So at the end of SaaStr Annual this year, I shared a bunch of statistics and metrics. Including one where, for the first time ever, we came up short:
We missed our inclusion goal for the first time since we set one at Annual.
We only had about 680 qualified attendees on our no-cost Equality and Inclusion program. We’d always hit our goal of 1,000 since we rolled out the program in 2018.
What happened?
There are a number of root causes I think, but one is clear: many folks don’t care anymore. At least, not as much.
- A lot of folks in the community that helped support our goals here in the past — to be direct — didn’t help this year. For whatever reasons. Folks that promoted the program before, mostly … didn’t. It’s fine. But I didn’t expect all the interest to evaporate.
- Our internal team was less focused here. Everything was harder in 2024, and most folks on our tiny team worked twice as hard to hit the Top 3 goals. While Inclusion was close a the Top 3 goal, it’s not in our Top 3. So it didn’t get as much attention in a harder year. Despite the core team working on this being 70%+ women and majority less historically inclusive.
- We had a lot of cheaters in our 2024 program — a record number, by far. That burned us out. It’s a huge amount of work for a tiny team to screen applicants. Usually, about 25% or so aren’t qualified. This year, 50%+ of folks that applied weren’t eligible. 50%! And so many of that 50% … argued. As a result, it took so, so many more cycles to process the applicants than ever before.
- We still, barely, did hit our goals here on speakers. For every year since 2018, we’ve had a majority of women speakers, and 60%+ less represented speakers. That’s easier, because the denominator is smaller. But even so, we barely hit the goals here. We cruised past it the past 4 years or so.
The reality is we’re in a much different world than we were a few years ago. More different I think than we realize.
And building an inclusive company, an inclusive community, an inclusive culture is truly your goal — you are going to have to own more of it yourself. Step up more. Make it a Top 5 Goal, at least. And work on it every week, not just … when you can.
It may only be you at the top that truly cares the most about building a truly diverse team.
And if you don’t, you may end up with a company that looks a lot like you. That’s more stable to start. But in the end, far more brittle.
And let me note — I’m a white male of privilege writing this. I don’t claim to be an expert. I may get things wrong here, I apologize. I just claim to be someone that cares deeply about building truly diverse teams.
In first first start-up, I was the only white male of privilege in the original team, and there were only 2 in the First 15. It was the most diverse team I’ve ever worked on. And the only one where we all, 100% believed we could do the impossible. And we did.
