The Daily Egg

APRIL 10, 2019

Crazy Egg was founded in 2005, and ever since then we’ve built a globally distributed team of super smart, talented, hard-working humans from around the world. Not to sound too hipster, but we’ve been working remotely before it was cool.

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SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024

It was founded way back in 2005, back when my last SaaS startup was, so I have a dim memory of it. So TechCrunch had a good story on a 19-year journey of Sharefile to an $875,000,000 exit. Fast forward to today, they’ve sold for a stunning $875 million. But it’s not quite that simple.

SaaS 289

SaaS Acquisition Pricing Startup 289

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2022

Fenwick’s data on valuation increases going all the way back to 2005 illustrates that: #4. Even though things are down, SaaS overall and valuations are still much, much stronger than anytime before 2019. Software hasn’t been hit as hard as other tech segments.

Pricing 328

Pricing Social Media B2C Startup 328

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2021

It was founded in 2005 and took 10 years to get to $1m in ARR!! It took 3 years just to get to $1M in ARR and 7+ years to get to the first $10M ARR. But today, it’s at an incredible $700,000,000+ in ARR !! More on that here. UiPath was the most extreme of all. More on that here.

Construction 314

Construction SMB Mobile Cloud 314

SaaStr

JANUARY 11, 2023

Founder Has Been CEO since founding in 2005, ownership down to 3.7%. Not enterprise-high NRR, but about what I’d expect from their ACV and category. And a few other interesting learnings: #6. 80% of customers sign multi-year contracts.

Scale 351

Scale Pricing Scaling Enterprise 351

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

So far back, to 2005 and beyond, it’s arguable too far back to matter today. This chart before from data Meritech tracks helps illustrate the bear case here: I like t he Meritech data not only because it’s well presented, but because you can go way back in time. Back to the early days in SaaS public companies. Yet we see trends.

Cloud 289

Cloud Trends Revenue SaaS 289

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2021

Founded in 2005 in Bucharest, Romania, by Daniel Dines and Marius Tirca, the company now operates more than 60 offices housing nearly 3000 employees. UIPath, leaders in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, filed their S-1 last week , revealing an impressive business.

Payment Services 359

Payment Services Metrics Payment Solutions Payments 359

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2023

Not easy, but easier and easier: There was a bump in 2016, a Flash Crash in SaaS, when budgets were slashed, but it didn’t last long enough to really impact renewal cycles.

SaaS 310

SaaS Churn Sales Software 310

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

It’s not 2005 or 2015 anymore, folks. The guys that had hits 6-8 years ago often run established firms. This makes sense. They also are the guys the LPs (the VC firm’s own investors) are really investing in. But sometimes, their best days are behind them. The world has changed. So starting by 30 makes a lot of sense.

Scale 287

Scale Investment Scaling Management 287

Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 2, 2024

In 2005, Gmail claimed the title of most sophisticated app. When the internet became popular in the 1990s, websites were static & adopted the design language of their creators : blue links & images. Then, we added interactivity with Javascript. Soon there after, Google Maps enabled interactivity in the browser for 2D maps.

AI 229

AI Mobile 229

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Dynatrace was founded way back in 2005 and has been in the “steady growth” camp, now crossing $1B in ARR and a $10.5 Leaders like Crowdstrike and adjacent players from Datadog to Okta and more are higher profile. But it’s what’s in fashion today.

Scale 274

Scale Scaling Engineering Enterprise 274

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2020

Will Ferrell SNL Oracle Skit 2005 from Alford Media Services on Vimeo. Have reasonable, achievable expectations. Don’t let PR just be a cost center line item in your VPM’s budget. And if it ain’t working … make a change. note: an updated SaaStr Classic post).

Technical Review 348

Technical Review SaaS Business 348

The Daily Egg

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Heatmaps have been our signature product since 2005. But we’ve grown quite a bit since then, and you may be surprised to learn about the full range of website optimization tools that we offer.

User Experience 208

User Experience 208

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2023

One leader in SMB commerce is Lightspeed Commerce, founded way back in 2005. But “POS” systems and software are everywhere, and are a lot more than just Toast and Square. They are strongest in retail, but also have a presence in restaurants as well.

Payment Solutions 289

Payment Solutions Point of Sale Payments SaaS Payments 289

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 1, 2021

I remember joining Google in 2005. A few weeks ago, Office Hours at Redpoint welcomed Claire Hughes-Johnson, former COO at Stripe and VP at Google. Claire’s operational experience is one-of-a-kind, and the conversation focused on scaling startups. In the halls, I heard colleagues say great things about how terrific a leader Claire is.

Scale 244

Scale Scaling Payment Services Leadership 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

In 2005, eBay spent $2.6 One of the most notorious examples of a post-M&A culture misfit is the 2005 merger of Kansas-based Sprint and Nextel. in 2005), recently acquired TalkIQ, a leader in the artificial intelligence and machine learning, and our shared culture and values have been a key factor to the success of this deal.

Acquisition 188

Acquisition Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning 188

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

He’s the visionary behind the Box product and platform strategy and has also served on the Board of Directors at Box since April 2005. Aaron Levie is the CEO and Co-founder of Box, a cloud-based content management and collaboration platform. Previously, he was the CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, which was acquired by Adobe in 2011.

Scale 297

Scale Cloud Scaling Interviewing 297

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2021

It got started in 2005 with a $500k seed round. Only burned $24m to get to $100m+ in revenues — but it took a long time as a result. Prior to IPO, Olo had raised $100m, but it still had $76m of cash on hand — so net of revenue, it only burned $24m to get to $100m+ in ARR. And growth was very modest in the early years.

Merchant Services 238

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payments Payment Services 238

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

If we step back to 2004-2005, when BILL was just an idea, the first realization was that this had to be simple. That’s the part that becomes a moat competitively. BILL is moving money and doing it well, all while being highly regulated. Bill Has Acheived 80% Gross Margins — How?

SMB 312

SMB Payment Services Payments Payment Methods 312

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 7, 2021

Web1 (roughly 1990-2005) was about open protocols that were decentralized and community-governed. Web2 (roughly 2005-2020) was about siloed, centralized services run by corporations. Most of the value accrued to the edges of the network — users and builders.

Government 145

Government 145

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2022

When we started EchoSign / Adobe Sign in 2005/2006, the web-based e-signature market was $1m in market size. And other markets, the best founders like Benioff, Jobs, Gates, Zuck, etc. redefined markets. You can do it that way, too. Add 10-100x more value to a market than existing before, and the market size can grow 10-1000x, too.

Scale 362

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Startup 362

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2023

This surge could parallel the personal computer’s doubling of the US labor productivity rate from 2005-2015 when computers penetrated most business operations which correlates to Moore’s Law according to a research report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Artificial Intelligence 194

Artificial Intelligence AI Search Government Banking 194

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2023

The Number One Thing That Has Changed In SaaS Since 2005 “The number one thing that has changed over my entire journey with SaaS since 2005 is efficiency,” shares Lemkin. Lemkin and the Monday team share how this manufactured metric doesn’t determine cash flow and what metrics you can use instead.

Metrics 240

Metrics SaaS Sales Hiring Finance 240

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 28, 2014

I’m using Crunchbase data since 2005 for tech companies in the US. There’s a rule of thumb batted around the valley that the worst times to raise capital are in the dog-days of summer and after Thanksgiving. As it turns out, this aphorism is only a half-truth. Below is a chart of the dollars VCs have invested by month of year.

Technical Review 197

Technical Review Startup Finance Investment 197

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

Docebo was started and funded in 2005 and became a SaaS player in 2012. They take pride in this because they believe anyone can build a great business without burning a lot of cash. Alessio shared that early on in his career, he wished he prioritized profitability more than he did. Instead, it was growth at all costs.

Sales Hiring 268

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Outsourced Development 268

IT World

SEPTEMBER 2, 2021

Web browser functions like those trace their roots back more than a decade, and the feature — first found in a top browser in 2005 — spread quickly as one copied another, made tweaks and minor improvements. Private browsing. Privacy mode. Protect Your Privacy. Online privacy: Best browsers, settings, and tips.

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SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

Lemkin’s been a SaaS entrepreneur since 2005, and SaaS didn’t come into fashion until 2019. “Recurring software revenue is now recognized as a great way to generate tons of cash for investors,” says Gerety. But that wasn’t always the case. It took a while. That’s 14 years of waiting for people to get excited!

Sales Hiring 277

Sales Hiring Headcount Finance Technical Review 277

SaaStock

FEBRUARY 13, 2019

Launched in 2005 in New York and Guangzhou, Gizwits has become the largest IoT development platform in China, as well as its first PaaS and SaaS platform. Founded : 2005. Funding to Date : $2M from corporate round. It provides smart hardware self-development and cloud service. Founders : Jack Huang. Based in: Guangzhou, China.

SaaS Payments 225

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Payment Methods 225

SaaStr

MAY 22, 2019

YC has funded over 1,900 startups since 2005 including Airbnb, coinbase, Dropbox, Stripe, Flexport, instacart and reddit. About Michael… Number six on our list, Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel who was popular across all metrics but saw especially high interest in his speaker profile and pre-registrations months before the event.

Scale 170

Scale Leadership Consulting Metrics 170

The Angel VC

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

I had always been a consumer Internet guy, having founded comparison shopping engine DealPilot.com back in 1997 and personalized homepage Pageflakes in 2005. The first date When I stumbled on Zendesk in 2008 I knew absolutely nothing about enterprise software, B2B or SaaS.

Scale 155

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Software Review 155

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 18, 2015

Publicly-traded SaaS companies founded from 2008 through 2014 needed 50% less time to reach $50M than their counterparts founded between 1998 and 2005. SaaS startups are growing faster than ever before.

SaaS 113

SaaS Engineering Trends Enterprise 113

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2023

UiPath was founded back in 2005, and its origin story is similar to many technical engineers-turned-founders. UiPath’s CEO, Daniel Dines, has emphasized the importance of being open to customer feedback and building amazing connections with some of their biggest clients. Dines’ story is humble, embodying his company values early on.

Scale 244

Scale Artificial Intelligence Technical Review Software Review 244

Neil Patel

DECEMBER 31, 2020

Google Trends data shows a massive dropoff since RSS hit its peak back around 2005. Google launched Google Reader in 2005 and quickly built up a loyal following because it was simple, efficient, and free. Then, in 2013, Google Reader was switched off, and their popularity has dwindled. Dwindled, but not vanished entirely.

Social Media 143

Social Media AI Search Blockchain Content Marketing 143

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 28, 2022

Sanj started working at Salesforce back in 2005, when the company had around 1,000 employees and a few hundred million in revenue, and he was a part of its growth for 14 years, holding several leadership positions in multiple markets in EMEA. In 2005, I was very lucky to join a company called Salesforce, which had just IPO’d.

Scale 210

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 210

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 7, 2015

In 2005, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were vying to win dominant share of advertising pages across large publishers. When I was a PM at Google, we conducted customer research often to understand our customers’ opinions on AdSense.

Product Marketing 121

Product Marketing Development Team Review Software Review Startup 121

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 20, 2016

in 2005 to $24B in 2015. Over the last ten years, the total amount of revenue generated by software companies has tripled from $53B to $169B, meaning SaaS companies are both taking share and growing the market. The growth rate of SaaS revenues follows a geometric growth curve ramping from $1.3B

SaaS 100

SaaS Revenue Software Data 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 6, 2016

in 2005, but they were nearly cash-flow break-even throughout the period. An example of a relatively extreme case, from 2001 to 2007, Concur grew between 0% and 35% each year. It took the company nearly five years to double revenue from $35.7M in 2000 to $71.8M Ultimately, Concur sold for $8.3B.

SaaS 113

SaaS Startup Mobile Pricing 113