SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2022

Your Customer Success Team Probably Really Are Just Gap Fillers. The Confusing and Confounding Advice on Capital Efficiency. Why The Business Model of Venture Capital is Really, Really Hard. Each week, we round up our most popular content so you can catch up on anything you may have missed. Billion in ARR.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Business Model B2B Startup 312

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2024

Often, first-time founders, especially those who had to bootstrap a long-time to get to venture capital, don’t spend the capital they do raise quickly enough. Not always — but more often than not. You pretty much know how much to spend already. And see where it goes. Don’t tell them to spend more.

Sales Hiring 287

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Investment Customer Success 287

SaaStr

JANUARY 7, 2024

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Beginning of The End of Customer Success, SDRs, and Support Agents A Low Burn Multiple is Great. Raising Venture Capital in 2024? But — It Doesn’t Mean You Won’t Run Out of Money.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Scale AI Customer Success 289

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2024

A Burn Rate That is Too High Venture capital is meant for investing, for sure. Almost every founder regrets using capital to keep a high-burn rate engine going that isn’t scaling rapidly. #2. Worry more about making your customers successful, a little less about what the others do. Nothing is static.

Trends 317

Trends Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital 317

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2024

Venture capital, if you raise it, is there to invest. A customer success team that can’t drive down churn and drive up NPS = cash drain. Dear SaaStr: Why Do VC Backed Startups Seem To Almost Always Be Running Out of Money? The #1 issue I see is not understanding what investments really are accretive — and which aren’t.

Sales Hiring 272

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Venture Capital 272

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2022

4 Recent, Very Bad, Truly Terrible Customer Success Experiences. SaaStr 615: Where Venture Capital Really is Right Now, With Accel, Iconiq Growth, and Salesforce Ventures at G2 Reach.              . Coupa, Marketo, And the Great Coming Rebound in SaaS. Don’t Overdiscount When Things Get Harder.

Scale 262

Scale Venture Capital SMB Scaling 262

SaaStr

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Customer success is all about outcomes. If you’ve raised venture capital, you know net revenue retention is important. What does NRR have to do with customer success? Anyone looking to grow their customer success team, or rather, drive growth and NRR, will have some valuable takeaways.

Scale 182

Scale Sales Hiring Customer Success Scaling 182

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2022

The number of global venture capital (VC) investments dipped in 2022, thanks to ongoing geopolitical tensions, turbulence in global capital markets, supply chain issues, and increasing interest rates. Venture capital firms pumped a lot of money into the economy during the pandemic, buying countless software companies.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Marketing Construction Startup 263

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2021

One of the corners some of us cut is customer satisfaction. But, we de-prioritize customer success. Everyone knows how to make customers happier. Yes, venture capital can help smooth out the bumps here. The reality is, there is too much to do in every start-up. It’s not that we don’t care.

SaaS 363

SaaS Venture Capital Churn Branding 363

SaaStr

DECEMBER 29, 2022

Venture Capital has dried up. You have to not only make the capital last, but make sure it lasts as long as planned. And perhaps most important, move on from mediocre customer success folks. You need the team sharp to retain your customers in 2023. Well, stop saying you can’t hire anyone. More here. #8.

Sales Hiring 298

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Healthcare Communication 298

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2021

For the past 10 years, I’ve been a sales advisor for the portfolio companies of early stage venture capital firm True Ventures. Although, in consultations with founders of many of these SaaS companies, I’m often caught by surprise to learn that they’ve made upward of a dozen hires, but zero are for customer-facing roles.

Sales Hiring 252

Sales Hiring Scale Venture Capital Sales 252

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2019

Wait to hire your VP of Customer Success … and watch a key account just leave to a competitor. These are the Best of Times in SaaS, and by all means, if you are able to raise venture capital, and need it, raise it. How Bridge Rounds Work in Venture Capital: Messy, Full of Drama, and Not Without High Risk. #6.

Sales Hiring 230

Sales Hiring Venture Capital Scale SaaS 230

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2021

The CEO basically is the VP of Sales and Revenue and Customer Success, with maybe a junior resource or two helping. That those few bigger customers and a growing pipeline really need a true, experienced customer success team around them, not just some kid hacking it. With nice growth (>=100% YoY); and.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Sales 279

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

And that is venture capital funds, accelerators, incubators, and other ecosystem partners.” So if you plan to target startup customers, think about how you can align your programs, partnerships, and selling motions to drive value back to their business.

Startup 275

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 275

SaaStr

OCTOBER 19, 2022

Along the way, you invest in customer success and focus on your churn rate. You consider seed expansion, tier expansion, or venture capital funding to make it all possible. The mechanics of running a business are not complex. You create a product and continue to make it better. But the reality is much more difficult.

Scale 328

Scale Venture Capital SaaS Acquisition 328

SaaStr

JULY 5, 2024

Today, you won’t fail if you’re not T2D2, and for venture capital, you can’t burn $700M while doing it. GTM Mistake #10: Eliminating True Customer Success There is an operational tragedy in SaaS. You don’t want to push your existing customers to make up for the gap on new customers, so be attuned to this as a founder.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire Sales Hiring New CTO Venture Capital 211

ChurnZero

SEPTEMBER 23, 2022

Companies couldn’t rest on their laurels; it was hold onto their customers or float into the abyss. . Searches for Customer Success and customer experience lagged a bit, peaking only recently. You can do that with an investment in Customer Success and customer education. . Say it with me: Every.

Education 98

Education Customer Success Venture Capital Churn 98

SaaStock

JANUARY 30, 2019

It is a venture capital firm based in Brazil and Silicon Valley. Its partners boast diverse venture experience and have previously invested in more than 70 companies. It supports them with their go-to market strategy, marketing, sales, customer success, and business development. Stage: Early Stage Venture, Seed.

Venture Capital 155

Venture Capital SaaS Healthcare Finance 155

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 21, 2017

Thousands if not tens of thousands of pages have been written about the marketer, sales developer, inside account executive and customer success play. This rivalry causes four major responses: Verticalization - compete with a horizontal player by picking one customer segment and building a product better suited to them.

Venture Capital 189

Venture Capital SaaS Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 189

ChurnZero

APRIL 13, 2020

ChurnZero Partners with ESG to Offer Digital Customer Success Strategy Consulting Services. ESG is now offering a Digital Customer Success Starter Pack to augment ChurnZero customers’ bandwidth. The ESG Digital Customer Success Starter Pack includes: One-hour digital Customer Success maturity assessment.

Consulting 98

Consulting Customer Success Strategy Venture Capital 98

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

If you’re a founder or in sales or marketing or customer success … you’ll be talking about the competition Every Single Day. But otherwise, just act as if your competitor raised another $20-$40m in venture capital. enters your space.

Venture Capital 179

Venture Capital Acquisition Finance Enterprise 179

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2021

Cash was tight and I didn’t know any great VPs of Biz Dev, so between myself and my VPs of Sales, Product and Customer Success, we all jointly managed our key partners. That was great and created freedom from venture capital and many other benefits. I got this advice and believed it, but didn’t act on it.

Part-Time VPE 299

Part-Time VPE Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale 299

SaaStr

DECEMBER 18, 2022

4 Recent, Very Bad, Truly Terrible Customer Success Experiences. SaaStr 615: Where Venture Capital Really is Right Now, With Accel, Iconiq Growth, and Salesforce Ventures at G2 Reach.   . Just This Week. Salesforce: “Things Are Too Unpredictable to Provide a Forecast.

Scale 147

Scale Venture Capital SMB Forecasting 147

ChurnZero

APRIL 27, 2021

As ChurnZero recently secured a Series B investment bringing our total funding that has been raised to date to $35 million, we thought we’d take a look back and see the role that Customer Success plays at each respective stage of funding for SaaS companies. Early-Stage Funding & Customer Success.

Scale 98

Scale Customer Success Payments Underperforming Technical Team 98

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 30, 2020

What’s Next For Customer Success? No one knows what the future holds (as 2020 has made abundantly clear) but that didn’t stop us from asking top SaaS CEOs what’s next for Customer Success. In-product onboarding also affords CSMs more time to focus on the work that makes the greatest customer impact and return on effort.

Customer Success 93

Customer Success Technical Review Systems Review Compensation 93

SaaStr

MARCH 22, 2023

Silicon Valley-based venture capital companies might tell you to build productivity models around hiring salespeople and scaling your organization that way, but it’s not the way. Take Your Company Global If you haven’t read Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore, you should, especially if you want to take your company global.

Scale 262

Scale Scaling AWS Sales Hiring 262

The Angel VC

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

At that I also knew nothing about inbound marketing and customer success – topics which are now near and dear to my heart for some years – and I was somewhat puzzled when Mikkel explained to me how they’ve been getting customers.

Scale 155

Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital Software Review 155

ChurnZero

JANUARY 3, 2020

Out of 20 solution providers included in G2’s Winter 2020 Momentum Report for Customer Success Software, ChurnZero has received the highest Momentum Score, based on exceptional customer satisfaction and market growth, reinforcing ChurnZero’s position as the pacesetter in the Customer Success industry.

Customer Success 69

Customer Success Venture Capital Software Review Technical Review 69

SaaStr

AUGUST 25, 2023

You have to understand how venture capital works. We can’t afford a VP of marketing, a VP of Sales, Customer Success.” There’s always another customer like the one you have. We don’t need a VP of Sales, Engineering, Product, Marketing, Customer Success.” 99% of startups aren’t that.

Part-Time VPE 242

Part-Time VPE Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 242

Sales Hacker

MAY 28, 2024

Kelly Hopping is currently the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for Demandbase where she is responsible for differentiating the go to market platform, increasing brand presence, and accelerating acquisition and conversion of potential customers. She now continues at HYCU as an Advisor.

Revenue 124

Revenue Venture Capital Strategy Marketing 124

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 12, 2014

WorkDay deploys its professional services teams at the outset of a customer’s engagement with WorkDay when all the systems integration and data processing must be completed. WorkDay financed this huge investment by coupling long-term, near-million-dollar agreements and nearly $200M in venture capital.

Benchmarks 114

Benchmarks Deferred Revenue Venture Capital Outsourced Development 114

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2022

I am a partner at Accel, the Global Venture Capital Fund, and I’m very happy to be here with one of these mythical creatures that people were talking about earlier. We actually think it’s about where the customers are when it comes to our sales and customer success and then where our product development center should be.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Outsourcing Services 279

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2024

For sales, product, or customer success, the best question you could ask is, “What would you do your first couple of weeks?” If it’s a role you’ve never hired, find someone great at it and have them do your final interview. To determine if someone is bitter and broken, you have to ask a lot of open-ended questions.

Sales Hiring 291

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Interviewing 291

ChurnZero

AUGUST 23, 2019

ChurnZero Leads G2’s Summer 2019 Momentum Report for Customer Success Software. The new Customer Success Software Momentum Grid from G2 showcases CS solutions with the highest growth trajectory on a product’s user satisfaction, online presence, and employee headcount growth over the last year.

Software Review 56

Software Review Customer Success Software Venture Capital 56

ChurnZero

JANUARY 14, 2021

ChurnZero is named the Momentum Leader, Highest Rated product, and the Best Relationship provider in the Customer Success category on G2. ChurnZero has also held its place as the Highest Rated product in the Customer Success category on G2, based on user satisfaction. G2 #1 Momentum Leader. G2 #1 Highest Rated .

Venture Capital 96

Venture Capital Software Review Customer Success Acquisition 96

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2019

Your VP Customer Success sure better have her comp plan tied to hitting the upsell, retention, or negative net churn goals. Watch him sweat the lost customers 10x more when money is on the line. I worked for no cash (though I took equity instead) for about a year after we raised venture capital.

Sales Hiring 133

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Venture Capital Banking 133

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2019

Your VP Customer Success sure better have her comp plan tied to hitting the upsell, retention, or negative net churn goals. Watch him sweat the lost customers 10x more when money is on the line. I worked for no cash (though I took equity instead) for about a year after we raised venture capital.

Sales Hiring 26

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Venture Capital Banking 26