SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

The result was a 5x increase over initial projections – growing from an $8M revenue target to $40M actual results – driven by a belief that market demand justified the investment. This approach required immense trust from the CEO to invest millions ahead of proven results.

Scale 192

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 192

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2025

This created personal investment and accountability that no executive mandate could achieve. They’ve since implemented more gradual transition plans with longer overlaps and clearer communication frameworks to mitigate disruption. “We underestimated the relationship disruption these changes caused,” notes Cuibo.

Scale 208

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development 208

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2025

C60 (Base Plan) : This is your core plan and the one you communicate to your team. This is where you build your operational model: sales hiring, marketing spend, product investments, etc. Its aspirational and keeps the team motivated to push beyond the base plan.

Sales Hiring 166

Sales Hiring Sales Communication Revenue 166

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 21, 2025

They built out their core CRM capabilities, but expanded into analytics when they acquired Tableau, expanded into integration when they acquired Mulesoft, and expanded into communication when they acquired Slack. This is for information purposes and should not be construed as an investment recommendation.

Cloud 188

Cloud Pricing Payment Features Subscription 188

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

Key Points: Communicate your vision and expectations. 4 Communicate Thoughtfully. Always be careful about what or when you communicate, and your implication of decisions. Key Points: Have principles for what, how, and when to communicate. Adapt how you communicate as you scale your business. Actionable.

Leadership 358

Leadership Scale Communication Scaling 358

SaaStr

MARCH 28, 2025

Shopifys partner revenue grew from 8% in 2018 to 20% by 2020, but it took years of investment to get there . Treat your partner acquisition like a sales funneldefine stages, track progress in your CRM, and invest in partner enablement 3 7. Spend time with your partners, communicate openly, and hold yourself accountable.

Scale 147

Scale Sales Hiring SMB Enterprise 147

Tom Tunguz

MAY 13, 2020

Internal communications differ in remote work. Without clear and reliable internal communications, a startup cannot move as a single unit and execute with speed - a startup’s core advantage. Would you hire a head of people sooner? Writing becomes more critical. Relationship building must take new forms.

Management 346

Management Business Banking Startup 346

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

Leaders rely more on data every day to inform our decisions, to power our products, and to communicate. That’s a quote we’ve heard from our diligence time-and-time again, and one of the reasons we’ve invested in Monte Carlo and partnered with Barr & Lior, the founders of Monte Carlo.

Data 355

Data Systems Review Communication Investment 355

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2023

Founders embarking on seed or early-stage funding rounds in this competitive market must pay special attention to investor relations, the art and science of communicating with and managing your investors. Part of this process must include regular communication and updates with investors. Fortunately, there are ways to correct this.

Communication 277

Communication Startup Investment Strategy 277

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2021

The SaaS revenue tech stack can help you grow your business, but if you don’t plan carefully, you might invest in tools that aren’t helpful and don’t yield ROI. If you create too many team silos, your RevTech may be disjointed as teams aren’t communicating as seamlessly. Invest according to revenue.

Scale 291

Scale Sales Hiring Social Media Technology 291

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

With nearly a full hour of Q&A with a phenomenal communicator as our guest, our “Off The Record” interview with Pat Grady (Partner at Sequoia Capital) surfaced a number of actionable insights for Founders. As shown by his biography on the Sequoia website, his investment approach prioritizes company culture and values.

Scale 336

Scale Company Culture Interviewing Finance 336

Andreessen Horowitz

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

First, application logic is becoming event-driven for new apps, necessitated by high volume and low-latency communication between third-party APIs and microservices. That’s why we’re so proud to invest in Upstash, and to help their team build this serverless future where more application developers can bring their dream apps to fruition!

Investment 115

Investment DevOps as a Service AI Search Application Development 115

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2021

In 2014, when I invested in then up-and-comer Talkdesk , it had long since IPO’d and was struggling at a $200m market cap. Five9 has increased its growth margins over time, but telephony and communications have real costs. So Five9, Talkdesk, RingCentral, Dialpad and more boomed during Covid. Five9 is particularly interesting.

Systems Review 346

Systems Review Technical Review Software Review Cloud 346

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Regardless of the size or stage of your company, the “Why” of turning upmarket must be understood and communicated throughout the company. Design a product roadmap and invest in support, building, investing, and scaling. Develop account plans, coordinate, communicate, and teach your people what direction to run in.

Scale 300

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Enterprise readiness 300

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? Our most recent disclosed investment is in Pika.art, a company redesigning the entire video-making and editing experience utilizing AI. What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? Why did you do the deal? And how big is your current fund?

Marketplace as a Service 279

Marketplace as a Service Venture Capital Entertainment Construction 279

USIO

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

The Role of APIs in Modern Payment Systems APIs act as bridges between different software systems, allowing them to communicate and share data seamlessly. Vendors benefit from faster disbursements and clear communication about payment statuses.

Payment Solutions 130

Payment Solutions Payment Services Payments Payment Methods 130

SaaStr

JULY 21, 2020

Invest More Time In The “Heavy Lifter” VCs have this annoying term of “heavy lifter”, by which they mean the one investor or board member that does most of the “work” As founders you can snicker at this, as if being an investor or board member is so much work. Even investors need positive reinforcement.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting New CTO Scale CTO 363

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 4, 2019

But in the early days, by virtue of being close to each other physically, it’s easier to delay some of these investments. These kind of communications are just as necessary within remote or distributed teams, but they require more planning, more foresight in order to be successful. And this is a really good thing.

Startup 252

Startup Interviewing Investment Communication 252

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 24, 2020

As colleagues communicate more ideas online, companies will have to secure these thoughts to protect their intellectual property. And could online learning create a better learning experience at a fraction of the price, changing the return on investment calculations for going to college?

Software Review 361

Software Review Technical Review Entertainment Outsourced Development 361

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

And the way that you communicate that is is incredibly important. It’s communicating empathy and value, and shifting the messaging you’re delivering to your customers, investing in customer relationships. Nicole’s team has added a communication structure that’s been especially helpful.

Sales 264

Sales Management Operational efficiency. Forecasting 264

SaaStr

OCTOBER 19, 2022

Like any partnership or business venture, being a founder or co-founder takes a lot of communication and planning upfront to increase the likelihood of success. Along the way, you invest in customer success and focus on your churn rate. It’s best to communicate as much as possible with your partner(s) as soon as possible.

Scale 328

Scale Venture Capital SaaS Acquisition 328

SaaStr

AUGUST 26, 2020

The other thing that VCs are doing is one very important part of their jobs, and that’s meeting companies and studying markets to figure out where they might want to invest eventually. And so, for all of those reasons, seed right now is a very different beast than Series and later-stage investing. Not the case to the seed stage.

Scale 318

Scale Investment Venture Capital Technical Review 318

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2020

Strategic changes aren’t communicated before they are executed. Investors stop boasting about their investments. Because the rough quarter wasn’t communicated and managed right. But hiding the ball can end up being a disaster. Informal meetings and catch-ups stop or aren’t scheduled in rougher times.

Forecasting 358

Forecasting Communication SaaS Investment 358

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2024

They are: A sense of ownership Investing in team development Theme 1: A Sense of Ownership Employees who feel connected and have a sense of ownership within their organization tend to stay for longer periods. All teams discuss blockers, inefficiencies, structure plans, and different communication channels to charge a path forward.

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Education 294

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2020

And I also know that the best investment you can make today is in your existing customers. A true enterprise dashboard communicates value to all stakeholders. Depending on who you are, and what you do, sales may or may not have slowed way down. They will keep innovating. They look like summary pages.

SMB 363

SMB Enterprise Innovation Communication 363

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 29, 2020

The information you’re about to share is not what they want to hear and if it’s communicated poorly, can quickly turn an otherwise happy user into an angry customer. Having that line of communication means we can say no with the right level of detail. It also communicates that you take customer satisfaction seriously.

Customer Support 284

Customer Support Communication Engineering Innovation 284

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

Once a double-digit percentage of the core customer base has heard of the company, it’s time to invest in brand marketing. The first head of marketing should have a title that indicates a focus on demand generation or growth, rather than product marketing, corporate marketing, communications, or branding.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 307

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 23, 2020

The businesses who are thriving right now, despite increasing support volume and a mandate to cut costs, are the ones investing in this new way of doing customer support. The two key changes are a shift to messenger-based support, and an investment in Bots and Messaging. There are massive risks for those who don’t follow.

Customer Support 245

Customer Support Scale Underperforming Technical Team Scaling 245

SaaStr

MAY 5, 2021

I like to equate this stage to Warren Buffett’s famous law of uninterrupted compounding interest—there is a significant difference between investing early and often into an IRA versus starting later in life. . Invest the time and energy, and you’ll leave this stage with clarity around the company’s next revenue engine. . $75-$100M+:

Strategy 300

Strategy Scale Innovation Interviewing 300

SaaStr

APRIL 11, 2023

On a recent episode of the Uncharted podcast with SaaStr’s Poya Osgouei, the SVP of Venture Debt and Startup Banking at Pacific Western Bank, Mark diTargiani, shared what the state of venture debt looks like post-SVB collapse and three tips for communicating effectively during chaos. Be transparent and communicate the basics.

Banking 277

Banking Sales Hiring Venture Capital Communication 277

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

It’s important to ask yourself if you’re engaging your clients enough, helping them to want to invest more in your offerings. Pay attention to your SLAs and, depending on their level of investment and commitment, commit your time and resources back into your partnership with them.

Scale 298

Scale Sales Hiring Compensation Sales 298

User Pilot

OCTOBER 31, 2024

Depending on these gaps (and your budget), you’ll need to decide whether to invest in buying data or building a data infrastructure. This workflow should detail how data will be collected, processed, and analyzed (and by who), as well as how insights will be communicated across the organization. Outdated technology.

Strategy 105

Strategy Underperforming Technical Team Government Customer Lifetime Value 105

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2024

When Twilio started to scale, people said it was the Stripe of communication, but VCs were wary because it had 40-50% margins. If you have communications, software, and another source of revenue, be honest and do three colors on your revenue stack. Are Marketing Agencies Worth Investing In? Both were right.

Sales Hiring 292

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Interviewing 292

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

I needed a bridge myself, and every Unicorn I’ve invested in has had a year of hell. I’ve made exactly $0 on those investments. If a lot of money has already gone in, does it make sense to invest, say, another 20% of the initial investment if it dramatically increases the odds you at least get your money back?

Venture Capital 318

Venture Capital SMB Startup Investment 318

Tom Tunguz

MAY 13, 2020

Internal communications differ in remote work. Without clear and reliable internal communications, a startup cannot move as a single unit and execute with speed - a startup’s core advantage. Would you hire a head of people sooner? Writing becomes more critical. Relationship building must take new forms.

Management 264

Management Business Banking Startup 264

SaaStr

MARCH 4, 2021

Making sure you sit in the right place in the market, and are communicating that to the market. And then you really do want to invest a lot in the brand. Protecting and reinforcing the brand, and communicating what the product does, and doing a great job of it. But until you are pretty big, this isn’t your top worry.

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Branding 357

SaaStr

DECEMBER 16, 2022

In their outbound efforts, when Rippling team members emailed CEOs and founders of tech companies, they communicated how their offering wasn’t just another HR solution. Effective communication highlights a problem your customer base may still need to recognize. Partners won’t show up and send you massive volume on day one.

Outsourcing Services 288

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring Outsourced Development 288