Hear the latest insights on AI from leading investor and SaaStr fan-fave, Tomasz Tunguz of Theory Ventures. At SaaStr Annual, he was joined by Jordan Tigani, Founder and CEO of Mother Duck Maggie Hott, GTM at OpenAI, and Sharon Zhou, Co-Founder and CEO of Lamini to discuss the new architecture for building Software-as-a-Service applications with data and machine learning at their core. Together they explore the transformative role of data, which has become an integral part of the production stack, and delve into the implications of this shift and explore how leveraging data within the architecture empowers developers to create more robust, intelligent, and scalable SaaS solutions.
A founder gave away too much equity in the early rounds and will become a minority holder in the company before series A. How can this be tackled? Don’t raise venture capital. Venture capital is not a gift. Your VC investors are looking for 10x returns. Venture...
In 2023, SaaS sales cycles got longer, churn increased as businesses sought to cut costs, average contract value (ACV) decreased and sign-off is now required from more stakeholders. CEO and co-founder of Capchase Miguel Fernandez and Director of Marketing Rose Johnson share five tips for getting sales right in any market. They also share strategies that real businesses have used to grow and scale despite headwinds.
Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When You Lose a Deal? #1: Put the company right back into your drip market campaign. But a special one for Lost Deals You Want to Win Back Later. Because you’ll have at least 3 more chances to close them — if you go long: 10 months...
A holistic and well-executed go-to-market strategy is one of the key pillars that drives sustainable, long-term growth for software companies. But there is a dearth of data that leaders can leverage to inform building out the best team, strategies, and tactics to scale their go-to-market organization. Leveraging proprietary data from over 200 leading GTM executives and tens of thousands of data points related to executive profiles across Sales and Marketing leaders, Doug Pepper, General Partner, and Christine Edmonds, General Partner and Head of Analytics at ICONIQ Growth will share detailed answers to the key go-to-market questions from B2B SaaS leaders including: the latest insights on what “effective” scaling means in today’s environment, the best practices for building out GTM teams and processes, learnings related to what profiles make the most successful IPO-ready executive hires, and how top companies are tweaking tactics in today’s environment to drive efficient selling.
Accurate sales forecasting is more critical to business success than most realize. Having a predictable pipeline enables more effective decision-making, from headcount planning to strategic investments in technology and beyond. During SaaStr Annual, Eric Huff, VP of Sales Strategy and Programs, and Theresa Stevens, Regional VP of the SMB sales team, shared an “under the hood” look at how Salesforce does its internal forecasting using Salesforce.
Dear SaaStr: How Hard is it For a Startup founder/CEO to Settle Into a non-CEO Role After an Acquisition? It is tough for most of us. We get that the bureaucracy and frictional taxes are going to go up. But it’s seeing the organization make decisions that are...
So I see a lot of folks give the same piece of advice, which I do think has a lot of truth in it: “Be careful with titles. They’re almost impossible to fix later.” Almost every successful founder has a story where they made someone a VP or even a...
Dear SaaStr: What Are Some Things That Make a Founder Look Naive? A few in my experience: Mocking the competition, especially successful competition. The best founders do win, but they also profoundly respect the competition — and understand and learn from them....
Dear SaaStr: Should I Call Myself a Owner, Founder, or CEO? CEO. Although, perhaps say it in a neutral tone, with no bravado. I always thought the title was a bit silly when running tiny start-ups. But I missed an important point: Customers, Prospects, Recruits and...
The CIO and SVP of IT at Freshworks, Prasad Ramakrishnan, shares five ways organizations can leverage AI to solve problems and grow, including improving: user experience, onboarding, data analytics, GTM analysis and faster email communication.
Dear SaaStr: What is The Best Way to Hire Your First Sales Rep? I’ll tell you the trick. It’s going to sound simple, but it isn’t, because almost everyone gets it wrong. For at least your first few reps: hire someone >>you<< would buy >>your...
Dear SaaStr: Why Are So Many CEOs Former Engineers, or At Least Have Technical Backgrounds? I’ve come to almost exclusively invest in founder-CEOs that are engineers. Or at least where the co-founder CTO is a true equal partner to the CEO. Why? Well to get something...
