Sometimes A Small “Layoff” is a Good Idea; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

Hey SaaStr Community,

Layoffs sound scary, and they are scary.

But sometimes, small layoffs are a good idea — even if you have tons of cash.

You don’t totally get this until you’ve worked in a Big Tech Company.  But there, the rules usually are you can’t really fire anyone.  And so as the years go by, teams fill up with more and more mediocre folks.  They can’t be fired, so they never leave The Big Tech Company.

So in a Big Tech Co, when you do get to do a “layoff”, managers actually almost get excited. But are layoffs a good idea in startups?

Sometimes, A Small “Layoff” Is a Good Idea

So we first checked in with Momentive (then SurveyMonkey) as they went to IPO, after being founded in 1999 (!).  Fast forward to today, they are now crossing $500,000,000 in ARR, growing modestly but consistently at 14% Year-over-Year.

They’re also a case study of sloooowly going upmarket from the original PLG SurveyMonkey self-serve days to a sales-driven motion and product. SurveyMonkey famously was almost a solo employee startup for a long time, and bootstrapped, until years later it raised later-stage capital and IPO’d.

This edition of the SaaStr weekly is sponsored in part by DuploCloud

There are many ways to slice-and-dice public market data, but the one Bessemer called out is the most visceral I’ve seen:

Public SaaS and Cloud companies lost $1 Trillion in market cap so far in 2022.

This edition of the SaaStr weekly is sponsored in part by Reachdesk

A rough answer is more than 1.5%-2% of their fund size is a “lot of money” for most professional investors.

Expensify founder and CEO, David Barrett, breaks down in detail how unit economics can become both your strongest shield and most powerful weapon as you rapidly scale your business. While the competition is dependent on positive ROI, you can salt the fields to wreck their economics without any effect upon your business by investing in market consensus. David will break down what he has learned by building a $100M ARR business around unit economics, and how word-of-mouth growth wins markets.

• SaaStr is seeking new team members! We're hiring in Sales, Marketing, Event Content, and Customer Success. If you're ready to help us grow the SaaStr community, see all the opportunities!

• 1Password is looking for a Director, Product-led Growth to help identify and prioritize the opportunities to continue to grow our consumer user base and generate more B2B opportunities through leveraging all elements of the customer journey and end-user experience.

557

Where Venture Is Right Now with Iconiq GP Doug Pepper and SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin

558

Building a Values Playbook that Led to a $1.3B Exit with Emery Wells, Co-Founder & CEO @ Frame.io & VP, Digital Products, Adobe

559

Secrets to Building Your Marketing Engine To Drive Scale with Airtable CMO Archana Agrawal

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts or Spotify

The biggest difference I've learned between bootstrapped startups and venture-backed ones:

There is no one standing around doing nothing in bootstrapped startups

Go multi-product too early, it’s a huge distraction

Go multi-product too late, growth stalls

Getting it right is a key part of the CEO’s job after $10m-$20m ARR

Two VCs walking past me in downtown Palo Alto with their puffer jackets on

At 84 degrees out

Gotta respect the commitment to the uniform

Cutback on sales, miss the plan for the year

Cutback on marketing, miss the plan for next year

It's complicated

© SaaStr 2022

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