SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2021

GRR (Gross Retention Rate) of 97%. First $100k customer in 2017. We’re getting used to seeing these super-high NRR numbers from the top developer-focused leaders, in many cases because utility pricing often encourages it (see also Datadog, Twilio, etc). Still, these are truly top-tier numbers: #2. Almost all of them. #3.

Outsourced Development 67

Outsourced Development Software Development Innovation Cloud 67

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2019

130%+ revenue retention. One consistent theme for every B2B/B2D company we’ve profiled here about to IPO, or that has recently IPO, is they all have outstanding revenue retention — even ones selling to SMBs like Zoom and Pagerduty. Fastly is no exception, with 130%+ revenue retention for the past 3 years.

Outsourced Development 259

Outsourced Development AWS Retention Enterprise 259

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2020

(Note: I wrote a version of this in 2017 when times were good. Hiring, marketing, retention, fundraising, everything. It’s just as relevant today, more so really, but thought it could use some updates. So here’s the 2020+ version). __. Hopefully, things are great. It makes everything easier. Show up to that webinar.

Sales Hiring 351

Sales Hiring Startup Investment Revenue 351

SaaStr

JULY 7, 2021

Top-tier revenue retention for SMBs and relatively high pricing for SMBs scales nicely. Where it Went: $45m revenue in 2017 and reported $100m+ in 2021, but acquired for modest sum in 2021. Where it Went: Acquired for $850m+ by Sage in 2017. 543 Upwork (oDesk). in 2011 GAAP revenue. Thought this would be about $50m. 557 SEOmoz.

SaaS 291

SaaS Technical Review Software Review Scaling 291

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

This was around 2017, and CS became simpler and focused on post-sales, retention, and reduced churn. This revenue chart is 2017-2021 before Braze IPO’d. They hired tech support people, and they got re-entrenched into the zero-to-one building mindset rather than the rest of the CSM function, which already had a little scale.

Scale 297

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 297

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

net retention and CAC payback). The charts below show the change in quarterly revenue YoY (so Q1 ‘24 rev - Q1 ‘23 rev) going back to 2017. Net Revenue Retention High net revenue retention is the fourth aspect of a successful quarter, and one of my favorite metrics to evaluate in private SaaS companies.

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2021

until 2017, but then it did so aggressively. And gross retention stayed high at 95% — the same as pre-Covid. Go long, folks. He owns 6% at IPO. Iconiq bought up an impressive 40%.). #8. Slow to go international, but now a force. Procore didn’t really expand outside of the U.S. Now, 12.2%

Construction 300

Construction Scale Pricing Mobile 300

The Angel VC

MAY 12, 2018

4 – More than half a million $ per head As of December 31, 2017, Dropbox had 1,858 employees. Revenue for 2017 was $1.107B. As a result, we may be unable to address any retention issues with specific users in a timely manner, which could harm our business.” We “ do not track the retention rate of our individual users”.

AWS 187

AWS Scale Payment Features Subscription 187

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

The top quartile companies have increased their growth rates from 65% in 2017 to over 100% in 2019, and we’re able to maintain that growth rate in 2020, despite a lot of the headwinds that COVID presented. But we aren’t just seeing more unicorns because cloud companies are being given a higher multiple on the same ARR.

Cloud 286

Cloud Scale Payment Methods Payment Solutions 286

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2019

But in 2017, brands matter more than ever. This will drive up your net retention, drive down your churn, and drive up NPS. Being a CEO isn’t a lonely job on a daily basis, but too many tough decisions are made too solo, without a good mentor. Add one to the team. Drive Up Your NPS. Because there’s vendor fatigue.

Part-Time VPE 328

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 328

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2021

It added its Dispatch and Rails modules just in 2015 and 2017, and added transactional pricing to its Ordering module in 2016. Customers sign 3 year contracts, with 99% enterprise customer retention. We’ve seen this with Box and others as well. 71% of Olo’s customers now use all 3 of its modules, up from 44% in 2019.

Merchant Services 249

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payments Payment Services 249

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 16, 2024

One of the clearest examples of how lopsided the services-to-software dynamic can be is from Mulesoft’s S1 filing in 2017. In many markets, the spend on services (both internal dev services and spend on outsourcing) dwarfs the spend on software. At the time, Mulesoft estimated their market opportunity at $29 billion.

Outsourcing Services 274

Outsourcing Services Cloud Software Outsourced Development 274

Andreessen Horowitz

MAY 7, 2024

For consumer products, the rubber hits the road at retention. Great retention is a natural result of delivering the core product value to users, which of course varies by product. Can these “retention boosters” apply to them? Here are the 7 most effective ways for AI-native consumer companies to improve their retention.

AI Search 104

AI Search AI Retention Artificial Intelligence 104

User Pilot

JULY 23, 2020

You’re leaving cash on the table for your competitors to sweep up if you don’t have a strategy for retention marketing. So, in this blog we’ll show you how to keep your customers happy with a targeted retention strategy. What is Retention Marketing? How to Measure Retention. Day 1 Retention. Week 1 Retention.

Retention 95

Retention SaaS Payments Strategy Payment Solutions 95

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2019

Offering a wider choice of payment options, such as allowing users to add multiple credit cards when subscribing (also reducing the potential for failed transactions) or ACH/Direct Debit transfers, also creates a frictionless experience for the end user which will help customer retention in the long-term. A 2017 U.S. purchases made.

SaaS Payments 236

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods Payment Solutions 236

User Pilot

JULY 12, 2021

How much does your business stand to gain from using customer retention analytics? Effective retention takes more than just using your intuition to determine what will keep customers satisfied. Customer retention analytics identify rates and sources of churn among your customer segments. What is customer retention analytics?

Retention 98

Retention Technical Review Software Review Churn 98

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2021

Examples of great topics: 12 Key Levers of SaaS Success; Numbers That Actually Matter for Founders; Fighting Churn with Data; How to Calculate Net Dollar Retention Rate; Navigating Your Career in the SaaS World, etc. How to Fund and Scale your SaaS Juggernaut Outside Silicon Valley. Operational. The Founder’s Story.

Sales Hiring 233

Sales Hiring Scale Outbound Sales Team Interviewing 233

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2019

in 2017, the day before their IPO. A big part of this sales efficiency is the net dollar retention difference across the group. To put the company’s stellar trajectory in context, I’ve plotted its metrics relative to two other incredible monitoring companies: NewRelic (NEWR) and AppDynamics (APPD). as of this morning.

Metrics 189

Metrics Benchmarks Scale User Experience 189

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2023

By comparison, the median growth rate for these businesses from 2015-2017 was 27%. Additional Performance Metrics Net retention has fallen from 120% to closer to 110%, and indicates a lot more pressure in private and public companies. And as the growth rate goes up, multiples come down.

SaaS 291

SaaS Software Metrics Revenue 291

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 28, 2018

Look no further than the 2017 edition of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. This in turn will improve our conversion and retention rates, thus driving growth in our business. Our customers expect us to offer: Easy, online access to support. High-quality answers to their questions. Fast response and resolution times.

Revenue 213

Revenue Customer Support Onboarding Operational efficiency. 213

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2023

This is a level that hasn’t been commonly encountered since 2017-2018. We are in the era of efficiency – as a 10% QBR attendance is no longer adequate for achieving a 140% net revenue retention. There are worries over the persistence of low public multiples. Undeniably, there is a need for a transformative CS strategy.

Investment 163

Investment Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 163

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 5, 2018

For Duolingo, the world’s most downloaded education app, growth is fundamentally about retention. As VP of Marketing and Growth at Duolingo through 2017, improving retention was the top priority of Gina Gotthilf. What metrics were you monitoring most closely when it came to retention?

Underperforming Technical Team 223

Underperforming Technical Team Retention Engineering Metrics 223

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 19, 2018

A 2017 Fortune article, “Those Annoying Chatbots Can Save Business Billions,” highlighted research findings that chatbots could help customer service teams save more than $8 billion by the year 2022. 1 obstacle for these executives. Forward thinking companies are starting to make service a part of their product, with messaging at the core.

Customer Support 216

Customer Support AI Search Banking Airlines 216

OPEXEngine

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

Net dollar retention is the most important metric in SaaS. We find that companies with great net dollar retention (100%+) grow quickly and are more cash efficient than those with mediocre or poor net dollar retention. In summary, have a maniacal focus on net dollar retention. Republished with permission.

Retention 59

Retention SMB Social Media Payment Features 59

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 10, 2018

Those working in growth and retention must continually seek “fresh powder.”. Those early experiments you’re talking about happened during a time when they knew that storing and syncing files had very high retention. The interesting early story there is that they had amazing retention but not a lot of top-line growth.

Acquisition 224

Acquisition Marketplace as a Service Retention Startup 224

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2020

Our net retention rate was over 130%, so we have this really great pool of customers that all we needed to do was kind of find them. It’s not commissionable, but we’ve got a percentage-based bonus that is entirely focused on retention, so what’s the logo retention and the revenue retention.

Scale 191

Scale Payment Services Sales Hiring Payment Methods 191

Brian Balfour

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

I recently spoke with Andy as part of a 1 hour interview covering: How he brought a web-first product to mobile Activity notifications, rich push, and other techniques for driving mobile growth and retention Andy’s “Mobile Growth Stack” for 2017 You can watch the full interview here, and check out the truncated text version below.

Mobile 62

Mobile Retention Benchmarks Underperforming Technical Team 62

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 29, 2019

As Intercom’s business grew rapidly in 2017, we found ourselves at this exact crossroads. For example, our leadership team might decide to focus our company strategy on targeting the segments with the best revenue retention. We could no longer assume all our customers had uniform needs and could be reached the same way.

Business 184

Business B2C Scale Headcount 184

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Monday has gone from $7m in 2017 to over $700m in revenue today, showcasing the sheer power of compounding revenue. By optimizing for NRR, gross retention, and net retention. Did monday.com’s founders feel like they’d be 100x bigger in just six years since that first SaaStr conference they attended?

Scale 183

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Banking 183

Chart Mogul

APRIL 25, 2019

Ever wonder how retention affects cash flow? What this shows is that in 2018, the biggest chunk of cash received (in yellow) came from customers who signed up in 2017. This is what that looks like for the above customers: This analysis illustrates another reason why retention should be top of mind.

Subscription 90

Subscription Payment Features Retention Startup 90

Chart Mogul

MARCH 6, 2018

The introduction of a Family plan — Spotify’s Family plan allows multiple users in the same household to share a subscription — sees significantly higher retention (lower churn). Perhaps Spotify isn’t bothered by this, given that the retention is higher? year-over-year in Q4 2017). What decreases churn?

Metrics 75

Metrics Payments EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) SaaS Payments 75

Brian Balfour

JANUARY 24, 2019

In August 2017, a social quiz app aimed at teens and high schoolers named TBH (To Be Honest) skyrocketed to #1 in the app store in just a couple months. Facebook quickly acquired them for $100M in October 2017. That growth might be extremely slow, but if we saw that it means that we have flat retention curves + solid word of mouth.

Retention 111

Retention Engineering Onboarding Data 111

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2019

Vista Equity Partners invested in Zapproved in 2017. Based on that, sitting with kind of a couple hundred corporate customers, really high retention rates, good growth in our revenue, we decided to raise our first Institutional Round in 2014 and expand our product line. Want to see more content like this? Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020.

Scale 154

Scale Product Marketing Scaling Marketing 154

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 13, 2024

A $1B Acquisition with a Singular Leader for Both Sales and Customer Success In 2017, tech leader Vikas Bhambry found himself at a crossroads. Seamless customer journey Owning the entire customer lifecycle from acquisition to retention eliminated disconnects between pre- and post-sales teams. Lets get into it.

Scale 109

Scale Sales Hiring Acquisition Customer Success 109

ProfitWell

JANUARY 29, 2020

But, there are concrete numbers to prove its growth: From 2015-2017 the number of CSMs on LinkedIn grew by 8x. From 2017-2018: the number of CS positions posted on LinkedIn grew by 84%. Finally, understand customer health by correlating key features with retention and expansion. Outside the U.S., that growth is 10x.

Customer Success 52

Customer Success Retention Software Review Leadership 52

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 22, 2018

If you’re more early-stage you’re probably not going to want to focus on retention, assuming you have core product/market fit. Don’t do growth until you have a baseline of retention. Let’s assume you have product/market fit and baseline retention. That’s just table stakes.

Marketplace as a Service 189

Marketplace as a Service Scale Payment Solutions Payment Services 189

InsightSquared

JANUARY 29, 2018

In 2017, we talked a lot about the goal and strategic value sales operations offers an organization — what’s the objective of the revenue operations department? Joe Gelata , vice president of business operations at Axonify, noted, “The main goal of revenue operations is to break down the operations silos.

Scale 109

Scale Revenue Technical Advisors Sales 109