Dear SaaStr: How Many Board Seats Do VCs Typically Get?
Dear SaaStr: How Many Board Seats Do VCs Typically Get? Let me try to simplify, generally speaking: 1. Generally, “proportionate” boards are usually seen as fair, and easy to agree to. I.e., if the investors own 20%, and founders 80%, then investors get 1 board seat,...
Which to Choose, If You Can Choose, Between Bootstrapping and Raising a Seed Round
"Bootstrapping wasn’t a magical choice for Mailchimp. No one would fund them."https://t.co/I0X6sJVY5t — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) May 22, 2023 Dear SaaStr: If you started a new company today how long would you be bootstrapped for...
If Your VP Hasn’t Done Some Key Part of the Job by Day 90. They Never Will.
Recently, I met with a great SaaS founder doing about $1.5m in ARR. She was telling me about her VP of Marketing who, in the Bay Area, she was paying $95,000. I was a bit skeptical. Because that’s rather low for a true VP out here in the Bay Area (see typical...
What VCs are Really Looking For: Signs
Q: How do VCs pick which seed investments to make? There is one common factor, that founders know, but often lose track of in their pitch: every VC, at any stage, is looking for outliers. No matter the price or how early or late. Your pitch, your team, your metrics,...
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Overcome “Stage Fright” as a First Time CEO?
Dear SaaStr: How Do You Overcome “Stage Fright” as a First Time CEO? Don’t worry about stage fright. It’s real. I used to have it. And … you’ll get over it. I remember the very first time I had to present to a Fancy Board Meeting. I wasn’t a...
10 Tips to Fundraising in The Tumultuous Times of 2023
So 2023 is a unique time in venture fundraising. We’re coming off a stretch in 2021 where VC capital hit crazy, record highs… and now is coming into multi-year lows. It’s a time when SaaS and Cloud spend are also at record highs, and many Cloud leaders are still...
CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers With CoSell.io Co-Founder & Co-CEO Brendon Cassidy (Pod 660 + Video)
In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond wraps up the founder-led sales series with one of the most accomplished sales leaders in the world, Ben Cassidy. Cassidy was Blond’s VP of Sales at Echosign and, before that, was one of the first sales...
Dear SaaStr: When Searching for a Co-founder, How Do You Know You Found The Right One?
Dear SaaStr: When Searching for a Co-founder, How Do You Know You Found The Right One? I think it boils down to 2 key factors: Someone that is both very good at, and better than you, in several key functional areas. If you are good at coding, she is good at sales and...
Only 7% of You Have Really Gotten Outsourced SDRs to Work
So a recent SaaStr survey confirmed what I’ve experienced over the years: outsourced SDRs are tough to make work. The idea is appealing, but hard to get right in practice: It would be so great if we could all outsource sales, sales development, sales...
11 Signs To Predict If a Venture Investment Will or Won’t Work Out
So I’ve been investing long enough — just about 10 years — to not really have mastered it, but seen the results of trade-offs made in investing. I’ve made about 30 material investments. More on them here. Most have been successful, but of course, not all have, and...
SaaStr CRO Confidential: Omni Founder Colin Zima on the Power of Leveraging Your Network for Sales and Recruiting (Pod 658 + Video)
In this week’s episode of CRO Confidential, host Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund, continues a mini-series on founder-led sales with Colin Zima, founder and CEO of Omni. Omni is trying to build the next-generation business intelligence (BI) platform. In a year’s...
Dear SaaStr: What Were The Top Unforced Errors You Made Raising Your First VC Rounds?
Dear SaaStr: What Were The Top Unforced Errors You Made Raising Your First VC Rounds? A few unforced errors I made as a founder pitching VCs: Meeting too early. I pitched a few friendly VCs before EchoSign was really ready. Sometimes, that’s OK, but not with these 2...
15+ of The Top Sales & Marketing Mistakes SaaS Startups Make (Updated)
A while back we put together some of the top sales & marketing mistakes SaaS companies and founders make, especially in the early days. I thought it would be worth a quick update of the post. We’ve all made many of these mistakes ourselves, myself included. 🙂 I’m...
Dear SaaStr: Is It Acceptable for VCs to “Ghost” Founders Who Have Invested So Much Time and Effort with Them?
Dear SaaStr: Is It Acceptable for VCs to “Ghost” Founders who have invested so much time and effort with them? How should founders respond to this? I understand the frustration, and it’s annoying, but you have to change your thinking. Working with VCs is...
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