The Latest from SaaStr: Churn and Sales Cycles Don't Matter Much In the Early Days

By Jason Lemkin · Monday, June 13, 2022 | Marketing, Metrics

Ok, I know the title sounds a bit controversial, but bear with me, it’s not. Metrics are critical in SaaS, and you need to track them fastidiously.  But it’s also important to focus on the right metrics, at the right stage, and not obsess about the less important ones at the wrong times.

Read the full article: Two SaaS Metrics That Actually Don’t Matter That Much in the Earliest Days: Absolute Churn and Sales Cycles

By Jason Lemkin · Monday, June 13, 2022 | Blog Posts

So this is a seemingly niche post that I’ve held off on writing for quite a while.

In the crazy times of 2H’20-2H’21, founders treated investors more and more as fungible commodities.  Raise the most, for the least, as fast as possible. That’s a decent strategy even today — if things go perfectly.

But as part of that, fewer and fewer investors were invited to board meetings.

Read the full article: Invite More Investors to Your Board Meetings, Not Less

By Amanda Beaty · Sunday, June 12, 2022 | Blog Posts

Each week, we round up our most popular content so you can catch up on anything you may have missed. Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos!

Read the full article: Top SaaStr Content for the Week: Bandwidth CMO, Flexport CEO, Hubspot VP of Products, WalkMe VP of Sales, and More!

By Jason Lemkin · Sunday, June 12, 2022 | Customer Success, Sales

There was one thing prospective sales reps would say in an interview that always chilled my spine.  It would especially come from sales reps from larger companies in high-velocity in-bound environments (e.g., WebEx-type environments).  They’d say this:  “Those types of leads just Wasted My Time.”

Sigh.

Yes, I guess it’s technically true, in some cases.

Read the full article: Money, Bonuses, “Customers That Waste My Time”, and Greed: You Get What You Pay For

By Jason Lemkin · Saturday, June 11, 2022 | Blog Posts

So what exactly is going on in SaaS?  On the one hand, Salesforce, Okta, Datadog and more are reporting record earnings.  Salesforce is growing faster at $30 Billion in ARR than it did at $20 Billion in ARR!

But with SaaS and Cloud stock prices way, way down, venture markets are reacting far more to that than epic revenue growth.

In fact, large segments of venture are freezing up.

Read the full article: Late Stage VC is Kind of Frozen, Down at Least 40%

By Jason Lemkin · Saturday, June 11, 2022 | Hiring, Human Resources

Recently, a good friend of mine running a Hot SaaS Start-up asked me if he should hire a particular VP of Product candidate I knew well.  The team he’d be managing was a big thumbs up on him.  The board was in favor.  And I knew this VP.  This VP is a 10/10.

But … it wasn’t what this CEO was looking for.  He wanted someone different.  It just didn’t click.  Not deep down.

Read the full article: You Can’t Hire a VP That You Don’t Love

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