SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2024

ARR, Zendesk today gets 14% of new business from startups. On top of that, if you look at their top accounts globally, 33 of the top 50 customers by ARR are startups. This is where they started, but startups weren’t adopting the product as much with a discount, and there was a lot of conflict with the sales team. A free term.

Startup 266

Startup Scale Underperforming Technical Team AWS 266

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2025

150+ Sponsors Driving Innovation From the biggest names in cloud to the most exciting startups, our 150+ sponsors are showcasing the latest innovations in SaaS and AI. If youre serious about scaling software, you cant afford to miss it. We’ve got an epic 40+ acre campus and it’s just full of fun. And networking.

VP of Engineering 198

VP of Engineering CTO Coach VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Scale 198

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. 50% revenue from software (recurring), 50% from payments (not-recurring). .

Merchant Services 360

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 360

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 6, 2023

There are 4 questions a startup should ask themselves about building a startup that uses generative AI. There are 4 questions startups should ask themselves about building with generative AI. Startups have negative time to launch in many markets with Adobe, Microsoft, & Salesforce launching Gen AI enabled software in weeks.

Generative AI 229

Generative AI AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup 229

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

Some of the brightest minds in data founded MotherDuck including BigQuery founding engineer Jordan Tigani & a broader team from Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, Meta, Elastic & Firebolt, among others. Third, DuckDB can be embedded in software. Motherduck raised a $12.5M Seed led by Redpoint and a $35M Series A led by a16z.

Cloud 356

Cloud AWS Data Analysis Benchmarks 356

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2020

The first place to start is to learn to sell your startup’s product well. To make a partnership successful, your startup will need to teach another sales team to sell your product. The customer success team would like help deploying the software to new customers. Here are my notes. Where to Start. Types of Partnerships.

Scale 349

Scale AWS Consulting Sales Enablement 349

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

I’m using Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive), AWS , Vercel , Slack , Figma , Notion , Salesforce , HubSpot , Secureframe , Clari , and Zapier. #2. Last week we had a great one with Luca Penati, CMO & CCO of BEE, check it out here. This week we have Shrav Mehta, Founder and CEO of Secureframe! #1. What’s your core stack of apps today?

AWS 303

AWS compliance AI Startup 303

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

Yet competition and the exponential rate of change in software are pushing against that mission. Enter our philosophy of Run Less Software. Our chat covers the origins of Run Less Software, how it has evolved at scale, and how it differs from the equally valid approaches of other engineering teams.

Outsourcing Services 192

Outsourcing Services Part-Time VPE Software AWS 192

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 30, 2022

By building a strong business tech stack for your startup – covering everything from incorporation to growing long-lasting customer relationships – you can not only win back time and establish best practices, but create a solid foundation for your business to grow. Ready to take your startup to the next level?

Scale 163

Scale Payment Services Startup AWS 163

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 22, 2022

They will manage their own servers to reduce the $3m annual AWS bill by 60%. For a hypothetical startup, a 60% reduction in infrastructure costs boosts sales efficiency by 11% & net income margin by at least 12%. That optimization comes at some cost: hiring a team to migrate the software & to manage the infrastructure.

Sales Hiring 266

Sales Hiring Cloud AWS Sales 266

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. For software companies, this phenomenon can be a tailwind, as it drives accelerated deal closures and increased sales velocity, sometimes with less price sensitivity from buyers looking to quickly deplete their budgets. Cloudflare is up 17%.

Cloud 167

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

Tom Tunguz

JULY 7, 2022

Novel infrastructure often enables new software. At some point, startups tinker enough with the new technology to discover the applications customers value most. In a few years, data startups, consumer apps, and software vendors will rise and grow - the same as today. Web3 will disappear just the same.

AWS 244

AWS Government Innovation Cloud 244

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

Snowflake announced earnings yesterday, echoing the strength within software companies more broadly & underscoring the shift in enterprise buyer behavior to normal after three quarters of extensive cost cuts. ” For startups operating within data, which tops buyers’ lists , this news further signals a stronger market in 2024.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 188

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure Data Startup 188

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 25, 2022

At Intercom, we aim to run less software. We work exclusively with AWS as our cloud services provider and currently provide data hosting offerings in three different global regions – US, EU, and Australia – each architected across multiple availability zones for high availability. Our tooling allows for high availability.

Scaling 252

Scaling AWS Software Review Technical Review 252

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 25, 2023

Clouds are picking teams in one of the most important dislocations in software. For startups building LLM-based applications & infrastructure, this alters the calculus of selecting a cloud. Five years ago, many startups defaulted to AWS for the generous credits, broad catalog, & rapid pace of innovation.

Artificial Intelligence 241

Artificial Intelligence AI AWS Cloud 241

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

So for the audience, cloud giants are turbocharging startup sales, and the predominant reason for this is because they’re fundamentally changing IT budgets at the customers that we’re all selling to. And it’s one of the three large cloud vendors that we all know: Microsoft, AWS, and Google. Jabari Norton. Crowdstrike.

Scale 262

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 262

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2021

As a startup, you’re doing a million things at once: building a product, answering customer tickets, developing a sales playbook, trying out different marketing hacks, and keeping the lights on. Unfortunately, the process is long and can feel like a blackbox for startups starting from scratch. 5 – Configure Your Infrastructure.

Enterprise 284

Enterprise Software Review Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 284

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

Henry’s found that with SMBs and startups, they’re typically consuming content on social media, primarily LinkedIn, while Enterprise customers aren’t consuming that messaging on social media. From Henry’s perspective, their software vertical and tech customers have hit a wall.

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 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., Is Software Rebounding? It looks at the YoY dollar change in quarterly revenue from the hyperscalers (just looking at Azure / AWS because the data goes back further) going back a few years.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Azure AWS 184

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

Update on cloud software multiples, charted alongside the 10Y and 5 year pre-covid NTM rev multiple average. Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and even Google Cloud are on fire, adding insane amounts of revenue this year. pic.twitter.com/JNnzizB82v. — Byron Deeter (@bdeeter) May 5, 2022. But what matters most for founders?

SaaS 348

SaaS Azure Cloud AWS 348

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

TJ Nahigian, co-founder and Managing Partner of Base10 Partners, and Luci Fonseca, Partner, deep dive into the current GenAI landscape, incumbents vs. startups, and the six questions founders should ask themselves to drive value from GenAI. Startup platforms are OpenAI, Hugging Face, and Cohere. How are they doing this?

Generative AI 298

Generative AI Outsourcing Services AI Software Review 298

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2023

This function can be outsourced in the early days of a startup, but it is usually brought in-house after Series B. In 2014, storage had historically been Dropbox’s most significant cost driver, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on AWS. They will also take charge during an audit if the situation arises.

Scale 239

Scale Finance Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting 239

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

2: What Keeps Someone Motivated In The Startup World Jason has been successful, has had exits, has invested in great companies, and has built SaaStr into what it is, so what motivates him and other founders to keep going? But this is software. Why am I selling insurance software while my neighbor saves lives at the ER?

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 307

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Data Teams are Becoming Software Teams : DevOps created a movement within software development that empowers developers to run the software they wrote. Most sophisticated data teams run like software engineering teams with product requirement documents, ticketing systems, & sprints.

Artificial Intelligence 228

Artificial Intelligence Trends Data Software Review 228

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Open Source is one of the most successful enablers of global innovation in history, and Linux has grown into the most important software platform in the world, dominating every market it enters. Linux is the #1 internet client, makes up 100% of the supercomputer market, and is second to Windows when it comes to enterprise software platforms.

Enterprise 246

Enterprise AI SaaS AWS 246

Tom Tunguz

JANUARY 28, 2020

On premisis or on prem means deploying software on datacenters the customer owns. If you’ve used the AWS IAM (identity access management) console, you realize how complex access control has become. And each piece of software will be pointed to those databases. This cloud account has many names but no real moniker yet.

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 223

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Cloud Enterprise Data 223

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

Most startups play defense when discussing pricing with customers. Startups operate in newer markets where pricing standards haven’t been set. But throughout this turmoil, startups must adopt a process to craft a good pricing strategy, and re-evaluate prices periodically, but at least once per year.

Pricing 125

Pricing Startup SaaS Payments Payment Methods 125

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

Until now, Intercom has been a multitenant application hosted in a single region in AWS. We started out with a lot of “ known knowns”; problems we knew we had to solve, such as multiregion software deployments. We introduced virtually no new software, services, or approaches into our Europe buildout.

Scale 234

Scale New CTO Engineering CTO 234

The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 20, 2016

Starting a new company is always hard and most SaaS startups never get to $1-2 million in ARR. Whether starting an Internet startup has really become 10x cheaper depends on how exactly you phrase the question and is debatable. Let me rephrase that. Every founder who accomplishes this deserves a huge amount of respect.

Scale 192

Scale Scaling SaaS AWS 192

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. All eyes shifted to the AWS report on Thursday. They grew 16%!!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

User Pilot

MARCH 5, 2025

That’s where customer engagement software comes in. How I chose the best customer engagement software My evaluation process combined thorough feature analysis , a careful review of user feedback, and insights from industry reports. But how do you track and strengthen these connections? Userpilots pricing.

Software Review 52

Software Review Engagement Software Scale 52

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

It is the largest in-person event in the country—2,000+ attendees, 800+ companies, and 100+ speakers—along with features such as Betakit Keynote Stage, AWS Pitchfest, Workspaces Tradeshow. The conference is jam packed with networking opportunities too! Where to Get Tickets Still need tickets? Schedule a demo now or at SaaS North in person!

Merchant Services 158

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Services 158

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 1, 2019

. “Michael is the rare CFO who also leads up marketing, which makes him the perfect person to talk us through the company’s trajectory” As the head of Intercom’s Early Stage program for Startups, the fast-growing fintech startup is one company I’ve been keeping my eye on. From Wall Street to startup.

Strategy 36

Strategy Payment Methods Payment Services Startup 36

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 28, 2022

A few months ago, we retired our last pieces of infrastructure on DigitalOcean, marking our migration to AWS as complete. Our journey was not your regular AWS migration as it involved moving our infrastructure from classic VMs to containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. Ultimately, we decided to go with AWS. Why move and why now?

K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) 52

K8S orchestration (Kubernetes) AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 52

Baremetrics

FEBRUARY 19, 2018

After all, as a startup founder, you want to have a solid idea of what your true gross margins are and what it actually costs to acquire a customer! Most startups I’ve seen often get at least some of this wrong, particularly if they are doing around $100k in MRR or less. that will fit the use case of most small to medium SaaS startups.

Startup 81

Startup DevOps as a Service Customer Lifetime Value SaaS 81

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 24, 2019

Mike has been in and around startups for the better part of three decades: as a consultant, as a co-founder and now as the Managing Director of Salesforce Incubator, which propels new startups into the marketplace. He joined me for a chat that ranged from the role of AI to how they choose startups to incubate. Short on time?

Scale 151

Scale Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 151

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 The gist of it is that Cost of Revenue includes costs that go into providing your Software as a Service. There’s somehow always the “question” of what goes into SaaS Cost of Goods Sold , as if there’s plenty of room for interpretation.

Startup 90

Startup Merchant Services DevOps as a Service SaaS 90