5 Interesting Learnings from Zendesk at $1.6 Billion in ARR; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

Hey SaaStr Community,

There are a lot of “VC-isms”, and one you hear a bit is The Clear Path.

What’s that?  It’s a way of summarizing the combination of current growth, TAM, and future prospects into where things are going.

While it can be more than annoying to hear all your hard work as a founder reduced to how “clear your path” is to the next stage, it’s actually an incredibly useful heuristic for communicating. 

One Thing Your Team and Investors Always Need to See: A Clear Path

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. 

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

Equality, Inclusion and Balance have been part of SaaStr’s core values since inception.

It’s now more important than ever to fight for inclusion and equal rights for all.  

As part of that, we’re now expanding the no-cost tickets and VIP passes to 2022 SaaStr Annual to 2,000 participants.

Please apply now, and please tell your colleagues and friends.

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

It's a tough decision, and usually when you're making it, you're so, so tired. And that's not the best time to make a decision.

In the last few weeks, the VC funding environment has changed dramatically. In this session, Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz will share tactical advice on how to weatherproof your financial plan for the funding downturn.

• 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!

• Paragon is looking for an Account Executive to help us grow by partnering with SMB and mid-market customers while helping us shape the team culture and work environment from ground zero.

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Classic Episode: How to Market to Both Developers and Operators with with Shippo Co-Founder & CEO Laura Behrens Wu

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Mind the Gap: Balancing Growth and Efficiency in Tougher Times with Point Nine Managing Partner Christoph Janz

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Classic Episode: Succeeding As a Young Enterprise Founder with Front Co-Founder and CEO Mathilde Collin

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts or Spotify

Maybe Slack was right to sell at 27x ARR after all

My biggest hiring mistake I've made past 5 years that I never made before:

I hired folks who didn't really, really, really want the job

So far, none have worked out

Very few SMB SaaS startups start off with NRR much above 80%

But very few thrive if they don't at least get to 100%

Biggest existential challenge for SMB SaaS

So here’s where I’m confused

If SaaS multiples are truly tied to interest rates

Who exactly modeled 0% forever in their DCF models??

Everyone modeled in zero percent forever?

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