Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 4, 2023

In percentage terms, last quarter dropped the most since 2000, falling 94% year-over-year. The US startup M&A market in Q4 2022 was one of the quietest in the last 20 years. It rivals the dotcom bust & Global Financial Crisis for its paucity. US venture-backed M&A fell from $34.6b in Q4 2021 to a paltry $2.1b in Q4 2022.

Startup 327

Startup Marketing Acquisition Pricing 327

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

So far this year, 29 venture-backed companies have tried initial offerings, compared with 252 in 2000. Most vulnerable are funds that were raised and invested at the height of the bubble, in 1999 and 2000, when 70 percent of all high-technology venture capital for the last two decades was invested. Venture capital funds lost 18.2

Venture Capital 255

Venture Capital Acquisition Investment Technology 255

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2021

Our story starts in the bottom right of corner in the year 2000 with 6% interest rates and $18.2b The x-axis plots yield of the 10 year Treasury (average for the year). The y-axis tracks enture capital investment by year and the year of the data point resides in the reddish circle.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Marketing Government Investment 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2019

Well, if you haven’t worked in the Fortune 500 / Global 2000 before, it may seem confusing. But some rough maths: The largest Global 2000 companies will pay 10-20+ SaaS vendors $20m+ or more per year. The largest Global 2000 companies will pay 50-100+ SaaS vendors $1m or more per year. Their core ERP, CRM, etc.

Cybersecurity 228

Cybersecurity SaaS Investment Software 228

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 3, 2022

More financings occur outside San Francisco, but Bay Area companies now raise 2000 to 2500 rounds per year, up from 404. While SF based companies’ round share may have declined, the aggregate dollars infused into the Bay Area ecosystem grew from $1.4b per year to $30b-$36b per year.

Startup 309

Startup Finance Investment Marketing 309

SaaStr

JULY 19, 2020

200+ Invite-only CTOs and CIOs from Global 2000 and Fortune 500 and Tech leaders. Are you excited for SaaStr Enterprise on July 29? You should be! 5,200+ Cloud CEOs, CTOs, CXOs, VCs and execs focused on the Enterprise. 100+ Roundtables.

Cloud 302

Cloud Enterprise SaaS 302

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2020

Adapt, Plan Deliver: Founder/CEO Lessons from 2000 & 2008 Applied to 2020 With Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Bessemer Venture Partner’s Byron Deeter. Some of the newer additions you may not have seen: What It’s Really Like Selling to the Enterprise Now — With CEO of Zuora + CIOs of Zendesk and Nutanix.

Enterprise 290

Enterprise Sales Strategy 290

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2020

9: Founder/CEO Lessons from 2000 & 2008 Applied to 2020 with Jeff Lawson, Twilio and Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners. #10: . #7: Twilio: The Inside Story With Jeff Lawson (A SaaStr Classic). #8: 8: 12 Key Levers of SaaS Success with David Skok of Matrix Partners (another SaaStr Classic). #9:

Benchmarks 283

Benchmarks Trends SaaS Revenue 283

SaaStr

AUGUST 17, 2021

Today, about 12% do (240 of 2000 customers). Coupa isn’t as much a fintech as SMB players like Bill.com, but it’s getting there with Coupa Pay. Coupa plans the majority of its customers to be running payments through their platform in 10 years. This is a bigger task than SMB, but a huge market. And a few bonus notes: 6.

Payments 325

Payments SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 325

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2024

Once you are established, once you have a brand … most of your prospects and customers will know they can never commit the long-term resources to “competing” with the 200–2000 releases and updates you’ll do over the coming decade. The millions, and then tens of millions, and then hundreds of millions you’ll spend annually on R&D.

ChatGPT 286

ChatGPT Innovation AI Branding 286

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

More than 2000 employees work all over the world and have collaborated to build a massive software business. GitLab is the first fully remote software company to go public. GitLab provides a suite of DevOps tools that enable engineering teams to build and deploy software, and then secure it.

Metrics 315

Metrics Outsourced Development Scale Cloud 315

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2022

Better to come back with 20 great opportunities with demos and follow-ups already on the calendar … than 200 or 2000 badge scans you dump into a marketing automation solution. More is OK too, just have everyone identify a handful, and why. At least for most of us. On a related point, you may want to staff up with SDRs, if you have them.

Marketing 279

Marketing Growth Marketing Sales 279

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2024

If you haven’t sold to the F500 / Global 2000 before, you’ll be somewhat surprised to learn that between the CIO’s office and functional heads, at most huge companies, there is a clear goal to bring in a handful of new “innovative vendors” into the company each year.

Startup 278

Startup Innovation Enterprise Software 278

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Fortunately, since 2000, Mailchimp has been able to autonomously succeed and fail on its own terms. In 2000, everything was unbundling from desktops…and going to the cloud. Up until the acquisition, the company was 100% founder-owned and operated. He describes a cycle of bundling and unbundling that repeats over time. “In

SMB 259

SMB Entertainment Acquisition Branding 259

SaaStr

JUNE 9, 2021

Another reminder that the enterprise is far bigger than the Fortune 500 and Global 2000. 1,000 Customers at $2B in ARR. So about $2m ACV on average. And added 59 new customers last quarter. Veeva already has 1,000 enterprise customers alone — that pay $2m each a year on average!

Scale 306

Scale Cloud Enterprise Scaling 306

SaaStr

OCTOBER 9, 2024

35% of the Global 2000 are customers, and it has over 3,000 $100k+ customers and 567 $1M+ ARR customers. #4. 3,100 $100k+ Customers, Up From 973 in 2020. And 567 $1m+ Customers. Zscaler has customers Small, Medium and Large, but overall its approach is pretty enterprise.

Software Review 312

Software Review Cybersecurity Enterprise Scale 312

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2020

If you also own Salesforce, and you are #3 (Google), you get instant additional cred and footprint with the Fortune 500 and Cloud 2000. Everyone in Cloud is now dueling in the enterprise. They all are already using and trusting Salesforce, after all. So it makes a lot of sense. Having said all that, are the synergies real ?

Sales Recruiting 294

Sales Recruiting Scale Sales Hiring Cloud 294

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2023

Their focus is customers with 2-2,000 employees, and “up market” is 200-2000. We had an incredible discussion with founder and chairman Brian Halligan on just how big a moat their partner ecosystem is: #9.

Scale 325

Scale SMB Headcount New CTO 325

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2020

Founder/CEO Lessons From 2000, 2008 and 2020 with Jeff Lawson and Byron Deeter , CEO of Twilio and GP at Bessemer Venture Partners. Funding in the Time of Coronavirus, Mark Suster , Upfront Ventures. Marking Trade-Offs in Marketing: What to Do, What to Pause with CMO of Tripactions , Meagan Eisenberg.

Enterprise 242

Enterprise Strategy Sales Management 242

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 10, 2023

Looker began to sell successfully to Fortune 500/Global 2000 companies who required new features & scaling other ones: e.g., managing a user base measured in thousands. As the business grew, the Looker team expanded that focus to non-technical users (hounds) - the business analysts consuming, sharing, & commenting on dashboards.

Scale 235

Scale Startup Scaling Management 235

SaaStr

MARCH 3, 2021

Global 2000 and larger SME customers pick the vendor that solves their problems. But even just a few years ago, it wasn’t a large enough platform. Most Enterprise, Best Solution Provider. While harder to do in practice than in concept, this almost always works. Not just a tool that has a certain set of functionality.

Marketing 353

Marketing Scale Branding Enterprise 353

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 23, 2022

But at the same time, Twilio hasn’t gone radically upmarket overall, despite 30% of the Global 2000 being customers. That’s up from $10,000 at $2B and $7,000 at IPO , so account size growth has been important fuel for Twilio. ACVs are up 70% since IPO. And a few other notes: #6.

Scale 285

Scale Cloud Scaling Acquisition 285

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2020

Their competitor bought them out in April 2000, couldn’t IPO, and was bankrupt by August. Take a watch before or after you read the learnings: Jeff founded his last 2 companies before Twilio during the last 2 downturns, so he’s thought through a lot of things we’ve all been going through.

CTO Hire 355

CTO Hire New CTO CTO Airlines 355

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

Just last week, I introduced a $2m ARR CEO to a $2000 ARR CEO. Because for now, they’ll still take the call. They have more time, too. But they won’t when we’re past this. Before Covid, the bigger CEO wouldn’t have taken the meeting.

Underperforming Technical Team 334

Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring Travel Cloud 334

SaaStr

APRIL 4, 2020

Imagine you were a seed VC: Started as an angel, in say 2000. Let’s take a fun example of a simply awesome SaaS company that will IPO soon, doing hundreds of millions in ARR — Procore. Procore was founded in 2003. Start raising own fund in 2002. Finally close own fund in 2003, after 12 months. Invest in seed round of Procore in 2003.

Venture Capital 239

Venture Capital Investment SaaS Compensation 239

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2019

Most of the Fortune 500 / Global 2000 can pay $1m+ a year for applications every employee uses. Blend them together and you get net 60% revenue growth on “just” a 30% growth in customer count. 50+ paid customers with $1m+ ACV. That may sound like a lot to you for Slack, but Slack has grown a lot in the enterprise.

Cloud 255

Cloud Enterprise Trends Development 255

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Many years ago, I used VoodooPad, a freeware Mac app in the early 2000 that also works. Obsidian is more focused on writing, is a local-client, and sort of open-source using markdown and local files with a promise to open source if the company winds down.

Innovation 263

Innovation Startup Pricing Strategy 263

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

I started my career as a tech recruiter, working exclusively with venture backed startups from 2000-2003. It’s going to end in a firesale, an asset sale, or some kind of sale where nobody makes any money. It was a great training ground to learn how to handicap a startups chances for success or failure.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Sales 306

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2021

2000:10 or something. Or sometimes they are great, but the team members are just not great enough for their new C-level roles (CEO, CTO, CMO, CSO, CBO, C?O). Yes, I know statistically, the odds are horribly against you when you do a start-up. The Series A Crunch. Whatever. It’s all true. {I Controversial but I think true.

Part-Time VPE 263

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire New CTO CTO 263

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2021

A $2000 ACV? And it became clear to me that five-figure or larger ACV deals could clearly support an inside sales team, once I handed those off to sales. But how low can you go? Can you really sustain a sales team around a $299/mo product? What about a $199 or even a $99/mo price point? Different companies will have different experiences.

SMB 338

SMB Pricing Sales Metrics 338

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

I started both my companies in downturns, post-2000 and post-2008. It is important to continually reaffirm and build conviction on PMF before increasing your burn too much. #4. What’s your pulse check on the venture markets right now, today? This is an incredible time to build companies.

Innovation 290

Innovation Wireless Acquisition Technology 290

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2019

That’s a lot more than the 500 in the “Fortune 500” So as you begin to go upmarket, whether it is in the beginning or, like Shopify and RingCentral, later … assume you have at least 2000+ mega-accounts to target. No excuses. Salesforce’s largest customers are growing the fastest.

SaaS 277

SaaS Scale Retention Cloud 277

Tom Tunguz

JULY 16, 2020

The book recounts five crashes: 1907, 1929, 1987, 2000, and 2010. I read Galbraith’s The Great Crash of 1929 and it’s good, but focuses only on a single event. A History of the United States in Five Crashes is the best I’ve found. So it doesn’t cover all US stock market crashes.

Marketing 262

Marketing Banking Investment Pricing 262

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

Atlassian, another software company, was founded in the year 2000 before the modern VC landscape developed into its present form. Yet because of this decision to focus on growth instead of profitability, they achieved one of the highest revenue growth metrics at the time of IPO of any software company. 2 Gross Margin.

Metrics 278

Metrics Banking Benchmarks Investment 278

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2023

From the 1980s to around 2000, the internet wasn’t really a thing in most places. Fast forward 10 and 20 years, from 2000-2020, and executives took control of the buying decisions. This Isn’t The 90’s Buying patterns have understandably changed over the decades. CFOs were looking for solutions to budgeting and planning.

Sales 246

Sales Travel Forecasting Startup 246

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 30, 2021

The dot-com bubble in 2000 ravaged many of the winners in the 80s and 90s, including Julian Robertson’s Tiger Global, another major global macro investor on par with Soros' Quantum Fund. However, it sparked a new wave of quantitative investing.

Innovation 224

Innovation Marketing Banking Forecasting 224

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2021

’ We always thought that there’d be a giant market down below that Fortune 500 for startups that wanted to scale from 2 employees to 2000 employees and build a killer product for those people. Everyone else in the world, even now our big investors ask us now, ‘when are you going to go sell to the Fortune 500?’

Social Media 290

Social Media Content Marketing Enterprise Retention 290