SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2023

Mike Wiacek, CEO at Stairwell, Mo Jebrini, CTO at Mashvisor, and Michael Ermolenko, CTO at Inworld.ai, discuss with Helene Ambiana, Global SMB and Startups Marketing Director at Google Cloud, how they overcame the hurdles of scaling and reached their goals. . Build an irreplaceable team .

Scale 263

Scale CTO Hire Cloud Scaling 263

SaaStr

AUGUST 31, 2024

So is it a downturn in SaaS or Cloud — or not? There are so many mixed signals: Unicorn product is up 2x over last year, but layoffs continue AI spend is fast and furious, with Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc. 70% of Monday’s SMB customers are outside of tech. seeing record acceleration in growth. Billion in ARR.

Azure 329

Azure SMB Cloud AI 329

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

Upwork is one of those products and marketplaces many of us use all the time — including Team SaaStr — but we don’t often see discussing that much as a public SaaS / Cloud company. Net net, even from SMBs, Upwork manages 100% NRR, just as Shopify and Hubspot do from SMBs. 80% SMB, 20% Enterprise.

Marketplace as a Service 336

Marketplace as a Service SMB Cloud Enterprise 336

SaaStr

JULY 28, 2020

That’s crazy growth — almost all fueled by the crazy growth of the Cloud. That’s up from $800 billion just a little while back when we took a look at Cloud Decacorns. RingCentral went from SMB to enterprise-grade contact center. No SaaS company is yet worth $1 trillion, through perhaps that is coming.

SaaS 363

SaaS SMB Cloud Enterprise 363

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

Toast’s SMB NRR is 114% today — but it took 4 full years just to get to 100%. A reminder that you don’t need to settle for sub-100% NRR from SMBs. And also that, with SMBs, it can take a while and a lot of value-add and learnings to get that NRR over 100%. And it’s the true magic in scaling SMB SaaS.

Scale 363

Scale SMB SaaS Scaling 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2021

Cloudflare is one of those iconic Cloud companies most of us use, and know about as a product and vendor … but perhaps we don’t think as much about as a public company. What can founders learn from them as a public SaaS / Cloud company? We’ve seen this metric vary wildly at public SaaS and Cloud companies.

Scale 318

Scale SMB Cloud Enterprise 318

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2022

So DigitalOcean is the quiet Cloud platform that keeps on growing. Focusing on smaller developers, in some ways it’s been a bit overshadowed by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. DigitalOcean is growing an impressive 37% at $500,000,000 in ARR, and staying very SMB with 600,000+ customers, but still driving deal sizes up a bit.

Azure 278

Azure AWS SMB Cloud 278

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2025

So there are two massively different vibes in B2B and Cloud and SaaS today: Folks fighting to keep slowing growth going. Not just for consumer and SMB. Which, perhaps ironically, leads vendors to be less customer-centric. but also In high-growth AI-fueled spaces, massive competition as well. Free and Freemium are back.

AI 215

AI ChatGPT SMB Enterprise 215

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

If you’re selling software to SMB merchants and outside of tech like Shopify and Toast and Monday , things are pretty, pretty good, if in some ways still harder than before. If you’re selling cloud infrastructure, for the most part, growth may be down a smidge but is still strong, e.g., MongoDB.

Merchant Services 313

Merchant Services Azure Software AWS 313

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Zoom’s SMB base has flattened after exploding like nothing we’ve ever seen before. From HubSpot to Snowflake to Asana to Monday to Gitlab to Cloudflare, the best in SaaS and Cloud aren’t just growing faster than ever. I put together this slide: No doubt, some categories are still recovering from a Covid Hangover.

SMB 352

SMB SaaS Cloud Scaling 352

SaaStr

MARCH 28, 2025

SMB customers. For SMB SaaS, aim for 6 quarters of LTV:CAC, not 4 Ren adjusted the traditional benchmark because SMB customers stay longer than typically measured. ” This shift is driven by the abundance of choice in the market – thousands of cloud-based companies competing for attention.

SMB 130

SMB Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments 130

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2022

From Asana to Zoominfo: this year’s Europa lineup is bringing the best Cloud speakers from around the globe together for two days of incredible learning and insights. There will be over 2,500+ SaaS and Cloud professionals joining us there in person. Get your ticket now and get a front-row seat when the Cloud comes to Barcelona.

Sales Recruiting 214

Sales Recruiting Cloud Sales Hiring Scale 214

SaaStr

AUGUST 17, 2021

Cloud is huge. Coupa isn’t as much a fintech as SMB players like Bill.com, but it’s getting there with Coupa Pay. This is a bigger task than SMB, but a huge market. It’s interesting to see Coupa present its TAM this way in terms of both customer count and market size. And ARR per deal has gone up every quarter.

Payments 325

Payments SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 325

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

What we learned from ’08-’09 in SaaS: First, SMB churn went through the roof — as SMBs went under much more quickly and often. As soon as the economy went south, SMBs started to simply go bankrupt and/or shut down. Anyone processing a lot of SMB and credit-card deals saw churn probably double.

SaaS Payments 280

SaaS Payments Sales Hiring Scale SMB 280

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2021

Cloudflare is one of those iconic Cloud companies most of us use, and know about as a product and vendor … but perhaps we don’t think as much about as a public company. What can founders learn from them as a public SaaS / Cloud company? We’ve seen this metric vary wildly at public SaaS and Cloud companies.

SMB 280

SMB Cloud Enterprise Scale 280

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2021

Cloud and ecommerce may end soon, but it hasn’t ended yet. It would be so helpful to know, as the #1 leader in SMB eCommerce, and also one of the very top leaders in SaaS SMB overall. It would be so helpful to know, as the #1 leader in SMB eCommerce, and also one of the very top leaders in SaaS SMB overall.

Merchant Services 316

Merchant Services Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payments 316

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2024

So Okta is one of our favorite SaaS and Cloud leaders. Much, Much, Much More Efficient Than 12-24 Months Ago The story of almost every Cloud leader. But like many SaaS and Cloud leaders today, the bigger ones are still growing faster. The story is super inspiring. Then, they brought out a competing product :).

Fractional VPE 288

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Scale SMB 288

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2022

Salesforce: “We’re finally seeing slowdown now in our commerce, media, telecom, and SMB segments”. Salesforce saw demand from SMBs slow, and demandslow in retail, consumer and communications / media. But support and sales clouds remained strong, with little impact on demand. Workday: “There’s no slowdown at all”.

SMB 299

SMB Scale Cloud Trends 299

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

Jessica Alexander, Senior Director Cloud Technology & OEM Partnerships, Crowdstrike. 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. Rico Mallozzi, Sr.

Scale 263

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 263

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

Its definitely at least a Cloud infrastructure and applications company for SMBs: And its also a great case study of learning how to sell and market to SMBs at scale. SMB growth in Cloud and SaaS is still going strong! At $4B of revenue of scale. Million More Customers in 2020. Freemium is back!

SMB 322

SMB Cloud Scaling Investment 322

SaaStr

OCTOBER 29, 2020

Ok so what are the top 5 learnings here for SaaS and Cloud founders? So if you sell to SMBs, or a mix of SMBs and enterprise like Zendesk does (with 160,000 total customers), well … enough with the excuses on churn. Strive for at least 110% net revenue retention if you sell to a mix of SMBs and Enterprise.

SMB 298

SMB Enterprise Churn Retention 298

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2021

Squarespace is self-service and SMB focused. UiPath is hyper-enterprise ($1m+ customers) and really on-prem software for the Cloud. Maybe the real point is that these 3 different software companies are so different. Procore is vertical SaaS and mid-market (and above).

Construction 342

Construction SMB Mobile Cloud 342

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2020

We’ve recently checked in with a bunch of our Cloud and SaaS favorites as they cross $1B in ARR: 5 Interesting Learnings from Zendesk. But we’ve seen many SaaS and Cloud leaders manage to maintain consistent net retention at $1B+ ARR. But Slack’s SMBs seem to have accelerated, too, since then. Competition?

SMB 299

SMB Enterprise Cloud Retention 299

SaaStr

DECEMBER 8, 2020

And yes, no one could have predicted the run we’ve seen in Cloud in the past few years. Today, just 2 years after that, Hubspot in a very similar space (just more SMB) and with very similar revenue, is worth $18B. These are the Best of TImes in Cloud and SaaS. Marketo IPO’s in 2013 at $700m market cap.

SaaS 290

SaaS SMB Cloud Revenue 290

SaaStr

DECEMBER 9, 2022

So look, very few, if any, SaaS or Cloud companies are out there saying times are easier now than 12 months ago. But the thing is, the underlying trends that power SaaS and Cloud are still here and as strong as ever. And there are still many categories of software and businesses just beginning to move to SaaS and Cloud.

Cybersecurity 318

Cybersecurity SaaS Cloud SMB 318

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

Five9 has fully moved from an SMB product to a true enterprise one, now with well over 100 million dollar customers. #2. Some Cloud and SaaS leaders like Twilio have seen bigger NRR hits in the current macro environment, but so far, it’s been muted for Five9. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. 134+ $1m customers, 86% enterprise.

SMB 63

SMB Cloud Engineering Enterprise 63

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2022

One thing that is clear is that public SaaS and Cloud stock prices are way down. Note this doesn’t include SMB spend, it’s enterprise focused): In a slightly more dated survey, Gartner found in July 69% of CFOs plan to increase their digital spending in 2023. So are we in some sort of downturn — or aren’t we?

Forecasting 306

Forecasting Artificial Intelligence Software Business 306

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2021

The Last 4 “SaaS Crashes” Barely Made a Dent in the Cloud Boomtimes. The State of Software Buying From SMB to Enterprise with G2’s CMO, Amanda Malko. When Everyone Else Has Gone Home. Is the “Covid Boost” Over in SaaS? It Depends. A Tale of Two Trends. Dear SaaStr: VCs or Founders: Who Makes More?

SMB 279

SMB Cloud Trends Enterprise 279

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2021

Let’s take a look at a few Cloud leaders that show this quantitatively: #1 Shopify’s NRR has grown from 100% to 110% as its merchant services (payments) has exploded. Pretty good for SMB SaaS. Box at $800m ARR is about 30% SMB / 70% enterprise, the inverse of Shopify. But then a lot changed in the last few years.

Merchant Services 264

Merchant Services SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 264

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures recently put out its Software 2021 report with a ton of interesting learnings across the leaders in SaaS and Cloud. The average SMB SaaS company has $295k in revenue per employee, and $450k in the enterprise. A few top takeaways: #1. Instead, more dollars are going into the break-out leaders, not more deals.

Investment 319

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 319

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2022

So it wasn’t that long ago we checked in with Sprout Social, but when we did in June 2021 , the public markets were at their peak for SaaS and Cloud stocks. And Sprout Social seemed like an interesting but small SMB player. But fast forward to today, and Sprout Social is one of the winners in the current market dynamics.

Scale 68

Scale SMB Market Segmentation Scaling 68

SaaStr

JUNE 24, 2021

SMB, Mid-Market and “Enterprise” are all about equal segments of revenue: #3. We are seeing this with more and more Cloud leaders. They have 28,000 customers total with plans starting at $99/month. #2. For Sprout Social, a $10k a year customer is a bigger customer, and the fastest growing segment, up 44%.

Social Media 328

Social Media SMB Cloud Scale 328

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2019

subscribers to the SaaStr Cloud Daily on Quora , 8,700,000+ views, and are adding thousands of new followers per week. One benefit from Cloud Daily is our community speaks and upvotes their top stories of the week. Why SMB and Enterprise Sales Have Nothing In Common | SaaStr. We now have over 200,000 (!) views · 58 upvotes.

Cloud 168

Cloud Banking SMB Startup 168

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2016

Channel distribution represents one of the biggest and most important changes in customers acquisition for SMB SaaS startups in quite a while. One of the most interesting examples is Microsoft’s Office 365 SMB business. It’s the most successful SMB SaaS acquisition channel ever built. by Thomas Hansen.

Outsourcing Services 113

Outsourcing Services SMB Acquisition Scale 113

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2020

New Relic is one of my favorite Cloud stories. Times have changed, the Cloud has gotten a lot bigger, and there are many more vendors, including the red-hot DataDog, to grab mindshare. CEO Lew Cirne, after regretting selling his first startup in the space to CA for $375m, tries again with New Relic. An incredible streak.

Scale 342

Scale Outsourced Development SMB Cloud 342

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Almost everything is going well in SaaS and Cloud these days — except multiples. Channel model and organic approach to SMB and mid-market yields a fairly efficient Sales & Marketing motion. Yet, the markets are down for eveyone, and Jfrog is only worth $2.2 Billion as I type this. It should be worth more.

Scale 299

Scale SMB Software Development Cloud 299

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

While the average Cloud stock has fallen almost 50% in 2022, Duolingo’s has stayed up, and is down just 10% in the past 6 months. The core product is very B2C, but the upgrade to paid has very SMB B2B metrics, and 80% of the revenue is subscription based. And in today’s market, that’s strong performance.

Scale 322

Scale B2C SMB B2B 322