Blog Posts, Early, Metrics, Sales
Q: What are some tricks software companies use to manipulate churn metrics? “Churn” is a surprisingly imprecise term. Some ways SaaS companies “manipulate” churn, which may be 100% legitimate in…
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Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Company Culture, Hiring, Leadership, Marketing, Marketing, Metrics, Product, SaaStr Events, Videos
As part of the run up to 2021 SaaStr Annual in the SF Bay Area Sep 27-29, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite classic sessions. (And…
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Blog Posts, Early, Fundraising, Leadership, Metrics
The hardest investment rounds to price are seed rounds. They’re incredibly situationally dependent: A founder that sold her last company for $400m or IPO’d might be able to raise a…
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Marketing, Metrics
Everyone in SaaS talks about CLTV (or LTV, same thing). The lifetime value of your customer. You can see a great detailed analysis of how to calculate it here. And…
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Blog Posts, Early, Metrics, Product, Q&A
Q: What core SaaS metrics should we obsess about? Beyond MRR growth + managing the burn rate — which really are all that matters … you should obsess over improving…
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Blog Posts, Growth, Metrics
There’s a metric the very top founders track quietly, but ruthlessly, that I find other founders either don’t track, or sort of hide from. That’s % of marketshare. And importantly,…
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Blog Posts, Fundraising, Growth, Metrics
Your VCs aren’t the boss. They should work for you. You don’t need to do what they say, or have pre-pre-board meetings if you don’t want to. But … many,…
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Marketing, Metrics
Churn is a paramount topic in SaaS, as we all know. If every dollar of ARR is worth $6+ in the long term, including upsells and second order revenue ……
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Blog Posts, Marketing, Metrics
In SaaS companies in the very wide band from ~$1m to $40m ARR or so, the debate over Quarterly vs. Monthly Quotas comes up all the time. And it especially comes…
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Blog Posts, Early, Metrics, Q&A
Q: Can SaaS free pilots and trials periods count towards gross revenue then deducted as a marketing expense? No. First, if you really want to do this — i.e., net…
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Blog Posts, Customer Success, Hiring, Leadership, Metrics, Q&A, Scale
The faster you grow,The more churn is masked. Just make sure you really know what's to come. — Jason ✨BeKind✨ Lemkin ⚫️ (@jasonlk) March 4, 2021 Some thoughts on things…
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Blog Posts, Growth, Metrics
The hardest phase of SaaS, at least for the founders, is the phase from Initial Traction ($1-$2m in ARR + 80%-100% YoY growth) to the next phase — Initial Scale….
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Blog Posts, Marketing, Metrics
One thing that is great in SaaS, from a 20,000 foot perspective at least, is You Can See The Future. It’s the benefit of a recurring revenue stream in a…
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Blog Posts, Metrics
Q: What are the top portfolio company metrics that VCs track post-investment? In practice, there are just a few: ARR. Where is the company in terms of revenue. Growth Rate….
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Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Metrics
One of the most important operating metrics in your SaaS start-up, if you aren’t predictably cash-flow positive, is your Zero Cash Date (“ZCD”). You hear a lot about SaaS metrics,…
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