SaaStr Podcast #165: Harry Glaser, Founder & CEO @ Periscope Data Shares a Step By Step Guide To Building Truly Diverse Teams
Welcome to Episode 165! Harry Glaser is the Founder & CEO of Periscope Data, the startup that allows you to transform your business with the fastest, most powerful analytics platform. To date, Periscope have raised over $34m in funding from some of the very best...
How many VC funds and high profile entrepreneurs are actually looking into moving out of SV? These types of articles tend to make headlines, but nothing dramatically happens, in terms of relocation.
I think every VC firm is looking to in theory increase their % of investments outside the Bay Area. Look at Accel’s recent post on its unicorn investment in B2B startup UiPath. And Accel’s later-stage SaaS investments in Atlassian (Australia) and Qualtrics (Utah) will...
Come Visit the New SaaStr CoSelling Space in the Heart of SOMA (303 2nd Street)!
We’ve unpacked, we’ve settled in, the Internet works and we’ve got Wednesday lunches worked out. Now come tour and check out the new 2.0 SaaStr CoSelling Space! It’s bigger (18,000 sq ft) and for most folks, more centrally located (heart of...
Would Mark Suster recommend just biting the C-corp bullet, creating an ESOP, and issuing stock to early stage investors for a $350k AA-1 seed round raise or can convertible debt still offer an edge in this context?
I think it doesn’t matter for a $350k round. Debt vs equity in 2018 for smaller rounds — who cares. We have bigger fish to fry. Debt with a “cap” of $2m pre is probably a slightly worse deal for both founders and investors than a “priced” equity round at $2m pre...
What is the pre-mortem for Salesforce? What could go wrong for the company?
In the medium term, it’s tough to bet against Salesforce. At $10b+ in ARR, Salesforce has conquered its biggest short-term challenge: the maturity of its original, core CRM market. It tackled that by very successful expanding into service, marketing, e-commerce and...
In B2B sales, what commission structure should be paid for closed sales?
Generally speaking, you need a sales rep to bring in 4x-5x what they take home in total compensation (base + commission). To make your business model work. You can pay more in the early days, to get the engine going — that’s fine. I paid just 1x with my first...
Can I counter-offer a starting salary after verbally accepting a company’s initial offer? I verbally accepted a starting salary amount, but am now having second thoughts and want to ask for more.
My rough rule is it’s OK to ask once politely. If you aren’t feeling right about the comp, it’s generally better for your prospective employer to know now. Bring it up politely, explain your reasoning. If the reasoning makes sense, and the overall comp is within...
Should my young startup organize a hackathon? What would we gain on the short-term and the long-term?
I vote to do anything that brings together your partners, customers and prospects, as long enough folks will come. Sometimes even 10 is enough. If you can get 5 customers and 5 prospects to come to a customer dinner — do it! Those 5 customers will feel...
Should I use Elasticsearch or Algolia for a WordPress search project?
I’m an investor in Algolia so take my comments with a grain of salt. But also, we deployed Algolia to SaaStr fairly early in their WordPress development (David Skok also did the same on his For Entrepreneurs blog which serves a similar audience), and we are a...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Evaluation a Potential Co-Founder?
Dear SaaStr: What is your method for evaluating a potential co-founder? I’d start with 3 (loaded) questions first: Can she and I together get this start-up to initial traction and beyond in 2–3 years? For real? Do the two of us have the right combination of skills and...
Can I be sued for not giving someone promised equity?
Yes, you can. Especially if it’s writing, even an informal email. It happens all the time. You can even see a variant of this (I know, not the same thing, but a variant) in the Winkelvii-Zuck drama at the heart of The Social Network. The risk with a prospective hire...
When to Add a European (or Other International) Office
SaaS has been global from the earliest days, although how and when you go global can vary. Salesforce went very early into Japan (it takes a lot longer to add a lot of Japanese customers for most of us), which quickly accounted for almost 10% of their revenue in the...
Why might a company raise significantly less money in its Series C than its Series B?
Generally, each round should be at least 2x the size of the last one, or larger. The simple reason is you want each round to be at least 2x the share price and valuation of the last one. Hence, for the same amount of shares, you should raise double the amount in each...
Should Y Combinator’s failure rate be higher?
No. True super-early stage investing done right should have a high failure rate. As an investor, including an accelerator, it’s actually surprisingly early to have a low failure rate. Just invest in every start-up with some traction, a low burn rate, and reasonably...
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