The Latest from SaaStr: 5 Interesting Learnings from Zendesk at $1.6 Billion in ARR

By Jason Lemkin · Wednesday, June 29, 2022 | 5 Interesting Things, Growth

Zendesk has really grown up.  As we’ll see, it’s growing a very impressive 30% at $1.6 Billion in ARR, and has slowly and steadily gone quite

upmarket.  It’s moved beyond its tiniest customers, of an ACV of < $1k, but other than that, it’s going upmarket without giving up its SMB roots.

In fact, Q1’22 was Zendesk’s highest first-quarter revenue increase in history. 

Read the full article: 5 Interesting Learnings from Zendesk at $1.6 Billion in ARR

By Jason Lemkin · Thursday, June 30, 2022 | Early, Fundraising

No, but you’ll get your chance here.  The answer isn’t to spread the word.  The answer is that when a founder comes to you later, and says, should I take money from the Backed Out VC or from This Other VC — you can say the latter.

Read the full article: Dear SaaStr: If a VC Backs Out of a Signed Term Sheet, Should the Entrepreneur Spread the Word?

By Jason Lemkin · Wednesday, June 29, 2022 | Marketing

This original version of the post came out a while back, but it’s such an important one, I wanted to update it again.  Because just when it starts to get good in SaaS, again and again, I see the same thing:  the number of leads each month stalls out.

Many SaaS companies hit an “organic lead plateau” at several phases. The best SaaS companies don’t ever let this lead plateau show up in the monthly MRR growth. 

Read the full article: The Lead Plateau You May Hit Just As It Gets Good. How to Plan Around It.

By Jason Lemkin · Tuesday, June 28, 2022 | Leadership

I wrote an original version of How Venture Term Sheets explode (and implode) quite some time back. Then, the advice for a little while seemed obsolete in the go-go days from 2H’20-2H’21.  VCs stopped doing much diligence, deals closed in days, and term sheets rarely exploded, or imploded.

But now we’re back full circle.  In a tougher public market for SaaS companies, VCs are pulling term sheets again, and deals are also falling apart again after soft commitments.  And it’s painful — but note it’s often not the VCs’ entire fault.  At least, it’s never 100% either side’s fault.

Read the full article: 10+ Ways A Venture Financing Can Implode Post-Term Sheet

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