TechEmpower SaaS

AUGUST 21, 2023

Many CEOs of software-enabled businesses call us with a similar concern: Are we getting the right results from our software team? What does a business leader do in this situation? Your reasons for needing a technical review will depend on your business goals. But is that the right strategy for your business?

Technical Review 390

Technical Review Software Review Development Team Review Systems Review 390

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 31, 2023

When talking to startup founders or other innovators, we always ask questions to better understand their business as a core. What does the business do? One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects? How does it meet customers’ needs?

Metrics 390

Metrics Startup Scale New CTO 390

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2025

You get a masterclass in how modern SaaS businesses are transforming CS from a cost center into their secret weapon for hypergrowth. Customer success is no longer just a department – it’s becoming the operating system for modern SaaS businesses. The $250M-$500M ARR Phase This is where sophistication becomes critical.

Customer Success 260

Customer Success Scale Government Systems Review 260

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2025

When to Hire Executives But there are three other factors that I tell companies to consider when hiring finance leaders (or any other department leaders): Leaders cost Capabilities of current leadership Complexities and needs of the business These factors will help you determine when you need a true CFO.

288

288

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Six months ago, security was the number one prohibition preventing businesses and software companies from buying AI. This can destabilize your business and have a big impact on cash. So the survey asked how much as a business has AI impacted its sales funnel. So how much business has it closed? It isn’t predictable.

Venture Capital 325

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 325

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

In 2006, BILL CEO and Founder René Lacerte set out to define a category around financial operations for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). ’ Bill is approaching half a million customers, so has a good pulse on small businesses. With SMBs, the smallest business is owner-operated. Needless to say, he succeeded. in revenue.

SMB 297

SMB Payment Services Payments Payment Methods 297

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

. “I will say this to all of the founders out there too, that as much as you want to be the face of the business, you don’t want to be the totality of the business. You can’t scale to a billion dollars in revenue without having an amazing team under you that is doing just that.

Scale 275

Scale Construction SaaS AI 275

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 30, 2024

Like Microsoft & Google, Amazon’s Web Service business is seeing a surge of growth, up from 13% annual to 17% annual growth (16% when excluding the leap year). Each of these businesses are large enough to justify it. Amazon announced their earnings yesterday. “Moving to AWS.

Cloud 311

Cloud AWS Azure AI 311

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 24, 2023

Still, if you’re a business leader and your developers haven’t asked you these questions, look for a Fractional CTO to help navigate the critical early stage of development. Background Questions Let’s start with some background questions about the business and product. Tell me about the business. Fulfillment?

Innovation 780

Innovation Development CTO Hire Technical Review 780

TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

This shift allows business to reallocate human resources to more complex and strategic roles, or eliminate those positions entirely. Other Notable Functions Generative AI is poised to revolutionize supply chain management by enhancing demand forecasting, enabling businesses to anticipate market changes and adjust inventory accordingly.

Generative AI 443

Generative AI CTO Hire AI Sales Recruiting 443

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2025

A bunch of them we hired out of business school, or out of engineering school, and came up through our farm system.” Whereas if it’s all from outside, it’s too risky for the business. They had to present their business to me and show me their website. They grew up in their career with us.

Sales Hiring 275

Sales Hiring Scale Systems Review Interviewing 275

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 14, 2024

If AI delivers on its promise, it may spell the end of the SaaS business model as we know it. Historically, cloud software businesses charged a recurring fee based on the number of users of their software - the SaaS model. Their overall business will be a hybrid pricing structure. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 343

Cloud Pricing AI Software 343

Clouded Judgement

JULY 16, 2024

The document contains a plethora of information on the company including a general overview, up to date financials, risk factors to the business, cap table highlights and much more. A S-1 is a document companies file with the SEC in preparation for listing their shares on an exchange like the NYSE or NASDAQ.

Benchmarks 295

Benchmarks Data Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning 295

TechEmpower SaaS

JULY 12, 2023

A Fractional CTO bridges the gap between founders and developers to help keep your tech strategy aligned with your business goals. This helps your startup stay agile and competitive in a fast-paced marketplace.

CTO Hire 975

CTO Hire CTO Startup Development 975

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

Q1 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., As you can see from the data below most cloud businesses beat the consensus estimates for Q1. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

When Lindsey joined, she inherited an already built-out self-serve/PLG model for small businesses and a mid-market and enterprise sales, customer success, and post-sales team. ” The other thing Lindsey did was bring that revenue and focus into the entire cadence of running the business.

Revenue 283

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 283

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2024

No one wants to fund a “great business guy” without an A+ CTO there as well. #6. Everyone does, at least for budget. This makes you look less than savvy about your market. #5. Not having a great CTO. It’s just too competitive today. Not growing quickly enough. VCs can only invest in folks that can hit $100m+ in revenue or more in 7–10 years.

CTO 307

CTO Investment Revenue Marketing 307

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2024

Pricing is more than just a number on a contract — when used thoughtfully, it can become a strategic tool for your SaaS product that can drive product adoption, customer satisfaction, and business growth. Miro’s pricing strategy evolved with their business goals: Early stage: Minimum five-user paid plans to ensure collaborative value.

Payments 275

Payments Pricing Scale Revenue 275

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2024

They supply their customers with a full marketing suite and customer data software for thousands of SMB, e-commerce businesses. But in talking to those businesses, Andrew realized that in reality, these small-business, e-commerce consumer stores he was setting out to help were doing everything manually.

Revenue 297

Revenue Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring 297

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Up to 20% of the ACV is usually OK and you will still be seen as a software business, not a services business. But some do make services profitable, for sure. Net net, in bigger deals ($50k-$100k+), charge for services if you can. And then do them as inexpensively as you can — but don’t sweat it if you just break even on services.

Investment 288

Investment SaaS SMB Enterprise 288

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2024

The Market Has Stabilized What does that mean for individual businesses? Software businesses, for the most part, require heads to grow a business through sales reps or customer support. In the public markets, Q1 wasn’t pretty in terms of expectations, and businesses were sometimes missing their numbers.

Venture Capital 290

Venture Capital Management Scale AI 290

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2023

This is when SaaS metrics aren’t used as a tool of understanding to improve your business but to club people with numbers. These people try to have a conversation about business using metrics but end up talking about metrics and not the business. Does it mean bringing in X% of new business to hit that number?

Metrics 335

Metrics Sales Hiring Benchmarks SaaS 335

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2024

With complimentary offerings from the likes of Chainalysis performing well in this category, my main interest in this business stemmed from excitement in the founder herself and her strong founder market fit. This was truly a case of the perfect founder building a business that has scale potential. #2.

Technical Review 283

Technical Review Management Investment AI 283

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2024

of Business Mobile App Trials Start in the First 24 Hours This is another area where mobile is way, way ahead of most browser-apps. 74% of Mobile Business Apps Renew. The best mobile business apps see 74% renewal rates, vs. 63% or so for the median, and 48% or so more lower quartile. And the Top Mobile Apps See 4.5x

Mobile 312

Mobile Payment Features Subscription Pricing 312

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2024

Along the way, they’ve picked up some tactics for building an everlasting culture in your business that you can implement tomorrow. They’re more productive in less time, which reduces turnover costs for the business. How many AEs know how your business really operates? Of course, everyone wants the latter.

Sales Hiring 277

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Education 277

SaaStr

JULY 18, 2024

Both the Field CTO and sales are responsible for making sure people understand the business value behind your product, what you’re delivering, and its mechanics. Building Block #2: Balance Ensure there’s a balance between talking about deep technical product knowledge and how that translates to business value.

CTO Coach 289

CTO Coach CTO Technical Review Customer Success 289

SaaStr

OCTOBER 19, 2024

112,000 Views: “What’s New at WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and Co-Founder of WordPress” #3, 79,000 Views: “A Step by Step Guide to Revenue Growth with Mark Roberge, Harvard Business School” #4. 46,771 Views: “From Burn-Out to $100M in ARR with Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine” #6.

Acquisition 275

Acquisition Innovation Startup Engineering 275

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2024

Building a $100M+ ARR business is no easy feat. 300k per employee is what a self-funded business needs to break even. Today, and over the last 4-5 years, 70% of their PLG business comes from one of three sources. Today, it’s the majority of their business. Let’s first start with how Cloudinary came to be.

Scale 303

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Development 303

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

Today that would be a dream, but in 2011, people didn’t understand the metrics around recurring revenue businesses, so investors weren’t sure it was a good business. You Need A Business Model with Economies of Scale As you’re trying to reverse engineer whether your business model makes sense, you have to look at your business model.

Engineering 290

Engineering Business Model Pricing Scaling 290

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 12, 2023

Both these companies also focus on enterprise accounts - in contrast to Bill.com at the bottom, which targets small businesses. Normalizing for inflation (which was 34% during this past decade), modern businesses produce 2x more RPE than their decade old selves. Compare that to the benchmarks in 2013! In addition to the dated charts!

Software Review 331

Software Review Trends Revenue Software 331