Tom Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2019

Over the last decade or so, I’ve compiled a metrics sheet to summarise a SaaS business. Redpoint SaaS Metrics Template. The template is broken into six sections: People, Bookings & Revenue, Cash, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success. This section covers employee satisfaction, headcount, and recruiting metrics.

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SaaStr

MAY 16, 2024

On the first episode of the Angles and Insight podcast, SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin chats with Zapier CEO Wade Foster about the future of B2B SaaS in 2024 and beyond. He is a top VC in the industry and runs SaaStr, the largest SaaS event in the world. As a manager, you have to do things differently.

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SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2019

With all that behind you … let me challenge you to 10 SaaS New Year’s Resolutions. Enough with the excuses for not having hired your real VP of Sales, or that VP of Engineering, or whatever. Hire a real recruiter. It’s really all about deal size in most SaaS companies, not raw per seat or per unit pricing.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. And it clearly is true, in part, at SaaS companies beyond $200m in ARR. Fourth, the best sales teams stick together.

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SaaStr

JULY 20, 2024

The best SaaS companies Lightspeed has seen in their portfolio are maniacal about defining these key metrics and tracking them with specific targets in mind on a consistent basis. Work with Great Executive Recruiters ”The first time I saw an invoice for an executive search, I think I had a heart attack,” Shrav joked. Execution is king.

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SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2020

SImple tips to Do Better in Q4 With What You Already Have: – Drive Down Churn – Drive Up NPS – Be More Grateful – Zoom with 10 Customers a Week – Promote Your Star(s) – Less Spam, more ABM – Weekly Webinar – Improve Lead Routing – Improve Lead Scoring – Talk to Every Prospect.

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SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2021

Recently, I met with a great SaaS founder doing about $1.5m A head of sales that doesn’t recruit at least one strong rep in the first 90 days. A head of customer success that doesn’t own churn, or net revenue retention in the first 90 days. I can go on. I was a bit skeptical. Something sounded off.

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SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

In SaaS, once you have even a few million in ARR, the #1 challenge is recruiting top-tier VPs and building a truly top-tier management team: SaaS products mostly don’t sell themselves. You can hack managing and finding 1–3 reps yourself, but after that, you really need a VP of Sales. As are you.

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SaaStr

JULY 12, 2022

One of the first what How to Hire a Great VP of Sales at the New York Enterprise Tech Meet-Up (thank you to John Lehr and Work-Bench for setting this up). The Number One Thing You Can Do to Accelerate Your Business Post-Initial Traction is Hiring a Great VP of Sales. Then, we have this community in SaaS — SaaStr.

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SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2022

We’ve recently been posting polls on SaaStr’s LinkedIn account to get a feel for what SaaS companies are doing in the current environment. In the video below, he discusses the results and where he thinks SaaS companies are on track or need improvement. #1. This is particularly important for a VP of Sales.

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SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

At SaaStr Miami, former Founder’s Fund Partner and CRO of Brex Sam Blond — host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast — sat down with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin for a fireside chat about finding success as a SaaS company in 2024. On the sales side, people hired way too much. More salespeople do not equal more sales.

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Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2021

That’s a reason the Redpoint SaaS metrics template includes Glassdoor score. The better the management hires for a business, the greater candidates' interest to work for a company. Startups should expect successful management hires about 75% of the time. Most companies observe about 15% attrition annually.

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SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Q: What are the top 20 pieces of advice for building a successful SaaS startup? Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Someone great at something core you aren’t: Sales, Engineering, Marketing. Great at sales. It just takes that long in SaaS and B2B, nine times out of ten.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. How to manage customer success. About recruiting and helping you scale. When to hire her (more here ). All good stuff.

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Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 9, 2013

One number investors use to benchmark SaaS startups across sectors and industries is sales efficiency. There are a handful of variants of this metric, sometimes called the magic number, but ultimately they all aim to provide some sense of the incremental revenue returned by sales and marketing investment.

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SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 5, 2022

Product-led growth (PLG) companies have become a major trend in the world of SaaS over the last few years. Going from sales-led to PLG is doable, but it is not easy. Sales-led organizations struggle to adapt to a PLG mindset.”. Let’s use sales-led organizations as a comparison point. Secret #2: Pricing.

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SaaStr

JANUARY 18, 2023

It’s the most common objection you’ll get in SaaS sales … Not Right Now. Instead, the reason most SaaS purchases are really made are >> initiatives << Companies have decided to improve a functional area this year. And when you hire a real, great VP of Sales. Truly qualified leads and prospects.

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SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Does it get easier or harder to scale SaaS as your company grows? Efficiency goes down in other places (sales efficiency usually, marketing efficiency often). Account expansion starts to work. The best mid-market and enterprise SaaS companies grow their accounts 120%-160% as a cohort, inclusive of churn.

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SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

379: From how many reps to hire, to compensation models, here are the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales teams and how to avoid them. Announcer: In today’s SaaStr Insider, SaaStr CEO and founder, Jason Lemkin, shared the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales team.

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SaaStr

JUNE 3, 2020

It’s 2020 and SaaS buyers are more skeptical and suspicious, more disbelieving, more unconvinced than they were in 2019. The SaaS Trust Crisis is making it harder to market and sell software and services than ever before. And what I’d like to talk to you about today is the SaaS Trust crisis we’re seeing.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2019

But they are often just awful managers. This means more employee churn, friction, drama than you need. Especially in SaaS. Because SaaS is so cross-functional. Manage People. Manage anyone you can, even if it’s not perfect. Or at least, far worse than they are the second time. Do stuff together.

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SaaStr

JULY 1, 2021

What’s the secret to SaaS success at YCombinator? Sam : We’re going to talk today about a lot of topics, but the general theme is, what’s the difference between good and great SaaS companies? I want to come be your VP of sales and, you’re going to meet me for the first time. You hire a search firm.

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SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

So the first question is what made SaaS so successful. If you kind of that question, thinking about the stakeholders and the decisions and companies of using SaaS products, there’s kind of three types. Customers love SaaS products and tools because it simply works. Why do developers love SaaS products? Why is that?

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The Angel VC

JUNE 25, 2015

For most SaaS startups, the VP of Sales (along with the VP of Marketing) is one of the most crucial hires they need to make. Unless you have a no/low touch sales model and you're growing virally (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a. hunting rabbits or deer ) or a field sales team (a.k.a.

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Chart Mogul

JANUARY 9, 2025

So read on, and hopefully, your SaaS sales journey will be less about trial and error and more about steady progress toward success. Whats important to note is that each model targets a distinct customer persona and, therefore, has a unique approach to the customer journeyfrom brand awareness to sales and, ultimately, conversion.

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SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2024

Mark Roberge , SaaStr fan-favorite and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Stage 2 Capital brought together some of the top CROs in SaaS during the SaaStr Annual to share some of their greatest learnings and pivotal moments leading some of the Cloud 100 SaaS companies. How do you diagnose and solve churn?

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SaaStr

JULY 9, 2019

Giraffe is a mobile job matching platform that helps medium skilled workers get access to opportunities and helps businesses to recruit staff faster, and easier, and more affordably than any other way. Well, you have to build a direct sales force. We said, “How important is Giraffe to you in your recruitment process?”

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The Angel VC

AUGUST 10, 2011

Today I'd like to tell you a bit more about what we at Point Nine Capital are looking for in SaaS startups (other sectors are something for another blog post). To put it as simple as possible, the health of a SaaS business is mainly determined by two factors: Customer lifetime value (CLTV) and customer acquisition costs (CAC).

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Kellblog

JUNE 27, 2020

I’ve worked with several startups that fell into the following pattern: Selling a SaaS application at a healthy price (e.g., And, depending on the initial contract duration, high customer churn [1]. churn of 25%, and services margins of negative 66% when I started working with them [2]. 100K to $200K ARR).

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

I’m excited to be here today to share a few stories from the SaaS world. So Pardot, SalesLoft and Calendly, you’re thinking, “How is this random guy from Atlanta 2000 miles away at the starting floor, at the ground floor of three pretty interesting SaaS companies?” Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020. All right.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Co-founder and CEO at Greenhouse, Daniel Chait, sits down with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin to share what’s new at Greenhouse, a successful recruiting software company at $200M in ARR today. You could do vanilla 101 SaaS practices and succeed. Vendors are seeing churn because many companies are going out of business.

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Stax

MARCH 18, 2025

The SaaS industry has seen explosive growth in the past decadeand this is expected to continue this year. Join the payments-led growth movement Sign up to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in payments, vertical SaaS, and technology from industry experts. Churn rate.

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SaaStr

AUGUST 5, 2019

The SaaS business model has risen to popularity for many reasons – it’s fast-paced, creates residual revenue streams, and well, the multiples are strong. However, while many are flocking to reap the benefits of the SaaS model, truly understanding how it works sustaining success over time is not as easy as some make it look.

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Incredo

NOVEMBER 1, 2019

Do you want to grow your SaaS sales team and improve your processes? maintain healthy atmosphere in your Smarketing team, make smart choices regarding your SaaS sales model, strategy, pricing, . build smoother connections both with your prospects through optimized sales process. SaaS Sales Models.

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Incredo

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Asking “what’s the typical commission for SaaS salesperson?” is like asking “how expensive should I price my SaaS product?” common software sales comp plans, 2. what factors to consider before defining your SaaS sales commission percentage. What are 5 common SaaS sales compensation models?

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Sales Hacker

JANUARY 20, 2022

Strong sales reps are the lifeblood of your business and how you choose to invest in them matters. For frontline sales managers, attributes like competency, quality of work, ease of execution, and length of contribution indicate reps’ overall job success, but you can’t rely on those inputs to tell you if they are personally satisfied.

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