Dear SaaStr: What Happens if a VC Loses All Their Money on an Investment?
Dear SaaStr: What Happens if a VC Loses All Their Money on an Investment? It’s OK — if it’s not too much. As long as the founders did everything they possibly could to make it work. Everything. And were honest. There are two types of losses for VCs...
Dear SaaStr: As a CEO New to Sales, How Can I Get Better at Closing Deals?
Dear SaaStr: How Can I Get Better at Closing Deals? If it’s very early, hire 1 or ideally 2 sales reps who you’d personally buy from. You’ll all learn from each other how to close better, and faster. The #1 trick to making sure your first sales reps...
Dear SaaStr: How Do I Craft a Winning Investor Deck for an Early-Stage Startup?
Dear SaaStr: How Do I Craft a Winning Investor Deck for an Early-Stage Startup? Here’s my #1 piece of advice: Get it all down to One Slide. "How to Create a Compelling Investor Deck: The Power of the First Slide" pic.twitter.com/AyyS7lHATz —...
Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup?
Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup? My Top 5: It will take you at least 24 months to really get anywhere. Everyone mentally budgets 10–12 months. It’s never enough. At least, not to get enough paying customers from Code...
Dear SaaStr: Does It Make Sense For Your First Marketing Hire Be a Product Marketer?
Dear SaaStr: Does It Make Sense For Your First Marketing Hire Be a Product Marketer? No. Strong Disagree. It does not make any sense, 99 times out of 100. And you can see in this short clip, the CMOs of Zapier and HubSpot agree 😉 "The Importance of Hiring a...
How To Reverse-Engineer a $100M Exit: SaaStr on My First Million Pod
How do you reverse-engineer your first million as a SaaS startup founder? SaaStr founder and CEO Jason Lemkin chats with Sam Parr on the popular YouTube channel and podcast My First Million about what’s required to make it on the map for a $100M exit and then reverse engineers the steps to get there.
Rule 1: New minimum is $400K per employee
Rule 2: Go multi-product
Rule 3: Your second product must be bigger than your first product
Cheat code: Double your prices
Rule 4: 30% of your revenue is international
Rule 5: Localize your product
Cheat code: Remove friction
Rule 6: 100% net revenue retention
Rule 7: Don’t raise double digit millions
Don’t Overdiscount When Things Get Harder. It Only Makes Things Worse.
So when things get tougher, and deals get harder, it’s natural to reach for almost anything to close deals. There are only so many levers sales can pull. And discounting is one. And while Atlassian and a few ones hold the line on never discounting at least...
Why Customers Hate So Many Salespeople. And Why They Love Some. And How to Do Better Here.
Dear SaaStr: Why do customers hate salespeople? Disalignment. A truly great salesperson is a resource. They help you: They educate you on the product. They honestly answer your questions. They address your concerns, seemingly patiently. They help you pilot / test the...
In The Early Days, What You Think is a “Sales” Problem is More Likely a Marketing Problem (Updated)
"You probably don't need as many reps as you think you do" @kylecnorton CRO @owner. "More likely you have a pipeline problem. Spend the money there until your reps' calendars are truly full." cc @samdblond pic.twitter.com/XqfgZOlafj —...
What I Learned Selling My Company for $130M with Harry Glaser Founder of Periscope Data and ModelBit
Harry Glaser of Periscope Data and ModelBit shares his experience of selling his SaaS company for $130M and the challenges he faced during the process.
Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore?
Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore? First, be honest about why. You can blame it on macro issues if you want, but if growth has radically decelerated, it’s likely because you are less competitive than you were before. You...
Dear SaaStr: A Big Tech Co Launched a Competitive Product. How Can I Tell How Serious They Are About It?
Dear SaaStr: A Big Tech Co Launched a Competitive Product. How Can I Tell How Serious They Are About It? In SaaS at least, I’ll give you one metric that is fairly reliable: How many dedicated sales professional do they have, just 100% selling the competitive product?...
SaaStr Fund: Looking to Fund 2 More Great SaaS Companies in 2024
So I’ve been investing since 2013. Some of my top investments at seed stage include Pipedrive, Salesloft, Talkdesk, Algolia, Gorgias, Greenhouse, RevenueCat, Owner, Treasury Prime and more: The goal for SaaStr Fund is to invest in 2-4 of the very top seed / late seed...
Should You Get a Booth At a Top Industry Event — Or Just Hack The Event?
So we’ve been doing SaaStr Annual’s since 2015, and we’re excited for the biggest and best SaaStr Annual 2024 ever, Sep 8-10 in SF Bay Area, as well as 5,000+ at SaaStr Europa 2023 in London in June. Now we sell a lot of sponsorships to these events...
Founder SaaStr
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