If my startup is growing quickly, do I need a co-founder?
Jason M. Lemkin Most successful venture-backed companies have a co-founder. And VCs do feel it de-risks things if there are two of you. Both are true. Personally, I get nervous about investing in solo founder start-ups. If only because I know I couldn’t have...
How do venture capitalists evaluate startups?
Jason M. Lemkin Let me give a higher-level learning. Ultimately, most (not all, but most) VCs have to invest in the Best Companies They Can. Because there’s a clock. Most VC funds want to finish their primary investments, their first checks into new companies...
Please Let Us Know What VCs You Want in the SaaStr Annual Dunk Tank. And Party With Salesforce & The Beastie Boy’s Mix Master Mike.
We’re gearing up with the final-ish touches on the 3-day, SaaS founder, executive and investor party er conference The SaaStr Annual from Feb 9-11!  We’re taking over the entire Masonic Center in SF for a week, with 3 days of epic content, parties, and...
Why didn’t Dropbox try to sell Mailbox?
Jason M. Lemkin Once you’ve been a VP at a BigCo … you realize … it’s not worth it. Not usually. First, if it’s at all a talent acquisition — you want to keep the talent, not let it go. Second, it’s a distraction. Third, a...
Why would it be a failure if a corporate venture fund had its invested company purchased by a competitor?
Jason M. Lemkin In the Old Days, this was a big deal. Corporate VC was partially view, either explicitly or implicitly, as an lightweight option to purchase. No one cares today. They know this happens, and that all they are really buying is a look, and some loose...
What do investors look for in a startup CEO?
Jason M. Lemkin It really varies by VC. But I’ll tell you what I look for — just one thing. Someone better than me, as a founder-CEO … adjusted for time. I don’t expect a first-time 25 year old CEO to know everything I know today. But I do...
How do venture funds assess that proof of concept phase is over and the company now needs funding to grow?
Jason M. Lemkin I think there may be a bit of misunderstanding / fallacy here. Most VCs, even if they invest very early, don’t really invest capital to “help you grow”. Not really. They invest capital to help you continue to grow. To fuel an...
Why should anyone join Dropbox at this time? (10/2015)
Jason M. Lemkin It’s an amazing time to join — for the right people: DropBox will IPO, and you’ll get to be part of it. This is an amazing experience to go through, at least once. Everyone that wants to have the full “start-up”...
How will Dropbox’s valuation be affected by the decision to drop Carousel and Mailbox?
Jason M. Lemkin They are 100% irrelevant. Both are $0 in revenues, or close enough. Assuming DropBox is at $400m ARR today or so, dropping anything doing < $15-$20m ARR won’t be material. $0 certainly won’t be. See Questions On Quora View original...
Jason Green (Emergence Capital): Why Sh*t Really Gets Funded, pt 1 (video + transcript)
We’re publishing the full series of transcripts and videos from all of the awesome SaaStr Annual 2015 sessions (check out the Partnering with the Big Guys, Hyperscaling Inside Sales with Zenefits, and the unicorn journeys of Slack and Yammer posts if you missed them)....
Is it better to (1) build a product then find a market for the product or (2) Find an underserved market and design a product tailored to the customers’ needs?
It turns out we all sort of do both. Because the 1.0 (or 0.1) never really quite accomplishes what we’d planned, and the white space almost never ends up being filled exactly how we thought it would be. You have to see some white space. A need in the market. ...
Is it too late to start a tech business at 34?
Jason M. Lemkin Well, of course not. I’ve written before on this topic a lot and you’ll “know” when it’s too late. Tons of great start-ups were founded at 34 or far, far older. Especially in SaaS, it may even be the majority. Having...
Can you make your TAM larger by expanding into new verticals (B2B SaaS)?
Jason M. Lemkin You certainly can. It’s just usually, you get so busy just trying to own & dominate one, that it rarely works out in practice. Veeva is one of the more successful SaaS IPOs and start-ups of all times. It started off with a thesis of doing...
SaaStr Video AMA and Podcast: “Really Aligning Sales and Marketing” with David Cummings and Craig Rosenberg
Our latest Video AMA was a pretty fun one and went in a little different direction that I expected. David Cummings, founder/CEO of Pardot, co-founder of Salesloft and Terminus and more; first investor in YikYak; and builder of an entire Tech Skyscraper in Atlanta; and...
CEO & Founder
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