SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

It’s to say many of us do not know how to use AI effectively enough yet to impact conversion metrics. #6: Many SaaS companies have copied this for a long time as a two-part tariff: a base platform fee upfront then the incremental cost of additional users as you go. So how much business has it closed? You pay an additional 2.5

Venture Capital 331

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 331

SaaStr

DECEMBER 17, 2024

So SaaS is back. Top SaaS stocks are on fire the past few months, and the SaaS downturn in B2B2B appears to be behind us. It’s 2021 but all over again, and different But in SaaS overall, the growth playbook hasn’t totally worked out on the last 4 SaaS IPOs. A related post here: Is SaaS Back? (TL;DR:

SaaS 261

SaaS AI Pricing Metrics 261

SaaStr

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital and 25-year C-level veteran, shares the top 14 signs that you have a SaaS metrics problem, the five reasons those symptoms exist, and a SaaS metrics maturity model with five layers to help you move the needle at every stage. Numbers are used to bludgeon management. 2: Misleading.

Metrics 339

Metrics Sales Hiring Benchmarks SaaS 339

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2024

As a SaaS veteran who built and sold a software company for nine figures, invested in startups since 2013, 10x-ing his fund, and continues to build a powerhouse community of SaaStr fans, he offers some hot takes on the communities’ burning questions. What metrics should we expect in this environment? Let’s start with the meta. “I

Metrics 272

Metrics Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 272

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2024

What are the three most under-discussed metrics on social media, with VCs, and especially with founders? The top leaders in SaaS and Cloud still have triple-digit NRR, so you’ll still grow even if you bring in no new customers. They’re the LeBron James of SaaS. This should be your North Star metric. Rubrik is next.

Metrics 300

Metrics SaaS Scale Social Media 300

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

So over the past decade-and-a-half we’ve come up with a lot of yardsticks, metrics and rules for SaaS companies. E.g.,: CAC of < 12 months is Good-to-Great Paying sales reps 25%-30% of what they close is Good A burn ratio of 1 or less is Good These metrics do sort of work, if you have some capital to spend (i.e.,

SaaS Payments 278

SaaS Payments Metrics SMB Payments 278

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2024

Pricing is more than just a number on a contract — when used thoughtfully, it can become a strategic tool for your SaaS product that can drive product adoption, customer satisfaction, and business growth. Pricing you can play with but the metrics, like customer value, are really hard to change after the fact.

Payments 284

Payments Pricing Scale Revenue 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Her company specializes in API integration platforms that enable SaaS companies to launch integrations faster and automate complex business processes. The post Where AI Really Matters in Vertical SaaS With CEOs of Owner, Alloy Automation, and DoNotPay appeared first on SaaStr.

AI 222

AI Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Systems Review 222

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2022

It created a lot of discussions and was more controversial then — that NPS was a great core metric. Back then, I wrote that when I was a SaaS founder, I thought Net Promoter Score (“NPS”) was a somewhat dumb, Big Company metric. I didn’t want a metric that was abstracted away from revenue.

Metrics 293

Metrics Churn Engineering Innovation 293

The SaaS CFO

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

Operating your SaaS company without metrics is like flying a plane without instruments. As an in-house SaaS CFO and now fractional CFO, I’ve seen firsthand how critical it is to […] The post Scaling with Confidence: The Ultimate SaaS Metrics Playbook appeared first on The SaaS CFO.

Metrics 65

Metrics Scaling SaaS 65

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

And come see so many more great convos like this at 2025 SaaStr Annual + AI Summit on May 13-15 in SF Bay , including the CEOs and CXOs at vertical SaaS leaders ServiceTitan, Clio, MangoMint, Owner and so many more! Sekar emphasizes CAC payback period as the single most important metric for product leaders to track. The Five Lessons 1.

Scale 260

Scale Transportation Scaling SMB 260

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

But I’ve yet to work with a SaaS company that can’t improve. I see too few SaaS start-up and scale-ups truly segment churn. I see many SaaS start-ups with mediocre retention with … mediocre NPS (20-30). 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.

Churn 270

Churn Retention Scale Investment 270

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

So we’ve covered HubSpot more than any other SaaS leader on this 5 Interesting Learnings series, in part because so many of us use HubSpot ourselves, and in part because its metrics and use cases are so like many of the apps we build and sell ourselves. 5 More Interesting Learnings then: #1.

SMB 312

SMB CTO Onboarding Scale 312

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2023

So SaaS Capital put out its latest report on SaaS retention and NRR after having surveyed over 1,500 SaaS companies and professionals. There are a lot of great learnings and metrics in the report, and a few stood out to me: #1. Median NRR is 102% across all SaaS companies, Media Gross Retention is 91%.

Startup 362

Startup SaaS Retention Churn 362

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

As Checkr follows usage-based pricing, it’s a transactional business that needs to be managed differently than a typical subscription SaaS model since they only earn revenue when the customer is using the product. The team lacked visibility into key metrics like average revenue per customer.

Revenue 293

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 293

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2025

The Future of AI in B2B SaaS: Insights from Synthesia and Theory Ventures. #3. Why Im Scared to Buy New SaaS Apps Now with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin #4. The Top 10 Customer Success Metrics Investors Care About in 2025 with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta #5. 10 Ways AI Is Going to Change Sales.

AI 268

AI Venture Capital Sales B2B 268

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2022

There are so many metrics out there these days on how public SaaS companies are doing. etc, So many metric sometimes it’s a little hard to get a handle on what they all mean. The latest Bessemer Parting the Cloud summarized it all I think with one helpful metric: SaaS multiples are down 75% from a year ago. .

SaaS 71

SaaS Cloud Metrics Pricing 71

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

Here’s an uncomfortable truth about SaaS companies: the majority of first-time VPs of Sales don’t make it past 12 months. As someone who has both succeeded and failed at making this critical hire, I can tell you that when it works, it’s transformative. When it doesn’t, it’s potentially catastrophic.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount 301

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 28, 2025

Data from Stripe (below) shows the speed at which AI native companies are growing compared to SaaS companies. The bar to hitting escape velocity went up (in SaaS companies vs their on prem counterparts). So you can’t apply the same pattern match to AI company scaling that existed in SaaS company scaling.

Cloud 299

Cloud AI Scale Scaling 299

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2025

The Second Most Important SaaS Hire? Time-to-value is your most critical early metric. What Most SaaS Companies Get Wrong The standard playbook is: Hire sales Hit growth targets Eventually add CS when churn becomes painful But that’s backward. Customer Success. Shocking, I know. Your ICP needs CS input. Way earlier.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Churn 246

Chart Mogul

OCTOBER 30, 2024

As we all know, the SaaS ecosystem has changed dramatically over the last few years, and customer retention and expansion are becoming increasingly important for SaaS … Account Management is a delightfully intricate balance of art and science. Satisfaction > Adoption when it comes to determining a good success metric.

Management 105

Management B2B SaaS Scale 105

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2024

Fast forward to today, the “average” SaaS company that IPO’s … takes 13.6 But a useful metric to understand nevertheless. Anyhow, even after in the end, “losing” this initial market to Microsoft … Microsoft / Bill Gates still bought the company for $3.5 billion in ’95. Not too shabby.

Startup 261

Startup Finance Software Metrics 261

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

In the latest SaaStr Workshop Wednesday (sign up for FREE here ), Jessica Bartos of Salesforce Ventures did a great deep dive on the state of SaaS and venture in 2013. One metric stood out to me I hadn’t seen presented before: just how many private SaaS companies (i.e., startups) have crossed $100,000,000.

SaaS 339

SaaS Startup Metrics Investment 339

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 18, 2024

”” Benchmark Data The data shown below depicts how the ServiceTitan data compares to the operating metrics of current public SaaS businesses. Together, we refer to our Pro and FinTech products as “add-on products.””

Benchmarks 299

Benchmarks Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments 299

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Bessemer Venture Partners had added a nice newsletter, Parting the Clouds , that’s very metrics dense. A few stuck out this week as helpful ways to summarize just what’s happening with SaaS public companies. The post Half of Public SaaS Companies Trade At Under 6x ARR Today appeared first on SaaStr.

SaaS 353

SaaS Cloud Metrics Software 353

User Pilot

OCTOBER 10, 2024

Can you imagine what the ideal SaaS customer onboarding process looks like? That’s why we’ll go over what onboarding is in SaaS and analyze 8 onboarding examples from reputable SaaS companies to learn what they’re doing right (or wrong). This approach makes sense for a data-driven product like Amplitude.

Onboarding 105

Onboarding SaaS Software Communication 105

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Dialpad’s Top Learnings Building Its Own AI Stack When it comes to AI implementation in SaaS, most companies are still figuring out whether to build or buy. Here are the key learnings every SaaS company should know. Your unique data will be your competitive advantage in the AI-first future.

AI 262

AI Scale Government compliance 262

SaaStr

JANUARY 13, 2022

The late-stage VC firm Meritech put together its annual SaaS report here and it slices the data in a few interesting ways. The average SaaS company hits $225m ARR at IPO. The average SaaS company is growing 55% at IPO (at that $225m ARR). Only 33% of SaaS IPO’s in 2021 were HQ’d in the Bay Area.

SMB 360

SMB SaaS Retention Scale 360

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2022

Dear SaaStr: How Long Does It Take the Average SaaS Startup to “Exit”? I took a look a little while back at how long it took the average SaaS company that was sold for $1B+ to get that acquisition. years (maybe the better metric): The fastest of the bunch was Divvy’s $2b+ acquisition by Bill 5 years after funding.

Startup 328

Startup SaaS Acquisition B2B 328

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2025

Prior to Datadog, Alex held leadership positions at several high-growth SaaS companies and has a proven track record of building marketing engines that deliver consistent, measurable growth. Schedule regular deep dives into performance metrics to maintain your edge. Markets change, competitors emerge, and platforms evolve.

Scale 242

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Marketing 242

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Is A Good Demo Conversion Rate for a SaaS Startup? This is why SaaS start-ups often are so proud of their “amazing” conversion rates before they hire a real VP of Demand Gen. So avoid obsessing too much about absolute metrics inside your funnel, especially the metrics between lead and close.

Startup 284

Startup Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 284

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Unparalleled Networking Opportunities SaaStr Annual brings together thousands of SaaS, Cloud and AI executives, founders, VCs, and industry leaders under one roof across our 40+ acre campus, May 13-15 in SF Bay! Sessions typically focus on real metrics, strategies, and lessons learned, not theoretical concepts.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

What data and metrics do you need to convince SaaS investors you’re in good shape and aligned with what they care about? These metrics are more targeted to those preparing for a Series A or B round and could make the difference between an excited-to-invest-in-you investor and a pass. They’re looking for excellent retention.

Metrics 184

Metrics Sales Hiring Retention Churn 184

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Former Head of Revenue at BILL and HubSpot Americas leader Michelle Benfer recently joined us on a SaaStr Workshop Wednesday share her insights on one of the most critical roles in any SaaS organization: the frontline sales manager. Robust Measurement Effective measurements is really effective management. ” The bottom line?

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales 260

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

Moving upmarket isn’t just a nice-to-have for most SaaS companies – it’s often the difference between building a sustainable $100M+ ARR business and getting stuck in the mid-market quicksand. Start Planning for Enterprise Earlier Than You Think The biggest mistake SaaS companies make?

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244