5 Interesting Learnings from Zoom at $4.3B in ARR; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

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Hey SaaStr Community,

I’ve never gone Truly Big in any of my start-ups, not in the Slack or Datadog way, let alone the Calendly or Notion way. But, over the years as both a founder and a start-up exec, I have raised over $40m in Venture Capital across 4 successful start-ups. I’ve also pitched over 110 VCs. Yes, 110. A lot of them have come and gone in that time. And 100 of those 110 were for just one tough Series C financing.

But of all those rounds, those 110 VCs, those $40 million dollars in capital, and all that, there’s just one little slice that Was the Best $500K I Ever Raised.

The Best $500,000 I Ever Raised — And Why Party Rounds May Not Be the Way to Go in Slightly Tougher Times

READ MORE

5 INTERESTING LEARNINGS FROM ZOOM AT $4.3B IN ARR

So few companies have changed as fast, and as quickly, as Zoom did between $1B and $3.5B ARR … which it did in just 1 year (!!) during peak pandemic… and $3.5B and $4B ARR, when Zoom radically changed again.

At $3.5B ARR, Zoom was an SMB powerhouse, with Enterprise growing. At $4B, everything’s been flipped around. SMB is now saturated at $4B ARR and not growing, but Enterprise is picking up the slack and growing faster than ever.

Growth has for now slowed to 12% overall during the “Covid Hangover” — down from a crazy 396% during Peak Covid — but Enterprise is growing 31%.

THE LEARNINGS

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

7 TIPS FOR YOUR NEXT BIG B2B BRAND CAMPAIGN FROM FRONT SVP, GLOBAL MARKETING, JON BORGESE

When you work in B2B marketing, you don’t often get a great reason to show off your work to your friends and family.

Can you imagine?

“Honey, check out this new webinar on support workflows! We had 800 attendees.” Or, “Hey mom, I’ve gotta tell you about our new gated ebook we launched on LinkedIn — you won’t believe the conversion rate.”

B2B marketing has a reputation for being more performance-oriented than brand-oriented. But I think that’s unfair — B2B is just as concerned with brand, but generally speaking, lacks the same level of creativity when compared to the B2C world.

B2B DOESN'T HAVE TO BE BORING

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

Q&A: HOW DO VCS DECIDE WHICH STARTUPS TO INVEST IN?

VCs take different types of risks.

But there is one common factor, that founders know, but often lose track of in their pitch.

THE ANSWER

VIDEO OF THE WEEK: HOW MARKETING CAN BE YOUR SECRET SAUCE TO FUNDRAISING AND GROWTH WITH BANDWIDTH CMO NOREEN ALLEN

Looking to scale revenue, get funding from a VC or private equity firm to grow your business, or take your company public? Marketing plays a key role in making any of that happen. Noreen Allen will share tips from her experience at five different tech companies, which includes three IPOs, multiple fundraising rounds, and several M&A events. She’ll walk you thru how to turn your marketing organization into a growth driver.

WATCH NOW

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!
6sense is looking for a Customer Success Manager to own high profile customer relationships, ensure customer adoption delivers measurable results and create a culture of customer success at 6sense.