Should You Hire a Sales Rep First, Or a Sales Manager?
Dear SaaStr: Should I Hire a Sales Rep First, Or a Sales Manager First? The ideal flow is: You (founder-CEO) close the first batch of customers, say the first 10 or 20. If you don’t, you’ll never really know how it’s done. Or be able to help anyone else, really. Then,...What It’s Like Running a Profitable $400M Public SaaS Company with Vimeo CEO Adam Gross
Vimeo CEO and SaaS veteran Adam Gross and Jason Lemkin, SaaStr founder and CEO talking about running a profitable public company with $400M in revenue.
Try Micromilestones to Push Through Slower Growth: The 2024 Edition
Going though a slow patch is one thing We almost all go through one or two Settling for slow growth is another You never really come back from that one — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin 🇮🇱 (@jasonlk) December 31, 2022 When I was CEO at Adobe Sign / EchoSign, I made a...How to Solve Unsolvable Problems with Generative AI for Startups with Google Cloud
The Head of Generative AI at Google talks about the trends and opportunities of GenAI for SaaS Startups with Legal OS, Innovation Endeavors and Ultimate.
Dear SaaStr: A Co-Founder is Asking for More Equity Post Fundraising. What Should I Do?
Dear SaaStr: A Co-Founder is Asking for More Equity Post Fundraising. What Should I Do? Listen. It usually means something is wrong. Or at least, off: If you got the equity splits right at first, usually, big issues don’t come up later. This may be a sign you need to...The Riskiest Venture-Backed Startups Are 3H’s: High Growth, High Churn and High Burn
So recently I caught up with a great founder of a beloved product. They rocketed to $20m ARR, and then … growth radically slowed. To 15% a year. From 100% growth at $10m ARR, to 15% at $20m ARR. That’s rough. But rapidly slowing growth has happened to...How to Price and Package AI SaaS Products with Unusual Ventures
With everything in AI moving so rapidly, what’s the best way to price Artificial Intelligence products or SaaS tools with custom AI features and integrations? Should it be subscriptions, usage, solutions, or something entirely different? Sandhya Hegde, General Partner at Unusual Ventures to share her best practices and trends for pricing and packaging AI SaaS products.
What’s the #1 Most Important Thing in Pricing A New SaaS Product?
Dear SaaStr: What’s the #1 Most Important Thing in Pricing A New SaaS Product? I think the #1 thing to think about is context. Software all sort of all, rough-and-tough, costs the same to build and ship. Why is Calendly $10 a month, when Salesforce is $200 a month...6 Questions Founders Should Ask Themselves to Drive Value from Generative AI with Base10 Partners
Generative AI is a platform shift where models can take inputs such as text, image, audio, video, and code and generate new content into any of the modalities mentioned. TJ Nahigian, co-founder and Managing Partner of Base10 Partners, and Luci Fonseca, Partner, deep...The Best Sales Execs Are Great at The Interview Process, Too
If a sales exec makes it anything but effortless to schedule a job interview with them, Basically it won't work out — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin 🇮🇱 (@jasonlk) February 13, 2024 So I remember years ago I went to hire my first VP — ever. To make it even...Dear SaaStr: What Would Be The Single Most Important Advice You Would Give Other Entrepreneurs?
Dear SaaStr: What Would Be The Single Most Important Advice You Would Give Other Entrepreneurs? Quit today if you don’t want it bad enough. But … never quit if you truly do. … Now, by “quit” I don’t literally mean leave the keys on your...What Venture Capitalists Look For in Leaders: Tips from a Founder-Turned VC with Ridge Ventures
As a founder, you may wonder what VCs are looking for these days. Akriti Dokania, Partner at Ridge Ventures shares traits they look for in founders.
How to Double Your Magic Number and Increase Your Go-to-Market Efficiency with Sapphire Ventures
Rajeev Dham and Karan Singh, Partners at Sapphire Ventures, and Jane Lee, Vice President at Sapphire walk us through how to double your “Magic Number,” a shorthand for your SaaS sales and marketing efficiency. In recent years, the average Magic Number and benchmark for go-to-market efficiency has dropped from .7x to just .3x. How has the happened? And what can founders and revenue leaders do to turn around their budgets for efficient growth?