SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

So clearly AI is rapidly changing the way we do sales, but how will it all shake out? Over in the contact center and post-sales space, we can already see 20%+ of customer support execs been routinely replaced by AI. But what about the more personal sales side? AI SDRs have taken off more quickly than AI AEs (although personally, I suspect more value will be in AI SEs and AEs that can answer my deep product and pricing questions instantly, without games).

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TechEmpower SaaS

MARCH 4, 2024

Generative AI is revolutionizing how corporations operate by enhancing efficiency and innovation across various functions. Focusing on generative AI applications in a select few corporate functions can contribute to a significant portion of the technology's overall impact. Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

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Clouded Judgement

JUNE 14, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Is Seat Based Pricing Dead? If AI delivers on its promise, it may spell the end of the SaaS business model as we know it. Historically, cloud software businesses charged a recurring fee based on the number of users of their software - the SaaS model.

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The Daily Egg

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

Direct response copywriting is a marketing technique where you speak directly to your customers, encouraging them to take action now instead of. The post Direct Response Copywriting: Classic Examples + Tips appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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For SaaS businesses, improving retention is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive revenue and profits. With a clear link between failed payments and customer churn, having a robust failed payment recovery solution isn’t optional—it’s essential. Achieving your retention goals starts with the right solution.

Payment Solutions

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 3, 2024

The average American attention span has fallen from 150 seconds in 2004 to 75 seconds in 2012 to 47 seconds in 2023 - a 5-6% annual rate of decline. Year Avg American Attention Span (sec) CAGR 2004 150 - 2012 75 -6% 2023 47 -5% How does this compare to these blog posts? In 2013, the average reader dwelled on this site for 47 seconds. Today, it’s 33 seconds, a 3.6% decline - which is a bit better !

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

Here’s an uncomfortable truth about SaaS companies: the majority of first-time VPs of Sales don’t make it past 12 months. As someone who has both succeeded and failed at making this critical hire, I can tell you that when it works, it’s transformative. When it doesn’t, it’s potentially catastrophic. A failed VP of Sales hire doesn’t just cost you immediate revenue—it creates a devastating ripple effect: You lose the second-order revenue (up to 6x the initial l

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

So we’ve covered HubSpot more than any other SaaS leader on this 5 Interesting Learnings series, in part because so many of us use HubSpot ourselves, and in part because its metrics and use cases are so like many of the apps we build and sell ourselves. They recently did an Analyst day though that had some more great data that I thought was super interesting, and worth a deep dive. 5 More Interesting Learnings then: #1. 75% of Customers Are Onboarded By Partners Partners don’t just

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Are Some of the Most Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make Pitching VCs? I’ve invested almost $200m as part of SaaStr Fund / 2024. A few top mistakes founders make: #1. Not making cold email truly great. Don’t ask to pick someone’s brain, or coffee. Make the cold email so great, you’d want to invest based on just it alone. 2 Cold Emails I Funded For Millions #2.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

So the latest SaaS leader to cross $1B ARR is Klaviyo. Klaviyo dominates marketing in the Shopify ecosystem and in ecommerce, and just keeps on scaling. It was the only SaaS IPO on 2023. The only one! And at almost $1B ARR, it’s still growing a stunning 34% (!). In the words of founder CEO Andrew Bialecki: “There’s no downturn at Klaviyo.” 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. 110% NRR from 157,000 SMBs Yes, it can be done, 110% NRR from SMBs.

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Payment Solutions

SaaStr

DECEMBER 5, 2024

So it’s interesting how folks craft headlines from data. Carta release its latest funding data the other data for 2024 Year-To-Date here : What you can see is that large, hot AI later stage deals overall are indeed driving venture capital deployments up ~ +17% the year. But that’s for late-stage capital. Most of it AI driven. For early stage VC, it’s actually down -9% in 2024 over 2023.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

When Marc Benioff started Salesforce, he codified the sales playbook. Then Mark Roberge , former Hubspot CRO, wrote The Sales Acceleration Formula with deep insights into quota structures. For the subsequent ten years in software, we’ve optimized every little bit of how we sell it. But today, it’s different because the kinds of software we sell aren’t the same.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2024

The era of hyper-functional SaaS is here, and it’s reshaping the landscape of SaaS companies. At a recent SaaStr Workshop Wednesday , held every Wednesday at 10 a.m. PST, SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin lays out how SaaS companies are now faced with the challenge of delivering more comprehensive, automated, and efficient solutions than ever before.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 31, 2024

What are the most common mistakes I see first time SaaS founders make? Second-time SaaS founders make other mistakes. They think they know more than they do. They spend too much. They often struggle to do things a new way. First-time founders have many positives. But they also make mistakes we tend not to make with experience. Here’s what I see most often, the Top 6 Mistakes First Time SaaS Founders Make: Incomplete understanding of business model, and how it will scale.

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Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O'Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

Revenue

SaaStr

OCTOBER 30, 2024

We’re obviously written up a lot about Fundraising and Investing here on SaaStr.com, but time and time again, SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin has seen so many Founders sign a bad term sheet based on gut instinct, VC celebrity or vibes, and while that may be fine, it’s not enough. It’s not enough because if nothing else you’re stuck with your investors for decades — for better or worse.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

I know for many, this seems a much harder time to find a new job What I can tell you is this. It’s not the crazy hiring market of 2021. But all the best start-ups and scale-ups are hiring, and even many of those doing Just OK are, too: I have at least 10 high quality portfolio companies looking hard for a great VP of Sales I have at least 8 high quality portfolio companies looking hard for a great VP of Marketing / Growth Every single portfolio company is looking to hire 2-30 great sales execs

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SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2024

So one of the quiet SaaS leaders that has just crushed it in 2024 is Doximity: At $550m in ARR, it’s worth a cool $10.4 Billion (!) — or 20x ARR. And its stock it up a stunning +90% this year. What’s going on? A combination of: Growth re-accelerating. Doximity is growing 20% now, vs. 18% at $450m ARR. Insane profitability. 53% EBITDA.

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Business Model SaaS Revenue Marketing 270

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

In 2006, BILL CEO and Founder René Lacerte set out to define a category around financial operations for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Needless to say, he succeeded. At SaaStr’s AI Summit during the SaaStr Annual , René chatted with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin about how BILL has reached half a million customers and $1.3B in revenue.

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Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

Enterprise

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 17, 2024

So the other day on Workshop Wednesday Andy Wilson, founder CEO of Logikull , and I did a deep dive on what it’s really like selling your company to Private Equity for almost $300,000,000! I was the first and largest investor in Logikcull as they “de-bootstrapped” in 2015, and at first it grew very quickly, double digits every month.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Much Should a SaaS Company Invest in Professional Services? A rough yardstick is that most enterprise-focused SaaS companies tend to get about 8%-10% of their revenues from professional services. A few data points: At $800m ARR, Qualtrics was still getting 25% of revenue from professional services. More here. At $500m ARR, OneStream gets about 8% of its revenue from professional services.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2024

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin joined ZoomInfo’s Season 2 of its ZI Labs Podcast as the opening guest alongside ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck. Along with co-host Ben Salzman, Jason and Henry discuss the transformative power of AI within SaaS and the evolving dynamics that are reshaping the landscape of software as a service. There’s recruiting and there’s people building.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

Most startup companies in earlier stages don’t have the most mature product. While differentiating your product against the competition is important, you have to differentiate yourself elsewhere as you build your company. This is where customer success comes in. Drata VP of Customer Success Management, Wen Yao, and VP of Customer Experience, Ashley Hyman, share how to scale customer success from 0 to 5,000 customers.

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Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, Terrence Sheflin, and Mahyar Ghasemali

As we look ahead to 2025, business intelligence and data analytics are set to play pivotal roles in shaping success. Organizations are already starting to face a host of transformative trends as the year comes to a close, including the integration of AI in data analytics, an increased emphasis on real-time data insights, and the growing importance of user experience in BI solutions.

Trends

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What’s the #1 Reason You See Sales Reps Fail These Days? The #1 reason I see sales execs struggling today in new roles: they are convinced their playbook is better. And refuse to run the one that is already working. They are convinced they know better. That the founders are wrong, or whomever is running things is either wrong, or to be ignored. “That’s not the way I do things” or some variant is something I often hear these days.

Sales Hiring 286

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2024

Dear SaaStr: I Just Got My First SaaS Job 6 Months Ago and Now I Want to Quit. How Do I Tell My Boss? Almost everyone quits these days without giving a cr*p about the company: Zero notice. Instead, give 30 days if you can. No help finding a replacement. Instead, if you know someone else for the role, make the intro. No transition memo. Instead, write up everything you know, for real.

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SaaS Management 287

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What’s It Like Being Beaten Up by Investors? It’s a gift, if you view it in the right context. First, don’t take it personally. Everyone that is smart can be tough critic. Everyone with a High IQ that’s been in tech a while can come up with 10-20 reasons why you will fail. In fact, the criticism itself probably won’t even be remotely useful, because if you’ve done your homework … you’ve heard it all before.

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SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2024

So RingCental is both an incredibly impressive SaaS and Cloud company — but also a bit of a cautionary tale. It’s been around for decades but has continued to iterate, expanding into the enterprise, the contact center, and so much more. Fast forward to today, it’s at: $2.43 Billion in ARR Growing 9%-10% With non-GAAP operating margins of 20.9% and yet … It trades at a $3 Billion maket cap, or 1.2x ARR Now they have $1.5 Billion in debt, so one could argue it’s reall

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Speaker: Christophe Louvion, Chief Product & Technology Officer of NRC Health and Tony Karrer, CTO at Aggregage

Christophe Louvion, Chief Product & Technology Officer of NRC Health, is here to take us through how he guided his company's recent experience of getting from concept to launch and sales of products within 90 days. In this exclusive webinar, Christophe will cover key aspects of his journey, including: LLM Development & Quick Wins 🤖 Understand how LLMs differ from traditional software, identifying opportunities for rapid development and deployment.

Artificial Intelligence

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Were Your Top Financial Mistakes as an Entrepreneur? I’ll share a few of mine: First, the big, meta financial mistakes: In the first start-up where I was a VP, we as a team voted to sell our company to a company about to IPO for $1 Billion — instead of to Amazon for about $250m. The thing is, the company we sold to went bankrupt and I made nothing.

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SaaStr

NOVEMBER 10, 2024

Top SaaStr Posts of the Week: #1. “A Lot of Great Sales Leaders — Just Aren’t Great at Selling Anymore. And Why You Really Need a VP of Sales, and Not a CRO.” #2. The Cloud Bubble Lasted About 18 Months. How Long Will the AI Bubble Last? #3. The Top Marketing Strategies for 2025 Growth with the CMOs of Snowflake, LinkedIn, and Carta #4. 83% Percent of You Haven’t Gotten AI SDRs to Work … Yet #5.

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Cloud AI Startup Strategy 304

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2024

Ironclad CEO and co-founder Jason Boehmig joined Seema Amble, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz at SaaStr Annual to share their observations on what’s currently working and what’s not quite there yet for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in SaaS. With Ironclad’s journey from an AI-first concept in 2014 to a Series E+ company and a16z’s extensive portfolio view, their insights offer a valuable perspective on the current state of AI in SaaS.

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