SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2020

The past 7 years I’ve had a chance to observe a lot of SaaS founders, as an investor, as an advisor and more … and the vast majority I’ve worked with have in the end just killed it. Gone on to bigger and better things. And investors especially expect it. Investors stop boasting about their investments.

Forecasting 357

Forecasting Communication SaaS Scaling 357

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2023

Peter Specht, Partner at Creandum, shares a data-driven perspective and real-time insights into the market of very recent rounds and current VC expectations. Investors currently struggle with price finding for these rounds. Funds and investors are either backing vision or backing Seed rounds with traction. and $4M ARR.

AI 191

AI Trends Banking Pricing 191

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

But how can biotech teams effectively communicate to investors and partners how they will, with each round of financing, incrementally reduce the risks of discovering and developing successful new drugs? One powerful avenue is through the use of an exceptionally well-curated, comprehensive, and accessible virtual data room (VDR)!

Development Team Review 128

Development Team Review Technical Review Finance Systems Review 128

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2021

What began as a blog post in 2016 has evolved into a yearly exploration and survey to founders and investors to discover what it really takes to raise capital for SaaS companies. Christoph Janz, Founding Partner at Point 9 Capital , gives us his data-backed insight into what investors are looking for in the year ahead. .

Finance 302

Finance Product Marketing SaaS Investment 302

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2023

This is when SaaS metrics aren’t used as a tool of understanding to improve your business but to club people with numbers. Someone could present the data here, stand up, and say we had a good quarter. For example, if you ask your VP sales for their commit and they say “$4.3M Numbers are used to bludgeon management. 5: Semantics.

Metrics 303

Metrics Sales Hiring Benchmarks SaaS 303

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

In today’s world, there’s a clear shift in what founders, boards, and investors are all after — scalable, low-CAC (customer-acquisition cost) growth strategies. The data above shows it’s a customer acquisition cost on average of $1.05 Is it worth switching from manual, human-based outbound to data-driven automated outbound?

Scale 231

Scale Sales Hiring Strategy Marketing 231

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2022

communicate it effectively for investors to believe in it and provide you with the capital needed to bring it to life. . Before attracting investors, ensure that your company structure and products are up to par. If you want your start-up to succeed and scale, the first thing you have to do is build a stellar team.

Scale 201

Scale Marketing Scaling Communication 201

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2023

Capchase Co-Founder & CEO Miquel Fernandez and 01 Advisors VP Kristen Clifford use data to show us what differentiates the best SaaS companies from the rest. One, when you have really high gross margins, your cost base actually increases much slower than your revenue base. This is important for two reasons.

SaaS Payments 212

SaaS Payments Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 212

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

SaaStr events couldn’t happen without our partners, and we wanted to give a special shout-out to some of our newest sponsors for SaaStr Annual 2023. That means our cyber avatars have installed, configured, assessed, and remediated your environment and are now maintaining it before you’ve completed most traditional POCs.

Banking 235

Banking Payment Features Venture Capital Subscription 235

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2021

Chris Britt, CEO and Co-founder of Chime built a company that was focused on a customer base and customer behavior that investors hadn’t yet caught onto—debit card transactions among middle-income Americans. Your company culture is similar to your brand. Enter your email below for the latest SaaStr updates. Build trust.

Banking 262

Banking Social Media Company Culture Innovation 262

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2023

Do you want to avoid the common pitfalls of scaling a startup? Honestly, it can feel like a betrayal when someone in a position of trust leaves without someone to replace them, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be gracious to anyone and everyone who comes in contact with your team. This is true for employees and churn.

Scale 222

Scale Leadership Scaling Customer Success 222

SaaStr

APRIL 15, 2022

Eventually, your startup may be so hot that you can ghost VCs back. Once you are running a Calendly, a Canva, a whatever, you can’t even keep up with all the in-bounds from investors. Just ask if they need more data, more information, more help, more time. Ask what more they want to learn. Constantly. Same with VCs.

Startup 301

Startup Investment Sales Data 301

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

These companies get to exploit new AI APIs to make their products better. It’s tough for investors. Sacks believes Series A or B is a better place to invest right now. Investors are more skeptical now. If you’re very early stage, pre-Series A, your burn multiple has to be bad if you’re funded.

SaaS Payments 222

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions AI SaaS 222

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

The actual numbers might not be as bad as the graph shows, but companies that will need to go out and raise from external investors within the next 12 months will need to grow much faster to counter the effect of a multiple decline. It’s also acceptable to dial it back a bit and wait for better times. You don’t want to be there.

Business Model 253

Business Model SaaS Payments Payments Headcount 253

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 4, 2023

In this series, we have explored a variety of funding options for startups looking to launch a new financial product as well as terms to consider when negotiating your first warehouse facility. At this point, your company has decided to raise debt or at least would like to explore the option… where do you start?

Outsourcing Services 128

Outsourcing Services Software Review Scale Banking 128

Point Nine Land

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Unveiling the 2023 SaaS Funding Napkin At the annual SaaStr conference in San Mateo three weeks ago, I delved into fundraising trends in 2023, discussing the implications of investors’ new-found love for efficiency vs. growth at all costs for founders, and why you should expect AI to come up in (almost) every pitch meeting.

SaaS 120

SaaS Finance AI Social Media 120

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

And the predictability into the future gives investors comfort. Many investors laugh (and some rightly so) at the fact that software companies’ valuations are often described as a multiple of revenue. It’s probably better described as re-occurring vs recurring. It largely has to do with what I described above.

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2021

Secrets to a solid interview: 1/ Interview your heroes 2/ Do an hour of research 3/ Write out 5 great questions + 5 back-up questions 4/ Listen, and ask +1 follow-up question on the great responses 5/ Share questions ahead of time. But — we do have the data, and my interviews are generally some of the most popular and downloaded.

Interviewing 284

Interviewing Content Marketing Startup Marketing 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Historically, SaaS investors tended to look for the undisputed top dog competitor in every category, and would pour huge amounts of money into those companies. Furthermore, when you are part of a populated category, sometimes your angle can lessen the intensity of the competition. They’re just going to get a little bit better.”

Venture Capital 199

Venture Capital Sales Hiring Social Media Healthcare 199

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

50% of Hubspot’s 100,000 customers want to deploy the product themselves, while the other half buy through an agency partner or a CRM implementer because they need the help to set up the platform and deploy their campaigns. . And our early customers wanted us to do all like, ‘Can you write our blogs for us?

Social Media 273

Social Media Content Marketing Enterprise Retention 273

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2022

A reminder to learn in early when you get early traction outside your home geo. SLA 99.999% across 150+ Data Centers. The “Golden Ratio” in SaaS, when your customer count grows almost as fast as revenue. #8. And what investors are looking for today. They want — it all. Yes, this is hard.

Scale 243

Scale Cloud Scaling Revenue 243

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 23, 2024

I know the two of you have been using “old school” AI for some time now, but why don’t we start with how you’re using GenAI in your companies? When I think about AI, the most important thing is how do we leverage the data that we have to actually create that trust environment for our customers. That data is not public.

Payments 107

Payments Forecasting Payment Services Payment Solutions 107

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2023

Even considering the more conservative fundraising market in 2023, there are opportunities for startups to get investor attention with AI. It’s simply a matter of watching your burn: “The main difference in the market between 2021 and today is that efficiency matters more than growth.” Agents remember your actions and emulate them.

Generative AI 188

Generative AI AI Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 188

SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2020

Given that so many VC pitches are over Zoom now, I thought it would be worth re-freshing this classic SaaStr post on things it’s easy to get wrong when pitching investors. You’ll get better at it over time. Before your next pitch: Cold emails work. A cold email has to be so awesome, anyone would want to invest.

Consulting 341

Consulting Investment Cloud Data 341

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2023

Anu has spent a few years pitching Expensify and explaining its performance to investors and is often met with curious stares before someone asks, “Why would you want to be cash-positive?” Strategy #1: Iterate Using Real User Feedback Make it a habit to iterate on your product using real user feedback.

Outsourcing Services 246

Outsourcing Services Sales Hiring Scale SaaS 246

ChurnZero

MAY 2, 2024

The 2024 B2B SaaS Benchmarking Survey by SaaS Capital is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of its kind for SaaS and customer success leaders who want to know where they stand compared to peers and competitors. Takeaway 2: Increase your NRR to increase your growth rate faster.

Benchmarks 52

Benchmarks B2B SaaS Technical Review 52

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2020

Satya Patel: I wanted to start by just talking a little bit about something that all of you have been hearing about, which is PPP loans, the SBA program for getting capital to companies in need. You’ve all probably gotten a cold email from a VC associate or partner asking about your business or wanting to understand your market.

Scale 144

Scale Finance Investment Government 144

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2022

With so much remote-first, CXOs have to be much more thoughtful about when and how we gather, particularly with your execs. . But in 2022, you need your VPs to work together like a tightly oiled machine, and trust us when we say, the ones that started since 2020 are not as dialed-in with the rest of the exec team. .

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 234

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Scale Sales Hiring Scaling 234

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2021

Their CEO will join us at SaaSr Scale 2021 on December 15 to talk about using data to get to 10,000 SMB customers! Going into the interviews, I knew what I wanted out of a job– that part was simple. I wanted to learn a lot quickly, work with brilliant and motivated people, and make a meaningful contribution to the company.

Scale 264

Scale Sales Hiring Sales SMB 264

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

When do you have time to think about preparing your company for the future? As you scale up, it’s essential to ensure that your sales tax management process is accurate and automated, so you don’t run into compliance issues in the future. . Let’s explore a few more ways in which sales tax compliance could impact your growing business.

Payment Services 269

Payment Services compliance SaaS Payments Scale 269

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2019

Q: Why would an investor invest in a pre-revenue company? If you are a start-up investor, in a perfect world, you would wait. To get more data, more information, more traction. As long as the price doesn’t go up too much, it’s still generally better to wait. If you really want to do it. As long as you could.

Investment 149

Investment Revenue Venture Capital Pricing 149

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Believe It Or Not, It’s Time for Your First User Conference One thing that always works in marketing is bringing your customers and prospects together IRL. Your Customer Success Team. Hire your first customer success manager as early as you can afford to once you have some larger customers. And you can start very small.

Sales Hiring 235

Sales Hiring Technical Advisors Compensation Outsourced Development 235

SaaStr

MAY 13, 2020

Why Do VCs Want To Own So Much When They Invest? Isn’t just making your investors a good return enough? And of course, a $5b IPO would be even “better” than this $500m example. There are other ways to approach the data, and the strategy. The post Why Do VCs Want To Own So Much When They Invest?

Investment 226

Investment Startup Strategy Data 226

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

In an eye-opening workshop, WorkRamp CEO Ted Blosser shares how to overcome setbacks, trust your customers, and defy traditional wisdom to carve out a path to growth. WorkRamp was plagued with a series of hurdles during these early years, including: Rejections from investors. SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays are LIVE every Wednesday.

Scale 207

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 207

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

There is a common misconception that product-market fit means you’ve conceptually built what buyers want. Changing your KPI’s. Cap your burn. Consider raising less money in your seed round. Learn about your investors previous bad investments (this could determine your fate!). #2 2 Investor = Boss.

Underperforming Technical Team 178

Underperforming Technical Team Startup Engineering Retention 178

Kellblog

MAY 12, 2023

These slides are largely the same as the KiwiSaaS ones, with the notable exception that European companies may find some of the data more relevant because Michael was able, in several cases, to replace my largely US-based benchmarks with data from Balderton’s universe of European SaaS companies. I love that quote.)

Metrics 114

Metrics Benchmarks Social Media Retention 114

ChurnZero

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

Customer Success Metrics that Your Investors and Board Care About. Have you ever wondered what your investors are looking for in board meetings? Are you facing a project like a merger or acquisition that requires you to work with new investors or existing investors in a new capacity?

Customer Success 98

Customer Success Metrics Engagement Software Review 98