SaaStr

MAY 16, 2020

— Amit Karp (@amitkarp) May 15, 2020. in 2020 … Cloud and SaaS are still growing. Cloud is still projected to grow +19% in 2020, and SaaS 20%+. A very curious thing has happened during this very sad and stressful time: the Era of the SaaS Decacorn has firmly arrived.? market cap is now over $10 billion.

SaaS 364

SaaS Cloud Investment Marketing 364

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 9, 2022

In 2020, revenue growth was the most important factor explaining a public software company’s forward multiple. The formula has changed since then. Net income has surged to the highest correlate of a public software company’s multiple surpassing revenue growth. Preference changes pop out of the data. Net income surges to 0.71

Software 363

Software Revenue Metrics Sales 363

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 18, 2022

For the next 3 years, Series Ds increased in size until the late 2019/early 2020 correction of 41%. Ds doubled in 18 months starting in 2016, and again doubled from $75m to $150m in 2020-2021 - so the growth has been steeper on the way up and that may suggest a more sudden correction on the other side of the peak.

Marketing 362

Marketing Startup Finance Technology 362

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

The late stage venture market is on pace to set a record in 2020. Through Q3 2020, late stage investors have invested as much as the entirety of 2019, and should things continue linearly we should expect the final tally to exceed $100B. Last, 2020 is on track to set a record for total IPO proceeds in a year. Check check.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Government Pricing Investment 352

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020

. — Janelle Teng (@NextBigTeng) September 2, 2020. And while we had to re-imagine the Annual as an At Home event for 2020, both Byron Deeter and Elliott Robinson of BVP were gracious enough to update the State of the Cloud 2020 to include their learnings of COVID-19’s impact on the market.

Technical Review 347

Technical Review Cloud Software Review Technology 347

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2022

No, this SaaS Crash is so tough on VCs and public market investors because the market was just so, so high for Cloud stocks from mid-2020 to late 2021: You can see above in the BVP Nasdaq Cloud Index that while these are still Great Times in SaaS, they aren’t the crazy days that peaked around Thanksgiving 2021. I really do.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Cloud Startup SaaS 364

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2022

Enterprise software spending globally was $529B in 2020, per Gartner. Put differently, enterprise software spending globally was $529B in 2020. In 2023, it will be $750B. That’s a tailwind almost all of us are drafting on. — Jason BeKind Lemkin #???????????? jasonlk) April 13, 2022. in 2022 and 11.8% In 2023, it will be $750B.

SaaS 71

SaaS Enterprise Software Data 71

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 12, 2021

Till 2020, the growth rates of the private market valuations and the public valuation multiples paralleled each other at the highest level. This chart shows the median and the 75th percentile of enterprise value/forward revenue multiple for the basket of public stocks which were public at that moment in time. Correction Year.

SaaS 352

SaaS Cloud Enterprise Software 352

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 10, 2022

In fact, their revenue trajectories through 2020 are nearly identical. They would both exceed $400m in 2020. Both have grown very fast. Both companies employ a usage-based pricing model: pay for what you use. In 2016, each company recorded less than $50m in revenue. In two years, both would near $200m in revenue.

Startup 328

Startup Pricing Revenue Development 328

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 12, 2024

And interesting, this stacked chart shows 2020 funds and 2021 funds … when things got a bit loopy in venture … aren’t looking too good. And 2020 and 2021 funds look a little … rough right now. But it does show just how hard it is to do well in venture. The median 2017 fund is up after 7 years. But not by enough.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Investment Data 311

Tom Tunguz

JULY 30, 2021

They’ve raised 3x as much year-to-date in IPOs as all of 2020, which was a healthy market. The M&A market is not far behind; it’s on track to double 2020’s decade high of M&A value transacted. Startups are basking in the IPO market. Where will the tally end the year? See that blip in 2012?

Finance 336

Finance Startup Investment Marketing 336

SaaStr

MARCH 21, 2023

So many of the things we learned from mid-2020 to early 2022 … just don’t apply anymore. It’s tough to say this “aloud”, but the truth is, a lot of folks just didn’t work all that hard from mid-2020 to late 2022. The unicorn age is over, at least for now, but many still don’t totally get it.

Venture Capital 343

Venture Capital SaaS Startup Marketing 343

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2021

As a result, it’s quite profitable, with $150m in free cash flow in 2020. #2. This ecommerce revenue was $143m in 2020, about 22% of total revenue. Website revenues grew only 18% in 2020, while ecommerce revenue grew 78%. Over $500,000 revenue per employee. Squarespace has 1,200 employees and $700m in ARR.

Payment Methods 338

Payment Methods Merchant Services Payments Payment Services 338

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

This already had started to break pre-2020, as the war for talent drove up costs in these “secondary” sales centers. And then of course, post-2020, the world changed for sales reps. Second, sales comp expectations ballooned in the Boom Times of mid-2020 to early 2022, and haven’t really come down.

SMB 316

SMB Scale Sales Hiring Sales 316

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2020

In 2020, they are 40% larger, a $33M swing in round size. In 2020, Series A investors have changed their behavior at the Series B. However, Series B data suggest insiders are leading aggressive rounds into compelling businesses. Witness the red line in this Series B Mean chart. Inside rounds have skyrocketed. What does this tell us?

Finance 363

Finance Investment Startup Data 363

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

We can this clearly with Shopify, which waiting all the way until 2020 to really monetize its partner base heavily. 20% of their 2020 revenue, up from just 8% in 2018: Want more? What matters most is your ARR later, and dominating the market today. And the payoff was big.

Payments 363

Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions Scale 363

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

in revenue in fiscal year 2020, to $432m in the first three quarters of fiscal 2022. Atop these sensors, Samsara software executes workflows, provides drivers with apps, monitors equipment, and provides managers and executives visibility into the operations of a site. Revenue, $M. Revenue Growth. -. Gross Margin. Sales Efficiency. -.

CTO Hire 350

CTO Hire CTO Coach Benchmarks Scale 350

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2023

Average asks and multiple for the very, very SaaS companies went up 700% in the Boom from late 2020-late 2021. We’re never “going back” to how things were in late 2020 and 2021. Per Pitchbook and IVP, top-tier growth rounds had a 114x ARR ask at the very peak in 2021! And then … came crashing back to earth.

Venture Capital 67

Venture Capital AWS SaaS Startup 67

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Our next big Digitial Event will launch next week, SaaStr Scale 2020 on Dec 8-9. With 100,000+ total attendees, and probably 200,000+ including on social, we’ve had a ton of fun and learned a lot, from the CEO of Slack, Box, PagerDuty, Unsplash, and so, so much more.

Scale 347

Scale Scaling Cloud 347

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2020

— Ben Chestnut (@benchestnut) November 12, 2020. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) December 9, 2020. Email will continue to be an effective way for entrepreneurs to connect with their audience and meet them where they are in 2021 and beyond. And do it right, and email is magical. note: an updated SaaStr Classic post).

Sales Hiring 356

Sales Hiring Outbound Sales Team AWS Engineering 356

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

So there’s a curious thing anyone close in venture capital fundraising and rounds today: Valuations for Hot VC Deals remain far higher than pre-March 2020 … even though growth for the overall public SaaS and Cloud companies has slowed to … all time lows. So you can discount some of this as outliers, even the outliers of the outliers.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital AWS Cloud Scaling 297

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2021

growth of 2020. 2020 – $5.1B CIOs immediately had to buy certain products in March 2020 (Cloud contact center, Zoom, esignatures), but other changes take years to play out. Growth at $4B+ ARR is now back to 35%. Still incredibly impressive, but not the crazy 369% (!) DocuSign — Back to Pre-Covid Normal?

Trends 311

Trends Merchant Services SaaS Cloud 311

SaaStr

AUGUST 30, 2021

Freshworks had about 44,000 customers on June 31, 2020 and now has 52,500 — 20% growth in customer count in a year. Freshservice on its own crossed $100m in ARR in December 2020. 49% revenue growth from 20% customer growth. This is pretty impressive given how many SMB customers they have (although consistent with 118% NRR).

Scale 361

Scale SMB Scaling Payment Features 361

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2021

— Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 18, 2020. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) October 16, 2020. . – has something better to do – wants to see how it goes – has a clear backup plan – sees it as risky – argues over who should be CEO – doesn't 100% believe. You'll see.

Acquisition 358

Acquisition SaaS Software Business 358

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

1: How Sales and Marketing Have Shifted Since 2020 Expectations and the types of people working in SaaS have shifted over the past few years, and much more in sales, marketing, and customer success. Up until 2020, the wave of passion for events and content was so strong that all he could do was ride the wave with no strategy.

Sales Hiring 296

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 296

SaaStr

APRIL 18, 2021

Guidance 2020 $17.1B — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) August 25, 2020. Salesforce Growth: 2021 $20.8B 2014 $4.1B. Thank you Ohana! If you haven’t done a SaaS start-up before, it’s different. The reasons are many, but I think they can almost all be summed up in one key factor: SaaS compounds.

SaaS 331

SaaS Travel Churn Revenue 331

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2021

You can see that 2021 was just an epic bump from 2020, and it was a step function. That’s 1.5 a day: Ok 2021 isn’t quite over, but the trends are pretty much set. Crunchbase had some interesting slices on the overall markets, as you can see above. We tripled the rate of unicorn production in 2021.

Cloud 354

Cloud Trends SaaS Marketing 354

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2024

Before March 2020, you could reach out your window and see a dozen leading SaaS execs. It lacks the density of pre-March 2020, that’s underappreciated. But SOMA and much of the financial district are still awful. Palo Alto and the Peninsula are as pretty, sunny, and expensive as ever. • The density isn’t quite there. But it’s still #1.

AWS 299

AWS B2B AI Startup 299

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2020

jasonlk) July 10, 2020. A 2020 update of a classic saastr post). DO YOUR 1-ON-1s. i know they arent always fun pic.twitter.com/Sb1BWxsWj3. — Jason ?BeKind? When I catch up with founders on the march from $1m to $10m in ARR, the number one topic has always shifted to recruiting.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting Management Engineering Customer Success 363

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2022

Gartner, spending on SaaS: 2020: $120B 2021: $152B 2022: $177B 2023: $208B. Worry less about a few tweets, more about the opportunity ahead, and here right now. Go sell something pic.twitter.com/TLzgbuQLnW. — Jason BeKind Lemkin #???????????? jasonlk) May 26, 2022.

Cloud 358

Cloud B2C SaaS Enterprise 358