SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

For founders, the key is balancing long-term vision with short-term proof points that can secure ongoing financing and market traction. The bar has risen significantly from the “growth at all costs” mindset of 2021-2022. Final Thoughts The AI space is well-funded but still maturing.

Technical Review 194

Technical Review Artificial Intelligence AI Marketplace as a Service 194

Baremetrics

APRIL 21, 2021

In this article, we shall get back to basics: What is SaaS finance, and what financial phases can you expect your business to go through? As a SaaS business, you’re competing not only for loyal customers and recurring revenue , but also for the attention of investors and major software companies who may want to purchase your product.

Finance 98

Finance Scale SaaS Forecasting 98

Baremetrics

MAY 7, 2019

There are more funding and financing options for startups today than there ever have been before. There’s also been an explosion in debate and transparency about navigating startup funding and financing. Let’s explore the funding and financing options for your startup. Funding Your Startup. How To Evaluate Funding Options.

Finance 111

Finance Startup SaaS Payments Payment Methods 111

Baremetrics

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Equity financing is a method of capital raising via the selling of stock. Businesses grow money for a variety of reasons. By selling shares, a business essentially sells its ownership in exchange for cash. What is Equity Financing in SaaS? Equity Financing 2. Debt Financing (Loan) 3. Table of Contents.

Finance 98

Finance Venture Capital SaaS Payments Payments 98

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

But how can biotech teams effectively communicate to investors and partners how they will, with each round of financing, incrementally reduce the risks of discovering and developing successful new drugs? If you’re building a horizontal business model (e.g., How much of the total financing is allocated towards the lead program?

Development Team Review 125

Development Team Review Technical Review Finance Systems Review 125

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2021

Fast forward to today, and Qualtrics is now worth $20B and CEO Zig Serafin joined us to share his lessons in scaling with Julia Laroche, Correspondent at Yahoo Finance. 2 Category-defining products require new business models. 3 B2B products must be built to scale on micro level.

Scale 253

Scale Scaling Business Model Company Culture 253

FastSpring

APRIL 2, 2019

To spare you the headache, here’s a quick guide to help you make sense of subscription finance—starting with monthly recurring revenue. Yes, monthly revenue can provide your company with a general idea of how you’re doing, especially if your business model is focused on one-time sales. What is Monthly Recurring Revenue?

Finance 113

Finance Subscription Payment Features Revenue 113

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

Not having a scalable business model. Search for people around you who are well-connected or who know investors who may be interested in your business. The easiest way to finance a new business is to invest your personal savings, which comes with risks. Lack of clear leadership. Inexperienced team. Keep going .

Finance 262

Finance Business Model Investment Leadership 262

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2024

However pricing these products is extremely challenging – even more so for incumbents who need to disrupt their current business models. In this panel discussion, our group will share exactly how they built and launched frontier AI features, followed by massive adoption. ” #2. ” #4.

AI Search 305

AI Search Scale AI Generative AI 305

Baremetrics

JANUARY 24, 2022

It can also threaten a small business's ability to keep up with everyday operations. Invoice financing is an excellent option for SaaS companies looking for a fast and easy way to earn a short-term type of funding. Keep reading to learn more about invoice financing, how it works, and the benefits it serves for SaaS companies.

Payment Features 98

Payment Features Finance SaaS Payments Payment Services 98

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 27, 2013

Business model risk - Is there a clear business model? Is the team candid about the state of the business? Is the financing risk manageable given the current environment and company trajectory? There are many stories of people saying I invented Facebook before Facebook, which may very well be true.

Venture Capital 221

Venture Capital Technical Review Compensation Business Model 221

Stax

AUGUST 20, 2024

And it’s all thanks to embedded finance and embedded fintech. Embedded finance isn’t entirely a new concept. Airline credit cards, payment plans for costly items, and car rental insurance are forms of embedded finance that have been around for a while. Everything is done under one platform.

Payments 88

Payments Payment Methods Merchant Services Finance 88

Payrix

FEBRUARY 4, 2025

This creates integrated, streamlined experiences that are essential to businesses and sellers competing in modern digital-first environments. A master merchant can serve both card-not-present and in-person (card-present) sub-merchants, providing solutions that suit the needs of diverse business models.

Merchant Services 130

Merchant Services Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments 130

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2022

Many companies are too focused on growing in size without first understanding if they have a viable business model. You get too busy raising funds and reaching milestones that have been imposed upon you that may not align with your company’s long-term vision. Profitability is power. It can work, but it’s easy to ?lose

Development Team Review 298

Development Team Review B2C Compensation Technical Review 298

FastSpring

MAY 30, 2019

And according to Gartner’s 2018 report on cloud subscription and recurring billing management , more than 90% of software providers are expected to migrate to a subscription-based business model by 2022. With such a big push for subscriptions, it’s important that your digital business has a firm understanding of SaaS metrics.

Finance 86

Finance Subscription Payment Features Payments 86

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 10, 2017

Perez calls this capital finance capital. Finance capital is risk seeking capital, which is distinct from operational capital, the cash on corporate balance sheets. The investment risks are lessened, because infrastructure exists, business models are clearer and demand more apparent.

Innovation 183

Innovation Technology Finance Interviewing 183

SaaSOptics

APRIL 7, 2022

“ Freemium “—a combination of the words “free” and “premium”—describes a type of business model that offers basic features of a product or service to users at no cost and charges a premium for supplemental or advanced features. . Is Freemium a Good Business Model?

Business Model 74

Business Model Payment Features Business SaaS 74

Payrix

SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

In 2023, the Embedded Finance market was valued at $73 billion and projected to grow to $523 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual rate of 24%, according to a recent report. It’s still early days for Embedded Finance, but the preliminary statistics coming out of this space are rather significant.

Payments 130

Payments Payment Solutions Embedded Payments Trends 130

Payrix

JANUARY 10, 2025

As David notes, the challenge lies in adapting to constantly evolving factors such as regulatory changes, new business models, and sophisticated fraud tactics. Does the business model align with what you can support from compliance and industry standards? At the same time, you can’t be overly restrictive.

Merchant Services 130

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 130

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 29, 2019

For example, our Finance team is now able to confirm whether new customer growth is up in our target segments. This data typically comes in three broad flavors: Firmographic: This includes employee headcount, revenue, vertical, business model, location, tech stack, web traffic, and other publicly available information about the customer.

Business 184

Business B2C Scale Headcount 184

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 15, 2018

Who is your target market: individuals or businesses? Let’s look at common ecommerce business models, so you can see which is best for your business. As a business, you have three basic selling models to choose from. Is it the finance team? They’re based around the buyer you’re trying to reach.

Business Model 67

Business Model B2C Business Government 67

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

The beauty of SaaS as a business model is its asset-light nature, selling bits, not atoms. Incremental sales cost nothing and should have high gross profit margins in the 70-80% range, which is entirely unlike other types of businesses like services that bring in around 40-50%. For companies with less than $25M ARR, less than.5x

Metrics 264

Metrics Marketing SaaS SMB 264

FastSpring

MAY 30, 2019

And according to Gartner’s 2018 report on cloud subscription and recurring billing management , more than 90% of software providers are expected to migrate to a subscription-based business model by 2022. With such a big push for subscriptions, it’s important that your digital business has a firm understanding of SaaS metrics.

Payments 73

Payments Finance Subscription Payment Features 73

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2021

Everyone here I think actually has a different background that they bring to the table, whether it’s a programmer, whether it’s in finance, whether it’s in law. They work with the CEO to figure out the financing strategy. There’s more ways to think about the cash flow and financing of the company.

Sales Hiring 264

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team Development Team Review CTO Hire 264

OPEXEngine

JULY 27, 2021

About two weeks ago, we invited our customers to a private roundtable, virtual discussion on Scaling Finance. This is something that we do every quarter in what we call the SaaS Finance MeetUP. It is an exclusive meeting limited to Finance executives benchmarking with us and governed by Chatham House Rules.

Finance 52

Finance Outsourcing Services Scaling SaaS 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 6, 2023

The consumer side is ten times more stressful because you don’t have recurring revenue, and a single change in the platform can alter the entire dynamics of your business model. They get to talk to brand-new businesses in completely different industries all the time. He believes Enterprise software is the most exciting thing.

AI 292

AI Sales Hiring Scale Artificial Intelligence 292

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

Entrepreneurs have been compelled to adjust their approaches and search for other methods of financing their companies in light of the modifications. Investors have become more cautious due to economic uncertainties, leading to decreased funding for many startups.

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Scale Technical Review Software Review 277

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

A Pivot From Growth At All Costs To Driving Profitability The Cloud model of recurring revenue, low marginal distribution costs, and strong net dollar retention dynamics is possibly one of the best and most resilient business models ever invented. There’s been a pivot from growth at all costs to driving profitability.

Cloud 311

Cloud Payments Software Review Payment Solutions 311

OPEXEngine

NOVEMBER 22, 2022

“Industry-Centric” SaaS business models offer an alternative SaaS company categorization to the “Customer-Centric” SaaS model, which is defined based on the “go-to-market” strategy used by a management team. When SaaS business models originated, the most successful venture-backed startups used a horizontal model.

Business Model 52

Business Model Business SaaS Scale 52

The Angel VC

MARCH 3, 2015

traction) is also the most important factor that attracts VCs and drives valuations in private financing rounds. Of course your team, product, technology, business model and market matter too, but when you’re past the seed stage the expectation is that these factors will have resulted in excellent growth. Growth (a.k.a.

Compensation 185

Compensation Business Model Startup Benchmarks 185

The Angel VC

JUNE 3, 2015

We wanted to combine a founder-friendly, no-nonsense, value-add approach with the ability to make bigger investments and do more follow-on financing. Think long-term and give before you take VC investing is an incredibly relationship-driven business. To be successful, you constantly need other people’s help and goodwill. (Not

Venture Capital 176

Venture Capital Finance Investment Startup 176

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 29, 2014

Instead, the true and still unrealized potential of IoT is to transform business models; it’s enabling companies to sell products in entirely new and better ways that benefit both the company and the customer. Effectively, the company borrows money from its customers at less than zero interest to finance its growth.

Airlines 113

Airlines Payment Services Business Payments 113

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2020

But know that there’s going to be a greater time commitment, more meetings, more conversations, to get over the bar and over the hump for closing your seed financing or any financing in this environment. Can the capital be managed until the next financing? And then, finally, fifth is financial risk.

Scale 317

Scale Investment Venture Capital Technical Review 317

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 29, 2017

I’ve also included equity crowdfunding, another alternative financing strategy, as a comparison. The venture debt trend spans industry and business model. Venture debt is an attractive way of financing a company’s operations because it’s less expensive and less dilutive than an equity round.

Startup 113

Startup Finance Business Model Trends 113

Payrix

MAY 14, 2024

It was an Embedded Finance play starting with payments. [It It was important for us to understand] how we could get more of that revenue share, and then looking at the other ancillary finance products that we could get into.” They’re moving to a subscription-based model.

Payments 147

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions SaaS Payments 147

Sage Intacct

OCTOBER 1, 2018

In the 14th century, a cathedral builder was hustling down the dirt road in medieval France and passed three people stacking bricks.

Business Model 40

Business Model Finance Business SaaS 40

Chaotic Flow

MAY 13, 2014

SaaS Metrics Maturity Model Stage 1: SaaS Financial Metrics Mastery. Success in stage 4 requires an integrated management approach, especially between finance and customer success, two departments that have historically had little to do with each other.

Metrics 135

Metrics SaaS Compensation Benchmarks 135