Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 21, 2018

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency. That means your focus should be on building the right customer profile and developing precise messaging to reach them. Short on time?

Sales Hiring 183

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Technical Advisors 183

Baremetrics

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

Develop a Full Marketing Strategy 2. SMB SaaS companies tend to have higher churn rates due to their lower demand and less sophisticated needs. High churn is understandable for newer startups, but it does indicate that a tool may be a poor market fit, have limited demand, or struggle to compete against similar products.

SaaS Payments 105

SaaS Payments Technical Review Development Team Review Software Review 105

Point Nine Land

JUNE 18, 2023

In fact, it’s almost impossible to get a really good understanding of a service’s usage without looking at activity and retention numbers on a cohort-by-cohort basis. By conducting a cohort analysis, you can track customer behavior, retention, churn, and revenue over time. Should I look at churn or retention cohorts?

SaaS Payments 128

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments SaaS 128

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

When it comes to launching sales teams in hyper-growth startups, few people have walked the walk as much as Maggie Hott. We recently sat down with Maggie to chat about all things sales – from laying down a solid foundation to hiring the right people and, finally, scaling the team into hyper-growth. Look for the team players.

Scale 118

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 118

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 13, 2021

Although Linda started her career in sales, she has spent the past twelve years scaling post-sales teams and moving hyper-growth companies like Zendesk, Slack, and now Gong upmarket into the enterprise realm. So how do you create a strong, enterprise-ready team? Not just support on steroids: How to build a customer success team.

Scale 177

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Strategy 177

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

It’s no surprise that one of the key levers for growth as you go from startup to scale-up is your sales team. How quickly you’re able to accelerate growth depends on your ability to build a nimble sales org and develop a strong sales strategy. These lay the foundation that enables your team to run as efficiently as possible.

Scale 172

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Payment Services 172

SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2019

Before I joined the venture capital industry many years ago, I was a software developer, and I worked for a startup around the 2000 time period. I would argue that retention is probably the most important of these categories, so the first thing to note is that retention is really going to differ, depending on your market segment.

Cloud 113

Cloud Scale AWS Artificial Intelligence 113

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

374: ZoomInfo founder and CEO Henry Schuck shares how he built a business from scratch and grew it into one of the most successful IPOs of the 21st century—and what it was really like…the good, the bad, and most of all, the ugly. If you think of this from a market size standpoint, there’s often this debate, is that good or bad?

Sales Hiring 235

Sales Hiring Scale Payments Cloud 235

FastSpring

JANUARY 27, 2022

And in cases where our customers get stuck, our support team responds in a timely manner with personalized video. How SoStocked increases retention through grandfathering existing customers into lower prices. In other words, if you want to attract SMBs, make sure you have SMB language on your site.

Merchant Services 146

Merchant Services Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 146

Totango

JULY 8, 2021

To move away from this pattern, we suggest organizations put in place an early customer warning system that enables their customer success team focus on proactive customer retention. We find this solution works best for teams operating in a high- to medium-touch engagement model. How to Build An Early Customer Warning System.

Systems Review 66

Systems Review Underperforming Technical Team Payment Features Churn 66

ChurnZero

JANUARY 4, 2019

the stuff that Customer Success teams are really meant to do). One customer success trend I’m seeing is the need to develop more repeatable customer education programs. The biggest trend I see emerging in Europe, which started at the end of 2018 is Customer Success Plans becoming a staple asset of Customer Success teams.

Customer Success 73

Customer Success SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions 73

Baremetrics

JANUARY 24, 2021

A year earlier we’d launched the MVP of the model allowing SMB customers to input a credit card to get access to the platform, but we hadn’t had a chance to dedicate time or resources to optimizing a proper SaaS onboarding funnel. We educated them on key functionality and attempted to get them to book a call with a member of our team.

Churn 71

Churn SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Solutions 71

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 15, 2021

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is an overnight sensation that’s been years in the making. During one of our BIG RYG Hyper-Workshops on budgeting for Customer Success headcount, Kristen Hayer of The Success League, framed this shift by explaining that as a CS leader, you’re not running a happiness team, you’re running a revenue team.

Customer Success 97

Customer Success Benchmarks Scale Underperforming Technical Team 97

CustomerSuccessBox

OCTOBER 5, 2021

The following are the key considerations that you must look at (for improving retention, increase renewals & upsells, etc. Know your North Star KPI Setting up CS team as per those KPI Choose the right CS tool Track, Measure, Improve and build collaborative teams. Net Retention Rate (NRR).

Customer Success 59

Customer Success Technical Review Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team 59

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 15, 2018

If you missed episode 28, check it out here: PODCAST 28: How High Growth SaaS Companies Build and Lead Sales Teams w/ Chris Degnan. When you should be focusing on gross retention vs. net retention. Gross Retention vs. Net Retention [25:55]. Aircall is a phone system designed for the modern sales team.

Customer Success 62

Customer Success Scale Underperforming Technical Team Retention 62

Chart Mogul

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

We trust leaders to make decisions on what tools they need to get the most out of their teams. Guide to SaaS Revenue Recognition and Deferred Revenue in SaaS by Ben Murray, The SaaS CFO SaaS revenue recognition is an ongoing priority for SaaS accounting teams. Keep an eye out as we will be making regular updates.

Scale 52

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring SaaS 52

OpenView Labs

MAY 5, 2021

Many companies are strategic consumers of open-source software as a means to reduce the burden on their software engineering team to build everything from the ground up. The answer likely depends on your market segmentation, as freemium may ease adoption friction for SMB/mid-market companies.

Business 52

Business SMB Scale DevOps as a Service 52

ChurnZero

JANUARY 4, 2019

the stuff that Customer Success teams are really meant to do). One customer success trend I’m seeing is the need to develop more repeatable customer education programs. The biggest trend I see emerging in Europe, which started at the end of 2018 is Customer Success Plans becoming a staple asset of Customer Success teams.

Customer Success 49

Customer Success SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions 49

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

Its implementation can be time-consuming and challenging for non-technical team members. in order to achieve higher conversion rates, user activation rates – and in the long run – drive retention. Pendo is known for its good and easy-to-use analytics tools like Paths, Retention, and Funnels. (As – Parita P.

Software Review 52

Software Review Technical Review Onboarding Underperforming Technical Team 52

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

in order to achieve higher conversion rates, user activation rates – and in the long run – drive retention. Product-led growth may be a bit of a buzzword, but achieving no-code growth is particularly important for SaaS companies with low ACV, freemium models, and generally those in the SMB sector. Get in-depth analytics.

Software Review 52

Software Review Technical Review Onboarding Outsourced Development 52

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

in order to achieve higher conversion rates, user activation rates – and in the long run – drive retention. Product-led growth may be a bit of a buzzword, but achieving no-code growth is particularly important for SaaS companies with low ACV, freemium models, and generally those in the SMB sector. – Raeann F.

Software Review 52

Software Review Onboarding Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team 52

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2024

Lessons from the Best & Worst Deals (00:05:03) To succeed in today’s rapidly changing business landscape, startups need an ultra-committed binary team, especially two co-founders with an insane level of commitment. The combination of these factors is making it more difficult for startups to succeed.

CTO Hire 297

CTO Hire Development Team Review Software Review Technical Review 297

Sales Hacker

OCTOBER 7, 2021

Never believe that doubting yourself is a bad thing. That company only lasted another year before they were out of business, so it was a poor use of my energy, time, and being away from my family – a lesson I work to pass on to others new in roles today. Invest in your development internally and externally. Joyce Johnson.

Scale 137

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring VP of Engineering 137

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

This guide breaks down a simple, step-by-step RCA process designed for SaaS teams. So if you find that most of the drop comes from the new user retention rate , you now know the problem might come from the primary onboarding process. software development) to identify causal factors of a specific problem. Path analysis.

Technical Review 59

Technical Review Software Review Churn SaaS 59

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2022

But it sounds like the bad news is you’ve got a limited runway. It’s not the investor’s problem if you have an expensive team. They know everyone, and if they don’t, someone on their vast team does. Like if you have a three people in a team, what do you think that is recession proof right now?

Scale 245

Scale SaaS Payments Scaling SaaS 245

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 29, 2021

And so, Mark Rudden and his team had to figure it all out by themselves. Fortunately, Mark had quite a bit of experience working and scaling teams in demanding, hypergrowth environments. Building a great sales team: How Intercom fosters and maintains its sales culture. Onboarding, but make it remote.

Sales Hiring 223

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team 223

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Before Optimizely, Travis spent 6 years at Salesforce in a number of sales roles including building the first Platform Sales team. What does Travis advise founders when it comes to uniting customer facing teams? * Why does Travis believe net retention must always be the guiding North Star? Loving our podcast content?

Underperforming Technical Team 205

Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Payments Payment Services Technical Advisors 205

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2019

Join Vlad Shmunis, founder, chairman, and CEO of RingCentral as he discusses RingCentral’s journey from a two-person startup to a $7B market cap global enterprise communications company (NYSE:RNG) — the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s how do you transition the team, how do you not loose each and every friendship that you’ve ever had?

Scale 207

Scale Business Sales Hiring CTO Hire 207

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2020

And I guess this was somewhat foreshadowing because I’m now backed by David Saks who is the founding team there. Josh and I both went to work at Fair, along with our entire team, until eventually about a year and a half in, Josh and I both decided to leave, go for round two with Pipe in late 2019. I totally agree.

SaaS Payments 251

SaaS Payments Payment Methods Finance Payments 251

SaaStr

JUNE 28, 2019

In his most recent role, Dave was the CEO @ Host Analytics where he quintupled ARR, halved customer acquisition costs and increased net retention rates before selling the company to a private equity sponsor. Is it best to start at enterprise and work down to SMB or does SMB and work up to enterprise work best?

Outsourcing Services 138

Outsourcing Services Scale Sales Hiring SMB 138

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2019

As for Krish, under Krish’s leadership the team has grown to over 300 people and over 5,000 clients making it one of the next generation in truly global SaaS businesses started in India. How does Krish think about purely serving the SMB market? How does he think about the mortality rate of SMBs? What questions reveal the most?

Scale 164

Scale Sales Recruiting SaaS Payments Payment Services 164

Kellblog

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

Formerly backseat metrics like ARR/FTE, free cashflow (FCF) margin, R40 score, and gross dollar retention (GDR) come to the front seat joining net dollar retention (NDR) and ARR growth. Management teams should prepare themselves for activist investors and adapt their financial profile to keep valuations high. SaaS sprawl.

Software Review 130

Software Review Development Team Review Underperforming Technical Team Scale 130

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

As for Allison, in her 5 years at Gainsight her list of achievements in endless from running all functions that drive value for Gainsight customers, now a 150 person team, to building out the corporate development function to being the right hand to the CEO. How can one approach setting up a services team for scale?

Engineering 34

Engineering Scale Underperforming Technical Team Customer Success 34

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2019

Here’s what Eyal and Megan talk about: How to develop software faster. But I think what it boils down to is also how newer technology is being developed and the ability for it to inter-operate with other platforms. It’s not an SMB where you’re getting volumes of 100 a day. Missed the session? So it’s that.

SaaS Payments 159

SaaS Payments Cloud Technical Review Sales Hiring 159

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2020

Before Slack, Rachel spent 4 years at LinkedIn where she led the product marketing team for content experiences. 318: The first step in success with SMB clients is to recognize that it’s not a one size fits all scenario. Companies need a specialized approach for SMB accounts, different than the tactics used for Enterprise.

SMB 227

SMB Scale Startup Marketplace as a Service 227

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2019

235: Andrew Filev is the Founder & CEO @ Wrike, the cloud based collaboration and project management software that scales across teams in any business. As for Andrew, he started his first software development company at the age of 18 and has been running Wrike for the last 13 years alongside advisory roles with both Ditto and Appulate.

Sales Hiring 157

Sales Hiring Scale SMB Sales Recruiting 157

Sales Hacker

MARCH 10, 2025

At the time, expansion and upsell were handled by the CS team, whose primary focus was retention and customer success, not sales. The fix: moving upsell and expansion to a dedicated sales team. By the time Levelset was acquired by Procore for $500M, they had: A well-defined SMB and mid-market sales motion. The result?

Scale 76

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling AI Search 76