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 SMB sales team was incentivized purely on logo acquisition rather than revenue.

Revenue 286

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 286

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2024

A small startup Jason invests in called MangoMint is coming up on $20M ARR with 100% growth for salon spa software. In the SMB space, the biggest problem is onboarding for complex products. They just crossed a billion in ARR, growing 34% with 110% NRR from SMBs and 22% free cash flow. Go more Enterprise or SMB.

Sales Hiring 312

Sales Hiring Scale AI SaaS 312

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2022

Yamini Rangan, CEO at HubSpot, has many insights on how to serve SMB customers at scale. The Challenge of Digital Expansion for SMB. When the shift began in 2020, everyone wrote off SMBs as unprepared for the necessary changes that lie ahead. HubSpot for Startups” program. This pace cannot be sustained forever.

Scale 258

Scale SMB Scaling Innovation 258

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

But there are multiple ways to build a leader, and startup don’t always start off with high NRR even if they end up there. First, SMB SaaS almost always has lower NRR, especially in the earlier years, and that hasn’t stopped HubSpot and Toast many others from getting mighty big. And what they learned is: Yes.

Startup 286

Startup SaaS SMB Banking 286

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2023

PST — Jeff Richards, GGV Capital Managing Director, and Tiffany Luck, GGV Capital Partner, share what it takes to win as a SMBTech startup in today’s economy. How To Capture This Global SMBTech Opportunity There is massive market opportunity to sell to SMB businesses. 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

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 294

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 294

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 8, 2015

See also: Innovator’s Solution for SaaS Startups. There’s a familiar path now to SaaS companies that start in the SMB (small-to-medium business) part of the market. In short, new startups leverage a distribution advantage to acquire SMB customers at scale. SMB 3-7% 31%-58%. Why does this happen?

Innovation 200

Innovation Startup Scale SMB 200

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2022

Dorian Stone , Head of Organizations Revenue at Grammarly, is here to share lessons from his experience of scaling the company from consumer to SMB to Enterprise to help you steer your expansion efforts in the right direction. The admin, influential decision-makers, and consumer sales reps can be the same people in a Consumer or SMB setting.

Scale 246

Scale SMB Enterprise Sales Hiring 246

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

And as startups scale, many try to automate away support and success for the smaller accounts. If your SMB product requires or has a salesperson involved in closing, that’s a clear sign you also want a human being involved in making sure that customer is a success post-sale, too. The post Do SMBs Need Customer Success?

Customer Success 352

Customer Success Scale SMB Sales 352

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

But as a history lesson, let’s use my own startup Adobe Sign / EchoSign to see what happened in ’08-’09 … the worst global recession any of us have ever seen. Two things though did get hit harder — SMB Churn and Upsell s. SMBs just plain went out of business in ’08-’09.

SMB 361

SMB SaaS Churn Enterprise 361

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2020

Even once you hit just $2m-$3m ARR — fairly early — the trade-offs start to become clear for startups with customers both Smaller and Larger: Small customers consume just as many sales, success, and marketing resources. This makes the SMB leads worth a lot more than just their direct lifetime value. Probably more.

SMB 361

SMB Sales Hiring Marketing Enterprise 361

SaaStr

JANUARY 16, 2023

To convert an idea into a successful venture, startups need to be equipped to scale. Hiring a reliable team is an all-encompassing issue where startups dive in head-first but fail to optimize it for success. . Hiring a reliable team is an all-encompassing issue where startups dive in head-first but fail to optimize it for success. .

Scale 256

Scale CTO Hire Cloud Scaling 256

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2022

Talkdesk, last valued at $10B, started off as an SMB Zendesk and Salesforce plug in at a $25m valuation when I first invested. That’s a big change from a grab-and-go SMB solution in the early days. I see too many startups resist going upmarket because it’s more work. contact center leader. That’s your call.

SMB 325

SMB Enterprise Government compliance 325

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2022

How to check on a competitor's growth plan: 1/ Search on LinkedIn how many sales reps they have 2/ Multiply by $500,000 ($250,000 if SMB). It still mostly works, and you can roughly tell how much revenue a “normal” startup has from its employee count. That's how much in bookings they plan to add this year.

SMB 304

SMB Scale Startup Enterprise 304

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2022

The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long. SMB SaaS has a lot going for it, but one big existential challenge — inherent churn. SaaStr 574: 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg. 7 Secrets to a Successful SMB GTM Strategy with PayFit and Accel.

New CTO 293

New CTO CTO SMB Venture Capital 293

SaaStr

APRIL 13, 2021

startups [link]. It’s also an interesting contact to Zoom , Zendesk and Slack , which recently have seen enterprise and SMB growth be about equal post-Covid. #2. This is top-tier NRR for a product with many SMB customers. 95% renewal rate, even with 10,000+ SMBs. It’s a testament to the ROI in PagerDuty.

SMB 325

SMB Enterprise Scaling Startup 325

SaaStr

AUGUST 6, 2022

Is Every SaaS Startup Worth Half of What It Was Last Year? Every Venture Backed Startup is Now Competing for Reserves. The Challenge with SMB SaaS: High Growth Can Only Mask High Churn For Just So Long. SaaStr 574: 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg. 5 Scale-Up Mistakes for Startups with Dave Kellogg.

SMB 268

SMB Startup Scaling Churn 268

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

Yet, I see most “Hybrid SaaS” startups ignore this and spend as if they had 80% margins. SMB SaaS often has much lower than 100% NRR, especially to start. Eventually most SaaS SMB leaders get to 100% NRR one way, or another (often by either going multiproduct and/or a bit more upmarket). They don’t.

SaaS Payments 272

SaaS Payments Metrics SMB Payments 272

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2024

I hear story after story of startups that were funded after meeting VCs at SaaStr Annual. 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. Enter a top-tier accelerator. YC, EF, etc.

Software 292

Software SMB Banking Startup 292

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

It does less in SMB. So it’s less representative of raw startups, but more representative of overall enterprise and mid-market spend. in ARR, so it’s second only to Salesforce in SaaS. And they spans dozens of leading vendors in SaaS. That’s some slowdown for sure, but not a downturn.

Cybersecurity 354

Cybersecurity SMB Interviewing Enterprise 354

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Share benchmarks to calibrate your startup’s free trials. Spark conversations about new free trial tests to run for your startup. In the SMB, month to month is more common. Startups targeting enterprises typically see better NDR than those targeting smaller accounts. Let’s jump into the list.

Payment Services 279

Payment Services SaaS Payments SMB Benchmarks 279

SaaStr

MARCH 23, 2021

Battery Ventures’ data says while VC investment $$$ are on fire — they aren’t going into more startups. The average SMB SaaS company has $295k in revenue per employee, and $450k in the enterprise. PE firms have enough capital to buy as many startups as all the public SaaS companies do. ” #2.

Investment 312

Investment SMB Acquisition Cloud 312

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

Most startup founders are either pirates or romantics , and Mathrubootham was foolish enough to believe they could start in that small suburb while building a global software company. At the end of that $45k spend, they had 70 customers, which was great for a startup. The average SMB customer would buy 4-5 seats of Freshdesk.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Scale SMB SaaS 278

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2021

Maybe you want to be 100% SMB, or focus on functional silos in the enterprise. The post Can an 8-Person StartUp Sell to a CIO? But be open to it. Because closing 1 or 2 CIO-level, pan-enterprise deals in the early days — can really make your company. And the CIO can also often write the largest checks as well.

Startup 258

Startup SMB Enterprise Innovation 258

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Getting off the ground is one thing — an easy pitch of being an HR tech startup focused on improving hiring. In a year like this, SMB is doing worse, with a lot more churn and startups going out of business. But in other years, SMBs are jumping in the boat, so you get amazing growth long-term with a multi-segment strategy.

Sales Hiring 274

Sales Hiring AI SMB Scale 274

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2024

So there are times in startup life when it seems like a wave is just overpowering you, that there is only so much you can do. But startups aren’t always as agile as social media paints them to be. It can take years for some SMB SaaS companies to hit and cross 100% NRR, for example. ” Let’s make a list: #1.

Trends 306

Trends Scale Sales Hiring Venture Capital 306

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What do startup founders typically get wrong when starting a business? More here: Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? SMB folks want to go upmarket because there is too much churn in SMB. There are probably 10–100 other startups with the same idea. 8–12 months is almost never enough time. That is important.

SMB 269

SMB SaaS B2C Interviewing 269

SaaStr

MARCH 26, 2024

I had very different experiences in each of my startups. The second time, we started SMB. As a founding team, we didn’t know what to make of our first SMB customers, as they were very small — from $12 to $99 a month. Dear SaaStr: What Was it Like Acquiring Your First Customer? So Customer #1 showed us the path to our future.

SMB 267

SMB Enterprise Startup Data 267

SaaStr

DECEMBER 31, 2022

The 4 V’s of Sales: Volume, Value, and Velocity: Waze Head of SMB Sales & Head of Sales Enablement. A good and different look at some good ideas for SMB sales. #6. 10. “SaaStr Annual 2022: 5 Critical and Company-Altering Learnings from B2B Startups | Y Combinator.” appeared first on SaaStr.

Scale 246

Scale SMB Innovation B2B 246

SaaStr

OCTOBER 21, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What is the average percentage of annual vs. monthly plan sold for a BtoB SaaS startup targeting the SMB market? 90% of Smartsheet’s SMB customers pay annually. 20%+- will pay annually to save money. Most would rather skip the discount and pay less now. 38% of Freshworks customers pay monthly.

Data 276

Data SMB Payment Features Churn 276

SaaStr

MARCH 6, 2024

They are overall benefitting here from the growth in Cloud and security budgets, even if smaller companies and startups and scaleups are struggling more. While many tech SMBs are struggling, finding the gems in the SMB base that can grow into large accounts is still critical. Their multi-million dollar contracts are 30%. #5.

Fractional VPE 276

Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE Scale SMB 276

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2021

Not all SMB leaders have to be freemium to win. #7. Many SaaS startups that start outside the U.S. Like Atlassian, Monday waited to launch a Free plan and hasn’t traditionally been a freemium play. Rather, Monday has until very recently relied mainly on 14 day free trials. Didn’t “flip” to a U.S.

Scale 361

Scale SMB Government Enterprise 361

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2024

I then explain to them what the startup, or even SaaStr itself, really needs is thoughtful ABM. Be it enterprise, mid-market, or SMB. Every single week: “I’ve got a proprietary AI system and I’ll do targeted outbound with it. It really works.” ” Ahem. It really works.” The Lowest Lift Outbound.

AI 300

AI SMB Enterprise Startup 300

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2020

So, the company starts getting divided up into functional areas, or silos, product management, sales, customers support, marketing and so on, and this siloing of the org chart I think means that not everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and there’s a general feeling of disorganization or chaos in most startups.

Startup 286

Startup Software Review Scale Systems Review 286

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2023

I didn’t so much learn from it as confirm — confirm things I’ve seen, known, and put into practice, and seen it confirmed across many SaaS startups. Enterprise Quota:OTE ratios are higher (5x+), SMB is a bit lower, but at the end of the day, you need to close 4x-5x what you take home. #2. My top take-aways: #1.

Compensation 294

Compensation Scale Sales SMB 294

SaaStr

JUNE 8, 2024

In SMB sales, you see the variance in performance among reps really fast, and you can take action fast. In theory, everyone should be a top tier player at your startup. So David Obrand, CEO of Salesloft, had a great post the other day on consistency being one of the biggest challenges with enterprise sales. You don’t have that time.

Sales Hiring 286

Sales Hiring Scale Sales SMB 286

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. It has now secured over $67M in funding and offers a robust platform for mid-market and SMB segments. And they mostly did this by ignoring four pieces of traditional startup advice.

Scale 246

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 246