The Latest from SaaStr: Why You Shouldn't Fire Your "Worst" Customers

THE LATEST FROM SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Friday, August 26, 2022 | Customer Success

There’s a lot of Internet advice that makes a lot of sense, but not necessarily in SaaS.  Somewhat bad advice that entrepreneurs share again and again, without having really tested the ideas behind that advice.

One bit of advice you hear again and again, that I 93% disagree with, is “Fire The Customers That Don’t Fit.  Fire Your ‘Bad’ Customers.”  The ones that suck up too many scarce resources relative to the revenue they generate.  I really think, at least in SaaS, this is some of the worst advice you can get.

FUNDRAISING

By Jason Lemkin · Friday, August 26, 2022 | Fundraising

Fenwick, one of the bigger Silicon Valley / tech law firms put out its quarterly report on the venture market, sourced from 194 deals that actually closed in Q2’22, and I found the way the data was presented super helpful given all the drama in the venture markets, on Twitter, etc.

NEW PODCAST + VIDEO

By Amanda Beaty · Friday, August 26, 2022 | Career Growth & Advice, Hiring

As SaaStr Europa 2022 drew to a close, attendees took one more opportunity to ask Jason questions about topics like how to navigate the current market, the future of work, playing in a crowded space, and hiring your first VP of Sales.

Podcast episode 585 is an excerpt from the AMA, and we have the full video and a transcript on the blog.

There's just 17 days now til SaaStr Annual 2022 and there's 7,860 SaaS Founders, Executives, Revenue Leaders and Investors already registered to attend.

It's also the most content and speakers we've ever had a single SaaStr Annual, including:

• Y Combinator Managing Director of YC Continuity Anu Hariharan
• HubSpot Founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah 
• Stripe CTO David Singleton
• HashiCorp CEO Dave McJannet
• Talkdesk CMO Kathie Johnson
• Mailchimp Co-Founder Ben Chestnut
• Confluent President of Field Operations Erica Schultz
• Algolia CEO and CRO Bernadette Nixon and Michelle Adams
• Gusto Co-Founder Josh Reeves
• Atlassian CRO Cameron Deatsch
• Drift Co-Founders David Cancel and Elias Torres
• Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover
• Divvy CRO Sterling Snow
• Klaviyo SVP of Marketing Kady Srinivasan

And 300+ more: see the full lineup here.

SAASTR NEWS

By Jason Lemkin · Friday, August 26, 2022 | Blog Posts

Join us! 100% distributed!  (And the ability to work from cool small offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco if you want).  With great events and team retreats in London, Singapore, Miami, and more!

And — be an owner. A mighty but tiny team where everyone is an owner.

NEW VIDEO

By Amanda Beaty  · Friday, August 26, 2022 | Fundraising

One of the most exciting and terrifying things a SaaS founder can do is raise seed funding. But bringing on an investor comes with new responsibilities, and navigating the fundraising world can seem complex. 

In this SaaStr Europa 2022 session, David Kelly (General Partner at Tapestry) interviews a group of highly experienced investors, including Zoe Chambers (Frontline Ventures), Carmen Alfonso Rico (Cocoa), and Rouven Dresselhaus (Calvary Ventures). 

PRODUCT

By Jason Lemkin  · Thursday, August 25, 2022 | Early, Growth

A recent post from Gorgias reminded me of a key mistake many founders make.  They often wait too long to build a fully native integration.

Gorgias is now the leading contact center on Shopify, with over 10,000 customers.  It naturally started on Shopify as its core platform — since Shopify is #1.  It built this integration in-house.  It had to — it was core to the product.

But it then expanded as many of us do into other leaders, from Magento to BigCommerce.  And at first, it used third parties dev shops that knew those platforms and ecosystems to build the first integrations.

DEAR SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Thursday, August 25, 2022 | Early

What makes some founders stand out from the crowd? 

Here's Jason's list of the Top 5 Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur.

SAASTR ANNUAL NEWS

By Amanda Beaty  · Thursday, August 25, 2022 | Blog Posts

We wanted to give a special shout-out to some of our newest sponsors for SaaStr Annual 2022. At the 8th ever SaaStr Annual, ~200 of the best and hottest companies on earth will go BIG as partners/sponsors. Join these incredible companies to experience all the value of SaaStr!

This edition of the SaaStr Daily is sponsored in part by Brex

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This edition of the SaaStr Daily is sponsored in part by Avoma

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