Dear SaaStr: When Do VCs Try To Replace Founders as CEOs? You’re worried about a bunch of VCs replacing you. That’s fair. You should be. It happens. Regularly — but not usually. A few high-level things to think about. First, if you really screw up, shouldn’t...
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: 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? 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? 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? 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...
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? 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?...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Build a Real Exit Strategy? First, bear in mind acquisitions are relatively rare. The vast majority of startups will never get one acquisition offer, let alone a good one. Still, it’s not random. I’ve been through it twice as a...
Dear SaaStr: Why Do VC Backed Startups Seem To Almost Always Be Running Out of Money? The #1 issue I see is not understanding what investments really are accretive — and which aren’t. And so the money goes far, far faster than anticipated. Venture capital, if you...
Dear SaaStr: What Will Venture Capitalists Do if Our Startup is a Loss? Move on. Especially, if you’ve only raise one VC round or so. This is telling article re: Bill Gurley, one of the best VC investors of all time: “I give Bill a lot of credit because Bill...
Dear SaaStr: Is It Normal to Feel Like a Pest When Prospecting for Customers For a Startup? Yes. Get better at it, get over it, and hire folks who know how to do it. Boy sales is hard. It’s being told No a lot. It’s having literal, or virtual, doors shut on your...
Dear SaaStr: How Hard Is It To Get to $1m ARR Without Investors? My learnings are three-fold. First, it depends on the team. Most of the SaaS unicorns have been built on at least some venture capital … but a number haven’t. Atlassian ($30b market cap), Qualtrics...
Dear SaaStr: Funding Aside, What Are The Top 3 Things That Stop SaaS Companies From Growing From ~$25k MRR to ~$250k MRR? Let’s step back. If you have gotten to $25k in MRR ($300k in ARR) … you have something. Real. It’s not big enough yet. But it’s real. So … You...
Dear SaaStr: What are The Most Common Mistakes Founders Make When They Are Just Starting to Scale Revenue? Let me list some of the ones I see most often going from say $1m to $10m in ARR: Chasing the Shiny Penny. One of the biggest mistakes I see after $1m in trying...