So the #1 OG vertical SaaS leader is Veeva. A core CRM, data and Cloud platform for the life sciences industry, it started off as a “Salesforce for Pharma” and expanded from there. It raised less than $10m before it IPO’d, and fast forward to day, it’s at $2.5 Billion in ARR, and is very…
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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 and professional investors: losses than fit into…
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A little while back on LinkedIn and Twitter we put together a list of things that later, once you are successful, even very successful, you’ll regret. It got a lot of engagement from the SaaS veterans out there, so I thought it would be worth digging in more on each point: Regrets are different than…
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Databricks had an incredible scale-up from $400M to $1.5B+ during former VP of Product Nadim Hossain’s time there. The company has gone from 1600 employees to over 5500 and most recently crossed the $2B ARR mark. Nadim shares the principles behind the SaaS company’s massive growth.

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 work out? Only hire sales reps you'd…
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So this is the time of the year when founders step down. Often quietly. Folks recover a bit from the end-of-year push, reflect, and sometimes … decide it’s time to bring in someone new. A CEO to take things to the next level. Etc. And even more of us think about it. Heck, I’ve thought…
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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 — SaaStr (@saastr) March 22, 2024 With 6-7 points on that slide. Not more. …
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Todd McKinnon, CEO of Okta, a ways back joined us for the first time joined us at our first big digital event, SaaStr Scale. It was a great deep dive on what it’s really like scaling an emerging leader in a category everyone previously thought was small. Through the magic of AI, we edited down…
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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 Zero. A little more here: https://www.saastr.com/if-youre-……
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"We all need more hackers on our team. Marketing hackers, sales hackers, product hackers. We lost too much of that. People that want to do the work because they enjoy the work." @searchbrat @zapier @kippbodnar @HubSpot @jasonlk pic.twitter.com/dUudpe9s2Q — SaaStr (@saastr) April 16, 2024 HubSpot and Zapier’s CMO had us on their “Marketing Against the…
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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 True Demand Gen Marketer for…
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So a little ways back a bit of a Board of Directors soap opera broke out. The Information broke the story, with Sequoua asking its ex-active partner and leader Mike Moritz to step off the board of key portfolio company Klarna in favor of an active partner, Matthew Miller. What exactly happened we may never…
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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

Ok, get EXCITED for SaaStr Europa 2024, we’re back time in London! We’re looking forward to hosting 4,000 SaaS founders, execs, and VCs in hip East London at Tobacco Docks across 2 packed days, 4-5 June. About 70% of our sponsorships are sold out, but we’ve got some good stuff left! 1 Super Gold 2…
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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 some of their products, most of us need…
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