in 2023-2024. This is exactly backward.

Technical Review 172

Technical Review Artificial Intelligence AI Marketplace as a Service 172

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 1, 2019

In 2014, I published a post called Do Startup Require Less Capital to Succeed than 10 Years Ago ? Startups going public from 2006-2009 showed a median ROIC of 0.42. With more capital, startups can take more risk, explore more customer acquisition channels (some which may not work), develop more products and potentially grow faster.

Startup 279

Startup Software Review SaaS Acquisition 279

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 15, 2023

“The Startup M&A Market Fell 94% Year over Year - But One Segment Thrives” , a post from last week, elicited the same question from many readers. I reviewed the roughly 560 US software acquisitions under $400m since January 1, 2020. Alphabet bought $400m of startups & Apple $375m.

Acquisition 290

Acquisition Software Review Software Startup 290

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

Sales terminology might feel unfamiliar, but the beautiful thing about using sales customer relationship management (CRM) software is that it provides a common structure for a sales process. Sales CRM — Software used to streamline pipeline management and safely store customer information, communicate with prospects, and drive more sales.

Sales Hiring 312

Sales Hiring Startup Sales Outsourced Development 312

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

Codeium has emerged as one of the hottest AI startups, growing from 30 to 150 employees in just one year, with a valuation already exceeding $1 billion. Codeium has built a generative AI coding assistant Windsurf that integrates across any IDE and supports over 70 programming languages.

Sales Recruiting 220

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 220

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

The business builds software to help other crypto companies grow. Perhaps you’ll sell infrastructure to help other startups scale or software to manage internal operations. Most US web2 software companies might progress through their lifespans without ever uttering the words treasury management in a board meeting.

Payment Solutions 263

Payment Solutions Outsourced Development Software Review Software 263

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 12, 2021

Although they may seem like strong opinions, many of these tips echo the main tenets of software engineering: work with you’ve got, design solutions as needed, don’t repeat yourself, and keep it simple, stupid! Don’t add to your stack unless you’re certain that your use case will not be satisfied by existing software.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Scale multi-cloud Kubernetes Scaling 269

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2020

So, the company starts getting divided up into functional areas, or silos, product management, sales, customers support, marketing and so on, and this siloing of the org chart I think means that not everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and there’s a general feeling of disorganization or chaos in most startups.

Startup 286

Startup Software Review Scale Systems Review 286

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 20, 2020

This post is part of a series leading up to SaaS Office GTM Edition on June 24 in which we’re reviewing the results of the 2020 Redpoint GTM survey. Today, we’re answering the question: how do teams grow as a startup scales? The median startup with between 1-5M in ARR will have 12 engineers, 6 in sales and 3 in marketing.

Scale 363

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Software Review 363

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2023

“The fastest company will always win,” says Daniel Dines, CEO and Founder of UiPath, one of the fastest-growing software companies in the world. Ten years ago, no one would have guessed Europe would generate the largest software IPO globally, yet UiPath has done it, and net retention is 144%.

Scale 246

Scale Artificial Intelligence Technical Review Software Review 246

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2024

My biggest take-away: there are barely more than 50 acquisitions of $50,000,000 or more, at least disclosed one, in software of U.S.-based based startups each year. Tomasz’s main point is that the dollars are only going up due to an increase in mega deals. By dollars, yes. But not by deal count.

Acquisition 277

Acquisition Software Review Software Cloud 277

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

Thread AI’s founder and Palantir alum Maya Gonimah has cracked the code on enterprise AI implementation through their strategic partnership with Google Cloud. Darren Mowrey (Google Cloud) Darren leads strategic partnerships at Google Cloud, focusing on helping startups scale their AI implementations.

AI 172

AI Cloud Enterprise Technical Review 172

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

AI in Sales and Marketing AI is disrupting sales and marketing, particularly in support and SDR /BDR functions, due to the shortage of skilled workers and the potential for increased efficiency and cost savings. Product Marketing and Early-Stage Priorities Product marketing is not a priority for most startups. And so much more!

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 294

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2025

With 10+ years as a CMO at companies ranging from $1M to $1B in revenue, another 10+ years as CEO of companies in the $0-$100M range, and extensive experience as an independent director on startup boards, Dave offers a 360-degree perspective on marketing’s role in SaaS success. This isn’t a generic Marketing 101 course.

Sales Hiring 187

Sales Hiring Marketing Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 187

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 4, 2025

Whenever I hear about a new startup, I pull out my research playbook. This upgrade revealed something crucial: there are three distinct classes of programs emerging in enterprise software. Deterministic workflows are my original startup research processthe same steps, in the same order, every time.

AI Search 127

AI Search AI Systems Review Software Review 127

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

With over 20 years in the infrastructure software space, Dave previously held executive roles at Microsoft, VMware, and GitHub. The best leaders have experience with both startups and scale to navigate the in-between. Monthly process reviews of your key systems are more valuable than traditional status meetings.

Scale 172

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 172

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

People is the first section because people are a startup’s most important element. Customer Success reviews the net dollar and logo retention, plus churns and expansions. Lines of code, count of P0 bugs, days of delay in releases. Redpoint SaaS Metrics Template. You’ll notice there is no engineering section.

Metrics 250

Metrics Sales Recruiting Startup Headcount 250

SaaStr

JULY 3, 2020

349: Startups can get messy. And, wouldn’t it be nice if somehow we could turn this s**t show into an army where instead of having this startup chaos, we could get the team working in lock step. Basically, it’s based on a few very simple insights, but very few startups are actually doing these things.

Software Review 259

Software Review Scale Systems Review Startup 259

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2022

With that, I asked my first controller at my first start-up, Anita Kutlesa, who has since gone on to be CFO at several SaaS and software companies, from Pipedrive to Coverity and more, to share her suggestions and learnings: … The Top 10 Important Finance Mistakes First Time Founders Make. Anita Kutlesa. But don’t.

Finance 328

Finance Outsourcing Services Systems Review Technical Review 328

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

Innovating - craft enough slack in the system to enable the team to transition to this phase, invest in good quality code. Recently, many startups have tried to measure engineering throughput. If you manage engineering teams or are a startup leadership member, I highly recommend reading Will Larson’s book.

Engineering 363

Engineering Software Review Systems Review Technical Review 363

Tom Tunguz

MAY 21, 2023

The top publicly traded software companies have surged in the last few weeks. When interest rates fall, high-growth software surges. When interest rates fall, high-growth software surges. The bond market has priced in a roughly 1% to 1.25% cut in the next 24 months.

Software Review 302

Software Review Startup SaaS Pricing 302

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2022

Thank you to all who participated and those who attended last week’s Office Hours to review them. The survey results review the trends in the public market, in founders’ minds, and the private market. Top 10 Insights from the 2022 Startup Sentiment Survey. The typical founder feels 6.0 The typical founder feels 6.0

Startup 242

Startup Scale Headcount Compensation 242

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2021

Over the last ten years, the 75th percentile post-money valuation of a cloud software or infrastructure company has grown 11% annually. While not as hyperbolic an inflation rate as copper or lumber, the price trajectory of early stage cloud startups does result from a similar supply demand/imbalance.

Software Review 364

Software Review Venture Capital Cloud Pricing 364

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2025

He joined SaaStr Workshop Wednesday LIVE to do a deep dive with Jason Lemkin on his 10 Point Checklist when you sell your startup. Amazon’s acquisition of PillPack illustrates this perfectly: they saw value in both the complex software systems and innovative packaging that could transform their healthcare ambitions.

Technical Review 190

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Sales Hiring 190

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

Generative AI is a platform shift where models can take inputs such as text, image, audio, video, and code and generate new content into any of the modalities mentioned. Startup platforms are OpenAI, Hugging Face, and Cohere. For the incumbents, you have Notion and Gorgias, and the startups are Jasper, Copy, and Harvey.

Generative AI 286

Generative AI Outsourcing Services AI Software Review 286

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2024

It’s a common dream for founders to hope their startup be acquired one day, but what is a company, like Google, really looking for in their acquisitions? Asset — To gain certain assets like code, patents, data sets, etc, while leaving the team and often the company behind. Build relationships with product. Be financially viable.

Software Review 268

Software Review Technical Review Acquisition Scale 268

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2021

As a startup, you’re doing a million things at once: building a product, answering customer tickets, developing a sales playbook, trying out different marketing hacks, and keeping the lights on. Unfortunately, the process is long and can feel like a blackbox for startups starting from scratch. 5 – Configure Your Infrastructure.

Enterprise 272

Enterprise Software Review Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 272

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2025

For example, ask engineers to complete a quick coding challenge or have marketing candidates critique your product. Get help from advisors or mentors to review your picks. If you find the perfect candidate at #12, greatbut plan for 30. The best candidates will find these tasks engaging, and itll save you hours of wasted meetings.

Software Review 152

Software Review Interviewing Engineering Startup 152

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

Startups evaluating M&A have additional factors to consider. I served on the boards of two companies that plodded through regulatory review. Customer ask, is the startup standalone or part of a larger company? Break-up fees, relatively uncommon today, may become more prevalent in startup M&A as a result.

Acquisition 223

Acquisition Startup Government Technical Review 223

SaaStr

JANUARY 19, 2023

For startups, a successful business partnership could mean access to new products, the opportunity to reach new markets, or increase customer loyalty. Can your startup fit into an existing programmatic commercial construct, or is there something the company has to work with you to build? In this session, Kange Kaneene, VP at SAP.iO

Technical Review 258

Technical Review Startup Scale Sales Hiring 258

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2021

There are a lot of subtle pros and cons and issues, but for most Big Tech Companies, the pro to buying a startup is time and scale: Being able to enter a space or category quicker. And a practical level, if a BigCo is falling behind due to a competitive thread, these “pros” and even bigger. Versus getting left behind. Team issues.

Startup 190

Startup Technical Review Software Review Acquisition 190

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Back in the day, premium comp for some software sales execs made simple and easy sense. Traditional software had 90% gross margins, and the classic enterprise sales reps, the best ones, could close a million or more dollars a year. Startups that just accepted compressed ROI on sales commissions ended up pretty stressed in 2022.

Scale 343

Scale Venture Capital Sales Hiring Sales 343

User Pilot

MAY 27, 2025

This article provides an in-depth and honest review of the platform. Based on verified Gartner reviews , the majority of its customers use WalkMe to support internal business apps, large-scale field operations, and app rollouts across thousands of employees or users. ” WalkMe review collected by Gartner. Lets dive in!

Mobile 69

Mobile Software Review Technical Review Pricing 69

SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2023

dropped out of college, and Dylan Field of Figma and many others never went due to Thiel Fellowships. But as Marc Andreessen points out … they’d been “coding” at an elite level for years, since their teens. They had 6–7 years of experience and could ship consumer (Zuck) or commercial (Gates) software.

Software Review 240

Software Review SMB Enterprise B2B 240

SaaStr

APRIL 15, 2025

With 17 years of venture capital experience, Ethan began his career in consumer investing before pivoting to B2B, where he developed particular expertise in developer platforms and B2B software.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Venture Capital Outsourced Development AI 152