Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 4, 2024

The AI Demo isn’t easy. Many of the major AI companies have demoed their AI systems, first starting with pre-recorded, & now pushing into live demos. Multiply Murphy’s Law by a non-deterministic system & it’s not unreasonable to expect AI demos to nearly always hiccup.

AI 195

AI VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Benchmarks Interviewing 195

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2024

and attend their demos. Would you actually buy based on their demos? I bet most of their demos fail this test, too. and read those emails they are sending. Would you buy your own product based on those emails? You can do better than 99% of everyone in sales doing #1 and #2 well. It will move the needle.

Sales 294

Sales Cloud Enterprise SaaS 294

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2022

Only 35% say your sales execs can fully demo the product themselves. The post 20 More of the Top SaaStr Surveys on Hiring, Support, Customer Demos, Turn-Over, and More! Only 25% of you get back to customers within 5 minutes. Do this, and magic happens. Do you want to wait when you click on support on other folks’ apps?

Sales Hiring 275

Sales Hiring Interviewing Revenue Sales 275

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

Then the question is what is the lead-to-opportunity ratio … A different way to back into it is that it’s hard for a rep to have too many more than 50 thoughtful, deep, qualified conversations a month, that include multiple demos, follow-ups, etc. 3 demos a day is a lot to prep for, x 20 working days + holidays = 50 good demos a month.

Sales 246

Sales Business 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

The 90-Day Revenue Test While 30 days is enough to evaluate their hiring decisions, you should see clear revenue improvements within 90 days (or one full sales cycle).

Sales Hiring 294

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 294

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2024

But first timers that have an easy time raising after Demo Days, don’t grock that the bar goes up for each round. Capital “Hubris” (if angel / seed rounds are easy). I don’t see this always, but I almost never see it in second time CEOs. They also assume their existing investors will bail them out.

Scale 300

Scale SaaS Social Media Business Model 300

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2025

The company uses a customer Advisory Board and a growth Advisory Board to test new slides, messaging, product demos, and get quick reactions from customers and advisers. The company’s product marketing team is constantly testing and iterating on new messaging, with the goal of getting market feedback as quickly as possible.

AI Search 244

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Annual includes structured networking opportunities with VCs, dedicated AI demo pitch stage, and all founders attending many apply to our Meet-a-VC Program. AI Demo Stage SaaStr Annual provides a comprehensive view of the current B2B landscape, emerging trends, and competitive movements.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 8, 2025

That’s what will take us from demos to real products that deliver value. Companies like Paragon are building the infrastructure layer to make this possible – giving AI agents access to thousands of tools through a single API. Want to learn how other companies are implementing these strategies? Join us at SaaStr Annual in May.

AI 236

AI Artificial Intelligence SaaS User Experience 236

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

And our full AI Summit will be back and we’re adding a full AI Demo Stage you can apply to present at (more details soon!) There are many more speakers, workshops and braindates we’ll announce soon. It’s going to be one of our most epic line-ups ever!

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 269

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) CTO AI Innovation 269

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 27, 2024

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself. We provide an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital product businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and award-winning consumer support.

Payment Methods 157

Payment Methods Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payments 157

User Pilot

OCTOBER 10, 2024

When users sign up for Miro, they don’t want to wade through tutorials or book a demo to learn advanced features—they want to dive right into designing and collaborating. ‹ › Miro’s onboarding process. It offers clear installation guidance and an interactive demo so users can explore its features before committing to full integration.

Onboarding 105

Onboarding SaaS Software Communication 105

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2025

Are there more demos, more contracts being drafted, and more deals in the works? If theyre not moving the needle, its time to seriously evaluate whether theyre the right fit. Heres what Id look at: Pipeline Growth : Have they increased your pipeline metrics? If your pipeline hasnt improved, thats a red flag.

Sales Hiring 166

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Onboarding 166

SaaStr

DECEMBER 7, 2020

A Web Demo. They want to sit back at their Dell desktop, and get a demo, while they watch with a cup of coffee or such. So they want a demo where you show them how you solve their problem. So: If you don’t have a Contact Me, if you don’t do enough Demos, do them now. How you provide a real solution.

Pricing 363

Pricing Enterprise Innovation Revenue 363

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

At the time, they’d reach out to a thousand accounts and get about 5-10 demos. Those SDRs had quotas of 50-60 demos per month. Who wouldn’t want 30-70 demos on the same accounts that previously got ten demos? Because 50% of Rippling’s demos are booked over the phone. From there, inbound SDRs would engage them.

Scale 314

Scale Sales Hiring Revenue Scaling 314

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2025

Solve Real Problems, Not AI Demo-ware The reality? A Few Key Learning From 20m+ Users Calendly has grown to 20m+ users by obsessing over scheduling workflows. When they started adding AI, here’s what they learned works: 1. Users don’t care about AI. They care about productivity.

AI 195

AI Scale Education User Experience 195

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2024

Everything from the demo all the way through support, onboarding and implementation can benefit from AI assistance.

AI Search 278

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence B2B 278

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 20, 2021

The best reps tailor the pitch, the demo, the functionality shares, the case studies, etc. The best reps just get more meetings, more demos, more interactions done. Great salespeople learn their prospects’ needs, issues and pain. They can adjust the pitch and story to suit the prospec t. Every prospect is a bit different.

Sales 358

Sales SaaS 358

SaaStr

JULY 16, 2024

How much of it is prospecting, cold emails or cold calls, reaching out through network, giving demos, trying to close deals, etc.? This is emails and reachouts for next steps, demos, follow-up on leads, deep dive calls (see below), sometimes flights, trying to increase the odds of a close. Helping on billing, renewals, etc.

Scale 282

Scale Sales SaaS Travel 282

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Pretty quickly, it generated a demo website using my uploaded blog that allowed me to click between the four different themes. Instead of diving into code and wrestling with JavaScript, I screenshotted my current blog and showed it to an AI. “Reformat this to resemble The Wall Street Journal,” I said. Then The Economist.

Artificial Intelligence 185

Artificial Intelligence AI Engineering Investment 185

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

Sometimes they want a more passive experience, where they can consume a demo and a discussion without having to answer a bunch of qualifying questions up front. You can alternate the format every week, but doing one every week will force you to do it and level things up: Some can be product demos. Do these every week.

Branding 358

Branding Marketing Sales SaaS 358

Blulogix

OCTOBER 22, 2024

Schedule a demo with a BluLogix billing expert today and take the first step towards revolutionizing your revenue management. Schedule a Demo Today 1. Schedule a demo with a BluLogix billing expert today and take the first step towards revolutionizing your revenue management.

Pricing 110

Pricing B2B Subscription Payment Features 110

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2022

But in the end, you can only do so many qualified calls and demos a day. Maybe 3–4 demos max for deals in process a day. It’s really tough if it takes more than 2 calls to close a deal, and more than 1 demo. Usually all inbound. 10–15 deals a month if $5k-$25k ACV (i.e., transactional, but not 1–2 call close).

Sales 309

Sales SMB Enterprise SaaS 309

SaaStr

JUNE 19, 2020

Take the time to do a personalized demo and pitch for everyone that might use your product. Ask who else would benefit from a demo, or a review of the app. And prepare a personalized demo and slides for them. Yes, it may take 5 demos to close a tiny deal. Pitch >all< the stakeholders. Make the time. Be proactive.

B2B 307

B2B Startup Sales Communication 307

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2021

First, at the low end of the market, there are 2 types of sales: “Real” sales with demos, leads, a sales process … and 1-Call-To-Close. They may want a demo. Because assuming say a 20% close rate, that’s maybe 60 demos a month, or 3 a day. But here’s what I learned. They have good questions.

SMB 334

SMB Pricing Sales Metrics 334

User Pilot

OCTOBER 19, 2024

Try Userpilot and Take Your Customer Satisfaction to the Next Level Get a Demo 14 Day Trial No Credit Card Required Why is customer satisfaction important for business growth? You can also organize a live demo session to help new users who have reached the activation point but haven’t fully adopted the product.

Business 111

Business Underperforming Technical Team Customer Lifetime Value Systems Review 111

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2024

Still — a 5% true connect rate — where they will take a call and do a demo — for a product no one has ever heard of, is pretty good. As long as the product delivers, your pitch is enough to get the demo. It says to me outbound may work well for your product. If you can close any of these 5%, I say, outbound ftw here.

275

275

SaaStr

MAY 25, 2020

“Have your ICP tight so you can have low qualification threshold for SDRs (no BANT, etc) allows you to get demos into AE’s hands faster.” “Depends on where you are in the funnel, but for post-SDR tip, I’d say making sure you show a demo on the first call. ” — Amy Volas, CEO, Avenue Talent Partners.

Sales Hiring 342

Sales Hiring Sales Outsourced Development Technical Review 342

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

Many more investors participating in demo days. As we countdown to Europe Demo Day on Tuesday, our GMs reflect on running our most recent programmes remotely: [link] pic.twitter.com/57Cj7IVlOw. Many accelerators seem to be taking advantage of the move to digital to materially increase the number of start-ups in their accelerators.

Travel 316

Travel Investment Management 316

The Daily Egg

JULY 25, 2021

We’ve run demos for nearly every kind of facility software out there and spoken to those who use it daily. Facility management software simplifies the process of improving the operations for any sized organization. Facility managers can discover potential problems and make adjustments before a serious issue occurs.

Software 321

Software Management 321

SaaStr

MAY 28, 2024

Mistake #1: A VP of Sales that Can’t Sell or Demo the Product “Whatever you do, do not hire a Head of Sales who can’t demo the product before day one,” Jason says. If they can’t demo the product before they sign the offer letter, don’t make the hire. The same is true for your first 5-10 reps.

Sales Hiring 299

Sales Hiring Scale AI Search AI 299

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

I first did my standard demo of our web product, and I was good at it. But then — they asked me to demo two more things. I tried to do the Salesforce demo, but I actually had never really used Salesforce before. So — I failed the demo. Force them to a demo before they start. I walked in alone.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring B2B Engineering Enterprise 278

SaaStr

JUNE 29, 2020

Inside Sales Leaders Don’t Love Mapping Out All the Stakeholders, Doing Demo-after-Demo, Filling our RFPs, Getting on Jets (When We Can Again). If you are used to managing dozens of inside sales reps, you don’t want to talk to every stakeholder, do a dozen demos, fill out that RFP … unless it’s a crucial deal.

Sales Hiring 317

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Customer Success 317

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2024

The interactive demo didn’t work (a browser bug). I got better at demo-ing myself. Not relying on someone else to do the demo Most importantly, I had to hear the objections first to learn them. Dear SaaStr: What Was Your Experience At Your First Big Enterprise Pitch? They asked me about our LDAP integration. It was rough.

Enterprise 268

Enterprise 268

FastSpring

JANUARY 28, 2025

Switch to FastSpring ASAP The fastest way to get emergency assistance from our sales and onboarding specialists is to fill out this form: FastSprings demo form is routed by geography and priority. Fill out our demo form to contact our team of specialists for immediate assistance transitioning to FastSpring for payments and subscriptions.

Merchant Services 122

Merchant Services Payment Services Payment Solutions SaaS Payments 122