The Angel VC
MAY 31, 2016
When we invest in a SaaS startup, which almost always happens at the seed stage, the next big milestone on the company’s roadmap is usually a Series A. If you carry this thought further and assume that the biggest goal after the Series A is to get to the Series B (and so on, you get the idea) it sounds like turtles all the way down. But financing rounds are obviously not a goal in itself.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 26, 2016
In 1967, Harvard Business Review rejected a paper submitted by Mel Conway. A year later, Conway’s thesis would eventually be dubbed Conway’s Law. Conway graduated from Caltech with a Masters in physics and from Case Western Reserve with PhD in math. He worked on the Pascal compiler among other notable software projects. Over the course of his career, Conway observed a phenomenon.
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Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
MAY 7, 2016
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton explained “because that’s where the money is.” Not that marketers are bank robbers, but the same idea applies to finding prospective customers. If you want to get their attention, you need to go where they are. If you’re at they'll never look, it’s unlikely prospects will see you. This idea certainly sounds logical.
CloseSaaS
MAY 13, 2016
2015 proved that even unicorns aren’t invincible. Snapchat’s value took a 25% hit. Evernote went through a second round of layoffs. Optimizely had to let go of 10% of their workforce. (Let’s not even talk of Zenefits.) Good Technology sold for less than half of its top valuation.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
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Sylvia Ng
MAY 23, 2016
So you have customer data, and you’d like to start segmenting it to get serious with your acquisition and retention efforts. That means going beyond what out of the box analytics tools spit out, and doing data crunching of your own. Where do you start? There’s typical data-mining methodology (ie CRISP-DM ) which you can follow but that’s not what this post is about.
SaaS Brief brings together the best content for SaaS professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
yoursales
MAY 18, 2016
5 THINGS TO CONSIDER IN SOCIAL SELLING 5 THINGS TO CONSIDER IN SOCIAL SELLING 5 THINGS TO CONSIDER IN SOCIAL SELLING I ronically, the default “personal note” when you wish to connect with someone on LinkedIn is “I’d like to add you to my professional network.” Would you ever say this to someone in person? Would you say this exact same phrase to everyone you meet?
Tom Tunguz
MAY 23, 2016
One question founders often ask is which is the right customer size to target? What is the optimal ACV for a SaaS startup? One way of answering this question is to reflect upon the success of previous SaaS companies and analyze how they did it. The chart above plots the total revenue of publicly traded SaaS companies by ACV bucket. Enterprise companies average contract value is greater than $100,000.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 22, 2016
To thrive, venture capital firms must perform three things well: raise capital from limited partners, source companies to invest in, and pick the best opportunities. Historically, each of these three activities has been highly centralized in a small partnership often perched on Sand Hill Road. But new networks are changing this. The latest called DAO attempts to decentralize all three at once.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 25, 2016
“There are three different types of channel relationships for SaaS companies,” a seasoned executive told me recently. Which is the right one for your SaaS startup? In a classic reseller relationship, the value-added reseller sells, builds, services and operates a solution to a customer. After signing the deal, the VAR crafts and customize the software to the needs of the customer, invoices the customer and supports the customer.
Speaker: Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments
Most integrated payments providers share a percent of the payment revenue with their software partners. But, oftentimes, that revenue share is only a fraction of the true income potential software providers can realize. If you want to maximize income opportunities from your payments program, check out Wind River Payments’ webinar-on-demand.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 12, 2016
The highest correlated factor to post-money valuations for Series A SaaS companies isn’t revenue or revenue growth, but negative churn. Revenue growth correlates to post-money with a 0.18 R^2. Revenue correlates at 0.3 R^2. Negative churn, or account expansion, correlates at 0.54 R^2. Initially, I found that result astounding, because all of the public market research and valuation work focuses instead of multiples of revenue.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 30, 2016
We each know that focus is the most effective way to work, but hearing the mantra to focus doesn’t help narrow our scope. What’s the best way to focus? Start with the premise that everything is noise and then work to find the exceptionally valuable or important things for each day and for each project. That’s the thesis of a book called Essentialism.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 9, 2016
Half of innovation is invention. Creating an elegant, disruptive, and new experience is one of the greatest attractions of founding a company. A product that can change the way people view the world and interact with it – who doesn’t want to build that? Most start ups have no problem focusing time and attention on iterating, improving and perfecting product.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 8, 2016
Just how real is the sudden importance and profitability for SaaS companies? The median publicly traded SaaS company has improved net margin from -25% to -8.8% in less than two years, after a nearly four-year trend of negative growth in net margin. The initial spike in 2014 occurs two quarters after the first SaaS correction and the second occurs in late 2015.
Speaker: Ben Epstein, Stealth Founder & CTO | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO, Aggregage
When tasked with building a fundamentally new product line with deeper insights than previously achievable for a high-value client, Ben Epstein and his team faced a significant challenge: how to harness LLMs to produce consistent, high-accuracy outputs at scale. In this new session, Ben will share how he and his team engineered a system (based on proven software engineering approaches) that employs reproducible test variations (via temperature 0 and fixed seeds), and enables non-LLM evaluation m
Tom Tunguz
MAY 4, 2016
The notion of channel sales in SaaS companies is becoming more common than in has been in the last few years, and for some businesses like Intacct, channel partnerships drive more than 50% of sales. Channels used to be about software customization, delivery and support. Most SaaS has little customization, manages all the delivery and are better suited to handling the support.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 3, 2016
In the past week, Oracle acquired two vertical SaaS companies. OPower is an Arlington Virginia based company that employs approximately 600 people. The company analyzes utility consumption patterns and helps homeowners reduce their energy consumption. Textura provides collaboration tools for the construction industry and is based in Illinois. Oracle paid $663 million, net of cash for Textura and $532 million for OPower.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 1, 2016
It is an election year. The Federal Reserve has changed its interest rate hike plan. Venture financing has slowed by upwards of 15% in the first quarter. Q1 GDP growth fell to 0.5% from 1.4% in Q4. How much have all these factors impacted SaaS companies? Are buyers purchasing less software? Each quarter, publicly traded companies release two key figures: revenue per share and earnings-per-share.
CloseSaaS
MAY 30, 2016
Most people in sales that have done really well for themselves are those that truly create value for others. Those salespeople all have one thing in common.
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CloseSaaS
MAY 26, 2016
“Actions speak louder than meetings.
CloseSaaS
MAY 24, 2016
As a B2B startup, there's going to come a time when you have to let go of a customer. It's an ironic role-reversal when you finally are in a position to tell no to someone who wants to pay you money, but firing a customer can be just as hard as winning a customer. Here's how to do it right.
CloseSaaS
MAY 23, 2016
We’ve all been there. You’re having a great conversation and you’re excited, enthused and eager to speak. You get carried away. And before you know it, you’ve jumped in and said something stupid, insensitive or even offensive.
CloseSaaS
MAY 19, 2016
We’re excited to roll out Integration Links to all Close customers. Connect your Close account to platforms offering complementary services and experience a more streamlined and accelerated sales cycle. Let’s take a look at how Integration Links work and how they will help you close deals faster.
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CloseSaaS
MAY 17, 2016
In 2011, over 400,000 businesses were launched in the US. Two years later, one-third of those businesses had gone under.
CloseSaaS
MAY 16, 2016
If you’ve ever had a call or a meeting with me, then you scheduled it through my awesome assistant, Mary. She keeps my calendar running smoothly and follows up with folks right on time. She’s so organized and professional that some people don’t even think she’s human.
CloseSaaS
MAY 12, 2016
In Close, the Opportunities feature helps you identify and keep track of deals that are on the verge of closing. Any opportunity that is added to a lead becomes visible on the Opportunities screen to give your team a high-level view of your entire pipeline.
CloseSaaS
MAY 10, 2016
Yes is good. No is good. Maybe is where startups go to die. Let’s talk about how people get to that middle ground, Maybeland. Then, let’s talk about how to get the hell out. Truth is, most companies—most startups—have to make their way through Maybeland at some point.
Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O'Neill Stoll
Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng
CloseSaaS
MAY 9, 2016
Most salespeople ask for the close way too late. They’re all waiting for the perfect moment. That moment when they have a guaranteed “yes.” We do this because we want to avoid rejection.
CloseSaaS
MAY 6, 2016
You probably heard about the recent Zenefits, Apple, or Uber crisis and thought, “Wow, that sucks. But it wouldn’t happen to me.”BS. Crises happen in every business. Hopefully yours won’t be as dramatic as insurance scams or unconstitutional demands, but s**t eventually hits the fan.
CloseSaaS
MAY 4, 2016
I recently spoke with the head of business development for a chemical engineering startup focused on helping the pharmaceutical, flavor, and fragrance industries reduce their carbon footprint.
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