Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do With Churned Customers?
Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do With Churned Customers? You put them into a Get Them Back bucket and re-market to them with a dedicated program. And you have sales especially follow-up twice. Once in about 90 days, to see if they might want to come back —...
Dear SaaStr: We Are Growing Too Fast to Handle the Workload, but We Can’t Afford to Hire New Employees. Help!
Dear SaaStr: We Are Growing Too Fast to Handle the Workload, but We Can’t Afford to Hire New Employees. What’s wrong with our business model? Nothing. We’ve all been there. Almost all of us, at least. In SaaS, this typically happens somewhere between $3m...
Yes, Your VP of Sales Also Has to Be a Great Salesperson Themselves
A mistake many founders make is hiring a VP of Sales who has many strengths — but is not great at selling themselves per se. A VP of Sales who is smart, polished, and worked at the right place, in a management-level position. That can talk about quota...
Dear SaaStr: How Long Should a CEO Continue Being the Head of Product?
Dear SaaStr: How Long Should a CEO Continue Being the Head of Product? Roughly — only for as long as it’s about a 10-hour a week job. Or often, maybe only up to $3m-$5m in ARR or so. These days, especially, I see way too many B2B companies at $8m-$10m ARR or beyond...
Dear SaaStr: What Types of Customers Should be Avoided and How Do I Recognize Them?
Dear SaaStr: What Types of Customers Should be Avoided and How Do I Recognize Them? You will get lots of advice on “bad customers”, “firing customers”, and the like. For the most part, in SaaS, I don’t agree. The “Bad Customer” Myth: Why Your Most...
Dear SaaStr: What Were The First Five Hires You Made After Product-Market Fit?
Dear SaaStr: What Were The First Five Hires You Made After Product-Market Fit? My first 5 hires at Adobe Sign / EchoSign, beyond the core founding+ team, once we had paying customers and first, if early, product-marketing fit: #1: Full-time sales rep at $8k-ish MRR....
Dear SaaStr: Our Sales Team Has a 7% Win Rate. Are We Failing?
Dear SaaStr: Our sales team has a 7% win rate over last 6 months. CEO has put full revenue accountability on the marketing team. How do I keep sales from failing? Not to be too much of a Pollyanna — but a 7% win rate isn’t necessarily all bad. In fact, if you have an...
Dear SaaStr: As a Founder, When Did You Realize You Were Limiting Your Company’s Growth and Success?
Dear SaaStr: As a Founder, When Did You Realize You Were Limiting Your Company’s Growth and Success? As we approached $10m ARR, we were doing very well: growing 100%, cash-flow positive, with 100%+ NRR. But I did see that certain of my weaknesses still were...
5 Things to Do … When You Don’t Know What to Do
Best things to do when .. you don't know what to do: 1/ More time w/existing customers. Zoom w/5 week, meet 5/mo IRL 2/ Hire 1 great VP 3/ Drive down churn. You grow faster even w/o more leads 4/ Join more sales calls. Everyone loves talk to CEO 5/ Focus leads on...
7 Simple Tips to Being a (Much) Better First Time Manager
One privilege I get as part of mentoring and investing in a few dozen startups is a chance to work with first-time managers. The reality is, most start-ups are better off with a Stretch VP than a Never Did It But Has a Great LinkedIn VP. More on that here. And as...
Webinars Almost Always Work. If You Really Commit. Start Next Week.
One thing if you are a first-time founder in SaaS that may seem as boring as you can imagine is … webinars. You think: You yourself as a founder or exec never go to them. And they seem like something you do, well, later. When you are bigger. And so many seem of...
Yes Customer Testimonials — Done Right — Are Super Important
Do customer testimonials really matter in the age of AI? They still do. Maybe even more so. They are incredibly important. We spend so much time marketing and selling to customers. And building stuff for them. But almost no one thinks enough about what a buyer...
At Least 20% of Your New Customers Should Come from Referrals and Word of Mouth. Ideally, 50%.
Dear SaaStr: What Percent of My Revenue Should Come from Referrals and Word of Mouth? "Word of mouth is ultimately the only way you can scale in SaaS." pic.twitter.com/UAsIkG4Ixx — Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) December 18, 2024 Ultimately, most...
VPs That Can’t Hire … They Aren’t Real VPs. At Least, Not Yet.
The best VPs can recruit in ways I barely understand You need someone for a key role? They somehow have 2-3 strong candidates in a week or two This is so, so hard But the very best VPs make it somehow look almost effortless It's also the only way to scale —...
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