SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

We’ve talked on SaaStr about leaning in on Customer Success as much as possible. the revenue ultimately generated or supported by Customer Success) is the key to growing a SaaS business. We’ve talked about how all the Second Timers are hiring in customer success way early , ahead of sales, ahead of revenue.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Customer Success Headcount Churn 299

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

So I think 2023 may mark The End of Customer Success as We Knew It. The Massive Push to Efficiency As almost every public SaaS company got cash-flow positive and radically more efficient, and most startups had to stretch their dollars much further — customer success took a lot of the brunt. What happened?

Customer Success 306

Customer Success AI Pricing Enterprise 306

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 6, 2021

Q: Who Should Our First Head of Customer Success Report To? Ah, who should Customer Success report to. So usually, she can easily also manage Customer Success as well as all her reps. In most startups, your head of sales has the most people hiring and managing experience. It’s not super simple.

Customer Success 315

Customer Success Sales Hiring Finance Churn 315

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Most startups play defense when discussing pricing with customers. They dance between asking for too little, leaving money on the table, and asking for too much, only to lose the customer’s interest. The very best companies lead their customers in that dance. Many infrastructure as a service companies do this.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

Offers workshops, networking, and investor matchmaking for startups and enterprises. Key points about SaaStr Annual : Focus on SaaS: Primarily focused on all aspects of SaaS business including sales, marketing, product development, and customer success. Held annually in the San Francisco Bay Area (usually in September).

Software 246

Software Scale Venture Capital SaaS 246

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

From startup to $500M CARR, Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, shares how Braze scaled a growth and customer success team. As an early startup team, you’re doing every job under the sun. You have to be scrappy at this stage, and Braze was trying to find product market fit with no product, no revenue, and no customers.

Scale 296

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 296

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

The landscape of customer success has been evolving rapidly. So much so that we seem to be releasing new content on customer success just about every week. Today we’re focusing on actionable insights you can use to drive down churn with customer success in today’s new era of SaaS efficiency.

Customer Success 304

Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Headcount 304

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

However, what many businesses may overlook is the startup segment. Often, startups are lumped in with small businesses, yet this approach fails to recognize what motivates and attracts these early-stage companies. Why Seek Out Startups? How is it that you want to sell to startups differently than the rest of your customer base?”

Startup 275

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 275

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What is The Biggest Difference Between Running a 10 Person Startup and a 100 Person Startup? You won’t be able to scale this far without a full management team — VPs of Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Customer Success at least. But the toughest personal challenge for many CEOs is letting go. (VP

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Scaling 306

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2020

Hire stretch reps if you want, but someone without any closing experience likely can’t close at your startup no one has ever heard of. Startups are a journey and you need reps that want to be on the journey. Maybe OK for customer success. They are no good at generating them. A bit more here. Hiring just 1 rep.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 363

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

The other day Nick Mehta CEO of Gainsight invited me to talk about the latest trends in Customer Success. Every SaaS startup now has 2-10 public SaaS companies that are somewhat similar in customer make-up and product. If you aren’t there yet, that’s job #1 in customer success. Aim for 140%.

Customer Success 276

Customer Success Churn Trends Startup 276

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

Is it the end of an era for customer success in SaaS? We just wrote up how some of the biggest changes of SaaS are now coming, specifically in Customer Success and Sales. Customer Success Is Vulnerable to Cuts Jason shared that he didn’t realize how vulnerable customer success was to cuts until 2023.

Sales Hiring 323

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale AI 323

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 26, 2020

I used to think of a startup as a series of funnels. There’s the customer conversion funnel, the recruiting funnel, the customer success funnel. Examine the yield from each stage to gauge success. Funnels simplify metrics. Start to finish. That’s the end of the people funnel, but not the people cycle.

Startup 279

Startup Onboarding Enterprise Metrics 279

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Tomasz Tunguz , General Partner at Theory Ventures, shares nine observations from a Go-To-Market survey Theory Ventures did with hundreds of startups, 68% of them early-stage, well-funded, mostly mid-market ACV, and 25% remote. Six months ago, security was the number one prohibition preventing businesses and software companies from buying AI.

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 333

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What does a COO do in a tech startup/company? Or customer success. A COO can also double your coverage with customers and prospects. Your biggest prospects and customers will close at a higher rate in the deals where the CEO shows up on a jet. How would the team be structured? Can you give an example?

Scale 284

Scale Sales Hiring Startup SaaS 284

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

Marketing teams can make a 20% improvement in customer NPS or customer success within one quarter. Founders should encourage honesty and feedback from customers, even if it’s negative. Building a Brand Building a brand is essential for long-term success. Consistency is key in marketing.

Sales Hiring 306

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 306

SaaStr

DECEMBER 21, 2022

Dear SaaStr: Dear SaaStr: What Were Aspects of Your Startup That Were Easier Than Anticipated? The part I didn’t originally get as a first-time SaaS founder was how relatively easy is it to grow exising accounts and account size if your customers are happy. 120% NRR: Your revenue doubles in 5 years even with no new customers.

Startup 290

Startup Retention Customer Success Revenue 290

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Even with late stage VC capital much harder to get now, and the IPO markets still frozen, I see many folks on my LinkedIn feed saying Sales and Customer Success are underpaid. Well, for most of time, about 10% of the “profit” on a deal has done to sales, and about 5% of renewals have gone to customer success.

Scale 288

Scale Customer Success Venture Capital Sales 288

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Dear SaaStr: Is It Ridiculous To Call Yourself the CEO When Your Startup is Tiny? I used to look at tiny little startups and wince when a founder went around talking about himself as “CEO”. But then I had to learn how to Sell to Big Customers, and Sell to Power. And what I learned is customers care.

Startup 290

Startup Innovation Customer Success Retention 290

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Hire stretch reps if you want, but someone without any closing experience likely can’t close at your startup no one has ever heard of. Startups are a journey and you need reps that want to be on the journey. Maybe OK for customer success. A lot of folks don’t want to visit customers in person anymore.

Sales Hiring 289

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 289

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 19, 2019

Startups are innovation machines. Others want to innovate in every dimension and re-invent every discipline from pricing to marketing to support to customer success. They identify market opportunities, develop novel products and go out to change the world.

Pricing 277

Pricing Startup Sales Hiring Innovation 277

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 2, 2019

If you must choose a long term headquarters for your startup, call an executive recruiter who focuses in that city. VP Engineering, VP Product, VP Sales, VP Customer Success, VP Marketing, or VP Operations. After establishing product market fit, the startups grow their management team to scale.

Sales Recruiting 255

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup Scale 255

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 19, 2020

Speaking with startups, I’ve collected a list of disciplines that are going to become very important in the next period. Customer success and account management teams should focus on understanding customer health. Some startups may face meaningful attrition within their customer bases.

Startup 247

Startup SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods 247

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2024

It’s mission-critical to go multiproduct on time — too early is bad but too late is bad too We’ve written this up already a few times recently on SaaStr already as Jason did a deep dive on this just last week and Parker Conrad’s theory of the compound startup from SaaStr Europa is a masterclass on the matter.

Sales Recruiting 310

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale AI 310

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

It was started in 2014 when founders Daniel and Jonathan were working together at a delivery startup and experienced firsthand how slow background checks were slowing down worker onboarding. Naturally, their first customer was DoorDash and the quickly captured 95% of the gig economy market in their early days.

Revenue 299

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 299

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

The Y Combinator Guide to Perfectly Pitching Your Seed Stage Startup with Michael Seibel #4. How Much of Customer Support Will AI Replace? The Top 10 Customer Success Metrics Investors Care About in 2025 with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta #4. Top Posts: #1: 70% of Pipeline from Marketing Comes From Just 4 Things #2.

Scale 165

Scale AI Sales Customer Support 165

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2023

What is the right Go-To-Market strategy for a startup getting out of the gate? Everything is defined by customer interactions, from how they find Harness to becoming a customer. What’s his response to startups figuring out which strategy to begin with, product-led or sales-led? “It Sign up here to join them FOR FREE!

Startup 302

Startup Sales Sales Funnel Education 302

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore? The post Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore? First, be honest about why. You can blame it on macro issues if you want, but if growth has radically decelerated, it’s likely because you are less competitive than you were before.

Startup 312

Startup B2B Metrics Product Marketing 312

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Why Do VC Backed Startups Seem To Almost Always Be Running Out of Money? A customer success team that can’t drive down churn and drive up NPS = cash drain. The #1 issue I see is not understanding what investments really are accretive — and which aren’t. And so the money goes far, far faster than anticipated.

Sales Hiring 272

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Venture Capital 272

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

So we’ve been talking about customer success at SaaStr longer than almost anyone else, going back to our very first posts in 2012, including on Second Order Revenue. CLTV Isn’t The Whole Story. Don’t Shortchange Second-Order Revenue. Especially in this new age of efficient growth.

Customer Success 204

Customer Success Scaling Management Churn 204

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2022

From seed funding to going public, Spenser Skates, CEO, and co-founder of Amplitude will discuss his journey building Amplitude’s Digital Optimization System from the ground up and empowering organizations of all sizes — from startups to Fortune 100 companies — to build better products. Why Customer Success and Product Should be Best Friends.

AWS 246

AWS Customer Success Scale Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hacker

MAY 14, 2024

Holly Chen is the Managing Partner of ExponentialX, a Marketing and Growth Advisory Collective for high-growth SaaS startups, advising companies like Miro, Loom, ServiceNow, Appsflyer in their growth journeys. The post GTM 94: Mastering Branding, Pricing, and Customer Success for AI Startups with Holly Chen appeared first on GTMnow.

AI 125

AI Customer Success Branding Pricing 125

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

In this edition of CRO Confidential, Sam Blond (former CRO at Brex and current Partner at Founders Fund) hosts his former colleague Lucas Fox (GM of Brex for Startups). Churn vs. Expansion: Where to Start As many startup founders know, in the beginning, acquiring customers is key to getting off the ground.

Retention 246

Retention Startup Revenue Sales Hiring 246

SaaStr

AUGUST 23, 2022

Dear SaaStr: When Should a CEO of a Startup Stop “Doing the Work” and Let Others Do the Work? ” I see far too many founders these days get this far without a head of sales, marketing, customer success, product and often engineering. You’re just holding yourself back for the next phase if you done have a 1.0

Part-Time VPE 271

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Startup 271

SaaStr

JANUARY 22, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: 5 Interesting Learnings from Docebo at $145,000,000 in ARR Fractional CROs and CMOs: The Only Times I’ve Ever Seen Them Work 90%-95% of Salespeople Won’t Make It At Your Startup. A 6 Part Test to Help You Get It Right.

Scale 245

Scale Customer Success Venture Capital Sales Hiring 245

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

This showcases a narrow segment of a niche market, and it’s missing a lot of startups. Any startup in any reasonable category likely has dozens of competitors, and Altman believes the best strategy to compete in 2023 and beyond is multi-product. Startups are no longer fringe. How can a startup compete with a big company?

Scale 289

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 289

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2025

The best leaders have experience with both startups and scale to navigate the in-between. ” A company is fundamentally a collection of interlocking systems: Lead-to-cash systems New product introduction systems Talent acquisition systems Customer success systems The magic happens when these systems work together seamlessly.

Scale 191

Scale Systems Review Scaling Leadership 191