SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2025

Kobe Conrad, Head of Growth at Rupa Health and Onleet, took the stage at SaaStr Annual to break down the five growth channels that transformed Rupa Health from a $20M seed-stage startup into a platform with hundreds of millions in equity and a 4,000% increase in user acquisition over three and a half years.

Scale 229

Scale AI Search Sales Hiring Acquisition 229

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Given the explosion in domain suffix permutations I wondered if startups' behavior had changed over the last decade. Down from 89% in 2007, the.com designation adorns the addresses of 64% of startups founded in 2020. ai means a startup is all about the future.AI Zoom is likely the most well recognized startup with a.us

Startup 321

Startup Business AI Trends 321

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2023

Dear SaaStr: When is a Startup Ready to Raise Venture Capital These Days? Churn too high Burn too high Competitors growing faster Already raised “too much” capital The post Dear SaaStr: When is a Startup Ready to Raise Venture Capital These Days? A lot harder. appeared first on SaaStr.

Venture Capital 284

Venture Capital Startup CTO Churn 284

SaaStr

JANUARY 25, 2020

A bunch of sessions aren’t even up yet — for example, we just added David Wadwani, ex-CEO of Appdynamics, now the newest partner at Greylock — so take these trends with a grain of salt. The Cadence: How to Turn Your SaaS Startup into an Army with David Sacks. I’m glad to see it is trending.

Trends 250

Trends Venture Capital Scale PayPal 250

SaaStr

JANUARY 28, 2025

The company realizes that the startup space is highly competitive in terms of speed, and therefore, they need to execute extremely fast. The most successful startups are those that resonate with customers and succeed in taking budget from existing solutions without being compared to them, as they offer something new and better.

AI Search 244

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 244

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 1, 2019

In 2014, I published a post called Do Startup Require Less Capital to Succeed than 10 Years Ago ? Startups going public from 2006-2009 showed a median ROIC of 0.42. With more capital, startups can take more risk, explore more customer acquisition channels (some which may not work), develop more products and potentially grow faster.

Startup 279

Startup Software Review SaaS Acquisition 279

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2023

So Carta recently put together some dat a on a topic I’ve wondered about: just how many startups allow option exercises beyond the traditional 90 day window? The answer: the general trend is just over 10% of startups have extended windows beyond the traditional 90 days for departing employees to exercise stock options.

Startup 274

Startup Trends Data Compensation 274

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. Checkr’s go-to-market strategy was already well-established when Lindsay joined in 2022. With only 4% conversion by month two versus a 10% goal.

Revenue 293

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 293

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

At the IMPACT Summit yesterday, I shared our Top 10 Trends for Data in 2024. Software startups are rising to meet the need. LLMs Transform the Stack : Large language models transform data in many ways. First, they have driven an increased demand for data and are causing a complete architecture inside companies.

Artificial Intelligence 223

Artificial Intelligence Trends Data Software Review 223

SaaStr

MARCH 13, 2024

Is Generative AI going to be transformative or incremental for your startup? A panel of AI-driven organizations took the stage at SaaStr Annual to talk about the trends and opportunities of GenAI and how it’s shaped their companies. The beauty of startups is you’re agile, and with LLMs, it’s language-driven.

Generative AI 272

Generative AI AI Cloud Startup 272

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. Over time, the M&A market activity should begin to inform public valuations.

Acquisition 245

Acquisition Startup Software Pricing 245

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 29, 2022

I observe a few trends. Companies that can buck this trend will be valued at significant premiums to the market - hence the sudden venture capitalist interest in product-led growth motions & Adobe’s acquisition of Figma at 50x ARR. After a two-quarter spike, however, the figure has returned to its previous negative slope.

Sales Hiring 309

Sales Hiring Sales Startup Acquisition 309

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one. Whereas a decade ago, a board might have hired a professional CEO to scale the operations of a startup, today, more boards seek COOs. A few hypotheses underpin this trend.

Sales Recruiting 212

Sales Recruiting Startup Sales Hiring Scale 212

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 2, 2021

Unlike equity-only startups, crypto startups maintain two capitalization tables. The first is the equity cap table, just the same as non-crypto startup. At IPO for a classic startup, equity allocation is the reverse. Regardless, the trend is broader than one business. Insiders own 80%. Why this allocation?

Startup 227

Startup Trends Investment Scaling 227

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

For leaders nurturing a startup or scaling a business to the next level, Vlad had one central piece of advice: Embrace change. And as a business grows, Vlad believes it’s important to stay ahead of market trends and anticipate customer needs- leading the industry forward. Startup leaders can never have enough good advice.

Startup 259

Startup Business Scale Travel 259

Tom Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2022

The survey results review the trends in the public market, in founders’ minds, and the private market. Top 10 Insights from the 2022 Startup Sentiment Survey. There’s no correlation between the amount of money a startup has raised and its runway. The typical founder feels 6.0

Startup 237

Startup Scale Headcount Compensation 237

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Best customer success software for startups and small companies. Reports & analytics : Provide tailored analytics, dashboards, and reporting capabilities to track customer engagement, identify trends , and enable data-driven decision-making for improved customer success. Zapscale Best for : Early-stage startups.

Customer Success 105

Customer Success Enterprise Software Review Startup 105

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

They are better aware of tech trends than you are, usually. From the head of innovation at Global 100 leader BT: (note: an updated SaaStr Classic post) The post Dear SaaStr: How Can a New Startup Take on a Big, Established Leader? The main advantage is you can pursue a market or opportunity that is not worth their time. Not at all.

Startup 261

Startup Engineering Innovation Trends 261

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 25, 2020

A few weeks ago, I wrote What I Expect in the Next Few Months in Startupland , in which I mentioned two fundamental forces: Bullwhip Effect and Startup Growth Rates. This dynamic affects startups just as much as the rest of the economy. More than 30k startup employees have lost their jobs. This is the Bullwhip Effect in force.

Startup 226

Startup Trends Software Management 226

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 6, 2025

Darren Mowrey (Google Cloud) Darren leads strategic partnerships at Google Cloud, focusing on helping startups scale their AI implementations. He’s particularly passionate about developer-first approaches and helping startups navigate the complexities of enterprise AI implementation.

AI 189

AI Cloud Enterprise Technical Review 189

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 8, 2023

With all the broad macro economic shifts, startups are pursuing their core markets much differently in 2023 than in 2022. To illuminate those trends, I’ve constructed a brief, 28 question go-to-market survey here.

Startup 209

Startup Construction Marketing Trends 209

SaaStr

MAY 17, 2023

The point of CRO Confidential is to help startups acquire customers, and Cassidy provides a unique perspective on founder-led sales as a current founder and highly talented sales leader. Early-stage startups who aren’t yet household names need to find a way to leverage warm intros to companies instead of cold-emailing sales leaders.

Startup 241

Startup Pricing Sales Trends 241

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 20, 2023

By looking at the cumulative rounds since 2010, we can see that Seed, A, & B volumes all trended meaningfully above their predicted counts. At current trends, actual round counts should revert to the mean sometime in the second half of 2023. These rounds remain at elevated levels relative to the model’s expectation.

Investment 236

Investment Venture Capital Startup Finance 236

SaaStr

DECEMBER 28, 2023

Shopify, Canva, Monday and tons of other SaaS leaders less focused on tech and startups had big years. But the trend of slowing growth in 2023 wasn’t just a thing — it was an All Time Low. Still, the trend line does make you worry a smidge. So 2023 wasn’t a rough year for everyone.

Azure 349

Azure Cloud SaaS Trends 349

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Four portfolio companies join Sameer to talk about three trends of the Cloud AI Era. Trend #1: Foundation Models Many models exist: open source, closed source, frontier models. For startups like EvenUp and Abridge, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model that meets industry needs. All the customer has to say is, “That’s great.

Cloud 167

Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence Healthcare 167

Tom Tunguz

MAY 27, 2020

Earlier this week, I wrote Californian Dreaming - Is Silicon Valley Still the Best Place to Start a Company , where I analyzed the IPO and M&A trends of venture-backed companies by state. Those metrics are lagging indicators of startup distribution. I pulled the unicorn valuation list and analyzed US startups by state.

Startup 312

Startup Trends Metrics Data 312

SaaStr

MAY 9, 2023

This you should know as a startup CEO or founder or executive. It’s also now that they are having a much tougher time raising funds themselves to give to startups. If that doesn’t last more than a quarter or two, startups won’t really notice. And importantly, I find most founders are still too optimistic here.

Startup 362

Startup Investment Trends Metrics 362

SaaStr

JUNE 5, 2023

ChartMogul’s data, which we covered in another recent post here , shows data from 1000+ SaaS startups from $1m-$30m ARR in essentially real-time, as they are doing real-time revenue analytics. He found new bookings in Q1’23 were down about 33% on average from Q4’22: Yes, these are slightly different time frames, but the same basic trends.

Cloud 345

Cloud Startup Trends SaaS 345

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 11, 2023

For each of the 14 weeks, more people searched for ChatGPT than Taylor Swift according to Google Trends data. For startups, this inquisitiveness is a wonderful thing. You won’t find people outside of tech hubs googling for microservices or layer 2 blockchains or serverless databases with any great frequency.

ChatGPT 360

ChatGPT AI Search Blockchain Data Analysis 360

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 11, 2020

Let’s break down the trends by series. This might be for a few reasons: valuations fell, no need to reprice/recap companies, and typically recessions are great markets to start startups. We can use median round size as a proxy for valuation because typically, VCs buy a certain amount of a startup.

Marketing 359

Marketing Startup Investment Trends 359

Tom Tunguz

JULY 4, 2020

We reviewed the data in May and compared it to the effects of the financial crisis in 2008 on startup fundraising. As a reminder, 2008 saw a 40% reduction in venture dollars invested in startups. And you can see the impact of the shutdown in the numbers. It took about six to eight quarters to return to normalcy.

Marketing 364

Marketing Investment Cloud Startup 364

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Especially in venture-backed startups with high growth expectations. “Unicorn” sounded like a rite of passage in 2021. I’m not sure where this trend will keep going. Startups or at least scale-ups may need to learn to accommodate this now, too. Right now, I’m not sure, But it does seem to be a trend.

Scale 311

Scale Social Media SaaS Startup 311

SaaStr

MARCH 12, 2022

I used to think CROs and COOs were made up titles until “Late Stage” or so, and in startups, a bit of a sign of weakness. I used to think there’s no way a SaaS startup needed a “CRO” or “COO” (or even “CMO”) or other C-level Officers Without a Clear, Single Functional Area to Own Until $40m-50m+ in ARR.

Sales Hiring 350

Sales Hiring Startup Trends SaaS 350

SaaStr

JULY 15, 2021

Even if fewer employees are in the office, there are just so many more startups. And so many more unicorns and scaling startups. This trend will be a common theme through the end of the year” So many of us planned to drop the office when Covid hit, once the lease expired. That are keeping an office of some form.

Scale 328

Scale Cloud Startup Trends 328

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

In the ever-evolving landscape of SaaS, Venture Capital, Bootstrapping, and Valuations – understanding market trends and investment patterns is critical. We’ll explain Jason’s take on the recent market fluctuations, highlighting major deals that shaped investment patterns and their effects on valuation trends.

Venture Capital 272

Venture Capital Scale Technical Review Software Review 272

SaaStr

AUGUST 19, 2020

Q: Which merger and acquisition trends, if any, do you expect to unfold in the next 12 months? Not some tiny startup that might take years to get to material revenue or market share. I expect more mega-mergers: $2b-$10b+ deals. These are the Best of Time in Cloud and SaaS, as odd as that still seems. You buy that growth.

Acquisition 342

Acquisition Cloud SaaS Pricing 342

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2024

Why do scale-ups and startups do this? Keeping the cap table as tight as practical does not benefit some folks on it — but it does make a startup easier to run. This has often been the case in PE, in European startups, buy-outs, etc. startups in many ways. #5. Personally, I’ve lost here. Ok but you asked Why.

Systems Review 288

Systems Review Startup Trends Pricing 288