The Latest from SaaStr: The Simple Reason Startups That Just Raised Are Doing Layoffs

THE LATEST FROM SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Monday, October 24, 2022 | Fundraising, Scale

What’s happening on Twitter and the internet these days is confusing on many levels.

And one of the most confusing thing is that:

• Many of the best SaaS and Cloud companies
• That are growing really quickly and
• Also just raised massive funding rounds are …
• doing layoffs.

This at first doesn’t sound like it makes sense.

Q&A

By Jason Lemkin  · Monday, October 24, 2022 | Early, Q&A

Here is my uber-recommendation:

No matter how many founders you have, only 1-2 should be in the key decision-making capacity. Any more than that is just going to create way too much confusion and decision paralysis.

FUNDRAISING

By Jason Lemkin  · Saturday, October 22, 2022 | Scale

So we’ve talked quite a bit about how SaaS revenues are the best ever, but the public markets are way down. 

Down 75% from their peak.

And so are IPOs.  While we all can sort of sense it — the breakneck pace of IPOs in late 2020 and 2021 are clearly behind us — it can be hard to quantify.

Axios and Renaissance Capital have the latest data.  IPO proceeds in the U.S. are down a stunning 94.1%.

DEAR SAASTR

By Jason Lemkin  · Saturday, October 22, 2022 | Leadership, Q&A

That they are (mostly) successful.  Most VC partners don’t return 1x in cash what they invest.  It’s hard!  Most VCs you will meet are not successes, at least, not yet.  And even if the VC firm is a success (and many firms aren’t), returns are often driven by just 1 or 2 of the partners in each firm.

That the VCs you know are all “great guys.” Many VCs are good people.  But they are in sales folks.  Grin fracking is very common in VC.  Don’t pick a VC based on who you like.  Pick a VC based on who can help the most, and who won’t throw you under a bus.

NEW VIDEO

By Amelia Ibarra  · Monday, October 24, 2022 | Customer Success

Developers act, think, and behave differently than your average customer. So selling, marketing and supporting them should be different too. As an API-first company, WorkOS focuses on selling primarily to developers. WorkOS CEO Michael Grinich, Developer Success Manager Betsy Calender, and VP of Developer Experience Zeno Rocha share how to price your product for developers, how to market it to developers, how to how to support them as they scale and use the products.

SAASTR EVENTS

Top SaaStr Content

By Amelia Ibarra  · Sunday, October 16, 2022 |Growth

In case you missed it, here’s a look at our Top Content Last Week:

• CB Insights: Yes, Venture is Down. But Really, It Just Seems to Be Back To Where It Was Before The Covid Boom.
• SaaS Multiples Are Down 75% From a Year Ago
• Freemium is Back! But You’ll Probably Need 50 Million Active Users for Freemium to Actually Work as a Business Model. (Updated)
• 5 Interesting Learnings from Figma at $300,000,000+ in ARR
• The Average SaaS CEO is 43 at IPO (Updated)

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