10 Things That Always Work in SaaS; Plus Weekly SaaS News and Updates

Hey SaaStr Community,

We’d all love to run 100% PLG SaaS companies that magically self-replicate customers. And it does happen, sometimes. At least for a while. You can hear more of a deep dive on how Calendly does it, for example, here.

But even there, to truly scale, they went more enterprise and built out a full enterprise sales and marketing function.

So where do you start?  What works to get you leads?

Getty Images has been selling images for the internet for … well, forever.  It was founded way back in 1995!  Today they’re at $930m in ARR but very mature, only growing 4% a year.  Which is probably why they quietly SPAC’d just this July.

Still, incredibly, it got them public at a $10 Billion valuation — even with just 4% growth at $900m in ARR, even with today’s lowered multiples.  That’s a far better revenue multiple than other SaaS and similar companies that are growing much faster.

So, we’ve talked a lot over the years on SaaStr on how to avoid a mis-hire for a key VP role.

And we’ve talked a lot about how quickly to know if you’ve made a mis-hire.  Which is on you, not them — always remember that.  After all, you know much more about the company than they do.

Read them all (or at least some), and you’ll dramatically decrease the odds of a mis-hire.

That is … unless … you make a Desperation VP Hire.  If you do, all that advice is out the door.

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

We're now just 23 from the biggest SaaS-only event of the year:

7,201 SaaS executives, investors, and professionals are already registered.

SaaStr Annual 2022 on Sept 13-15th in the San Francisco Bay Area will sell out soon. 

Come to Annual to meet-up in-person, learn and have a good time:

• So much content. You cannot attend all the sessions - we've got 8 stages of content and 268 live(!) speakers. You're gonna need some backup to get it all. 
• Inspiration. Get yourself fired up and ready to crush Q4 and beyond
• Networking. They'll be 10,000 attendees
• Visit investors and customers.  Before or after, but honestly most of them will be at the event, no Uber required!
• Epic evening events. Just you, us, and your new SaaS BFFs. New connections every day with evening events and nightly Happy Hours, including the Big Party with DJ Duke Dumont.

Book your ticket now before we SELL OUT

There are going to be some rough patches on the road to becoming a unicorn. So, how do you handle those with your investors?

Knowing how to get funding as a start-up is an invaluable skill. You have the vision, but you need to communicate it effectively for investors to believe in it and provide you with the capital needed to bring it to life. 

Payhawk’s CEO, Hristo Borisov, and VP of Marketing, Désirée Schildt, have cracked the code.They outline how to go from series A to unicorn in less than 12 months. 

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

• Mission Cloud Services is looking for a Senior Account Executive to be responsible for pursuing new sales prospects, cross-selling and upselling to select existing customers, and achieving sales quotas while ensuring customer satisfaction.

• Mozart Data is seeking a Data Analyst to be a customer facing data expert to work closely with our most active users to support them in getting the most out of Mozart Data.

• SaaStr 581: The Latest in VC Funding + Scaling SaaS: An AMA with SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin
• SaaStr 582: SaaS Secret Sauce: How the CEO/CRO Dynamic Drives Growth with Marketo Former EVP Sales Bill Binch
• SaaStr 583: Scaling Faster, Part 2: An AMA with SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin

Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts or Spotify

A16Z giving Flow $350m is a huge, huge bet

But missed in the convo is that at $1B post, they’d own 35%

Up to a point, it’s worth paying up and ahead in a very large fund if you think there’s a high chance it will be a winner

That new VC partner on your board?

They might have say 5% carry in the fund

Let's say you sell for an incredible $500,000,000 after 10 years. WOW!

And the fund owns 15%

The new partner then makes ... $750,000

$500m x 15% x .2 x 0.05

#vceconomics

Be honest:

Do you deliver 3x-5x the value that you take home in comp?

If not, you're wasting everyone's time in the end

Find a place and role where you can

So many SDRs and AEs reach out to sell me products

But so few reach out with genuine ways to save me time

I always have budget for that

© SaaStr 2022

255 Kansas, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94103

If you'd like to stop receiving the SaaStr Weekly, click here