article thumbnail

Even With Just “Pretty Good Growth”, You Can Build a Unicorn After $10m ARR

SaaStr

Mailchimp in 2001. Here are a few scenarios with initial growth rates at $10m ARR, with a growth decay factor baked in: The hyper-growth company really can get to $100m ARR fast. UiPath did it. But you know what? They didn’t start there. UiPath actually was founded in 2005!!

Scaling 363
article thumbnail

5 Interesting Learnings From Five9 at $550,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

It’s old, founded in 2001. And in many cases, pre-Covid, they’d been working on decades-old server-based phone systems. Pre-Cloud systems, really. So Five9, Talkdesk, RingCentral, Dialpad and more boomed during Covid. Five9 is particularly interesting. It wasn’t a rocketship.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Bezos' Shareholder Letter in 2000

Tom Tunguz

Amazon stood fast to their principles throughout. Just as important, though, Amazon managed their finances well. Net Income, $m. Cash & ST Equivalents, $m. Before the dotcom crash, Amazon grew at 68% and lost -$1.4b in net income.

article thumbnail

The Power of Going Long in SaaS

SaaStr

Blackline : Founded 2001, boostrapped. Today, just 2 years after that, Hubspot in a very similar space (just more SMB) and with very similar revenue, is worth $18B. That’s 18x. Shopify: Founded 2006. Original CEO steps down, Tobi has to take over. 2015 IPO at $1.27B. Today, $128B market cap. 100x from IPO. Unable to raise any money.

SaaS 271
article thumbnail

Office Hours with Lee Kirkpatrick, former Twilio CFO on Managing through Turbulence

Tom Tunguz

During the dotcom crash in 2001, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and the SaaS corrections in 2014, 2016, and 2018, Lee was either COO/CFO or CFO at Twilio, SAY Media, and Ofoto. Lee Kirkpatrick is no stranger to downturns.

article thumbnail

Venture Capital, Withering & Dying

Tom Tunguz

Amy Cortese published “Venture Capital, Withering & Dying” in the New York Times on Oct 21, 2001. I came across it during a Google search & reading through the article. It’s a powerful reminder of history’s rhymes. 11, investors have become much more discriminating.

article thumbnail

SaaStr’s Most Respected Leaders Awards 2019: The Top Five

SaaStr

eventually rising to CEO in 2001. The company just raised another $33M round this March from Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures and former Obama White House advisor Valerie Jarrett. Sallie Krawcheck started her career on Wall Street as a senior research analyst at Sanford Bernstein and Co.,