


Dear SaaStr: Who Should Our First Head of Customer Success Report To?
Dear SaaStr: Who Should Our First Head of Customer Success Report To? Ah, who should Customer Success report to. It’s not super simple. There are generally 3 options in the early and middle days: CEO. VP of Sales (once you have one) and/or later, CRO once you add one....
At Scale, Customer Success On Average is Paid 5.3% of ARR Managed, Per Gainsight
So we’ve been talking about customer success at SaaStr longer than almost anyone else, going back to our very first posts in 2012, including on Second Order Revenue. CLTV Isn’t The Whole Story. Don’t Shortchange Second-Order Revenue. And we’ve...
Dear SaaStr: What’s The Best Way to Get Traction After We Have Our First Few Paying Customers?
Dear SaaStr: What’s The Best Way to Get Traction After We Have A Few Paying Customers? Answer: try everything that just might work, even a little bit. Then: double down on anything that works even a little. That may sound obvious, but what I mean is, most start-ups...
5 Of The Best Ways to Retain Your Customers In SaaS in The Earlier Days … And After
Dear SaaStr: What Are The Best Ways to Retain Your Customers in SaaS? A few things that always work to drive down churn in the early days — and later: Make sure you have a strong Head of Customer Success … whose #1 goal is reducing churn. Too many early-stage VPs of...
Dear SaaStr: Who Should I Hire First to Get Customer Success Going?
Dear SaaStr: Who Should I Hire First to Get My Customer Success Function Going? Key criteria for first customer success hire: – smart – truly understands and cares about the problem your product solves– lives and breathes making customers happy Rest,...
Customer Success: Do They Need to Be Product Experts?
So a little while back we had a deep dive on just how much of a product expert your VP of Sales needs to be, and your sales team in general. More on that here. The bottom line is while views weren’t consistent, I can tell you VPs of Sales that don’t know...
How To Boost Your Net Retention Revenue (NRR) to Over 140% with Insider’s CEO and CMO
Hande Cilingir CEO of Insider and Merve Nazlioglu, CMO of Insider, share the 10 game-changing customer marketing tactics they used to achieve to 140% NRR (Net Retention Revenue).

Customers Love to Talk to the CEO. Do More of That Now.
I just wrapped up my 78th customer call since stepping back into the Flexport CEO role 6 weeks ago. I’m a fan of business in the same the way some people are fans of sports. That means I have the greatest job in the world, getting a backstage pass to see how these...
Customer Success Is A Single Digit Hire (Updated)
Hire customer success early. As early as when you close your first 1 or 2 big customers. But should you hire a "VP" early? Yes … if will they actually do the work These days though, a VP often needs a team of 8 to do it … #saastrannual...
A Look Back: Olivier Pomel, CEO of Datadog at $100,000,000 in ARR
As we gear up for SaaStr Europa 2023 in London on 6-7 June and SaaStr Annual 2023 in the SF Bay Area on 6-7 September, we wanted to take a look back at some of our most iconic speakers and sessions from over the year, that we can still learn from today. Today, Datadog...
To Have Great Support — All Of It Has to Be Great
And, the one thing better than exceptional support, is exceptional support that's included free in your subscription. Not many people know this, but that's a secret HubSpot moat. Something the big, enterprise players can't afford to do because they make...
A Look Back: Slack at $30,000,000 in ARR
As we gear up for SaaStr Europa 2023 in London on 6-7 June and SaaStr Annual 2023 in the SF Bay Area on 6-7 September, we wanted to take a look back at some of our most iconic speakers and sessions from over the year, that we can still learn from today. Back at the...
Have You Visited Your Top 5 Customers This Year? No? Well, Book the Flights.
A ways back on SaaStr, we wrote an important post on your customer success leaders — The 5+2 Rule. That every member of your CS team needs to visit 5 customers in person a month — and be issued 2 customer badges a year (because they visit in-person so...