Dear SaaStr: Why did Jason M. Lemkin Change his Point of View on The Value of a COO for Earlier Stage Startups? I try to work with (and invest in) CEOs that are better than me. I found, when I was a SaaS CEO, that the CEOs that complained about needing a COO early,...
We’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about the challenges in getting from nothing to that first $1m-$1.5m in ARR, “Initial Traction”. That it takes longer than you think. That if you get 10 customers, you can get another 10, 100, and so on. There’s a...
So I’m a little worried for Downtown Palo Alto Lytton Park has recently become overwhelmed with homeless and marijuana is everywhere in the air Blue Bottle and Hana House closed No one has still taken the old Apple Store or much of the Palantir space, Vans + retail...
Dear SaaStr: Why Are Buyers Not Ready to Spend Big on Acquisitions as Readily Today as in the Past? In tech at least, there are two big issues: #1. Revenues Multiples Are Down Even the best public SaaS companies are worth ~10x revenue today. In 2021, they were often...
So Ramp has its latest Top SaaS Vendors on Ramp report out for October 2024. Ramp covers a ton of spend but it is fairly tech focused in its customer base, so there’s a bit of a bias in what they buy there. But no matter what, it shows what its customers are...
Every year, Bessemer Venture Partners releases a State of the Cloud report. You can access the report here. This year, it’s all about AI, which is why Sameer Dholakia, Partner at Bessemer, calls it the Cloud AI Era. Four portfolio companies join Sameer to talk about...
Dear SaaStr: If a startup is at $1.5M ARR and is looking to hire an experienced COO how much equity should they give him/her? 0%. I think $1.5m ARR is too early for an experienced COO in 95 cases out of 100 — unless it’s a total rocketship and you plan to...
So Thomasz Tunguz put together a great chart summarizing one of my top worries over the past 24+ months in SaaS. He summarized the M&A (acquisitions) of The Top 10 Software Acquirers. And what you can see is there is really almost no liquidity for startups and...
Dear SaaStr: I’m at $50m ARR Losing $10m A Year. We are growing about 20% and have limited cash in the bank. How Do I Get to Break-Even Fast? 1/ You probably have 50+ sellers at $50m ARR. You probably need half of them. That’s tough but true. Cut anyone...
ZoomInfo’s Season 2 of its Zoom Labs Podcast is up and we were fortunate enough to be the opening guest. Founder CEO Henry Schuck and I went deep on a lot of stuff you haven’t heard before: Who is the better CEO (Henry 10000x) — and why What AI has...
