The Latest from SaaStr: 5 Very Good Days and 5 Pretty Bad Days as a SaaS CEO

THE LATEST FROM SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Monday, October 3, 2022 | Leadership, Other

A ways back, Forbes was kind enough to pick up a thread I did on Quora about my 5 favorite good days, and 5 most visceral bad days, in the early days, of getting from $0 to $10m in ARR.

Let me expand on it here since the original answer. Maybe it will be cathartic for you.  And I’m also going to throw in a few small moments from running “SaaStr Inc” now to almost $30m in annual revenue, and investing in a handful of awesome unicorns.

There’s a start-up saying that The Highs Are Higher in start-ups, and the Lows are Lower, than anything else you will do.

DEAR SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Monday, October 3, 2022 | Early, Growth

I’d like to suggest that web start-ups founded by quality teams often fail due to time.

Especially if you are selling something (e.g., SaaS), it’s usually going to take you 24 months to get to any truly meaningful revenues, and probably 36 months to get to enough repeating/repeatable revenues to have a really stable business.  Not always. 

NEW VIDEO

By Amelia Ibarra  · Monday, October 3, 2022 | Hiring, Marketing

All companies depend on growth, and growth has to come from somewhere. How do companies that rely on hypergrowth—expanding as much as 100% yearly—achieve this kind of success? Celonis’ COO, Arsenio Otero, discusses this as a three-stage process with actionable steps.

SAASTR EVENTS

SALES

By Jason Lemkin  · Sunday, October 2, 2022 | Early, Q&A

If you have a product that (x) uniquely, or in an importantly superior, fashion (y) solves a real, large painful problem for a Big Co … they will buy from a start-up.  If their top vendors they use already don’t provide that unique/superior solution.

So how do you create that scenario? How do you get large customers when you don’t have any yet?

DEAR SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin · Sunday, October 2, 2022 | Blog Posts, Early

You. Must. Get. To. Traction.

My Top 5 Things You Should Be Doing Post-Launch and Pre-Traction … to Get to Traction:

GROWTH

By Jason Lemkin · Saturday, October 1, 2022 | Blog Posts, Growth

So That VP That Has Done it Before always cost more than the stretch VP.  They ask for more salary, and a bigger team.  As they should.

But in the past few years, the gap has grown and grown. 

DEAR SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin · Saturday, October 1, 2022 | Fundraising, Q&A

Be (1) clear (2) and respectful.

Let me use myself as a case-study. I have one spoiled VC relationship — all the rest I consider pretty strong.

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