Tom Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 22, 2024

Suppose you’re a startup in a competitive market with a large incumbent who owns the system of record - the software that runs the sales team or the support team or the marketing team. In the last decade, startups have chosen to identify a feature or workflow to improve & leverage that wedge into an advantage. How do you win?

AI 312

AI Startup Software Metrics 312

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 13, 2022

Thanks to the many readers who wrote in to Guess the Startup on Friday. I had three goals for the Guess the Startup Post. Try finding those metrics for Ethereum. growth rate in a year would be the envy of most seed stage startups. Here’s the early revenue chart again. Red Company is Ethereum.

Startup 305

Startup Scale Retention Enterprise 305

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Tomasz Tunguz , General Partner at Theory Ventures, shares nine observations from a Go-To-Market survey Theory Ventures did with hundreds of startups, 68% of them early-stage, well-funded, mostly mid-market ACV, and 25% remote. It’s to say many of us do not know how to use AI effectively enough yet to impact conversion metrics. #6:

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Marketing AI SaaS 333

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2023

SaaS products and services like Pilot track the finances of 1,000s of SaaS and other startup so they’re an interesting source of hard data. Something that’s both not surprising but also pretty impactful: 57% of venture-backed startups will have to go “back to market” in 2024 to raise more capital. Carpe Diem.

Startup 357

Startup Venture Capital Azure AWS 357

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 14, 2022

Most startups operate between 0.15-0.25. Top startups will record 200-300% NDR as PLG becomes a dominant go-to-market strategy. Third, Bill revealed his Mojo Metric , his north-star metric. The Mojo Metric reports the net change in pipeline daily. A land AE with a $300k OTE might have a $600k quota. We agree there!

Startup 342

Startup Construction Sales Compensation 342

SaaStr

MAY 3, 2024

What are the three most under-discussed metrics on social media, with VCs, and especially with founders? Too many startups aren’t growing, or they’re growing 10-15-20%. They went from on-prem to a SaaS model and may flatter their metrics a little by confusing them. This should be your North Star metric. We are not.

Metrics 303

Metrics SaaS Scale Social Media 303

Tom Tunguz

JULY 8, 2023

In There’s No Such Thing as Series A Metrics , Charles Hudson explains that there is no magic milestone to raise a Series A. I once met a startup founder who called his first round of financing Series Awesome. The second reason for a lack of consistent metrics for Series A has to do with perturbations in purchasing behavior.

Metrics 297

Metrics Forecasting Finance Startup 297

SaaStr

MARCH 24, 2021

5 tips for developing a sales process for your startup. Know what metrics you want to track. Design your sales process so you can report on key metrics. Sponsored blog post brought to you by Zendesk for Startups. Are you a startup looking to get started on your sales CRM or overall customer experience? Learn more.

Sales Hiring 320

Sales Hiring Startup Sales Outsourced Development 320

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2020

Even though the metrics were very impressive. The post My Top 8 Mistakes Investing in SaaS Startups appeared first on SaaStr. Making things up is bad. Claiming something without knowing it correctly … about a customer I knew personally … was a flag. I shouldn’t have invested in this one. Investing in a founder/CEO not better than me.

Investment 363

Investment Startup SaaS Pricing 363

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2023

There are a lot of great learnings and metrics in the report, and a few stood out to me: #1. More at the full report here : The post SaaS Capital: Across 1,500 SaaS Startups, Yearly Contracts Don’t Actually Increase NRR appeared first on SaaStr. You can download it here.

Startup 362

Startup SaaS Retention Churn 362

SaaStr

APRIL 10, 2023

However, what many businesses may overlook is the startup segment. Often, startups are lumped in with small businesses, yet this approach fails to recognize what motivates and attracts these early-stage companies. Why Seek Out Startups? How is it that you want to sell to startups differently than the rest of your customer base?”

Startup 273

Startup Scale SMB Venture Capital 273

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2022

Dear SaaStr: How Long Does It Take the Average SaaS Startup to “Exit”? years (maybe the better metric): The fastest of the bunch was Divvy’s $2b+ acquisition by Bill 5 years after funding. More here : The post Dear SaaStr: How Long Does It Take the Average SaaS Startup to “Exit”? The answer?

Startup 330

Startup SaaS Acquisition B2B 330

SaaStr

APRIL 6, 2023

Dear SaaStr: How Do VCs Value Startups? As a really rough metric, we’re back to anchoring about 10x ARR. The very best startups will be able to raise at higher than 10x ARR. But VCs do not want to take the risk though on decent growth or metrics, but no signs it could be a unicorn. The meeting ends.

Startup 282

Startup Metrics Investment Pricing 282

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2020

Q: As a venture capitalist, what are some red flags that would make you reject a startup immediately? First, there is a lot of marginal behavior that doesn’t lead to an immediate rejection, but does lead to immediate skepticism: Metrics that don’t quite make sense. View original question on quora. appeared first on SaaStr.

Startup 352

Startup Investment Metrics Sales 352

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2024

In a recent Workshop Wednesday, SaaStr Founder and CEO, Jason Lemkin sat down to discuss 9 signs a startup isn’t going to make it. So, let’s look at the nine signs a startup will likely not be a real success. Sign #2: You’re Too Slow to Hire VPs If you want to gauge momentum in a startup, see how quickly they hire VPs.

Sales Hiring 304

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 304

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2021

Jamin Bell of Altimeter Capital has a great Substack looking a lot of SaaS and Cloud metrics. I thought I’d pull out one set of data and focus on what it means for startup valuations. The anchor growth rate for a SaaS startup remains, roughly, the Triple Triple Double Double. The post What’s Your SaaS Startup Worth?

Startup 330

Startup Revenue SaaS Cloud 330

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Is A Good Demo Conversion Rate for a SaaS Startup? So avoid obsessing too much about absolute metrics inside your funnel, especially the metrics between lead and close. And thus a lot of your conversion metrics will actually fall as you scale. Because they need to close 10-15 deals a month to eat.

Startup 287

Startup Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 287

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

You see this time and time again in startups that are late to “top” their first set of VPs. Really, what you tend to see when you keep a stretch VP too long in their current role is flat metrics. But a VP whose metrics are flat for more than a quarter rarely if even finds a way to reaccelerate growth later.

Sales Recruiting 314

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Metrics 314

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore? So when you are out of ideas to grow, move your primary focus to growing your CSAT (customer satisfaction) and NPS (Net Promoter Score) metrics up substantially. Third, focus on metrics besides revenue that matter, and that you can grow right now.

Startup 310

Startup B2B Metrics Product Marketing 310

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., They don’t.

SaaS Payments 281

SaaS Payments Metrics SMB Payments 281

SaaStr

JUNE 15, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Is It Normal for a Startup to Not Disclose Burn Rate and Other Details to its Employees? Maybe share 80% of what’s on your mind, and 80% of your metrics. It really varies, but in my ecosystem, I’ve seen more transparency over the years, which is good. That’s about right. And about enough.

Startup 304

Startup Metrics Leadership 304

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

It was started in 2014 when founders Daniel and Jonathan were working together at a delivery startup and experienced firsthand how slow background checks were slowing down worker onboarding. The team lacked visibility into key metrics like average revenue per customer.

Revenue 296

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 296

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

Dan, a Stanford-trained engineer with experience guiding companies like Intuit, understands how to optimize your product metrics for growth by focusing on retention and building a product users truly value. Research also shows that about 90% of startups fail , and poor product-market fit is often the culprit.

Metrics 105

Metrics Scale Acquisition Retention 105

SaaStr

APRIL 20, 2024

Expectations and Performance Metrics For every functional area, employees should show improvement within one sales cycle or they likely never will. Product Marketing and Early-Stage Priorities Product marketing is not a priority for most startups. Bad hires are always the fault of the founder or hiring manager, not the hire.

Sales Hiring 304

Sales Hiring Startup Marketing Technical Review 304

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2024

Startups I invested in from cold email from founder: Salesloft (exited $2.4B) Talkdesk ($10B) Pipedrive (exited $1.5B) Logikcull (exited $270m) Owner Mangomint etc. Look at your metrics objectively. Would you invest, yourself, based just looking at the communications and metrics? Not all of them, but many. Re-read that deck.

Venture Capital 276

Venture Capital Investment AI Metrics 276

Intercom, Inc.

OCTOBER 18, 2021

The SaaS industry is full of advice on the perfect product metrics to gauge your users’ activation, engagement, and interactions. If you don’t know exactly what questions you want answered, these product metrics leave you blinded by the very data you hoped would open your eyes. What are product metrics?

Metrics 269

Metrics Customer Lifetime Value User Experience Engagement 269

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 16, 2020

Which metrics suggest it’s the right time to grow the GTM teams again? Strategic triggers are essential complements to a plan, especially those around burn. First, when should the company raise capital? If need be, when should the company explore cutting staff to reach cash-flow break even. What is your strategic stance?

Strategy 351

Strategy Startup Venture Capital Acquisition 351

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

And there’s a rough metric you can use to meter this: for each 10% of your company you sell roughly, you’re going to give up a board seat. And there is bad behavior all over the place on these imploding startups. And that means that 99 percent of startups can’t even raise venture capital. There is micro fraud.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Software Review Investment Startup 314

SaaStr

MARCH 29, 2025

Its where many startups hit roadblocks, but if you do it right, its a game-changer. Include scripts, objection handling, and key metrics. Early sales reps are taking a risk by joining a startup, so you need to make it worth their while. Pay close attention to metrics like conversion rates, deal size, and sales cycle length.

Scale 202

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Compensation 202

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Dear SaaStr: What is the Process You Follow When Investing in an Up-and-Coming Startup? There are too many startups out there that want to meet, have coffee, do a Zoom, etc. The single most important thing you can do is protect your “slots” so that you meet with startups there is at least some chance you might invest in.

Investment 287

Investment Startup Metrics Software 287

SaaStr

APRIL 15, 2025

Graduation rates plummeting : The percentage of seed companies successfully raising Series A has dropped significantly across all industries, creating a “crunch” for many startups. Focus on the right metrics : Be transparent about your key metrics rather than relying on vanity numbers.

Technical Review 159

Technical Review Venture Capital Outsourced Development AI 159

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Coupa’s sale continues a trend of private equity buying venture backed startups , a result of record PE fundraising & depressed multiples. Startups should expect more private equity M&A both in the public & private markets. Both of these data points imply public multiples have room to grow. Revenue, $m. Gross margin.

Acquisition 250

Acquisition Startup Software Pricing 250

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

From startup to $500M CARR, Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, shares how Braze scaled a growth and customer success team. As an early startup team, you’re doing every job under the sun. We get lazy writing job descriptions, and taking shortcuts is a luxury most startups don’t have. But that was it.

Scale 294

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 294

SaaStr

JANUARY 17, 2023

What is the right Go-To-Market strategy for a startup getting out of the gate? What’s his response to startups figuring out which strategy to begin with, product-led or sales-led? “It Buyers want KPIs and keywords typically quantified in pain, metrics, and value. Sign up here to join them FOR FREE! How do you achieve both?

Startup 300

Startup Sales Sales Funnel Education 300

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2025

The Y Combinator Guide to Perfectly Pitching Your Seed Stage Startup with Michael Seibel #4. The Top 10 Customer Success Metrics Investors Care About in 2025 with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta #4. Top Posts: #1: 70% of Pipeline from Marketing Comes From Just 4 Things #2. Redpoint: 31% of All VC Money Last Year Went Into Just 20 Deals #3.

Scale 164

Scale AI Sales Customer Support 164

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Collect customer data to calculate complex formulas for tracking metrics, monitor customer health scores, and resolve support tickets while continuously trying to improve retention and expansion. Best customer success software for startups and small companies. Zapscale Best for : Early-stage startups. G2 rating : 4.8

Customer Success 105

Customer Success Enterprise Software Review Startup 105

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Is The Best Indicators of Product Market Fit at an Early Stage SaaS B2B Startup? This is a rough metric, but I’d say from experience working closely with 25+ SaaS companies … if you aren’t growing > 10% a month after $10k in MRR or so … then you don’t yet have product-market fit. Not yet at least.

Product Marketing 287

Product Marketing B2B Startup Marketing 287