SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2021

A lot of our SaaS older times don’t quite know what to make with a lot of B2B startups these days, let alone some public SaaS companies. So many startups these days are claiming they have “ARR” from revenue that … doesn’t recur. Doesn’t ARR stand for Annual Recurring Revenue?

Merchant Services 360

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 360

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 28, 2025

Data from Stripe (below) shows the speed at which AI native companies are growing compared to SaaS companies. To make this concrete - if a company got to say ~$25-50m in revenue (I’m making this number up, it’s just illustrative), someone else who is considering competing might be persuaded against it.

Cloud 184

Cloud AI Scale Scaling 184

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS? Typically support consumes about perhaps 5%-7% of your revenue at scale (excluding customer success) in most SaaS models. Another 5%-7% go to core infrastructure costs (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, etc). Have instant support while you can.

Azure 276

Azure AWS SaaS Customer Success 276

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Ok the Best But Craziest Year Ever for SaaS isn’t quite over, but as it drives to a conclusion, we thought it would be worth looking back at top posts you may have missed in 2020. “The Era of the SaaS Decacorn is Here” That’s for sure. The Era of the SaaS Decacorn is Here. Even If It Isn’t Revenue.”

Venture Capital 336

Venture Capital Sales Hiring AWS Cloud 336

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2022

So follow AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. So there’s much angst and even panic with so many SaaS and Cloud public stocks down 50% or more from their peaks. Will things get worse for SaaS products themselves on a day-to-day basis? And is buying of SaaS and Cloud products accelerating, decelerating, and/or flattening out?

Cloud 296

Cloud Azure AWS Engineering 296

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

You know what’s back in fashion today in SaaS? And that’s a lot rarer in SaaS. But so many SaaS leaders aren’t really profitable at $1B ARR even, Why not? And it’s not just public SaaS companies that are often struggling to get profitable. I’m an investor in maybe 30 SaaS startups. So is SaaS cursed?

Scale 296

Scale SaaS Banking AWS 296

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2022

We’d all love to run 100% PLG SaaS companies that magically self-replicate customers. It took me a while as a SaaS CEO to see that a customer conference was worth it. I didn’t get these at first as a SaaS CEO. Go visit every customer in your Top 10%-15% of revenue, at least. And it does happen, sometimes.

Scale 332

Scale Sales Hiring Marketing SaaS 332

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

In this new SaaStr series called “What’s new at…,” Jason Lemkin chats with WorkOS CEO and founder Michael Grinich about what it takes to be Enterprise ready in SaaS, building vs. buying, and who the stakeholders are in a B2D motion. That’s unheard of in other SaaS categories. 50% of SaaS sales are outside of North America.

Enterprise readiness 286

Enterprise readiness Payment Solutions Enterprise Payments 286

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., The charts below show the change in quarterly revenue YoY (so Q1 ‘24 rev - Q1 ‘23 rev) going back to 2017. net retention and CAC payback). Subscribe now What Happened in Q1?

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

So we’ve had a lot of fun in our 5 Interesting Learnings profiling the top SaaS and Cloud companies at scale, from Slack to Zoom, from Shopify to Datadog, from Box to DropBox. But are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud just too big for us to learn from? Google Cloud sees Cloud revenues tripling in the next 5 years.

Cloud 297

Cloud Azure AWS Scale 297

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2020

Recently I was catching up with a good friend who used to be CEO of an enterprise-y SaaS social networking company — and the usage and engagement numbers of his business were just awful. Customers bought because they thought their organizations needed this functionality, and so they wrote the checks for Year 1, and even Year 2.

AWS 338

AWS Churn Enterprise Engagement 338

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2022

But a few thoughts on “the hardest part” for the first few stages: From $1-$100k in ARR, the hardest part is often how little revenue you get from each customer. Most SaaS products are inexpensive. So much work, so little revenue. Enough to pay some salaries and AWS bills, but it’s not that much. But it is so slow.

Headcount 246

Headcount AWS SaaS Churn 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Welcome to the latest installment of our “ What’s New ” series where SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with some of the top leaders and founders in SaaS and Cloud to discuss What’s New and what should be top of mind for fellow founders. AWS can’t support 20 partners equally. Otherwise, it falls apart.

AWS 282

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 282

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

So we don’t know quite as much about Canva as we do SaaS companies that have IPO’d. Canva: – Almost $2B ARR – Growing 40%+ – Profitable And … 4,000 employees That's about $500k in revenue per employee That's where software really makes money — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  ??

AWS 310

AWS B2C Scaling AI 310

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2021

Just how fast is SaaS and Cloud growing? After polling CIOs, Gartner found that total SaaS spend will grow from $100B in 2020 to $140B in 2022: A few interesting implications and learnings: The growth in SaaS buying should give you a +20% a year boost on top of your other sales and marketing efforts. Go grab your piece.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 238

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS SaaS 238

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

They each have some of the largest cloud businesses in the world in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud respectively. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. Overall, there was weakness across the board. Top 5 Median: 22.2x

Systems Review 144

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence 144

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2020

Recently, we welcomed Lisa Lawson to SaaS Office Hours to talk about building a channel go-to-market strategy for SaaS companies. Your customers may not know that it’s your product under the hood, so while you may gain a bunch of revenue, your brand equity won’t appreciate. Here are my notes. Where to Start.

Scale 349

Scale AWS Consulting Sales Enablement 349

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

In the latest installment of SaaStr’s What’s New series – where we sit down with the leaders in SaaS and Cloud for the inside scoop on what’s top of mind and what’s new, SaaStr CEO and Jason Lemkin chats with the CMO of Google Cloud, Alison Wagonfeld.

Cloud 312

Cloud Scale AWS AI 312

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

The SaaS sales model seems so well-established, as hundreds of founders build their businesses and raise funding. However, even the savviest entrepreneurs might be unaware of some of the blind spots that could be costing revenue. . It’s a common occurrence in SaaS –– the highest-performing sales rep gets promoted to manage a team.

Sales Hiring 258

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 258

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

So is it possible to be too efficient in SaaS and Cloud? Many have used Digital Ocean at the cheaper, simpler version of AWS-Azure-Digital Ocean to get going fast and quickly. But it’s raining cash, and earnings per share is growing 22% — faster than revenue. And if so, maybe that’s Digital Ocean. Or at least.

Scale 294

Scale AWS Azure Cloud 294

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 11, 2024

As a result, software vendors often see an uptick in revenue and bookings during these periods. Top 10 EV / NTM Revenue Multiples Top 10 Weekly Share Price Movement Update on Multiples SaaS businesses are generally valued on a multiple of their revenue - in most cases the projected revenue for the next 12 months.

Cloud 167

Cloud Cost optimization & reporting GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Review 167

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2022

Focusing on smaller developers, in some ways it’s been a bit overshadowed by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. DigitialOcean doesn’t want to take AWS, Azure and Google on in the enterprise and doesn’t really try. They are only 15% of the customers, but 83% of the revenue. Only 38% of revenue in North America.

Azure 275

Azure AWS SMB Cloud 275

SaaStr

AUGUST 4, 2022

So are we in a downturn in SaaS? And inflation is awful. But where is SaaS are we really today? Alteryx, a leading public SaaS ETL company, announced it was growing 33% at $730m in ARR! Exceeding expectations again, and importantly, also raising guidance in revenues for the full year. #3. Certainly, segments are.

Venture Capital 327

Venture Capital AWS Cloud Scale 327

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2024

A lot of you reading SaaStr are probably more B2B SaaS oriented and may not be paying attention to the consumer market, but it’s already massive and is continuing to grow quickly. So, let’s look at the state of subscription apps and how B2B SaaS can learn from it. You can tune into Workshop Wednesday every single Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Payment Features 304

Payment Features Subscription B2B Mobile 304

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2023

So there was a quiet SaaS IPO you may have missed in the craziness of 2021 — SEMRush, a tool your marketing department quite likely uses to keep track of the performance of your SEO and marketing site. 53% of Revenue is Outside U.S. And again a challenge to everyone in SaaS to go global. #4. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Scale 260

Scale AWS Scaling Revenue 260

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

jasonlk) November 13, 2023 Not every area of SaaS and Cloud is seeing big “macro” impacts. 64% of Large Customers Sourced From Partners They are AWS’s largest cybersecurity partner. This chart of their revenue growth will make your jaw drop: Not much to not like here. ? 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

Cybersecurity 296

Cybersecurity AWS Benchmarks Cloud 296

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2021

It can be easy for SaaS companies to lose momentum if they haven’t quite found the perfect product-market fit. million revenue quarter…In reality, though, we were still the founder-led sales company.”. Commoditization From AWS & Google Cloud. SaaS KPIs Suddenly Taking a Turn for the Worse.

Sales Hiring 310

Sales Hiring Data AWS Leadership 310

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2021

We weren’t focused on revenue, we were focused on winning developers one-by-one, and that was the key to success for us. Open Source is here to stay—and Open Source + SaaS is the future. Databricks started out in the Cloud; we never provided an on-prem offering, only a SaaS Cloud offering. It was difficult, but it was worth it.

Enterprise 246

Enterprise AI SaaS AWS 246

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2022

They are the great gifts in SaaS. The quality of the average CS experience I’ve had over the past decade has deteriorated as SaaS has grown. I’m sure this team was under pressure this quarter to find revenue. The way this public company did it was — awful. #3. With top, leading SaaS vendors.

Customer Success 325

Customer Success AWS Systems Review Software Review 325

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2022

We’ll see 2,500+ of the best SaaS founders, execs, and VCs June 6-7 at 2022 SaaStr Europa ! ChurnZero is the Customer Success platform and partner for growing SaaS and subscription businesses. You need an efficient way to keep your customers successful, reduce churn, drive adoption, and increase net revenue retention.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 259

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness 259

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Subscribe now ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) vs ERR (Experimental Runrate Revenue) ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is one of the most popular SaaS (Non-GAAP) metrics. In it's truest form, ARR is used by pure SaaS business models to describe the aggregate annual value of the entire customer set.

AI 190

AI Cloud Revenue Technical Advisors 190

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

The role of finance in SaaS is changing. In a fascinating workshop session, Miao shares his thoughts on how finance teams can contribute to company strategy and grow revenue. Strategic Finance optimizes a company’s underlying business model to create long-term value by increasing revenue and decreasing costs. Sign up for free.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

I have a strong, semi-proven thesis that in SaaS, market size doesn’t matter that much … at least in the traditional top-down sense. Yes, many of the big winners in SaaS entered already large markets, from CRM (Salesforce) to ERP (Workday) to Collaboration (Workday, Asana). And it’s better than that, these days.

Scale 282

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital AWS 282

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2019

Xero is one of those SaaS companies most of us have heard of and know is a big success and sort of know about, but, not really ??. Here are a few: All the way until $600m+ ARR, the majority of Xero’s new bookings and revenue still came from Australia and New Zealand! Gross Margins have improved substantially.

SMB 270

SMB Customer Lifetime Value AWS Churn 270

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2023

It’s one of the few still commanding a premium multiple in today’s world, and still growing at tremendous rates: Snowflake is also a barometer of everything in SaaS and Cloud, because a significant amount of its revenue is consumption-based, at least in part. AWS is seeing this, and so is Snowflake.

Headcount 246

Headcount Scale Sales Hiring AWS 246

Clouded Judgement

MAY 3, 2024

We now have results from the three hypersclaers (AWS / Azure / GCP). The most notable change in tone was Andy Jassy talking about AWS. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. Overall Stats: Overall Median: 5.8x

Cost optimization & reporting 190

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Software Azure 190

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 20, 2016

In it he argues that an eCommerce business with $10 to $20 million in revenues is not that hard to build and also not very valuable. So if you start an online shop, offer products at a loss, get listed on some of the biggest comparison shopping sites and do some affiliate marketing, you can easily get to tens of millions in revenue.

Scale 192

Scale Scaling SaaS AWS 192