This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Dear SaaStr: How Much Should a SaaS Company Invest in Professional Services? Now how much to invest is a different question. Don’t Forget the Services Revenue (image from here ) The post Dear SaaStr: How Much Should a SaaS Company Invest in Professional Services? Oftentimes, changing more than Salesforce does itself.
The Redpoint Playbook: How Top VCs Are Really Investing in AI Applications (And What It Means for Your SaaS Strategy) From SaaStr AI Wednesday with Jacob Efron, Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures If you’re building in B2B today and haven’t figured out your AI strategy, you’re likely falling behind. valuation) and Lorra.
Dear SaaStr: Why Do Angels Invest Even if Most Of Them Fail? True angels invest so early, maybe only 2 out of 50 make any real money. If it’s just 1 Big Winner out of 50 angel investments, to even just double your money, that winner has to do 100x. And is a 10x Return Even Enough? You’re right, 10x isn’t enough.
So I’m mostly made good investing decisions. My first VC investments were Pipedrive ($1.5B So if interested — here are the changed I’ve made to investing at SaaStr Fund : #1. Don’t Invest Without an S-Tier CTO If you follow me on social media, this won’t be a surprise, as I say it all the time.
Speaker: Peter Cowen, Managing Director, Sutton Capital Partners & Tim Draper, Founder, Draper Associates
Join Peter Cowen, Managing Director at Sutton Capital Partners, with top VCs looking at the trends and perspectives on investing in today’s climate. Come join us for any of these sessions to hear from these top seasoned investors and get answers to these questions: How are VCs now looking at investing in the short term?
I’ve invested almost $200m as part of SaaStr Fund / 2024. Make the cold email so great, you’d want to invest based on just it alone. Make the cold email so great, you’d want to invest based on just it alone. Is this the type of investments they do? VCs don’t expect investments to be perfect. They right stage?
When SaaStr Fund made the first investment in RevenueCat back in 2018, nobody could have predicted that this “simple API for managing in-app subscriptions” would become the infrastructure powering 33% of all mobile subscription apps and reach a $500M valuation in 2025. The SaaStr Fund Thesis: Mobile Subscriptions Will Explode.
We’re obviously written up a lot about Fundraising and Investing here on SaaStr.com, but time and time again, SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin has seen so many Founders sign a bad term sheet based on gut instinct, VC celebrity or vibes, and while that may be fine, it’s not enough.
Most Smaller VC Funds ($100m or smaller fund) would like to own 10% or more after a Seed or Pre-Seed Investment , but typically model around 7% average ownership. If it’s not a core investment, VC funds may be more flexible. But these exceptions to ownership targets make these investments non-core.
Join Peter Cowen, Managing Director at Sutton Capital Partners with top VCs looking at the trends and perspectives on investing in today’s climate. Come join us for any of these sessions to hear from these top seasoned investors and get answers to these questions: How are VCs now looking at investing in the short term?
Having led sales teams of 500+ at BILL and 800+ at HubSpot, Michelle has unique insights into what makes great frontline managers and why investing in them is crucial for sustainable growth. “At HubSpot, I had over 100 frontline sales managers reporting to me. ” The bottom line?
Several macro factors are converging to create this perfect storm: Enterprise Budget Scrutiny : CFOs are demanding higher ROI thresholds for software investments. The low-hanging fruit of digital transformation has been picked, and companies are being more selective about additional software investments.
Global Expansion : With customers spanning 135+ countries and continued international investment, HubSpot has successfully created a global business with significant growth opportunities (their TAM is $76B in 2024, growing to $128B by 2029, with <10% penetration across all products).
Early on, you’re investing heavily in ensuring customers are successful, driving adoption, and reducing churn. This is the stage where happy customers are your best marketing and retention tool, so over-investing here makes sense. enterprise customers) will require more investment.
Speaker: Peter Cowen, Managing Director, Sutton Capital Partners & Ben Narasin, Venture Partner, NEA
Join Peter Cowen, Managing Director at Sutton Capital Partners with top VCs looking at the trends and perspectives on investing in today’s climate. Come join us for any of these sessions to hear from these top seasoned investors and get answers to these questions: How are VCs now looking at investing in the short term?
But it’s clear that it’s still in the investing phase, and increasing spend in sales & marketing. Outside of a pre-IPO phase, Klaviyo has been cash-flow positive or close for most of its history. Today, it’s steadily driving its margins up, now up to 14% non-GAAP operating margins.
First, if youre not sure they want to invest they probably dont want to. The One Question To Ask At The End of Every VC Pitch: What Are The Odds You Would Invest? Just ask what are the odds theyd want to invest, based on what they know now. And its 100% OK to ask. This can lead to hesitation or misaligned expectations.
Engineering resources: With thousands of engineers, companies like HubSpot can make substantial AI investments when they choose to 3. Proprietary data access: “We’ve got the zoom data, the calling data, the email data…If you’re a startup breaking in and you want to do some amazing AI work, it’s tricky.”
Follow the Pilot-Repeat-Enlarge Methodology Pilot : Start small with minimal investment. Use a Hypothesis-Driven Approach For each campaign, establish: A clear hypothesis Time limits Budget constraints Minimum success criteria Most importantly, define what “success” looks like before you start.
Join Peter Cowen, Managing Director at Sutton Capital Partners with top VCs looking at the trends and perspectives on investing in today’s climate. Come join us for any of these sessions to hear from these top seasoned investors and get answers to these questions: How are VCs now looking at investing in the short term?
free cash flow in one quarter Capital Allocation: Returning cash while investing in growth The Meta-Lesson: The best SaaS companies don’t “grow up” and become boring. They become MORE impressive as they scale.
Share everything anyone would want to know to invest in you. But unless you are raising from folks that truly invest pre-revenue, investors are going to want to see 3 strong months of growth in a row. If nothing else, point out an existing investment or two theyve made that is somewhat similar to yours. # Share it all.
3 Came from the Investment Bank They Hired. In my experience, hiring an investment bank to help you in any acquisition > $100m or so is critical. Hit $20m ARR, growing 30%-40%, with little to no burn, and PE firms will begin to find you. #2. They Ran a Crisp, Tight Process And Got 4 Offers to Buy Them.
Invest in Automation and Efficiency Automate as much of the sales, billing, and collections process as possible. Misalignment here is one of the biggest killers of growth. For example, if marketing is driving leads that sales can’t close, or if customer success isn’t retaining customers, you’ll bleed revenue.
It's a must-read for SaaS companies looking to attract investment and achieve sustainable growth. The article guides SaaS executives in developing strong payment strategies, focusing on the right platform selection, user experience, and ensuring security and compliance.
Growth rates are normalizing, companies are focusing more on profitability, and the market is rewarding sustainable business models over growth-at-all-costs.
Basically I only invest in first-timers. First-timers do just as well, if not better, than second-timers. And they are much more capital-efficient. Not always, but often. And they lack the biases of second-timers. The post 6 Of The Most Common Mistakes I See First Time SaaS Founders Make appeared first on SaaStr.
This reduces the perceived risk of adopting a new solution, especially if theyre replacing an existing system or investing significant resources. If key stakeholders or end-users see the value during the pilot, its much easier for the client to justify the investment to their leadership team. Risk reduction is key.
It’s now falling to 150 because 81% percent of the dollars invested in venture capital at the height of the boom came from non-traditional venture capital firms which are all very likely to leave investing. US venture funding went from 8 to 300 over 15 years.
Forward-thinking marketing organizations have continuously invested in a database strategy for enabling marketing processes. It involves finding a data management provider that can append contacts with correct information — in real-time.
But I’d say 90% of SaaS companies I work with and have invested in don’t get these basics right for a long, long time. Even if churn isn’t that high today — it likely will be later. I see many SaaS start-ups with mediocre retention with … mediocre NPS (20-30). Yes, a lot of this sounds basic. Not for real. NPS is A Great Core Metric.
It needs to answer the “Why You Should Invest in Me” question in one glance. Maybe in a handful of cases when the investment is blindly obvious. The most important components of a Series A pitch deck are: The One-Slide Summary. Make The First Slide Sell The Deal : Your first slide should sell the entire company on its own.
I’ve later co-invested with VCs that treated me pretty poorly, at least IMHO. Everyone knows this. If you refuse to work with VCs that have never done something remotely questionable your VC network will end up being close to zero partners. I doubt they ever realized they did. Three, let it go. Man, its hard.
Invest in Sales Ops Early : Once you have 8-10 salespeople, you’ll need a Sales Ops/Enablement professional to manage training, onboarding, territories, and compensation plans, unless your VP Sales happens to be great at this. Be Ready to Invest : Building a world-class sales team isn’t cheap. By the time you’re at $1M-$1.5M
If you’re investing in a B2B sales training initiative, give your program the best chance of success by implementing a reinforcement program designed to improve retention and keep the momentum of your training message going until your reps have the opportunity to really apply it. Or will it all be forgotten within days?
Having been through 4 acquisitions in different forms (founder, exec, etc), it’s a lot like a venture capital investment. A ton of time is invested negotiating price, and then way, way too much time on inconsequential legal terms, and then … it closes. Usually, there isn’t actually a ton of time to really get to know each other first.
Organizations that invest heavily in customer success earlier see much higher customer retention and loyalty than the competition. But you have to be intentional and clear on what and where you want to invest to drive that high-value impact. You’ll likely retain these long-term, dedicated customers and brand ambassadors.
I havent done that, but Ive done handshake deals in one day in maybe 50% of my investments (i.e, Not literally months to do the homework that doesnt take long but sometimes months to see enough progress for the investment to make sense to me, to connect enough dots. Yes, term sheets get done in one day.
Investment and Strategic Implications For VCs and Strategic Investors Category Investment Thesis : We’re witnessing the formation of a new software category with $100B+ TAM potential. Early-stage investments in platform infrastructure, specialized tools, and enterprise-focused solutions present significant upside.
It's important to also invest in building a passive candidate pipeline. At some point in your role as a recruiter - perhaps more frequently than not - you'll need to fill a position quickly and you'll look for active recruitment strategies to do it.
Investing in customer success early can make a huge difference here. Except Maybe Your Existing Investors. Customer Churn: Retaining customers is just as important as acquiring them. Founders worry about churn, especially in the early days when every customer matters. And measuring it and driving it down every single quarter.
The purpose of the detailed information is to help investors (both institutional and retail) make informed investment decisions. The document contains a plethora of information on the company including a general overview, up to date financials, risk factors to the business, cap table highlights and much more.
👑 Larry’s Long-Term Vision : CEO Larry Ellison’s early AI investments and partnerships (particularly around autonomous database technology) positioned Oracle perfectly for the AI infrastructure boom. 💾 Data as the Moat : While others chased AI features, Oracle doubled down on what it does best—managing enterprise data at scale.
Without these insights, marketing campaigns can feel more like guesswork, with high investment and little return. One of the biggest challenges for any B2B marketer is understanding your prospects’ next move — who is most likely to buy and when. We’re here to tell you there’s a better way.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 80,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content