SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Can I Get The Attention of Software VCs? # A third founder I funded at Owner, copied this format and I invested as well: 2 Cold Emails I Funded For Millions Finally he’s a great recent example of Mangomint, an SMB for the beauty industry. The post Dear SaaStr: How Can I Get The Attention of Software VCs?

Software 299

Software SMB Banking Startup 299

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2023

The SMBTech economy is very different from enterprise software, and there is massive opportunity to capture it. Instead of walking into places or calling on the phone to speak to someone, businesses could reach customers through social media and other software. Efficient Go To Market There are a lot of ways to GTM as an SMB.

Scale 245

Scale SMB Merchant Services Payment Methods 245

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2025

If youre serious about scaling software, you cant afford to miss it. Whether youre here to learn, network, or just hang out with your B2B peeps, theres no better place to be. SaaStr Annual 2025 is more than just an eventits where the B2B community comes together to learn, grow, and scale.

VP of Engineering 204

VP of Engineering CTO Coach VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Scale 204

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

If you’re selling software to SMB merchants and outside of tech like Shopify and Toast and Monday , things are pretty, pretty good, if in some ways still harder than before. If you’re selling sales and marketing software, like Zoominfo, it can seem a lot tougher than 12-18 months ago. With some big caveats.

Merchant Services 307

Merchant Services Azure Software AWS 307

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 23, 2023

Software spending in 2024 should rise 12%, increasing from 9% last year according to Gartner. CDW, a $20b distributor of software & hardware, announced earnings last week & their results echoed these. SMB revenues decreased 13% Education declined 9% with a 68% drop in hardware sales Government grew 13.5%

Software 297

Software Government Healthcare SMB 297

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Many mid-market software companies price with the goal of revenue maximization, negotiating for the highest possible price in each sale. There are exceptions: Oracle’s database, Tanium’s security product, Workday’s human capital management software. Application software companies typically sell seats.

SaaS Payments 283

SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2022

And they say 2023 will be a banner year for enterprise software spend at least — growing a stunning 11% to $880 Billion. Note this doesn’t include SMB spend, it’s enterprise focused): In a slightly more dated survey, Gartner found in July 69% of CFOs plan to increase their digital spending in 2023.

Forecasting 300

Forecasting Artificial Intelligence Software Business 300

Payrix

JANUARY 28, 2025

In this episode of PayFAQ: The Embedded Payments Podcast, host Ian Hillis welcomes Matt Downs, President of Worldpay for Platforms, to discuss software-led payments predictions for 2025 and beyond. remains the largest interchange and software market, Matt predicts a loosening of regulatory constraints.

Payments 130

Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Payment Methods 130

SaaStr

JULY 27, 2022

If a SaaS business hopes to win over the SMB market successfully, it will need a precise GTM approach. Founded in 2015, PayFit is a software company that empowers entrepreneurs and SMBs to digitize payroll and HR processes. Without an autonomous-first approach, you will miss out on many SMBs.

SMB 244

SMB Sales Hiring Scale B2C 244

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2025

Net Dollar Retention >110% and GDR of >95%: The Power of Being a True Operating System ServiceTitans NRR consistently exceeds 110%, even with SMB-heavy customers. While ServiceTitan started as an SMB-focused platform, theyve steadily moved upmarket. Just above non-GAAP break-even (3% non-GAAP margins) 110% NRR and 95% GRR $10.5B

Payments 144

Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 144

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2022

SMB SaaS has a lot going for it: – Millions of them – Short sales cycles – Easier compete. But, it's often hard to get to $100m ARR selling just to SMBs. sell just to SMBs pic.twitter.com/Po1I2aMaBK. So many VCs and others have gotten more and more excited about SMB SaaS. Millions and millions more.

SaaS Payments 346

SaaS Payments Scale SMB PayPal 346

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2025

We’re bringing together the true founders, revenue leaders and product visionaries that are actually driving the next wave of AI first software. SaaStr Annual + SaaStr AI Summit 2025! Not talking heads. Not theorists. The executives making it happen. 250+ speakers. 12,000+ SaaS leaders. 100B+ in market cap. 250+ speakers. 250+ speakers.

AI Search 162

AI Search AI New CTO Scale 162

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

Q1 was a very weak quarter of software earnings. I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs. For businesses selling predominantly to SMB customers, these benchmarks are all slightly lower given the higher-churn nature of SMBs.

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

SaaStr

MAY 7, 2021

HubSpot is sort a bell-weather stock and company for selling to SMBs and mid-market. And what we see is that SMB is on fire in SaaS. A reminder of what really helps the top software companies grow — and always has. #4. HubSpot is adding a breathtaking number of SMB customers at $1.1B Going global really does help.

SMB 362

SMB Revenue Enterprise SaaS 362

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

The amount of folks buying SaaS software is a force like we’ve never seen before, and even with some stock market drama, many top SaaS companies still trade at $4B, $10B, $20B or more just a decade after being founded. Two things though did get hit harder — SMB Churn and Upsell s. That never even slowed down.

SMB 361

SMB SaaS Churn Enterprise 361

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 7, 2024

You really have to do it all now to build a true platform for SMBs: software, payments, payroll, marketing, workflow and more. Automation and AI are critical in SMB Vertical SaaS … due to a lack of labor Automation and AI are less about efficiency in SMB vertical SaaS than simply dealing with a lack of labor.

SaaS Payments 312

SaaS Payments Payments Payment Methods SMB 312

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Bill.com has become an SMB powerhouse, with 120,000+ customers and a stunning $25B+ market cap. But the accountant channel is high volume, SMB play. There are 6m SMBs that buy SaaS software. There are 6m customers out there just in SMB. Rene loves accounting and accounting software. Go find them.

SaaS Payments 63

SaaS Payments Payments Payment Services Scale 63

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2022

Of course, their margins are lower than a pure software play (more on that below). SMB sales (most of Toast) is very tough to do without a highly efficient and effective sales force. Many SMB leaders have to get very, very good at outbound because of the limited deal sizes. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

SaaS Payments 326

SaaS Payments Scale SMB Payment Solutions 326

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Well, fast forward to today and it’s truly an SMB powerhouse. How is SMB SaaS doing today? Transaction Fees Growing Far Faster (38%) Than Software / SaaS License (21%). Today, software is “just” at a $270m ARR run rate, and just growing 21%. Billion in ARR, it’s still growing 48% year-over-year.

Payment Services 339

Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 339

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 19, 2022

That journey here: Most of us don’t stay SMB forever. Zoom similarly started off almost 100% self-serve and SMB, and then later added an enterprise team. PagerDuty was almost entirely SMB at IPO, at $125m in ARR. Calendly for example waited until about $50m ARR to build out an enteprise sales team.

SMB 341

SMB SaaS Enterprise Software 341

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2025

View this post on Instagram A post shared by SaaStr Software Community (@saastr) 4. We Just Won’t Need as Many SMB Sales Reps. But 1 and 2 call closes for SMBs? This will create a better customer experience and more efficient sales teams. At least, the best AEs. The mid tier AEs?

AI 157

AI Scale Sales SMB 157

SaaStr

MAY 18, 2022

RingCentral is a very interesting case study in SaaS of starting very SMB, way in the early days of SaaS in 1999, keeping at it … and then tilting upmarket to going much more enterprise post-IPO. Fast forward to today, they are 27% SMB and 63% Mid-Market and Enterprise at $2B in ARR growing 33%. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

SMB 312

SMB Enterprise Scaling Revenue 312

Nimble - Sales

JANUARY 22, 2021

The post How To Sell Software To Small Business: Successfully Selling SaaS to SMB in 2021 appeared first on Nimble Blog. A bit of adrenaline in the blood, but mostly a relief – many liked the idea and freshness of the WFH rhythm. For salespeople, things began looking worrisome pretty quickly. Specifically, for those […].

SMB 132

SMB Software Business SaaS 132

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2021

It would be so helpful to know, as the #1 leader in SMB eCommerce, and also one of the very top leaders in SaaS SMB overall. Shopify doesn’t call its non-software revenue “MRR” A small but interesting note. Now clearly a fintech with a layer of software underneath. What is Shopify’s NRR?

Merchant Services 316

Merchant Services Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payments 316

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Do public software companies with largely enterprise customer bases benefit from superior growth to their peers with mid-market or SMB focuses? SMB businesses benefited from a post-Covid surge when the US re-opened - a phenomenon that seems to abate with time. I wondered if this were broadly true.

SMB 311

SMB Enterprise Software Strategy 311

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Using Dave Kellogg’s “ Four Sources of Pipeline ” framework, marketing should source 60% of the pipeline for a representative enterprise software company. . Marketing SaaStr Session #1: “The State of Software Buying: From SMB to Enterprise with G2’s CMO”. Video: HE RE.

Scale 358

Scale Marketing SMB Leadership 358

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2021

Squarespace is a personal favorite (and one we run many SaaStr sites on) because it took a category of software that was a commodity and often a free give-away and made it magical. But took a full decade for mobile to get mature enough to make construction software really work, because it had to work in the field. More on that here.

Construction 342

Construction SMB Mobile Cloud 342

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

So when we first started writing about Bill.com at its IPO , it was a sleep SMB accounting product. But yes, it’s the most incredible SMB growth story in SaaS we’ve ever seen. Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done with SMBs. #2. Yes, 158% growth at $800m in ARR. 5 Interesting Learnings: #1.

SaaS Payments 65

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 65

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

This will be particularly transformative for SMB-focused businesses doing high-volume, transactional deals. A company selling $2-5K software packages won’t need humans for standard implementationsthe AI will qualify, demo, answer questions, negotiate within parameters, and close deals automatically.

AI 244

AI Underperforming Technical Team Sales Technical Review 244

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

Efficient at SMB marketing — an ~8 month CAC. We saw in this series other SMB leaders like GoDaddy and Xero need to get well into Year 2 to go profitable on a new customer, but Wix gets there in just 7-9 months. Quite an incredible SMB success story! Impressive. 43% of Revenue Outside the U.S / North America.

Payment Methods 307

Payment Methods Payment Solutions Payments SMB 307

SaaStr

MARCH 28, 2025

SMB customers. For SMB SaaS, aim for 6 quarters of LTV:CAC, not 4 Ren adjusted the traditional benchmark because SMB customers stay longer than typically measured. billion “We are a software company because we believe you have to have great software to have a great payment experience.

SMB 130

SMB Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments 130

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2022

Salesforce: “We’re finally seeing slowdown now in our commerce, media, telecom, and SMB segments”. A great barometer that collaboration software remains on fire, with little downturn there (see also, Monday, Asana, etc). And Salesforce says collaboration software and infrastructure remain on fire. Billion in revenue.

SMB 292

SMB Scale Cloud Trends 292

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2023

Software Important. 80% Margins on Software, But Just 38% on Payments and Merchant Solutions = 49.3% But the explosion of SMB commerce and the price increase to the SMB Shopify plans has meant Plus revenue growth hasn’t outpaced the overall growth of the company’s SMB base.

Payments 293

Payments Merchant Services Revenue Payment Solutions 293

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Zoom’s SMB base has flattened after exploding like nothing we’ve ever seen before. I mean, do it just right, change the world of business software a little bit, and not only can you get to $1,000,000,000 in ARR. I put together this slide: No doubt, some categories are still recovering from a Covid Hangover.

SMB 352

SMB SaaS Cloud Scaling 352

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 13, 2025

Not just for consumer and SMB. Almost every category, outside of very, very enterprise software, can benefit from it. Cloudflare has doubled down on its Free edition and 200,000+ small customers — even with 65% of its revenue coming from its Large Customers. Free and Freemium are back. But as a pipeline for bigger customers, too.

AI 209

AI ChatGPT SMB Enterprise 209

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

In particular: Hybrid SaaS with payments and fintech usually has far, far lower gross margins than pure software. That’s great, and it enables their software. SMB SaaS often has much lower than 100% NRR, especially to start. But — they are broken if you aren’t really a traditional, 100%+ NRR SaaS company.

SaaS Payments 278

SaaS Payments Metrics SMB Payments 278

SaaStr

AUGUST 28, 2024

And with that, it seemed a good time to dig in with one of the great SMB leaders Bill. With a super impressive 111% NRR from SMBs. Fast forward to today, and only 20% of its revenue is from software subscriptions. Shopify has seen the same trend with its SMBs as well. But both are still at their core software platforms.

Payments 292

Payments Payment Solutions SMB Acquisition 292